[Glorantha] Re: Praxian Names

In message <20060718095258.36771.qmail@web51012.mail.yahoo.com> Simon Phipp writes:    

> Certainly if they pass their temples regularly, then yes. Praxians
>ride past a troll temple constantly surrounded by warriors dressed
>in black and red, they'd find out it was Zorak Zoran. I'd expect
>them to know about Zorak Zoran, Kyger Litor and Argan Argar, at the
>very least. Maybe they wouldn't care about the names or don't realise
>they are the same as the deities in their own myths, but if they keep
>being attacked by red and black uniformed trolls at a certain point
>in their ceremonies, it wouldn't take much to put two and two together.

If Praxians are riding past a ZZ temple regularly it must be a ritual part of that group's route. Probably an opportunity for the Storm Bull warriors to get together with the Zorak Zorani for a bit of chaos killing. Doesn't mean they understand each other, just share a joint enemy. So trolls dressed in red and black become trolls who help you kill chaos. Equally the trolls will regard Storm Bull warriors as "Humans who can fight" unlike most of the weaklings. Of course this only applies to that specific group of Praxians - some other groups may never have seen a troll.

> Praxians would not necessarily distinguish between the various
>sub-types of trolls. The designations of UzUz, Uzko, Uzdo, Ronal
>(?) and so on are important to trolls but not to other people.
>Actually, they might not be that important to trolls who keep
> Uzdo as slaves, pity Ronal (Cave Trolls) as they are cursed by
>chaos and revere UzUz, but they think of them all as Uz. Praxians
>would probably know about trolls and be able to separate the obvious
>trollkin from trolls and lump the rest together. They wouldn't
>distinguish between troll twins/triplets categorised as trollkin
>as they would think of them as trolls. But, they would see two
>types of trolls - big trolls and stunty little ones that the big
>ones bully and push around.

I don't think there is anything like the clear distinction between trolls and trollkin that the published works imply. Certainly there are trollkin as small and deformed as those but there are also bigger ones who are deformed and small ones who otherwise look like uzko. And bullying in troll society isn't restricted to uzko bullying enlo. Enlo bully weaker enlo, uzko bully uzko and uzuz bully everyone except stronger uzuz.

>Weren't trollkin called goblins somewhere? Perhaps Praxians have
>a completely different name for them.

When Avalon Hill republished Griffin Mountain as Griffin Island they converted the RQ monsters. It's likely that trollkin became goblins there.    

> Personally, I think it overcomplicates things having several
>names for the same creature, but if that's what people want then
>it's their game.

True, it's flavour that can help the story or mess it up.

-- 
Donald Oddy
http://www.grove.demon.co.uk/