Re: apologies and retractions

From: Mark Galeotti <mark_at_...>
Date: Sat, 22 May 2004 10:21:34 -0000

I haven't gone back to check, but I don't think anyone was actually saying that political boundaries were a Bad Thing, just that they were rather more of a modern concept and also, more specifically relating to my point, that in some cases they were simply not especially meaningful concepts. But let's face it, all this stuff about 'II doesn't do boundaries' is about Dragon Pass: ILH-1 and the Lunar Map show the boundaries of the satrapies and the provinces, for example, and you can expect to see similar demarcations in the books covering such relative settled and civilised areas as the West and Kralorela. There are also boundaries in the maps in Glorantha: Intro.

Where they are appropiate, that is. I still think that talk of the tribal tula in DP is deceptive -- these are not IMO in many (most) cases clearly defined territorial units, but concepts of 'this is our land' which range from the definite ('this is our tribal capital') to the approximate ('we claim the forest within a day's walk of here') to the contested ('that tribe over there say those hills are theirs;, but we know better'). I do think that if the DP map had tried to put firm boundaries, that would have said things about the Heortlings which really aren't accurate.

All the best

Mark

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