Re: Why should barbarians get all the poetry....

From: Peter Larsen <plarsen_at_...>
Date: Wed, 07 Mar 2001 12:36:21 -0600


Jeffrey Zahari said quite a few things to which other people have replied.

        My first "song" was based on Kipling, and was meant as more of a joke than a serious suggestion of what Lunar propaganda would be like. On the other hand, I think "The Lunar Burden" expresses a sentiment that is present in the Empire; if anyone found it useful for gaming, great.

        I enjoy Gut Hoyle's (and other's) songs in much the same spirit; I probably wouldn't use them in my game, but if players wanted to launch into a spirit rendition of "Cold Wind over Sartar," I certainly wouldn't shush them. If they wanted to compose staves or Welsh triads, I wouldn't spend a lot of time deciding which was more appropriate to the Heortlings; I would try to figure out how to fit them into my game and how to best reward the player for the effort.

        For my second try, I copied Catullus because he is more "period." Unfortuantely, the cponversion doesn't work all that well, because the darned thing could be presented as is; there aren't too many RW references that need to be changed. So I screwed with it because simply posting Catullus (or Middle Kingdom love poetry, or Babylonian myths) isn't very satisfying. I have no real idea if anyone liked my submission or would use it, or wants to think too hard about Pelandan metrical conventions and how they map onto the no doubt different linguistic structures of New Pelorian. If anyone found it useful or amusing, I'm glad.

        So yeah, drawing on a deeper examination of the ancient world for Gloranthan cultural elements is a good thing; I don't particularly want Glorantha to sound like a Renaissance Fair ("Hurrah! 20 Lunars for the King!"), but I appreciate Mr. Hoyle's attempts to do something fun with the material. That's my opinion.

Peter Larsen

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