Anthropology

From: johnjmedway (jjm@zycor.lgc.com)
Date: Tue 09 Nov 1993 - 03:47:31 EET



MOSTALI & OTHER STUPH



>> From: rowe@soda.berkeley.edu (Eric Rowe)
>> X-RQ-ID: 2182
>>
>> Being the Report of Marsilia Redblade
>> on the Unit of the Balazaran, Poloathi

Cool idea. I'd like to see more news and background from folks' campaigns tossed in here from time to time.

>> From: sandyp@idcube.idsoftware.com (Sandy Petersen)
>> X-RQ-ID: 2190
>>
>> I refuse to stand by anything I wrote in Different Worlds over 10
>> years ago.

He's pulling a Greg. "Well, now-a-days we think it works like this. You see there's this Elmal guy..." 8)

>> I think that the dwarfs' eyes are a product of the fact that they
>> were expected to operate on the surface world, when produced. I
>> wouldn't be surprised if true Mostali had no eyes at all. Or if they
>> did, if the eyes were later additions to their bodies.

Cool. Mostali with mechanical eyes grafted onto their faces. Kinda Borg-ish. You will be assimilated (into the World Machine ).

>> From: T.S.Baguley@open.ac.uk (Thom Baguley)
>> X-RQ-ID: 2203
>>
>> Newton Hughes writes:
>> >Certainly d&d set a bad example by giving infravision to everybody and
>> >his dog, but in the case of dwarves isn't it appropriate?
>>
>> Wouldn't a furnace effectively blind the dwarf though ...? I would have thought

Yep. I'd think so.

>> an electromagnetic sense (or rather its Gloranthan analogue) would be more
>> appropriate. The dwarf sense would adapted for underground rather than the
>> completely different ambient signals above ground.

Much better idea. Maybe the eyes were added as a response to intrusions and having to deal with outsiders?

>> From: joe@sartar.toppoint.de (Joerg Baumgartner)
>> X-RQ-ID: 2207
>>
>> One of my main fun activities with Glorantha is to try and explain
>> Gloranthan phenomenons with pseudo-scientific treatises.
>>
>> One of the problems that occur are the geological "facts" delivered in the
>> Snake Pipe Hollow scenario. The different pieces of strata delivered there
>> would take several hundred million years on Earth, and more importantly
>> the area would have to have been overlayed by sea several times, and the
>> sea would have to have evaporated.

Well, one of the layers, the Irridium Layer, could have come from the remains (dust) blown out when the Spike was destroyed.

ANTHROPOLOGY



>> From: 100270.337@CompuServe.COM (Nick Brooke)
>> X-RQ-ID: 2180
>>
>> Like Celtic/Saxon/Scandinavian sounds too easy for the Orlanthi? When you
>> have a densely populated agricultural region that runs things the Old Way
>> and is ruled by someone they call Pharoah, it seems a convenience (or, to
>> put it another way, why should we make trouble for ourselves explaining
>> Aztec Pharoahs?). Chuck in bits of the old Mesopotamian religion run by
>> women as pre-Pharoanic stuff (linked to the Esrola cult and the Year Sons),
>> and you're away.

OK. Sold.

>> NB: in this theory, it could be that "Pharoah" is Belintar's Esrolite
>> title, and the trolls, Heortlings etc. have a different name for him. As

And the Trolls call him Bad Ass?

>> From: paul@phyast.pitt.edu (Paul Reilly)
>> X-RQ-ID: 2193
>>
>> The early myths of Glorantha have many exact parallels in Sumerian myth.
>> The story of Umaths's birth in particular. Thus I look at the Middle East
>> (including perhaps everything from the Balkans to Northern India) as the
>> key zone for Earthly cultures that are 'analogous' to central Genertelan
>> cultures. Someone should write a paper on this...

I pretty much agree with this, but I've had too ingrained into my brain the "Celtic/Saxon/Scandinavian" concept for the Orlanthi. The Lunars are a quasi- Roman govermnent, but at the same time are Greek, and Persian, and ...

>> If we take the statement that Glorantha is a Bronze Age world seriously we
>> should be looking at cultures like the Hittites and Mycaenean Greeks as our
>> role models for Theyalans, Sumer for Dara Happa, etc.

We don't seem to do that.

We take a mix of Viking/Celt trotting around with plenty o' iron, and pit them, and their egalitarian, freedom-loving ideals against an empire of the style of Rome mixed with the British Imperial period and a tad of the Soviets.

Nope. We don't do the bronze age thing very well.

But, and this is a big but. This ain't Earth, man. Magic substitutes for technology, and heroes, not just political leaders, *heroes* lead the world. Besides, they didn't actually have to come down from the trees, bang rocks together and groove the otherworldly tunes put out by a big black monolith. They just popped into existence, and pretty much began living the way they live now, on Day 1.

Hard to be able to make good comparisons, other than in the coarsest sense.

Nevertheless, it does seem a bit too advanced. doesn't it?



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