Re: A sense of scale

From: Jeff <richaje_at_qpEsvAwd_BrfBxdeKsYQTvQA1I9D0NJKOoVV4d034fpdefhItn01yJOlQPpCnLrdGQM2>
Date: Wed, 09 Nov 2011 13:43:35 -0000

> Another comparison is that Genertela as a whole is roughly the size of mainland europe
> including western Russia. That make Glorantha much smaller than earth.

Yes, of course that is the case. Then again, for most of history the earth known to any people was smaller than our earth.

Glorantha is mythically unified in ways that most people do not appreciate. All of the major Gloranthan cultures have had at least some significant contact with each other over the past 1000 years, even if they largely reject each other. And there are mythic events that all Gloranthans acknowledge, even if they disagree (often radically and violently) on their interpretation.  

> It also makes Genertela culturally crowded - there are far more distinct and very different
> cultures for a similar sized area than anywhere on earth at any one time.

I fear you underestimate our own diversity. Want diversity in the real world? Just check out the Bronze or early Iron Age Near East. Radically different languages, religions, cultures, agricultural practices - you name it. All in an area about the size of the Lunar Empire.

>In turn that leads
> to the conclusion that there was a long period of time (thousands of years) when there was
> very limited contact between cultures to allow them to develop independently.

Not thousands, but certainly hundreds of years during the Closing. For over 450 years the oceans were simply Closed to almost everyone. That cut Genertela off from Pamaltela and the East Isles - and from itself.

Jeff            

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