From: David Dunham (dunham@pensee.com)
Date: Fri 19 Jul 1996 - 08:59:45 EEST
Daniel Fahey wrote
> I don't believe in travelling smiths. Why would a metal worker travel? How
> would a metal worker carry all that equipment and hundreds of pounds of metal
> around?
They may or may not exist in Glorantha (though I think Third Eye Blue
smiths are indeed itinerant), but the Lohar are nomadic blacksmiths who
travel (in present-day India or Pakistan, I think) in groups of 3-15 carts.
They mend tools, or take orders for sickles and plowshares (which as I
recall are delivered the next time they come around). They vowed not to use
a light to see in darkness. They pray to their anvils. These guys sound
like Third Eye Blue to me. (Alas, I don't have more notes; the book was
called Nomads of the World.
<http://www.moon.com/tm/tmearly/00cultures.html> may have a reference to
them -- apparently they've had a hard time in the industrialized world and
are no longer nomadic.)
Nick Davison urges
> I urge everyone to back the BUTS campaign and support other initiatives
> such as Robert Mac Arthurs (To produce a new Foes) before it is too late.
I realize you were unable to find products locally, but it's probably far
more important to go out and buy all the *new* (i.e. 3rd edition) RQ
products you can. (Except Daughters of Darkness and Eldarad.) That's the
only way shops will order more, and the only way Avalon Hill will produce
more.
I'm all for coming out with new products, though I don't know how new
players will learn of them. A FOES project might be enhanced by short
adventure ideas for significant NPCs (as in Lords of Terror). I do caution
contributors to go by the rules -- a RunePower priest or Presence-based
Sorceror isn't going to be very useful to those who don't play by those
variants. At the very least, identify that you use a variant. (I for one
won't be contributing partly because I do use a variant, and partly because
I never work out complete stats.)
As far as linguistics go, Greg Stafford is not Tolkien or Barker (you need
4 names to be a fantasy linguist). There is no linguistic consistency in
his earlier works, and only a little in those of this decade. He seems to
have stolen more names from Scandinavian sources, but I wouldn't read too
much into this -- it probably came after he wrote the RQ Vikings
supplement.
As far as cultural models for the Orlanthi, maybe we should be looking at
generic Indo-Europeans. They had many of the features common to the later
Celts, Saxons, and Vikings. I found J. B. Mallory's In Search of the
Indo-Europeans pretty good, and available at a used book store. When I need
detail, I usually use Icelanders (because they have the most sagas) and
Celts (because they have a fair number, between the Irish sagas and the
Mabinogion) for inspiration. All I can think of from Saxons is Beowulf.
David Dunham Pensee Corporation dunham@pensee.com
Voice/Fax: 206 783 7404 http://www.pensee.com/dunham/
NO ZUKES! Stop zucchini proliferation.
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