Lorens ball games

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From: Joerg Baumgartner (joe@sartar.toppoint.de)
Date: Wed 30 Mar 1994 - 15:30:39 EEST


Loren J. Miller in X-RQ-ID: 3450

> joe@sartar.toppoint.de (Joerg Baumgartner) writes: 

>> I've just been reading a few of Sprague de Camp's historical novels and 
>> found a lot of references to the Persians playing polo. This brought me 
>> to think about other ball games which might be played by certain 
>> Gloranthan cultures.

> Hold it right there. Before you go any further we have to reserve polo
> for the Persia analogue in Glorantha. That would be Carmania.

I disagree, for one simple reason: The Carmanians are too recent (795 ST) to have invented the game. Of course they demand they did, but the game is much older. 

>> Trollball is a game we all love, although putting it under ball games 
>> is stretching the definition of ball a bit. However, this is the 
>> equivalent for American Football, or Rugby.

> I think American Football has too many rules to be anything at all
> like Trollball. I don't know if Rugby has fewer rules. Somebody else?

To ignorant Europeans, who know football to be a game where hands aren't involved, aka soccer, American Football seems to be the game where all the rules are broken.

Anyway, the mere existence of blockers, passers and throwers makes this game a football (American) clone. None of the other ball games I know of (except possibly Rugby) have this feature.

The rules change from generation to generation. The US TV-companies even asked the FIFA to change the soccer rules for the world championship in the US... In Gloranthan terms this would be to ask Humakti to accept Resurrection.

>> Polo would be a Pentan game, possibly as popular among High Llama >> riders and Grazers.

> While the Pentans may have picked it up from the Carmanian horsemen
> and may play it in 1620 ST, much as cricket has migrated to India and
> South Africa in our own world, the Carmanians are very proud of their
> status as the inventors of the sport of kings, err, shahs. Of course
> the main draw for a Carmanian polo match is the impalement of
> criminals and/or foreigners preceeding the game.

I'll accept this as what the Carmanians tell us. They are the ones with written sources, too. And those ancient inscriptions from Dawn Age Dara Happa which show men and Emperors on horses clubbing with long sticks at round objects (heads?) might well have been something else, or imprinted during the Carmanian reign... <G> 

>> Tennis could be a Dara Happan pastime, wlthough with more 
>> badminton-like rules - aim of the game would to keep the orb off the 
>> ground, somewhat replaying the Antirius period of Godtime.

> Then why play tennis? Wouldn't they play volleyball instead? I think a
> game that encourages leaping high into the air and "spiking" your foes
> would be quite popular among Yelm worshippers.

Because I cannot imagine Dara Happan lords to soil their hands with things that touch the earth. And tennis has the nice feature of the "service" to have the ball brought into play by a servant. To me very Dara Happan.

>> In this case, the Lodrili would play Hockey, where the ball touches the >> ground.

> They'd play Football/Soccer I think. Save Hockey for people who live
> in a flat and icy land. How about Pent or the Kingdom of Ignorance for
> hockey? They could also play Lacrosse and/or a lacrosse/polo hybrid
> game that would be great fun.

Sigh. Divided by the common use of a language. Hockey is the gentlemen's game Pakistani excel at, also quite popular in Britain, and with a few good players around here in Germany, too. What you Americans understand by hockey is the game played by ruffians skating over ice, wielding clubs and sometimes hitting the flat piece of plastic when no opponents or referees are around. The snow troll version of troll ball, played with Hollri as pucks.

>> Any suggestions for assigning a baseball/cricket clone?

> Too modern for my taste. Maybe Brithos (cricket) and Loskalm
> (baseball) if you need someplace for it. Maybe we could introduce
> baseball as an aldryami game?

Dodgeball, as someone else proposed, might come close.

>> For Soccer I propose the Western culture. A game originally played >> after the weekly service, with the city gate as goal.

> It doesn't seem right to me. I think that westerners race things
> obsessively. Dog racing, horse racing, turtle racing, foot races, etc.

Soccer seems to be an English invention. Racing seems to be a very English pastime, too, especially dog and horse racing. I don't see why racing and ball games should exclude each other. 

>> The Orlanthi would play a thrown ball game, like handball, or a rough 
>> version of basketball. There is the legend that the Storm Gods once 
>> played ball with the Blue Moon...

> I think that Orlanthi play golf.

> :-)

> I'm not kidding either. Just imagine it, wandering in the hills of
> Sartar you hear the sound of a distant wailing that would only be
> described as melodic by a moose in heat, then hear a faint "fore,"
> then everthing goes black and you wake up with a big egg-shaped lump
> on your scalp and a bunch of tattooed and red-bearded barbarians with
> filthy kilts and funny shaped clubs staring at you.

Sartar, not Scotland, to cite one signature?

Well, I doubt that the standard Orlanthi farmer will chose this as his pastime when there are crops to tend, cattle to milk, sheep to shear...

Nor would the Orlanthi housecarl, be he Humakti, Storm Bull or Orlanth worshipper.

This leaves the highest class only, above the thane class, or the outsider members of Orlanthi society, like Lhankor Mhy sages. Ok, make it the hobby of some past Orlanthi king which caught, or invent some colourful history like in "The Hobbit".

Of course, we all know that golf is a cult skill of Arroin. <G>

--
-- Joerg Baumgartner joe@sartar.toppoint.de

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