I'm about halfway through the ILH1, and I have a question regarding the appearance of the Red Moon, and its effects on Lunar magic.
ILH1, on p. 9, says "... the Moon is visible as an orb whose surface color changes from red to black to red again in a weekly cycle. ... The available power on which a worshipper can draw is determined by the perceived phase of the Moon, which varies depending on where he is in Glorantha."
When I read this, I envision a Moon which is red on one side and black on the other, and which rotates weekly. Thus, when someone in the Oronin satrapy (to the northwest) sees a red Moon, someone in the Kostaddi satrapy (to the southeast) would see black. An observer in Glamour would look up and see a moon half red and half black, with the division between the halves running roughly southwest-northeast.
Similarly, a Lunar outside the Glowline to the northwest would get a red Moon bonus to her magic use, while one outside the Glowline to the southeast (say, in Pavis) would get a black Moon penalty.
Is this how other folk envision the Moon?
(The other vision of the Moon might be one that would be all red, or all black, at the same time, regardless of the observer's location. In some ways I like this idea more, though it's a little more "magical" and less grounded in 21st-century reality and thus a little harder to fully wrap my brain around.)
On a related note, how big does (your campaign's version of) the Moon appear to be? Does this vary depending on one's location (i.e. bigger the closer one gets to Glamour), or is it always the same size? If/when I run a HQ game, I feel that my Red Moon will be large (perhaps two or three arm's-length hand-spans across) in Glamour, and will shrink to perhaps one hand-span across at the Glowline.
(I have a hazy recollection of reading that it appears to be lower in the sky the farther one gets from Glamour, until it's at the horizon when one reaches the Glowline. In the real world, our moon appears to be larger as it gets close to the horizon, but that's counterintuitive for the Red Moon, which is much closer than ours, both physically and metaphysically.)
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: PGP 8.0
iQA/AwUBPph9L5kvNOKQ0bOCEQI08wCeIOH+Iw4IUjPKwZkvoJVDnhUZWUYAoN6v
IECVtS7gfD8ot8eWmhahBWPi
=VPX+
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
Powered by hypermail