From: Nick Brooke (100270.337@CompuServe.COM)
Date: Wed 10 Nov 1993 - 00:47:07 EET
> Cheers! esp NicNick. (hope you sober up without pain)
No trouble, thanks. Though I did *whack* my head into the youth hostel bed at some point in the night, and came home from the Trinity College gamesoc session having stereotypically lost my shirt while playing cards...
I think you should veer still further towards Pendragon than you're going at the moment -- keeping all of the clunkier RQ mechanics while attempting a partial conversion doesn't reap the full benefits of the changeover.
BTW, "NicNick"??? Is this a typo, or an evolution towards one of my many Gloranthan alter egos? (RQC p.9, JC [1470])
Agree re: too-easy Illuminations, and think the new write-up in Dorchester: Land of Doom adequately dispelled these. You have to really *think* about them these days: you can't just shout "Riddles" at your melee opponent and hope one of them takes effect...
> Esrolian Wall shields. Might even be the top armament of the Building
> Wall. We know from Genert's creation of the Copper Sands that Earth
> never was shy about sacrificing loyal troops to achive a tactical
> advantage. This really makes me wonder a) how many Esrolite infantry
> were interred in that wall, b) are their spirits worshipped as
> guardians of the wall, c) who performed this great ritual?
I love it! Provisional answers: (a) Lots!, (b) Yes!, (c) the Esrolite Earth Priestesses, while "lending the troops magical support from behind". Though I'd still have a major Gnomic component in the raising of this structure.
Maybe they only used up the infantry when necessary to plug a breach fast.
> And the (other) Malkioni claim likewise. The other Malkioni didn't
> appear until after the Dawn. Just about that time (A.D. 1), the
> prophet Hrestol had a vision of Malkion, who taught him the New Way.
> This appealed to a lot of former Brithini, and led to the great
> secession movement. The Brithini say that Hrestol got it wrong, and
> if he didn't get it wrong and really got word from Malkion, it
> doesn't matter, because Malkion must have got it wrong this second
> time round. All that matters is that the Brithini Way works. You
> change, you die. The other Malkioni sneer at this because it's
> obvious that the Brithini are stagnating, while they, their
> descendents, grow, live, love, and learn.
Did Malkion teach anything about Solace (continued existence after death, anathema to Brithini) or any morality based on not Tapping (Brithini do it all the time)? Did he believe in and preach the existence of the Invisible God (the Brithini are called atheists)? These appear to be the key elements of his message. Agreed, (almost) all modern sects of Malkionism derive their teachings from Hrestol's revelation: but I find it hard to accept that before Hrestol the whole population of the West were "pious" Brithini.
: The ancient Kingdom of Logic is beset by creeping ice walls which : destroy cities and nations. Despair sends people to the Devil, so : Malkion the prophet is born amid conflict and renews the truth of : the Invisible God in the world. He protects his people and the : sacred city of Malkonwal throughout the long night.
Now, I've been assuming that the Kingdom of Logic equals the non-theistic Brithini, and that Malkion's revelation of a personal, loving deity (and the consolation of Solace in Glory) is what heartens the more despairing among the Brithini to resist the travails of the Ice Age. Having the Brithini founded in the Golden Age by one Malkion, then having some of them rescued in the Darkness by a second Malkion (whose message is rejected by the more strictly orthodox Brithini, led by the first Malkion's children Zzabur etc.), seemed to make sense of the weirdness that otherwise develops.
> re: Nick Brooke's comments on Celtic Bards getting the best grub --
> but what if you weren't any good? High expectations lead to bad
> punishments if you fail to come up with the goods! ('Guards - off
> with his tongue!')
I shall fall into a Bardic silence, saying nothing but "Blwrm, Blwrm," as did the bards of Maelgwn Gwynedd when they contested with Taliesin... and I can't offhand remember if we know what happened to them after that failure.
And, Geoff asks the *BIG* question:
> _How_ many hours should I devote to RQ a week?
I've found an answer <g>. It may not suit everyone out there, but I have found an answer...
> It's getting so that preparation time is nearly equalling playing time.
Wow! That's *really* stinting on the old preparation. You must be terribly pushed for time these days...
Sarcasm aside, I agree with you about the utility of sourcepacks after the Trollpak model. Problem with them is the same as with all the other forms of God Learning: there's a risk that the sweeping blanket overview will smother and stifle some of the smaller regions included within it. But they're a good and useful thing, if they can be done as well as Trollpak.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.7 : Fri 10 Oct 2003 - 01:32:12 EEST