From: Brandon Brylawski (brandon@caldonia.nlm.nih.gov)
Date: Thu 09 Sep 1993 - 19:51:22 EEST
>>In my campaign, the Yelm culture is the Grazers, who do have shamans (as do
>>the Pentan nomads). And you'll note that the Lunar Empire took over the
>>Yelmic cultures, so they _didn't_ win.
>Arguable. They tolerate the Red Moon for now, and even propagate it, to
>spread their influence, when I look at Fazzur's successor Tatius the
>Bright. By doing so, the civilized Dara Happans use the semi-civilized,
>semi-barbarian Lunar Satrapies to pay it back to the barbarian
>Orlanthi. And then I heard somewhere that Illumination (the underlying
>base for Lunar insights) originally is a solar concept...
>Concerning the horse nomads:
>I always thought that the differences in lifestyle between them and the
>Praxians were only superficial - Eiritha's beasts being of the Earth,
>and horses being of the Sky. Yelm's role is pretty much that of Waha -
>the chieftain who teaches the skills appropriate to the nomadic
>lifestyle. I don't know whether "Awaken Horse" would be available
>instead of the sedentary "Awaken Hawk" spell, but it seems appropriate.
>Foundchild would translate as Golden Bow, Eiritha as either Hippoi or
>Dendara (in her different aspects), and there is no real equivalent for
>Storm Bull - at best one of Yelmalio's brothers, or Cold Shiny himself.
>Brutality in Solar cultures is of the cold minded, subtle variety,
>including delicate torture and burning.
The differences may be superficial to an outsider, but not to the Praxians nor the Grazers. As you may recall, horses are not considered proper Beasts, and the Grazers, being horse folk, were kicked off the Prax some time ago, migrating to the Grazelands and making their pact with Ironhoof and the denizens of Beast Valley. In Phil Davis's campaign, the only way that you could bring a horse safely onto the Prax was with its hooves wrapped in cloth, so that it would not actually touch the plains. To do otherwise was to invite attack. Where I come from, the premier gods of the Grazers are Yelm, Golden Bow his son, and Hyalor Horsebreaker. Most do not consider Yelmalio to be any relative of Yelm, certainly not his son! I did not meet any Grazer Yelmalio worshippers at all, nor any Storm Bulls. The Grazer cults all have Command Horse as spirit and divine magic and do indeed awaken horses as allied spirits, although some prefer to place allied spirits in weapons, usually bows.
The Grazers at the time I lived there were in an uneasy truce with the Lunars. This was assisted in part by the magical protections around the Grazelands. enemies entering the area tend to have bad luck : bowstrings break, horses stumble, and such. The Grazers are under no illusions that these protections are strong enough to keep out the Lunar Army if the latter were to make a serious effort at conquest, so they must give the Empire lip service. Some within the Grazelands desired trade with the Lunars, some desired isolation, and some were waiting for the right time to attack the Empire. Needless to say, this would only be possible when the Red Goddess met a foe that she could not crush with impunity. Argrath, where are you....
Brandon
From: RuneQuest-Request@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (RQ Digest Maintainer)
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Subject: RuneQuest Daily, Fri, 10 Sep 1993, part 3
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