Re: Troll ownership of gold

From: Argrath@aol.com
Date: Fri 12 Jan 1996 - 03:14:18 EET


In V2 #319, Rob Stoll asks about the verisimilitude (sp?) of trolls
possessing gold Wheels in their treasure troves:

> Do I just have a picture of trolls as
>being more intolerant of solar metals than they "actually" are, or is this
an
>oversight in the supplements?

I vote for it being an oversight, or more exactly a failure to adequately
envision Glorantha. As the scenarios in the troll paks were written for RQ
II, and some were probably written before the first Trollpak, they reflect an

attitude of trolls being monsters. And of course monsters have treasure.

In fact trolls do have treasure, but it's trollish: lots of lead, bone, and
stone, and some bronze. Trollish esthetics doesn't value shiny objects,
whether or not you believe in Darksense as sonar. If Darksense IS sonar, as
Trollpak says, then trolls' primary esthetic sense is sonar, and visual
characteristics are secondary. (I seem to be a minority of one in my
disbelief of the sonar theory, so I won't harp on it.) It's the exact
opposite of human esthetics, where a bit of jewelry (frex) is counted
beautiful or not based on its looks. If it jingles nicely, that's a plus.
 For trolls, the jingling and the sonar profile are the important things.

>Or, alternatively, are there different types of
>wheels, minted from different metals but generally agreed to have the >same
value as the gold ones?

I don't believe this, though there may be trade objects other than bolgs
among the trolls.

- --Martin

------------------------------

End of Glorantha Digest V2 #320
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