From: Nick Brooke (Nick_Brooke@compuserve.com)
Date: Tue 23 Dec 1997 - 12:02:06 EET
_______________
> i wanted to go further I think. IN my view it would be a god that
Mike Pastorello writes, to Peter:
> of magic at all. This would of course cause upheaval just in the
> fact that chaos would want to use it to destroy the other pantheons,
> and the others such as orlanth would want to use him to destroy
> chaos, as well as the other groups, and of course they would be
> confident in their abilities to actually deal with this newbie as
> they see fit. Maybe even going so far as this gods prophets going
> around and draining glorantha of its magic to be used eclusively
> by the new god.
Well, this sounds slightly "bigger" than your initial proposal. There,
you seemed to be suggesting a "new cult" that gave up magic for some
less tangible benefit. Now, you're suggesting some organisation that
actively drains the magics of the other cults. Again, it's a plausible
Gloranthan situation (with some similarities to, e.g. the vile Brithini
habit of Tapping their environment, some Western ways of interdicting
"paganism" with their sorcery spells, etc.). But it does sound a bit
of a world-fucker, if you let it get out of control.
I suggest you think about where in Glorantha you want to set this, and
how your "prophets" are going to operate. How long have they been in
action (openly or secretly), and what side are the players meant to be
on? Think of a scenario (save your clan's temple from desecration by
the Gray Reducers!), or a campaign theme (the peasants are turning from
True Worship and embracing some new cult -- send out the knights and
wizards to investigate!), or a way in which the new cult can be encoun-
tered by the players.
But I'll warn you now: if your campaign necessarily involves destroying
major Gloranthan magics and deities and cults, this Daily will *not* be
the best place to discuss your ideas. Because if you run a campaign which=
gets "out of sync" with mainstream Glorantha, it's that much harder for
anyone to usefully contribute ideas (other than "I wouldn't do that, if
I were you..."). As your proposed campaign involves inventing a new cult
and destroying old cults, temples and magics, there isn't likely to be
that much common ground between it and the "collective" Glorantha.
You could avoid this by running the campaign on a smaller scale, in some
out-of-the-way region, using an established "magic-renouncing" or "magic-=
draining" cult as enemy. Remember, none of us know much about how these
work in practice (yet), while if you happen to *live* in such-and-such a
kingdom, or barony, or city, a threat to your *local* cults, priests
and temples is just as bad as a world-threatening mega-disaster. You do
not need to worry about "destroying the Block" or "draining the Old Wind
Temple of magic" or "killing off the cult of Orlanth" if knocking over th=
e
standing stones of Ringaround Hill, defiling Ernalda's shrine and making
Olaf Rimebeard the Storm Voice a convert to your new, unholy cult would
also "kill" the local community. In fact, you'd take it more personally!
Then you wouldn't be trampling on other games' continuity, and we could
usefully support your efforts while gaining ideas for our own Glorantha
(about the region you're setting your game in, the "villain" you've chose=
n,
the modus operandi of the cult, etc.).
Your choice, really. I look forward to hearing how the idea develops.
____
Mike later replied to me:
> I began to see parallels between the Lunars of Prax and the frontier
> outposts of the Roman Legions.
It's a very workable parallel. If you can watch the Roman scenes in
"Life of Brian" and not think of the Lunars in Prax (or, indeed, watch
the Judean People's Front and not think of Orlanthi conspiracies), you
need to get out more. =
> Then it hit me, one of the most revolutionary things that ever happened=
> in the RW that changed the world the most significantly was the advent
> of christianity, and the thought crossed my mind what if the same or
> similar thing happened in Prax.
Well, to be fair it took three centuries of persecution and the con-
version of an Emperor to make Christianity significant. If the Lunars
nailed up a "new god" in Pavis tomorrow, they'd still be cosy for some
time to come. (No religious flames, please).
You could easily have a practitioner (or band of practitioners) of one
of the aforementioned unspeakable heresies turn up in Pavis by way of
caravans or Corflu sea-trade -- "Strangers in Prax" shows us this is a
viable entrepot for weird and outlandish individuals and beliefs. If
you liked the sound of the Perfecti, or Renunciators, or Tappers, or
whoever.
But, just speaking "realistically" (and without any magical coercion),
you will have a *very* hard time making converts to the "new religion"
from scratch. It might be easier if, for example, you had a White Moon
sect starting up in the city, making their converts among the Lunar
Administration. With the potentially-transformative End of the Wane
looming, Sor-eel's staff could easily get all millennial. Then you have
a bunch of interesting moral quandaries: the White Moonies want Peace,
but they are still Lunars (so do we join them, or kill them?). They'll
willingly assist the Orlanthi rebels to bring down the structures of
the Empire, sabotage Lunar military strength, etc. -- but will presum-
ably prefer to avoid killing anybody while doing so. They're a useful
"enemy within" for Sor-eel and company to deal with -- but there are
also "good Lunars" (non-White) in the local temples, garrison, etc.
who won't want anything to do with religious inquisitions, persecution,
and so forth against a band of "harmless" sandal-wearing drug-taking
dropouts. (And who will, of course, thereby come under suspicion them-
selves). When there's rumours of heresy on the border, you could easily
justify sending in the Cenobites (Rune Priests of Danfive Xaron, god of
coercing obedience to the Lunar Way), and add a whole new dimension to
the Pavic kettle of fish. And you'd also have some interesting questions:=
do we support these dissenters because it's useful (to us, for now), or
because it's *right*? Do we stand by and let our one-time allies get
denounced, tortured, martyred, etc. once they've blown their cover to
help the Underground, or do we bust our own guts to get them safely
away? Hell, they're *still* Lunars, aren't they? ...Aren't they??
> My players can fight for either side of course in this new epoch and
> knowing my players they will resist it.
I think that by making this "new epoch" less dramatic -- making its
supporters into idealistic *victims* (like the persecuted Christian
martyrs) rather than granting them some form of overwhelming anti-
magical firepower -- you'll have more chance of engaging your players'
interest. Just my 2p'orth, your campaign goals may vary.
____________
Dan McClusky adds:
> I'd be tempted to make it some sort of White Moonie cult in the
> center of the Kingdom of War... kinda the extreme's thing. With
> this huge concentration of whacked-out war magic on the borders,
> and a funky pacifist-anti-magic movement in the heartland. (and if
> anyone complains, you can always have the army turn back on your
> cult to recreate the "official" KoW) anyone who uses magic could
> be "banished" to the army...
Not to resurrect the old KoW debate, but there isn't really a Kingdom
there at all. It's all burnt, blackened, oppressed, occupied terri-
tory. Mind you, the INT- and POW-Tapped serfs might feel more drawn
to a "magic-renouncing" heresy than other Gloranthans: what have they
got to lose? :-)
(I also think it's kinda more fun to be a pacifist *opposing* the KoW
than one within it: you've got exactly the same risks of upsetting the
military, being conscripted and sent to the front lines, etc., but you
don't need to "humanise" the Enemy at all while doing so. This was one
role I had in mind for the Loskalmi Perfecti).
::::
Nick
::::
------------------------------
End of The Glorantha Digest V5 #302
***********************************
To unsubscribe from the Glorantha Digest, send an "unsubscribe"
command to glorantha-digest-request@chaosium.com. Glorantha is a
Trademark of Chaosium Inc. With the exception of previously
copyrighted material, unless specified otherwise all text in this
digest is copyright by the author or authors, with rights granted to
copy for personal use, to excerpt in reviews and replies, and to
archive unchanged for electronic retrieval.
WWW at http://rider.wharton.upenn.edu/~loren/rolegame.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.7 : Fri 13 Jun 2003 - 22:34:13 EEST