Re: Glorantha for Children

From: Chris Lemens <chrislemens_at_...>
Date: Wed, 24 Sep 2003 07:51:19 -0700 (PDT)


> From: "reinierd" <reinierd_at_...>
>
> (This topic may have come up before, and I apologize
> if I've missed anything obvious.)

It has at least once, but it went nowhere. So, good time to bring it up again.

> Does anyone have suggestions for introducing
> Glorantha to children of around 6-8 years old?
> Particularly girls with no previous RPG
> experience? Any particularly good stories,
> myths, or adventures?

My best thought on this was to have them start as hsunchen. Here's why:

  1. Transforming into an animal is a cool ability that any 6-8 year old will get, and can use appropriately: "I think they're bad guys. I turn into a horse and run away." etc.
  2. Since the hsunchen aren't really well documented, you can decide that they do their initiation rituals at age 6-8. This can be one of the introductory adventures. Maybe this is when they get their transforming magic or whatever.
  3. Hsunchen traipsing around Glorantha will be just as ignorant and naive as a 6-8 year old will be.
  4. The issue is getting them out of their natural family. The first thought I had was to make the child an orphan. Two possible story lines come from that -- one that she never knew her parents and was raised by horses, wolves, or whatever; the other that she came home one day and found that someone had killed her family. The latter might be appropriate for older kids 10-12 or so. Another story line entirely might be that she just got lost one day, or a magical tornado or flodd or whatever swept her away. The story lines from these three starting points are different: explore the world vs. vengance vs. go home.

> --Many of the core myths are OK to tell to
> children, but there are a lot of names to
> introduce and remember.

If you start them as hsunchen separated from their own kind, you can introduce them slowly to their own myths as they discover them, and to foreigners' myths as they encounter them.



Chris Lemens


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