Great post Bryan. In fact I would go so far as to maybe edit it and
send for publishing on the Glorantha website. Together with your's,
Alison's and Manuel's suggestions I have something to go on.
Regards
Rob
>
> wrote:
> >
> >> is there any literature on Sinbad or is he just the
> > guy in the various movies.
>
> As Manual said, he had various adventures as part of the 1001
Arabian
> Nghts stories.
>
> > NOt much ship to ship fun there though.
> > Getting on a boat in Sinbad movies seemed more like getting a
> train -
> > you get on -you sail- you get off, then have adventure.
> >
> Well....yes. Even in the stories. The thing about ancient sea-
> faring was that mostly if something happened at sea you died, or
if
> you got lucky clung to floating wreckage and drifted onto some
island
> eventually. Remember that most ships didn't sail far from sight
of
> land and most put into land for sleeping. There were exceptions,
but
> not that many--Vikings being a notable one. The result is that
even
> pirates were mostly about lurking in bays and rushing out when a
ship
> was sighted.
>
> For more major ship to ship combat it seems to usually have been
some
> variant of galleys ramming each other (greek style), or else
people
> roping ships together to make a fighting platform so that they
could
> fight much like they did on land (what the vikings normally did).
>
> If you look back at the classics, the Odyssey or Jason and the
> Argonauts, almost all of their adventures, like those of Sinbad,
were
> on land. In fiction I've seen a few books with long stretches on
> ships of that sort of technology, but for at sea adventures it
pretty
> much comes down to:
> - dealing with a storm
> - daring a long stretch out of land and hoping your reckoning is
> right to get you to land before you run out of water.
> - navigating past deadly reefs (sirens optional)
> - trying to out sail a force that you cannot hope to defeat
> - trying to fend off a swarming by canoe/small boat using pirates
> (when near land)
> - being overtaken by a faster ship of pirates/enemies and fighting
a
> vicous bording action as they try to conquer your ship.
> - coming to something mystical and magical and either just being
> impressed by it (background color), or having the heroes placate
> powers of the sea (being taken down to the palace of the lord of
the
> sea, etc).
>
> I'm not saying there are not other possible adventures--in fact in
> Rosemary Kirstein's "The Lost Steersman" there is an interesting
bit
> where a type of snail is thick in the water at one point and boars
> into anything it can, so is starting to put holes into the ship....
>
> But there is generally not a lot of variety in the at sea
adventures
> I've seen set in that level of sailing sophistication.
>
> --Bryan