> My answer is the same as before: I'm not interested, I'm afraid. Whilst I
> can sympathize with the desire to inform our imaginations with
> observations of the natural wonders our own world can offer, we always
> have to go that little step further, and conflate it with Earthly process.
I may be even weirder than some of the other regulars here, but I like to use "this is how it works in our world" and transpose it to Glorantha. So, when I read about Grizzley Peak being the corpse of the Sylilan bear god, I start to wonder what kind of (magical, or at least alchemistically interesting minerals) that would mean.
When I learn that obsidian and basalt (both minerals associated with volcanoes) don't usually coexist, I'm inclined to find what different forces there are in Lodril's (or choose your local name) realm. Is it a measure of activity of the volcano god whether he producess silicate-rich rock (obsidian) or silicate-poor? Is it a question of diet, worship, defeats, weddings, interaction with other elemental forces? This kind of stuff leads me to "there ought to be a myth about ..."
> At some point in time - and I admit I'm pushed to define exactly when -
> Glorantha started to think too much. Logos started rub up, panting, a
> little too disconcertingly against Mythos' leg. At least for my liking.
> World design seemed to take on a different bent; boxes started being
> ticked; we started to say 'no' rather than 'yes'.
Actually, I'm with you there.
> I find it a little curious that what many of us might consider the most
> evocative areas of Glorantha--Dragon Pass, Peloria, Prax--are noted
> aberrations, hold-outs against broader, later regulations of climate and
> geography, and "this should go there".
Basically this is the history of exploration of Glorantha.
These "aberrations" make for required myths and / or natural phenomena which are interesting to pursue - at least where I am concerned. (It is no coincidence that my Gloranthan character is a Lhankor Mhy sword sage...)
> If Dragon Pass was sketched today, in whatever official-cum-fandom manner
> we possess, would it contain slumbering dragon-mountains, the Dragonewts,
> zombies, ducks, dwarfs, Grazers, Sun Domers, barbarians, trolls, wasp
> riders, giant windmills, Earth cultists, giant flowers, demon-horse riders
> &c. in such kaleidoscopic proximity? I doubt it.
Ok. How many Skyfalls/Eternal Battles/Footprints/Craters are we going to tolerate? Judging from the Dragon Pass boardgame, there should be about 20 superheroes in Genertela, or else all of Genertela comes to Dragon Pass.
Elder weirdness may have become quite rare. I remember some of the "bummer" feeling when encountering the Feldichi artefact in the Dorastor book (when my expectations would have been similar to the ancient world of the Wheel of Time universe - which wasn't published until later).
However, there have been some such revelations. Alkothi are underworld demons of a different kind than either Ethilrist's horses or the Uz, taking on human appearance. So are Kitori (and yet different).
My Glorantha is full of magical glens which don't fit topography, but have a distinct coexistence and overlap with reality. In my Sartar, maybe half the clans use one of those as pasture (those parts of the year when the magic isn't too strong). When traveling across the hills, there may always be another valley off the way. It might even open to another place on the other end but cannot be encountered when traveling across the hills between those two places. (And it is up to you which of the two routes is the magically obscured one...)
If you approach a place in a different way, you may encounter it in a different mode - travel into Stone Forest at the Print, and you might see a petrified forest where only Chaos moves. Or enter a place of mineral creatures which are astonishingly nimble, a place where the stone forest grows, and even expands. (Help the local aldryami stop it? encounter Rock Elves fighting the trolls sneaking in for a snack?)
> And how would the community react if Greg, or an author in conjunction
> with Greg, suggested that smack bang next to Thunder Rebels-era Sartar
> there was a dusty land of chapparal and rhinos, ostriches and intelligent
> tapirs? I'm not convinced that the mythic reasons behind Prax's climate
> and ecology would gain easy acceptance.
Reactions will vary. Remember the strange dog people in one of the Hero Wars era Sartar scenarios (men with dogs' heads, women with dogs' bodies)? Or the puma folk?
"Cool, that's what I have waited for" wasn't really among the reactions.
So, if somebody would explore a culture inhabiting the tidal areas of the magma flow inside the craters of Caladraland, rafting across the magma on floats made of carved pumice or whatever, I think there would be acceptance for that. Jamming in an entire new land into a map that already says something vaguely definite about a place would earn a YGWV shrug (at best).
If I came up with the theory that the Fimbulwinter in Sartar stopped the Foehn winds of the Rockwoods so that the Elder Wilds suffered a similar extreme summer, this might earn shrugs. If I claimed the same for Talastar, it would earn protest ("Paulis Longvale remains silent about that!"). Ok, there is a faction that will complain about me using the concept of Foehn in Glorantha on general principles, too.
But then, Fimbulwinter? Not mentioned in KoS, YGWV...
> So I'm afraid this is why I don't want to supply my 'expertise'; I'd
> rather Glorantha loosened its tie and went crazy, instead of enfranchising
> mundanity. I doubt it will happen, but I can hope.
So, Stu, what's up in those magma lakes? What shape are those nomads there? Are their bodies the source for the riches of Gemborg? And how will they react to first contact with that Lunar expedition?
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