From: Sandy Petersen (sandyp@idcube.idsoftware.com)
Date: Tue 03 May 1994 - 07:05:12 EEST
Andrew Raphael said:
>I suggest mustelids instead. [as a troll relative]
I thought of shrews because, to me, shrews also have a connotation of "primitive", whereas mustelids (to me) seem advanced evolutionarily. They're both nasty little critters. May as well mention the viverrids, too, which even have long noses like trolls are often portrayed (viverrids are beasties like mongeese, meerkats, etc.).
>Though I hate to bring up that old Different Worlds issue, it
>mentioned a "proto-dwarf module". This implies that dwarfs produce
>something that doesn't need maternal care.
A new-hatched turtle needs no parental care, nor do (most) new insects. The Tsetse fly has a life cycle that's rather alarming, and may be worth stealing for dwarfs -- the adult female carries the (single) young within her body, feeding it via a sort of placenta, until the maggot is ENORMOUS -- as big as her! It "lays" this titan young, which does not feed -- it immediately burrows into the ground and pupates, crawling out a few weeks later as an adult fly. In essence, the tsetse fly has no "young", only adults, with a momentary and insignificant stage of pre-adultness.
Mike Dickison says that trolls aren't insects (I agree) and elf women shouldn't have breasts because they're not mammals. He also feels that elves should be ugly as sin. A long-standing tradition on not only Glorantha but Earth is that the woods-inhabiting Faery should be inhumanly beautiful, or at least intriguing. I think that elf women have breasts because they're a lot less interesting without them. I don't think they're big-busted -- I rather think of them as being barely pubescent in size (the breasts, not the elf females). I DO think that elf females probably don't give milk. The breasts, small as they are, are a secondary sex characteristic only.
The next question is, where do the breasts come from? Easy, from dryads. Brown and Yellow elves (green elves are an exception, I confess) have lots of dryad blood in them. And I don't think that dryads are "plant life". Rather, they are spiritual creatures (like oreads or other nymphs), who happen to be connected with trees. And their possession of breasts is simply an aspect of the essential anthropomorphic nature of Glorantha. I think that if a human male were to mate with a dryad, she would be give birth normally, and then be able to suckle the resultant child. When an elf male weds a dryad, I think she produces a typical seed, and does not suckle it. Presumably a dryad, as a fertility spirit (among other things), can mate with practically any Man-Rune entity in Glorantha, but no doubt prefers elves as spouses (with humans in second place, and any other species as a remote third).
Rich Staats sez:
>I .. think the Invisible God ... is a vehicle for the worship
>of Arachne Solara. ... In my campaign ... The Mostali, who live most
>securely of all >races within the comforting embraces of Arachne
>Solara, worship the >Invisible God. ...the Invisible God is a link
>between Arachne Solara, who cannot be worshipped directly by
>mortals, and the inhabitants of Glorantha,
An interesting interpretation, but not compelling for me. My own feelings are that the Mostali are, of all races, the most removed from nature. Despite my natural prejudices towards the Malkioni, I must admit that they, too, seem to me to be less than At One With The World, and that even the brutal, uncultured, and smelly Orlanthi probably commune better with nature than the Malkioni. *sigh*
Peter Whitelaw:
>What would a Yelmalion feel about binding/controlling a Salamander?
I think that their cult does not teach Summon or Command spells for salamander. If a Yelmalion learned such spells, I think he could use them, unless he was a Light Lord or Light Priest and had been on the Hill of Gold quest (on which such abilities are ripped from the user).
David Cake sez:
>Of course, the real difference is that the Rokari are fairly secular
>(the nobles run the place, and the King has more authority than the
>Bishop), while the Hrestioli are a nation of religious fanatics
I can see this. On the other hand, the Rokari wizardlings have a much harsher regime than the Hrestoli ones, and so the Rokari can apply the label of "religious shirkers" to the Hrestoli, just as the Catholics accused Martin Luther of founding Protestantism so he could get married.
>>the Borists believe that there IS another god equal to (or better
>>than) the Invisible God, and that this other god rules chaos.
>Which makes the Borists true dualists, like the Zoroastrians.
You betcha. No doubt there is also a secret sub-sect of Borists who actively worship the "anti-Invisible God". Maybe they are the reason that Borists are still disliked even today. In addition, let's not forget that there is a common accusation against the Borists that they "grow" things on their body because of their tapping of chaos things. While this may be true in advanced cases, such reports may instead be the result of sightings of the evil chaotic wizards -- the anti-Borists. What a great bunch of villains! I'm adding them to my campaign at once.
>I also dislike having Chaos be too central an element in their
>theology, it seems too stereotypical fantasy
Hey, YOU'RE the one who brought up chaos in this discussion first, buddy. Anyway, I agree with this -- but note that it's the minor fringe cults that have all the complex Chaos theology -- the Galvosti and the Borists. I don't envision the Rokari or Hrestoli as being primarily concerned with Chaos. Let us not forget, though, that the Malkioni are beset by chaos to a greater degree than, say, most Orlanthi. The Malkioni were almost destroyed by the Gbaji Wars which were all about chaos (regardless of who was right), and both Loskalm and Tanisor have a great big chaos sump right in the middle of their nations (Dilis Swamp and the Sodal Marshes, respectively). This has GOT to be a major feature of their psyche and national development.
Just a thought about the Malkioni: there seems to be a slight trend towards thinking of them as an extremely human-heavy culture, with nonhumans making hardly any impact or presence at all. I believe that the average Malkioni has more contact with non-humans than the average Sartarite.
A Malkioni living in Loskalm has the Winter Woods to the north (green elves), Erontree to the south (brown elves), the Nidan mountains to the east (world's biggest collection of dwarfs), ice trolls raiding south from Valind's Glacier every winter, friendly mermen and maybe blue elves in the Neleomi Sea, bearwalkers from the Rathori, and even the exotic grotarons from the Maidstones. That's quite an array, even ignoring the broos and worse periodically issuing forth from Dilis Swamp.
A Rokari in Tanisor has Tarinwood (brown elves) to the east, Guhan trolls to the north, Nidan dwarfs further north, beast-men, Luathans, and more elves in Seshnela to the west, and dark-skinned Agimori-descendants to the south in Pithdaros (okay, they're not non-human, but they're certainly exotic in Genertela).
This should give range for plenty of action for the Malkioni. In fact, there's so many non-humans around, it makes me wonder what the Malkioni official doctrine is with respect to non-humans. I don't think they engage in missionary work, and certainly only the trolls have shown any tendency to accept Malkioni beliefs. Perhaps the Malkioni believe that Aldrya is a saint of the Invisible God assigned to deal solely with elves? Anyone for St. Magasta? St. Kyger Litor? Well, perhaps not. But given that the Malkioni are probably not rabid foes of all non-humans, they must have some way of resolving the cognitive dissonance expressed by the presence of thriving nonhuman cultures that have no use for the Invisible God.
Sandy
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