> > Sure - as long as it fits! Same as every other
> cool thing.
>
> Fits with what?
We already covered that, didn't we? And you even repeat it later on. The whole shared universe that at the time of publication, people were using to game in.
> Greg's only obligation - and that
> goes for any other
> non-work for hire writer - is that his stories fit
> within the general
> framework of his other Glorantha stories.
And this didn't. That's the problem. Too cool to throw away, but didn't fit.
> OiD contradicts CHDP? So what?
So it contradicts something that it itself actually
recommends as a source!
Look, there you are with your game. It's 1621. Whitewall fell a season or so ago. And suddenly you get told that this isn't a blazing hot day after all (KoS mentions a child dying of heat, so this would be a fair assumption), it's winter. And that for the last couple of seasons, your magic hasn't worked. And that you never noticed this! Explanation? Er....
> The reader likes the story or not, the game
> player can use the story or not.
No, they can't just use it - that's the trouble!
> > But to "break" a universe whose whole purpose is
> that
> > lots of people use it and co-create it -
> especially if
> > you expect to get paid for it....
>
> Is that really the whole purpose of writing about
> Glorantha?
If what you're doing is writing and selling HQ supplements, then yes!
> Fwiw,
> virtually everything I've ever written about
> Glorantha is for my own
> benefit or for the interest of my friends.
Me too. But I don't expect to get paid for it, I don't call it roleplaying supplements, and if I expect any of it to be of use to those friends, I make sure it fits the other stuff they're already using. And from what I've seen of your writing, so do you. You will not find either of us writing about the huge flood in 1619 that destroyed Boldhome, will you? The one that no-one noticed. And while I do somehow have to cope with a new river in Caravan Alley in my Swords game, I don't expect that to become part of GaG, cool idea though it is (and not mine).
> And I do not think OiD "broke" the universe. Maybe
> it contradicted
> the story you were telling in your game, but so
> what? Ignore it then - or change your story.
This is supposed to be a selling point? Yes, those are about the only two options - that's the problem! If there is a third way, the way we actually want, of grabbing the new story and using it, it's not at all obvious how.
> > No. OiD was not sold as a story. It was sold as an
> > additional adventure for people to play, in an
> > existing and very well-established universe.
> > "Additional" meaning that you keep what you've
> got,
> > not throw it all away and start again. Backwards
> > compatibility. Even Microsoft have got that one
> > figured.
>
> OiD - and everything else written about Glorantha -
> are just little fictional stories..
Which in this case is not a story, it is a roleplaying supplement. There's a difference. It's the second book in a series, and refers to earlier ones as assumed reading.
But back to positive bits and getting things to fit....
> > > And remember, Orlanth returns during
> > > Iceland - which is a
> > > very very big deal mythologically.
> >
> > Sure, that's what I said a few posts back. THe LBQ
> > (well, seriously variant LBQ), that's going on at
> the
> > same time, that's a Big Deal. But that's not the
> > battle.
>
> Are you sure that it was the LBQ that woke Orlanth
> up?
Well.. if not, what was it for?
Let me re-read. p53 onwards.
OK, Iceland is brought about in part because Broyan
does a Summons of Evil. That's pretty major magic.
Adds weight to the idea that Iceland has mythic
impact, but not that it was what freed Orlanth.
It says "a victory here will free the wind in part", but gives no idea how or why, so one mentally drops that. Without anything to back it up, it makes about as much sense as "and a giant frog jumps out of the river, croaks "hello world", and vanishes". You shrug, put it down to randomness, and ignore it. Which may well be a rash assumption on this occasion, but since there's no back-up, what else can you do?
OTOH the Lunar objective is explained: the new general wants to crush the Rebellion for once and for all, and it looks like he has a good chance of doing so. Stopping the Lunars from achieving their objective makes sense, and a forced battle on Orlanthi terms seems a reasonable way of doing this. The vague and unexplained "will free the wind" gets lost in the noise.
P55, we have Broyan's words to his troops, which are good practical stuff about morale and tactics.
P56, we have some bits about divine intervention and how it might manifest. A few hints here about the Other Side being close.
Then we have the Brastalos magic bit, and people starting to breath again as a result - yes, as a result of the Brastalos trick, that's explicit. Minaryth Purple and friends doing some magic. Ceremonies, before the battle, now yielding results. Looks more like it's bypassing the "OID" effect than curing it, the way Dormal's rituals only bypassed the Closing, though.
And then Kallyr comes back from whatever she was doing (she claims it was an LBQ, though it looks not much like one), and Voria appears. These two events appear to be connected.
On the whole, looking at that, yes, I'd say what brought Orlanth (and therefore Voria) back from being Dead seems to have been an LBQ, with possible help from some Brastalos ceremonies carried out before the battle. If it was something else, it's hidden in hints too well for me to spot. The nearest we have to a link is that where Kallyr re-appears, if the battle hadn't been won, would have been covered in Lunar troops, which probably wouldn't have done her much good.
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