> LC, how is your French? (Coming from Montreal I'd hope good, but
> when I worked there a few of my co-workers were still resisting
> bilingualism....).
My written grammar is horrible (I grew up in New York) but I read and speak quite well.
If it is at all decent, for much muchness on the
> holy country (some summarizing official material, some unofficial),
> there is a very good french site just teeming with it, at:
> http://kethaela.free.fr
Lovely!
> Also, if for you or any of your players who may get inspired to join
> lists, french is your preferred language, there is a french
Glorantha
> yahoo group (Glorantha_VF).
One guy in is francophone, although perfectly bilingual.
> Briefly about the holy country, my completely unofficial and
informal
> take on it:
> - At the dawning, the area south of Heortland was ruled by the Only
> Old One (OOO), a troll demi-god.
> - Eventually a chap named Belintar swam out of the Mirrorsea Bay in
> the middle of that area, and eventually offed the OOO and took
> charge.
> - Belintar took the title "Pharoah" and coined the phrase "the Holy
> Country" for his pocket empire. It includes Caladraland (volcanos
> and jungle, represents fire), Esrolia (a matriarchal off-shoot of
the
> storm tribe, representing earth), Heortland (includes both
Heortlings
> and Esruvilar, represents air), the Shadowland Plateau (the OOO's
old
> stronghold, once a troll paradise, now a trollkin ravaged wasteland,
> represent darkness), Mirrosea Bay and its islands (fisher folk ruled
> by mer-folk, represents water), and the City of Wonders and some
> other odd bits.
> - It was his conquest that prompted some Heortling clans to return
to
> Dragon Pass, which had been empty since the Dragon Kill at the end
of
> the 2nd age. (and by the way, I heartily recomend the computer
> game "King of Dragon Pass" which is set during that re-settlement
> era).
> - Belintar lived a good long time, re-incarnated every so often into
> the body of the winner of the tournaments of life and death (or some
> such phrase, the winners were "masters of luck and death" a title
> stolen for the hero band book.)
> - In such a manner he ruled the holy country for a few centuries,
> until the lunars apparently snuck into the quest he used to re-
> incarnate himself and messed it up, so he failed to come back
> (actually he was seperated into 7 pieces and hid, I think, but that
> could just be rumor).
> - There has been no oeverall ruler of the Holy Country since then
> (1600 I think?), and the separate sections have gone back to
> squabbling within and between themselves.
> - The exact nature and origins of Belintar are not known. Some say
> he is from the future, others speculate that he is not gone for good
> and we'll see more of him in the future.
> - The more you do a compare and contrast between Belintar & the Holy
> country on the one hand, and the red goddess/red emperor & the lunar
> empire on the other, the more it is apparent that there are some
> underlying rules or structures which influenced both....but what
> these are is mostly cryptic or unknown (but good fodder for the hero
> wars).
> - One of the more natural campaign premises is for the heros to
> belong to a group trying to re-assemble Belintar. One of the hero
> bandsin Masters of Luck and Death is more or less about that, so if
> your players want high fantasy adventure, using obscure magic
rituals
> and working to re-build a god, keep it in mind.
>
See, THAT's great. Highlights of well-known issues of the region and some of the key things at stake. Utterly workable.
As for the parallels between the Lunars and the Holy Country and such, there seem to be a lot of that sort of thing going on. Everything in Glorantha seems to be a pesher of everything else. (The formation of the Goddess/The Lightbringer quest. HeroQuesting period. Etc. etc.) I find it interesting the world is set up to have completely incompatible belief and magic systems that at the same time completely echo one another. IT's a beautiful thing.
LC
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