Re: Herdmen was Cannibalism in Prax

From: Peter Metcalfe <metcalph_at_xr3laiFJcm9SmUkG0w6Qode64I8DpRCUza4qW0Gf1rtwCD-6rhTXytQRlpteGEDRpEW>
Date: Wed, 22 Feb 2012 22:57:07 +1300


On 2/22/2012 9:58 PM, David Cake wrote:
> On 22/02/2012, at 3:59 PM, Peter Metcalfe wrote:
>
>> Evil Ghosts in Seshnela? I'm finding that hard to believe. I could
>> accept independent invention in Dorastor or the Nargan, although I think
>> any appearance of a cannibal cult in Dorastor is more likely to be
>> brought there by visiting Praxians. But there's no real history of evil
>> ghosts in Seshnela and thus I doubt the Pendali would have invented the
>> cannibal cult by themselves.
> To be less pithily dismissive, and reply more seriously -- I think ghosts (evil or not) are pretty much a Gloranthan universal.
We are talking about hordes of evil ghosts, like the tortured dead of Kralorela. One or two evil ghosts is no problem for conventional religion. Hordes of them makes the place seriously unlivable which requires more drastic solutions such as the cannibal cult.

Secondly if the Pendali did have problems with evil ghosts, then the evil ghosts aren't going to go away just because the Pendali have been wiped out. They will still be around to plague the living of Nolos.

> We don't know of particular problems with ghosts in first age Seshnela, but that is probably because we don't know that much about First Age Seshnela.
We know a fair bit due to the the Seshnelan King's List, the Galanini material up at glorantha.com and so forth. It's better known than say Fronela for instance.

> We know more about the Second Age, and there are a couple of areas plagued with ghosts in Karia and Lankst, a city actually ruled by a ghostly Parliament of the Dead in Fronela, etc.

Some of Mongoose's material has serious problems in that in an effort to get material out the door, they took an idea and went overboard with it. The great debate in Lankst about whether to have a tribe or not is a good example. Thus appealing to Mongoose material should be used with extreme care.

> And I think such gatherings of angry ghosts were likely more common in the early first age, soon after the Darkness.

I don't. Such cities of the dead or whatever may have been common in the Great Darkness but you had cultural heroes going around teaching people the difference between the living and the dead in the Gray Age. In my opinion, you will only get hordes of evil and insane ghosts in the aftermath of great calamities such as the destruction of Genert's Garden, the Gbaji Wars, the massed suicide at the end of Yanoor's reign or whatever the God Learners did. There's probably quite few such places created by the Lunar Empire.

Now for there to be a problem of evil ghosts in Nolos, I really would like to see evidence of such a calamity in Seshnelan history. But it doesn't fit for Dawn Age Seshnela because at first there's hardly any population to begin with and also that the Seshnegi don't have the same problems.

--Peter Metcalfe            

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