> Jane Williams notes, in reply to Greg:
> We all share information about
> our Gloranthas. What is vitally important is to keep
> a
> clear distinction between the Glorantha that we
> *all*
> share, (based on the universe in RQ, KoS, TR, ST,
> and
> anything else that has been accepted into
> main-stream
> Glorantha and used in people's games and stories:
> you
> know, "popular" as in most people like it and use
> it),
> and things that are not even intended to be for
> general/popular use, and can't be, because they're
> not compatible with the general-use universe.
> Many moons ago, the term ‘Generally Accepted
> Glorantha’ appeared on the
> Glorantha Mailing List ...
> Jane’s definition of “the Glorantha that
> we *all* share”
> functions as a fairly good definition of GAG.
Actually, I specifically avoided use of "GaG", because that's a much wider area than I wanted to convey, and WAY too fuzzy round the edges. It's hard to pin this down without going on for pages, but let's have another go.
We need some common standard of communication. A few bits of fact that we all agree on, or this all becomes pointless and incomprehensible. Let's call it "Core Glorantha". "Core Glorantha" might include, for instance, facts such as "Orlanth rules the Storm Tribe", "Boldhome fell to the Lunars in 1602". Now, we can't define it by listing every fact within it, we'd be there all century. But we can pin down a few basics about this central core of commonality.
To be part of Core Glorantha, something must be available to everyone participating in the discussion. That doesn't mean than *anything* available to all is part of CG, but anything that *isn't*, is not. Printed material that can be bought, right now, with a reasonable degree of ease, qualify, even if that means second-hand on Ebay. Anything on the Web qualifies. Stuff that's limited edition, out of print and rare, or still lurking on someone's hard disc, does not.
But, that still leaves us with huge amounts of stuff, and we need to cut down more. For each area of Glorantha, there's usually one defining work or group of works. Some of these change with time: once upon a time a couple of board games were the definitive guide, once RQ2 was. Now, those don't even qualify as "readily available".
Should we add that "core Glorantha" should also be readily accessible in terms of being readable? The Unfinished Works, wonderful though they are, are hard going. And they are Unfinished in any case.
As a minimalistic "definitive works" list, might I suggest:
Sartarite Orlanthi society: Thunder Rebels, Storm Tribe, Barbarian Adventures. I might add to that the various web bits that were by the same authors and only got cut from those works due to space limitations (such as John Hughes' work on Vinga, and no doubt others I'm not aware of).
Dragon Pass history: KoS - with the very large proviso that anyone reading it needs to realise that it is an in-Glorantha source and needs interpreting as such.
Pavis - the Moon Designs reprint. I'd like to add Ian Thompson's work to that, but sadly too much of it is out of print and not web-available.
Lunar Empire - IHL1 and 2.
After that, things become more difficult to find definitive works for, at least for me. Far Place - Questlines website. The Tarsh books - are they sufficiently "available", still?
Anyone want to add other areas, quibble with the Core List....? But do you at least see what I'm driving at? A central, common ground for communication. Ducks having cigars is part of GaG, but a Glorantha where they didn't smoke wouldn't be a problem in discussion. One where Orlanth is a pacifist, would. That's "core".
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