Re: Re: Flower Day question...

From: John Hughes <john.hughes_at_...>
Date: Thu, 29 May 2003 10:34:11 +1000

There's the added complication, of course, that the Gloranthan year is not our year.
'Tween Dark and Sea lies Storm - that's five seasons, plus however you wish to deal with Sacred Time. Coping with the idiosyncrasies of the Gloranthan year has always been a mixture of the literal (the 294/365 rule) and the sensible - for example, when animal mating occurs in Earth, most litters should sensibly be born in Sea (if the real world equivalent has a spring birth), even though this means stretching out the pregnancy.

I've always talked about stormblooms, the first flowers of the year that bloom in cold, windy, Storm, and so have hardy leaves and 'armoured' stalks. You can extend this analogy - there are certainly darkblooms, plants which thrive on cold and darkness, and possibly Sea- (or rain-) blooms that blossom in rain, Fire blooms that love dry heat, etc. TR mentions boltblooms - sacred flowers that bloom where lightning strikes the earth.

By Sea Season, you can expect the usual spring blooms, with a fairly wide margin, plus things unusual, magical, and possibly cute (for target practice or wooing the cow girl at the shielings).

Basically, you can regard Dragon Pass as a not untypical, hilly Euro-Siberian province with a strong Californian bias and a British Columbia winter, or you can scratch the surface and realise its another world where *nothing* is quite what it seems, no matter what the surface similarities are. Most campaigns of course vacillate between the two, depending on whether you need background scenery or plot-and-wonder catalysts.

There's a list of typical Dragon Pass flora (and fauna), compiled from several sources, at
http://home.iprimus.com.au/pipnjim/questlines/florafauna.html#flora

Its a mix of the familiar and the exotic.

John
  .

At 07:09 PM 5/28/03 +0000, you wrote:
> >
> > Flower Day ... "Girls gather many bunches of flowers, unmarried
> > women gather the first fruits of spring time..."
> >
> > What exactly (or not quite exactly) are the "first fruits of
> > spring time" in Dragon Pass?
> >
> > The only thing I can think of that's really ready around this
> > time of year here is Asparagus and (maybe) Rhubarb.
>
>Fiddleheads! More generally, they may pick and eat many early greens
>(dandelion leaves for example). After all, it has been a long winter
>where the only thing resembling a vegetable that anyone has seen is
>stale turnips and carrots. So I would think there would be any
>number of plants where the early leaves (greens) are tender enough to
>be eaten, and at that time of year probably reasonably appreciated.
>
>ergo, take "fruits" very un-literally.
>
>--Bryan
>
>
>
>
>

John Hughes

Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research Australian National University
Canberra ACT 2600

Phone (02) 6125 0587