Morgan:
>Advice can never be truly objective. Still, my best effort at
>objective advice it to de-emphasize the "offbeat" cults. You seem
>completely unwilling to accept this as honest advice.
But you insisted that we should do a "handful" of cults, and I have consistently asked you which 5 cults you would chose. According to your own numbers, virtually the entire Lunar pantheon would be "offbeat" and there would be no room for new cults at all!
>>Yet you want detail on a Gerra cult that people are less likely to
>>play than a Avarnia cultist. You have me confused.
>IMO, very few PCs will play either. (Though who knows, this debate
>may inspire them!) But a Nathan or Sedenyan etc., a much more likely
>type of PC, cares about what Gerra did mythically. If Kallyr has to
>do some heroquest vs. a past incarnation of the Goddess, she will
>likely care about Gerra.
And a Pentan or Rinliddi player would care about Avarnia or Augner or Veng etc. A Pentan hero would naturally interact with those deities and the players of such a region need to know the nature of their pantheon. Much as most of the Ernalda cult will never be played, yet is vital to understand the Orlanthi, the earth cults of all regions of Glorantha have to be detailed to play there. I don't see what Kallyr has to do with it really. Rinliddi will have no idea who she is but will see armies of vast size and scope battling for power during the Hero Wars.
>So new Lunar cults, an exploration of the Empire, its ways, its
>military, its structure and its laws have no appeal for you then?
>I suppose we could just bin all that and write a 40,000 word thesis
>on the Tarnils cult...
>This is a deliberate, gross distortion of what I've said.
Not really, not the way you have come across to me anyway. We told you how the books were divided and why we need more than a "handful" of cults and no matter how many times I've asked "which" handful you would chose you have not replied. The only thing you have concretely stated you would have in is Tarnils and a couple of others. There was no mention of culture or history in your concept, so I assumed you were not interested in that either. If I have assumed wrongly then I apologise.
>No point responding if you won't argue in good faith.
No intention of that, but your style of arguing is perhaps not one I am used to.
>To base your entire argument of what should be
>included in a LUNAR book on two ORLANTHI NPCs
>For now, the documented Heroic opposition to the Empire is basically
>the Sartarites.
?!? The documented heroic opposition of the Empire is definately not Sartarites. There is oodles of material in GRoY and FS to show otherwise. The main and definite enemy of the Lunar Empire is the Pentans. Sartar is almost a sideline to the Empire and never, until the final wars, absorbs a great deal of their resources.
>Those running a Sartar campaign, (or Pentans or
>Fronellans for that matter, once they get more detail) will definitey
>care about Yanafal, probably not Avernia.
Yes, and as we have stated umpteen times, Avarnia and others like her would appear in specialist cultural books, not in the Lunar part of the ILH.
>Now, maybe in future
>books, the Kingdom of War will really care about Avernia as some myth
I doubt it, they have all of Peloria between them.
>is explored, if and when that happens, add a supplement.
Sure
>Now, I'll agree, my definition of "important" should be expanded
>to "Cults that likely enemies (external or internal) of the Empire
>care about". Kallyr is an archetype of one such enemy.
Well yes, but the main point of the book Morgan is to have people PLAY in the Empire. We would be happy to see a lot of campaigns in the Empire. The main reason why so many things have been written for the Empire has been to actually play there. The Imperial map was a major part of the project. The gazeteer is also in progress. My work on the Imperial military, based on Gregs copious and cool stuff is also to aid play. Enemies of the Sartarites they are but first and foremost this book is to be played in the Empire.
>the Lunar cults should be seen from an Orlanthi perspective!!!!
>Again, I said no such thing. I said that the Lunar cults that
>receive emphasis should be those that are also interesting from the
>Orlanthi (now changed to opposition) perspective.
Again, I disagree. That should be an aside. The book is about being a Lunar, it is not defined by the views of their enemies.
>But they should be written from a Lunar perspective.
>Look at it this way - the history of Peru from 1939-1945 is
>undoubtedly interested from a cultural, completeness perspective.
>But most people read and write books about other places during that
>time. Especiialy ones with words like "hero" and "wars" in the title.
To use your analogy, if one were writing a book on Peru fgrom 1939 to 1945 and spent the entire book talking about the Second World War, then it would be a pretty badly written book no? For us to write a Lunar book for the express purpose of making a Sartar based campaign more detailed in terms of enemies would be both a betrayal of our task and a waste of good material. DP is not the centre of the Gloranthan world. It is only played more than anywhere else because there is no significant detail on any other region to allow play! We want to change that.
Also, the Hero Wars are NOT a DP only event. Greg has many excellent and interesting HW events unfolding for our fun and the vast majority of them do not fall out in DP.
Martin Laurie
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