From: Joerg Baumgartner (joe@sartar.toppoint.de)
Date: Fri 08 Apr 1994 - 09:04:01 EEST
Alex "Sometimes Mails Twice" Ferguson in X-RQ-ID: 3526 and 3527 <g>
[Initiation]
> I note that the annotations to Argrath's Saga say there are "several
> initiations to qualify as adults" (annot. 10). This leaves open the
> question of whether cult initiation is one of these steps, and if so,
> whether it precedes or succeeds the tribal/clan initiation.
The following is focussed on the Orlanthi only.
I'd interpret this so that at reaching various age groups, the boys (and girls) undergo rites of passage, e.g. about the age of nine they may become initiated into the cults of Voriof or Voria and get assigned certain tasks for the family. Some kind of birth initiation aka naming ceremony would be the first of many steps, if you don't count conception and birth as well. About the age of twelve to fifteen, more and more adulthood responsibilities and freedoms become available.
I'd expect one aspect of the adulthood initiation to be the oath of allegiance to one's clan chieftain, tribal king etc. These are combined with holy days, because that is the time when also the people from isolated steads flock together.
> Certainly, however, it seems clear being an Adult Non-Initiate would
> not be a common, and much less an approved of, state, even if it is
> possible.
People stressing the (IMHO tenuous) landbound Viking parallel for the Orlanthi might use the "Men without Gods" section from RQ Vikings for non-initiates, but I have difficulties to imagine atheist hill barbarians without extended contact to conflicting doctrines, like the Vikings faced with Christianity vs. Aesir worship. But the Vikings were more pragmatic than even the God Learners or illuminates in religious matters. Think of Icelands acceptance of Christianity under Olaf Tryggvason, or look at the religious affiliations of Bengtson's Red Orm.
> But note that if you're a 15 year old, trying to join a religion
> other than that of your parents', your chances aren't great. A back-of-an-
> envelope calculation for a boringly-average Sartarite of this age trying
> to pass the Orlanth skill test, one of the easier due to high(ish) skill
> bases, suggests he has about a 10% of success.
In a pure farmers community (i.e. 60% of the populace) the chances to do something else than farming, herding or hunting are slim. Things are different for warriors serving in foreign lands, e.g. with the tribal king, or people living along trade routes. (Sartar is different because of its Western-influenced, extremely modern system of roads and cities. King Sartar came from a land dominated by Western doctrine...)
In a city, or along a trade route, there are a lot more things to do than just primary production. While agriculture remains one of the economical legs to stand on, some specialisation in ones livelyhood is possible. By joining a craft, one is initiated into another society as well, so the young candidate gets two ways to go. In occupied Sartar secret societies like the Cold Wind Movement recruit among the boys as well, so the youngsters get yet another perspective, and in heavily Lunar influenced places the Lunar way could attract less rabid Orlanthi. Especially hostages...
> What happens if he fails?
> Does he get bounced out of the clan, have to wait until the next lot of
> clan initiations, and try the whole thing again, or simply wait a year,
> and retry joining the cult (or even try joining another in the meantime)?
> (Presumably initiation into Voria or Voriof `doesn't count', at least.)
That is what the "pantheon initiation" faction means by low initiate state.
> One thought that occurs is that particular bloodlines might have this
> requirement, for their particular `family' god. This would make some
> sense if initiation were into one's own bloodline primarily, and only
> secondarily into clan or tribe.
> On the subject of bloodlines: someone stated that tribal kings had to belong
> to particular royal bloodlines; anyone have a reference to this in published
> material? (I found one declaring this to be the case at the Kingdom level,
> but not that I could see otherwise.)
I haven't seen this explicitly stated, but given the Colymar Tribe as example, the Karandoli kings are unlikely to be descendants of Colymar, although they may have been adopted into the clan when the Colymar decided that Colymar did not come from Esrolia (as he did, according to CHDP), but from the Orshanti Clan (which happened to spawn a certain wizard hero by name of Sartar, and lived next to the original Karandoli home in Hendrikiland).
> Martin:
>>As for Urox, I believe his emergence as a separate cult is a second
>> or third age development.
> This is sustainable (perhaps) in Orlanthi lands, but not, one has to
> presume, in Prax and the Wastes.
Lewis Jardine in X-RQ-ID: 3530
> The great broo debate.
> I believe that ALL broo are born male.
I don't recall the source, but I remember that Thed does not want the worship of female broos, so they are traditionally Maliants. This might bolster Lewis' theory.
> However (as always) there are a very few female broo.
> They are NOT BORN as female broo.
> I can think of two ways in which they are created.
> 1) A female human (or other) becomes a broo due to taking too many
> chaotic features, or Thanatar heads etc.
Does aquiring Thanatar heads make you a broo?
How frequently will any member of another race (female or male) be transformed into a broo by accepting one too many chaotic feature? Which chaotic entities spread chaos to unwilling recipients, except one denizen of Snake Pipe Hollow, and the dreadful Curse of Thed spell?
James Polk in X-RQ-ID: 3532
> Can others on the RQ Daily scene provide more examples of village (group)
> versus village games? If not, then I suggest that two examples are
> insufficient evidence on which to refute Harald Smith's contention.
I read about another american tribe playing a running match or something similar in "The Aztec", and I think Marco Polo described similar village to village or tribe to tribe contests. In (Basquic?) Spain (or South America?) there are villages which meet annually with staff slings and fire at each other. Even Wulfstan's report on Baltic burial rites included a riding contest with participants of many villages. At fairs (one per year at least in medieval times) all kinds of games were played. Viking horse fighting was a travellers' game as well.
> In reply to Eric Robert Jablow:
> Even if chess exists in Glorantha - and I contend it does not (see my next
> message on games) - how would Gloranthans possibly know about "Ruy Lopez" or
> "Scicilian Defense", since neither the player nor the place exist in
> Glorantha?
Some "shah" like game will have evolved in Glorantha, I am sure, and maybe some go-like game as well. Most promising candidates seem to be Dara Happa for chessish games and Vormain for goish games.
Standard openings would be called after Gloranthan cities and countries, of course.
> Tug-o-war in a village seems reasonable, but tug-o-war is rather different
> than games such as baseball. Also, how about a Gloranthan name for
> tug-o-war?
Different from place to place. The German game name translates as rope-pulling.
This is another qualm I have with naming Gloranthan games - all the names turn out to be English. Give them stylish Gloranthan language names, for Tradetalk's sake!
Yet James Polk in X-RQ-ID: 3533
> Gloranthan Games For People who Insist that Human Blood Doesn't Contain
> Iron and then Talk About Gloranthan Baseball: :-)
I guess that's me? <g>
> There are a number of games which use balls, but they can be quite different
> from each other. Basketball, soccer (football), kickball, tennis, and
> dodgeball all use a spherical object. But their differences show me that
> one can start with a common object and end up with vastly different games.
> So why should Gloranthan games be just like (or incredibly similar to)
> Earth games? Why not "discover" (create) new ones? They can certainly
> share a number of attributes without being the same game.
Seems I have anticipated this question. See Thursday's daily part 2.
> As an example, I present to you the game of Empire. This game, popular
> in the Lunar Empire, uses a board divided into 49 squares which
> are coloured Red, White and Yellow (see the diagram below). The pieces
> used are the Goddess, the Emperor, the Magician, the Priest, the General,
> and two Soldiers. It is a two-player game, and each player begins with a
> full set of pieces. The object of the game is to capture any six of the
> nine Imperial (red) squares.
> Board Layout:
> R - W - Y - R - Y - W - R
> W - Y - W - Y - W - Y - W
> Y - W - Y - W - Y - W - Y
> R - Y - W - R - W - Y - R
> Y - W - Y - W - Y - W - Y
> W - Y - W - Y - W - Y - W
> R - W - Y - R - Y - W - R
Nice piece of imagination. As a dedicated, although only mediocre player of boardgames like chess and go some questions:
How do the pieces move? How does one capture/move away enemy pieces? (With only seven pieces per side, I imagine you only move away enemy pieces. How?) When is a red field considered captured? Dragon Pass city rules?
And I'd have expected seven individual pieces: Goddess plus six Mothers.
> This game is related to a Dara Happan game (of the same name), which
> uses a circular board, divided into five rings of twenty yellow and
> white "squares", etc.
Which are the places to be taken? Etc.
> My point it that I think we do ourselves a disservice if we say Empire
> is merely a variant of an Earth game. Gloranthans will never have heard of
> our strategy game,
> [...] So, if you like using Gloranthan
> slang, Gloranthan dieties, Gloranthan geography, etc, then use Gloranthan
> games and Gloranthan game names. Don't talk about soccer, hockey, caber
> tossing, lacrosse, jacks, or checkers. Create (and then talk about) Shield
> Push, Empire, Troll Ball, and Barrel Hop (whatever that is), etc.
Sorry, but as much as I like colourful names, If I tell may layers that they are to win three out of five matches of Shatra or die, then they'll ask me what Shatra is. My answer (based on a German fantasy novel):
"A game like chess, but played on a 12 times 12 squares field. Apart from king, marshal (the queen of chess), high priest (bishop), knight, tower and pawn there are two more medium pieces: the lancer (can jump to any square of its own colour within two squares) and the guardian (moves like the queen, but to a maximum of three squares). Pawns can move two fields forward as long as they are in their original half of the board. The 12 pawns are placed in the second line of squares, the other pieces in the first line: guardian, knight, tower, lancer, bishop, king, marshal, etc. Else chess rules apply."
I've actually played this game with a few friends, and found it as interesting as chess. Still, while we all call it shatra, it is essentially a chess variant, and with the non-boardgamers it rests as just that - chess.
Paul Anderson in X-RQ-ID: 3535
> On Chess:
> IMHO human cultures should differ more than playing different openings in
> the same game; their forms of chess should differ as much among themselves as
> Indian from Persian from Chinese from Modern. If this be granted, where did
> Modern chess, with its characteristic pieces, arise?
I think in the crusades, but I cannot say for sure.
> In chess as we know it, a king is an indispensible token of the army, and
> he is defended by a female Hero, mobile fortifications, cavalry, and organized
> priests. He also has a numerous but weak infantry. This sounds more like the
> Lunar armies than any other. [...] Trolls are perhaps the second most likely
> culture; they are female-dominated, and have riding specialists. It this is
> true, chess would have had to be invented and spread to Orlanthi long ago for
> Sartarites to now find it acceptable.
The Queen is called something like vezire by Persians (who named the game, if not invented it), and is _not_ a female character. Thus, Orlanthi, Dara Happans and Westerners would have male roles assigned to the Queen's name (like marshal, in my shatra example).
But I totally approve of your Gloranthan variants.
--
-- Joerg Baumgartner joe@sartar.toppoint.de
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