From: Sandy Petersen (sandyp@idcube.idsoftware.com)
Date: Mon 01 Nov 1993 - 08:11:04 EET
Sandy is back again.
Charles Gregory Friend sez (in a private letter):
> And thanks for the thoughts on slavery among the Sun Domers. I
> still find it hard to imagine those stalwart, self-sufficient
> people with gobs of slaves going about slavishly, so I guess it is
> correct to think of most SD farmers as peasants and yeomen, with
> slaves mainly concentrated in the homes of the rich as servants or
> perhaps as unskilled labor. But perhaps I have too sanguine a view
> of the SD and really the only Gloranthans who might have truly
> ideological reasons for opposing slavery (maybe!) would be the
> Orlanthi. Hrmph.
Perhaps you could have the more Lunar/Yelm influenced Sun Domers be the ones that are accepting of slavery, while the conservatives stick to their guns and don't truck with human ownership.
The only GENERTELANS with ideological reasons for opposing slavery might be the Orlanthi (at least the only major culture -- I'm sure plenty of minor sects concur), but in much of Pamaltela, slavery is seen as a facet of the Great Darkness, kin to Chaos. The very fact that there is a god of Slavery in Pamaltela indicates the rareness of the phenomenon. Genertela has no God of Slavery, because it is universal. What's the point? Ompalam has won, there.
> Primarily I need some info on the costume and the military of the
> Holy Country and the Grazelanders so that I can have something
> appropriate on the table in Baltimore.
Some other players may have better ideas, but I always thought of the Grazelanders as High Plains Indians during that one or two generation heyday when they had horses and weren't being destroyed by the palefaces. They are pretty much wheeler-dealers nowadays, but I don't think that would change the costumes of their warriors. I think they should paint their horses, perhaps even tattoo (brand?) them with spell matrices and stuff. Some of their horses are magic and should look different. Their main weapons are those best used from horseback, lance and bow. There is a contingent of swordsmen, though -- the Hiia Swordsmen. They are Humakti-derived, but I bet they still ride their horses.
The Holy Country warriors come from five very different cultures. The Heortlings are basically Sartarite types, though possibly more civilized, and with a veneer of Malkionism. Think of them as Saxons just after the Norman conquest. Hence there are both Saxon shield walls and Norman (Malkioni) Knights. The Shadow Plateau are trolls, mostly Argan Argar types, but still trolls. The Volcano people are from a jungly environment, and are slash-and-burn horticulturists -- southeast Asian highlands, perhaps? Esrolia is a unique society, woman-dominated and earth-based. I guess when I think of their Babeester Gor warriors I think either Egyptian or Aztec. Egyptian does sound too easy.
Say hi to Sean Summers for me. We're pals from way back.
Dave Dunham sez:
> [POW change is a big deal] If for no other reason than in RQ3, you
> have to recompute several bonuses when it changes
Steve Perrin LIKES recalculating his bonuses. He viewed that as a plus in RQ III.
Graeme Willoughby comments on Extension: I reply
Yes, Extension is pretty amazing when properly exploited. The only drawback is the fact that the priests casting the Extension don't get the use of their spell back until it's worn off. So the year-long Truesword actually costs the priests 16 pts of Rune magic for a year. Still worth it in some situations.
But you don't need to have one priest saving up 16 pts of Extension. Just have 16 priests, each with 1 point of Extension. Use Mindlink to gum the priests together, and spread out the costs.
Colin Watson sez:
> surely only gods associated with Mobility should be able to
> teleport their worshippers and, similarly, only gods with power
> over Death (and maybe healers:-) should be able to bring people
> back to life.
While Gloranthan gods aren't particularly omnipotent, they are certainly vastly powerful. Say you needed to be moved away from a bad place. No doubt Kyger Litor would send a cloud of darkness to engulf you. When it lifted, you'd be somewhere else. Storm Bull might suck you up in a whirlwind and carry you bodily off. Ernalda might open up a crack in the earth and swallow you up, spitting you out at the desired locale. Etc. All the gods can move about quickly and send messengers, and the messenger can do the dirty work of moving you. Also, if we stick with the Pantheon idea, perhaps Lhankor Mhy (not a particularly mobile type of guy) could ask his pal Issaries to move you somewhere if you DI'd to LM for transport. In return, someday when an Issaries needed wisdom from heaven, LM would return the favor. Likewise, any solar or storm cultist might be able to DI to their god for Resurrection (actually provided by CA). Only if it seems reasonable for a given campaign, of course.
If DI was really common, I'd tend to restrict it's benefits more. If it was extremely rare, I'd try to make it as useful as possible.
re: Ward Disease
(clarification) The recipient must only spend 1 POW, no matter how many points of Ward Disease he receives. Hence it is in his interest to get as big a spell as possible.
Carl-Johan Lundell sez:
> I have a PC who is one of the refugees from the fallen Malkonwal of
> Heortland. He has banded up with some Orlanthi rebels of Dragon
> Pass. He knows some low level sorcery and often is disappointed
> with, for example, his ability to heal damage compared to spirit
> magic users. Would he consider it heresy to learn spirit magic or
Naturlich, it's up to him, whether he considers it heresy or not. I expect quite a number of Malkioni in the post-Lunar conquest have taken up a bit of spirit magic. Why don't you let him learn Neutralize Damage? That's a Rokari spell, and I think at least some of the Heortland Malkioni are Rokari.
Nick Brooke sez: re: Temertain's assassination
> Oh aye, forty-seven Humakti to take on one elderly Grey Sage?
> That's what they call Humakti "Honour", is it? I am not impressed.
Well, they DID have to fight a whole bunch of Lunar guards, too.
I suspect if the farmers have a Rune it's the Man Rune. I don't think it matches up with a plow, but it seems the best around to me.
Jeorg Baumgartner asks:
> Is there anything contradicting a (possibly short, in God-Time)
> glacial cover of large parts of Glorantha during the darkness?
There is a long and perilous time of glacial cover for Genertela during the Lesser Darkness, when the storm spirits, Valind, and Himile rule the world. The time of the glaciers is well-documented, I thought.It covered most everything but the Chaos Wastes (held back by Genert in them days) and the Kralori lands (held back by the Emperor).
re: viking
There's not that much work to do during the summer months on a farm. Plowing is over, harvesting isn't yet to come. That's why so many of the Norse were able to get away to go viking. And the fact that a lot of them engaged in trade is just another aspect of viking. The Norse raiders would generally trade with towns that seemed strong, and pillage towns that seemed week. Trading and looting were different sides of the same coin.
>... the timeline of the Harrek-Box which conflicts with the timeline
> in the general description. Any offers for this problem yet?
Nick adds: > Harrek can't count, or lies about his age.
Or has traveled in time.
> Somewhere, there's an official source which gives the Jrusteli God
> Learners this kind of attitude to the "gods": they are all powerful
> demons, who must be brought into line with the will of the
> Invisible God
I myself see the God Learners as extremely pragmatic. I'm sure that they changed mind-views as easily as we change our socks, and that this particular mind-set was useful when they were using Invisible God theology against a particular deity. They no doubt even sponsored a Malkioni heresy devoted to thus stamping out the demons, and found its magic very useful in controlling the gods. But the God Learners had plenty of god-worshipers among them. After all, their chief deities were Issaries and Lhankor Mhy.
Graeme A Lindsell sez:
> I'm becoming increasingly disturbed at the way gods devour their
> worshippers souls for divine intervention. Perhaps DI should take
> sacrificed rune magic instead.
It used to, back in RQ I. A priest had the spell Divine Intervention, which was one-use. Each point in the spell gave you +10% towards the chances for a successful DI. You had to use all the points at once if you wanted to try, and if you failed, the points weren't used, but you couldn't try another DI for the same request. In those days initiates didn't get a DI, at all, however.
One of the players in my campaigns lost two Orlanthi Wind Lords in a row to DIs (happened to use up his last point of POW both times. Got his wish, but then his spirit was Taken By Orlanth). Both times the other players didn't see it happen. They just saw the intact, unwounded Wind Lord body laying there when the fight ended. They concluded that something was wrong with Wind Lords, that gave them a highly increased cardiac arrest chance, and all the Pamaltelan PCs told the story again and again.
re: Storm Bull difference between Prax & Sartar
I'm finally impelled to comment on this discussion. I think that the cult is broad enough to support the two different interpretations of the cult without needing to change the cult structure or spells. Perhaps subcults could be different to fit the needs, but I believe that the Praxian renegage Chaos fighter and the Sartarite brutal Berserker interpretations of the Storm Bull can coexist with the cult as it now stands, just as the 98-lb weakling Storm Bull who joined the cult because Dad made him can be part of the fun.
I believe that both the Praxians and the Orlanthi recognize both the destructive and the anti-chaos aspects of the Bull, though they may emphasize it differently. The Praxian Storm Bulls are certainly destructive enough, and the Sartarite berserks fight plenty of chaos. It is true that the cults may have been even more different before the days of the God Learners, when a lot of similar cults were merged together.
re: Yelm/Yelmalio worship
I think that the Yelmalio dudes are worshipers of Yelmalio, but that they believe that Yelmalio worships Yelm. I would compare it crudely to the fact that most Christian churches worship Jesus directly, pray to him, etc., but technically God the Father is in charge (of course the Trinity concept messes up some of my comparison, but you can see what I mean). Certainly at their Holy Day ceremonies Yelm would figure prominently.
David Dunham re: Orlanthi temple sites.
The poor abused RQ III rules do indeed claim that a temple is a fixed site, but I personally alter this rule at need when it seems appropriate, like for a god of mobility like Issaries, whose temple could obviously be a wagon. Also, a bare and windy hilltop is a fixed site for Orlanth worship, just not an obvious one for Lunar vengeance. The priest can still take home his sticks and altar and hope the Lunars never find out the secret about old Bald Knoll. If they do, he'll set up a new temple on another hilltop.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.7 : Fri 10 Oct 2003 - 01:32:04 EEST