Re: Native Americans seek Gloranthan real estate

From: bethexton_at_...
Date: Tue, 09 Nov 2004 14:29:33 -0000

• In HeroQuest-RPG_at_yahoogroups.com, "parental_unit_2" <parental_unit_2_at_y...> wrote:
  >
  > I'm interested in creating a campaign setting based on the
  > pre-Columbian cultures of Puget Sound, the region of the U.S. where
  I
  > live. I'd like to find a patch of Glorantha where I could place the
  > setting without bumping into too much official material.
  >
  > Requirements include:
  >
  > - Complex coastline with a fair amount of shallow salt water and
  many
  > rivers (needed for salmon)
  >
  > - Forested, hilly terrain
  >
  > - Temperate, rainy climate with cool summers and mild winters
  >
  > - No technologically advanced human civilization (e.g. Dara Happa)
  in
  > easy reach
  >
  > Any suggestions of where to go?
  

What occurs to me is in many ways disimilar to what you describe, but culturally could end up being somewhat similar--The Rathori bear hsunchen.

On the plus side they are:
- pre-industrial, without too much contact with more advanced cultures.
- Have a strong "totemic" affiliation (obviously bears, but they are animists and realize that all animals and people were once one). - must have salmon or something like it in their rivers, bears fishing is just such great imagery not to use. - not too well defined, so you could port in many cultural elements, such as potlachs and so on (and I see that being a good fit with the bear motif anyway).
- dwellers in a forest which probably has temperate, rainy, summers (maybe not as rainy as puget sound, but give them some sort of break!).

On the minus side:

- they have hills, but no real mountains in the area
- They aren't on a coast
- Their winters are not mild, but they don't care much because they 

hibernate during them.

My second choice would be to specifiy some piece of the northern Kingdom of Ignorance, and just decide that there is a warm current which comes near the shore in that small area, making it milder than the rest. But then you have to deal with the dark and miseqarble issues of those lands.