Re: Advice

From: Svechin_at_...
Date: Wed, 10 Oct 2001 17:25:02 EDT


Martin writes:
>>I'm curious, what would you have us Lunar authors do differently?

>You asked for it! All IMHO. First thing would be to drop the 200
>new gods down to a mere handful. (I dislike the whole "turn the
>Lunars into Solars" trend, but doubt if that can be changed)

I have to admit being a tad confused with this statement. The Lunars cannot be turned into Solars as they are well...Lunars. The Solar pantheon and the Lunar pantheon coexist due to the wonderful inclusive nature of the Goddess and her kinship with the Yelmic pantheon.

Secondly, the Lunars are over more than one pantheon. Darjiin, Rinliddi, Carmani, Pelanda, Darsen, Talastar, Kostaddi etc all have their own local gods and cultures, the Lunars are a new religion (new for the region) that overlays and binds them together in the presence and power of the Glorious Son of the Moon - Takenegi. So I'm perplexed at your claim that we, the authors, are turning the Lunars into Solars.

As to the gods total. Exactly which gods would you recommend using to describe the rich and wonderful tapestry of culture that is Peloria? We already have to split it into three books and that is just for the bigger and brightest cultural groupings. How would a handful of gods give the players the feel and choice that they need to truly understand the vast scope of the Empire, its colour and history as well as the myriad cultures within? If you CAN come up with a way of doing this with less material, you would make our lives a lot easier!

Lastly, the Lunars are god makers, we know and knew that we knew only a handful of the deities that the Lunars had formed in their glorious rise and terrible ordeals. The ILH will show the detail of many of these Lunar heroes and we will eventually show many more.

So again, I ask, which handful should we choose? Not the 7Ms as there is more than 5 and we'd have to dump all of the Nathic subcults as there are 7 of those too. Leaving Rufelza, Yara Aranis, Takenegi, Etyries, Taraltera. Who else? No new gods? No subcults of those gods? No herocults? This would be a pretty thin book IMHO.

>As Roderick aptly stated, this is largely propaganda.

>You could excuse yourself for bias. :-)
>Seriously, as a "Lunar author", you should either "believe", or at
>least show symphathy to, their propaganda.

Yes, when writing the ILH 1 book we made sure that the tilt was from the Lunar perspective and when writing from the Carmanian perspective we will write from their view and things will be seen differently. Naturally in an objective debate on a list, I would not write in that manner. Objectionable perhaps, but definately attempting objective...

>[Yanafal] rejected the worship of his god to the point that he
>fought Humakt. No devotee or disciple fights their own god.

>A heroquester entering Hell must fight Humakht. That includes lots
>of Humakti heroquesters. And, frankly, I don't see why a devotee
>can't "fight" (using this term symbolically, more in the meaning of
>struggle) their own God. Job did. Humakht would be *proud* to
>engage in honorable combat with a Humakti hero. I would imagine that
>Gerrans end up in some way "fighting" Gerra to better learn suffering.

Gerra is not a combat god, so fighting would not be appropriate, though I can see your point with Humakt.

>>The goddess teaches how to be a god and she does teach rejection of
>>old ways as well as acceptance of old and new. She is the turner.

>Lunars believe that the Goddess teaches rejection only where
>absolutely necesary, and then only to the minimum required.

I don't see a source for that view. The Goddess, brought forth chaos, the goddess Rufelza is of chaos in part and this is a major, major rejection of standard Pelorian myth and thinking. And that is just the most obvious rejection. The Lunar rejection of the Antirian precepts, the patriarchal system and the breaking of the class structure in cultures across Peloria and Pelanda are other examples. She is the turner, her change is often painful. The fall of the Red Moon is simply one of her changes and will cause terrible trauma and dislocation, but it is her nature.

>After
>all, she can accept the Bat. (IMO, a bad thing!) Her teachings
>should change Yanafal from Humakt the minimum required.

I don't follow your logic here.

>Any
>further "rejection" was NOT triggered by Yanafal, it was triggered by
>Humakht. e.g. Yanafal does not break scimitars wielded by Humakti.

Yanafali can use straight blades too! They used scimitars because their god was a cavalry commander, hence the scimitar. It was his preferred weapon. But they use many others, as the cult write up shows.

>As for Danfive, agreed there was little material, it just sounded
>like a lot of potential. A nasty guy who was "reformed".

There is no loss of this, in fact we emphasise this. I wonder why you had an opinion otherwise?

>Not unlike
>Orlanth. I've just seen too much (non-official) material
>emphasizeing the nasty and basically ignoring the "reformed".

We aren't writing that material and Greg has been very informative and helpful in guiding the 7Ms cults in the way that his vision of them has developed. The material you see from us will represent the view that has been lurking in the attic of his thoughts for many years now.

Thanks for the input, look forward to your reponse.

Martin Laurie

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