From: Stephen Martin (ilium@juno.com)
Date: Mon 22 Dec 1997 - 08:49:30 EET
Danny Bourne, who wrote an entire Grazeland Pack, says:
>Seeing as I consider myself a newbie (in that I deliberately try to not
>know much about the places where I game to keep the mystery alive) I'm
>looking for ideas on the following two questions:
>1) Just who are the Black Fang & what do they do? (My take was that they
>are the 'unofficial' law enforcement arm of the Pavis cult).
The Black Fang assassins are mentioned briefly in Gods of Glorantha.
Although I think it has been suggested on the Digest that they are part
of the Pavis cult, I find this to be wholly unnecessary and un-MGF-like.
They first appeared in RQ, first edition, and the Cults of Terror version
of Krarsht gave the Black Fang cult a degree of association with Krarsht.
They are a band of assassins who worship one Black Fang, a legendary
bandit during the Troll Occupation, who raided humans and trolls alike.
Although Black Fang is little more than a ghost, his followers gain some
Divine Magic, apparently through the existence of some unnamed deity
worshiped by Black Fang when he was alive. The special spell they can
learnis Shattering, a 1 point Divine spell which works like 4 Disrupt
spells all going off at once, IIRC.
Note that the fairly widespread (in southern coastal Genertelan Orlanthi
lands) Thief Cult of the god Lanbril does not have any direct relation to
the Black Fang Brotherhood, though there are indications Black Fang was a
Master Thief of that cult when he was alive.
There are rumours that Black Fang was part-troll, but these have never
Bonus points to anyone who can cite the source of Black Fang's ring, BTW.
been proven. At least one source claims that a large part of his power
was gained from a magical ring he owned, created for him by some shaman
that he later killed (of course).
Hint: it ain't listed in the MIG (Meints Index to Glorantha).
Gim Gim the Grim is a Lunar agent in Pavis who is rumoured to be a member
of the Black Fang cult. However, this ain't a guarantee that he is --
Griselda is so rumoured as well.
Jim Chapin has written some fiction about Gimgim, which I believe he has
started work on again. You might want to contact him for his ideas.
Finally, note that later myths (from King of Sartar) seem to turn Gimgim
into some demonic figure -- he was apparently a pretty scary and ruthless
guy.
Klyfix says:
>so I'll just assume that all those times folk got accused of "God
>Learnerism" or times when a Monomyth-based assertion was shot down with
>something along the lines of "But the Dara Happens say.." all happened
in >bad dreams.
I think you are missing the point. When I discount something in the
Monomyth by referencing something in GRoY, I do it when I am talking
about Dara Happan myths or society. The Monomyth IS an excellent source.
However, ANY regional source is usually going to be moe accurate and
authoritative when dealing with that region's myths.
So yes, you are right -- we have shot down the Monomyth many times. But
you have to take such assertions on our part IN CONTEXT. Or you will get
flamed by a bunch of people, as happened the last couple of days.
A last note, people who find me offensive please skip this part.
I tried and tried, but I cannot ignore Danny Bourne's comment about his
However, I feel inclined to point out that the material Danny submitted
Also, keep in mind that the badly-presented response Danny did receive
Grazeland submission. Yes, he dealt with Greg beforehand. And yes, Greg
and Chaosium were inexcusably remiss in responding to Danny.
had a number of very obvious Gloranthan errors in it, to the point that
the entire History section was, IMO, useless, and one of the scenarios
was completely beyond any possibility of salvaging.
was sent at the time when Chaosium was dealing with Avalon Hill to change
ownership of RuneQuest forever.
Stephen Martin
ilium@juno.com
- -----------------------------------------------
The Book of Drastic Resolutions
drastic@juno.com
------------------------------
End of The Glorantha Digest V5 #296
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