From: Joerg Baumgartner (joe@sartar.toppoint.de)
Date: Sun 08 May 1994 - 23:43:47 EEST
Sandy Petersen in X-RQ-ID: 3935
> Alex Ferguson asks some questions about Pamaltela. Even though not
> directly to me, I'll naturally try to respond.
Sic tacuisses...
>>Vralos: Exclusively brown, or brown/green?> between Brown and Green elf peoples in the First Age. In general, the
> Enkloso and Vralos are the site of Aldrya's Woe, a race war
While it is right that in the 1st Age the Green Elves were expelled from Vralos, the Brown Elf kingdom there was heavily diminished in 654 when the God Learners burnt most of the forests of Vralos. In Enkloso a lot of human are subject to the (Vronkali) Woodland Judgement, while Vralos never was reforested to its former size, and still has mostly independant human inhabitants.
> Note that a "war" in which elves are involved is not fought
> anything like a human war. No regiments of elves go marching out with
> arrows to impale one another. Instead, the war is like a long series
> of one-on-one murders, poisonings, sowing of lethal plants, etc. Elf
> wars can last decades, even when being waged against other species
> (such as the human/elf war taking place in Onlaks today).
Now this is interesting. Would the aldryami involve weapons of darkness (voracious trollkin, molds) to defeat their opponents? Would they use their archers on each other? (Why else have elf bows?)
> If we were to agree (for instance) that trolls are relatives
> of shrews, this may have useful implications for play. Likewise, if
> we instead agreed that trolls are man-shaped insects this, too, leads
> to interesting conclusions.
Aren't there Gorakiki- and Aranea-worshipping Hsunchen? According to Paul Reilly's theory, these would be the man-shaped insects (in wider sense).
> And besides, who says Glorantha has no evolutionary history?
> I think that there is plenty of evidence for organic evolution
> throughout Glorantha. Look at the gradual development of trolls into
> beasties fit for the surface world or the previously-mentioned
> Aldrya's Woe of Pamaltela, which is really just a thinly-disguised
> ecological succession. The existence of evolution in Glorantha does
> NOT eliminate a role for magic, mythology, or Creation.
On my (clearly evolutional) own RQ-gameworld, the evolution is one of the consequences of the natural laws imposed by Creation, in some circles called "runes". Note that magic and mythology on Glorantha are evolutional rather than creationist - at least before the God Learners.
Martin Crim in X-RQ-ID: 3938
> Re: Islam, Christianity, and Malkionism
> For another, note the lack of a Trinity in Malkionism and
> its central importance in Christianity.
Who says that the Malkioni don't argue about the Trinity, e.g. of (transcendent) Creator, (immanent) Spirit, and the prophet, or any Stygian or Henotheist entity of importance? The three corners of the Law Rune, analogous to the four corners of the Earth Rune.
> Sure, the early
> Christians also argued about church governance, monastic
> practices, church-state relations, and the composition of the
> canon, but the different sects we know from history are known for
> their Trinitarian beliefs.
> Arianism, Monophysitism, etc., are
> all labels that refer to beliefs about the three persons of God.
> The gnostic denial of the Christ's physical body, the second
> century emphasis on the holy spirit as redeemer--where is this in
> Malkionism?
E.g. in the early Malkioni debates whether the prophet was the IG incarnate, a divine being, or a mortal enlightened.
> Malkionism is about a revelation from the Invisible God to a
> prophet, who taught moral laws which are unfortunately subject to
> differing interpretations. Sound familiar? And the central
> confession of faith in Malkionism sounds a lot like the
> "testimony" of Islam or (a little) the Shema Yisrael of Judaism,
> not like the trinitarian confession of faith in most sects of
> Christianity.
Yeah, sounds like Moses' revelations in Egypt and the desert. Also see the parallel that Malkion would not live in the blessed land.
> Sure, there are many question marks left to fill in.
> Obviously, no Terran missionary religion tried to pigeonhole
> people into a four-caste system. But when you're looking for an
> analogue to build your vision on, you can look beyond familiar
> Western Christianity.
Neither did the Hrestoli, the mainstream Malkioni for more than 1000 years (before the rise of Rokarism), although not necessarily as rabid as 16th century Loskalmi. Think of the Seshnelan Castle Coast, or Umathela before the Nolosian missionaries converted the Linealist Malkioni into Rokari.
Hrestoli class (not caste) system is quite barbaric in nature, and goes nicely along with e.g. Heimdall's visits to the Midgard humans, fathering Jarl, Bonde and Thrall, which is quite Orlanthi, or Yelm's creation of castes.
> King, by Grace of Orlanth, etc., of Holay, Saird, Tarsh, etc.
Another king with only matrilineal ties. No wonder the Orlanthi find no rest...
David Dunham in X-RQ-ID: 3940
> Joerg said of Minaryth:
> >My easiest solutions: 1. the write-up in RoC is wrong, or preferedly
> >2. the man was initiated into the pantheon, and slowly developed his
> >membership
> or 3. Minaryth Blue and Minaryth Purple aren't the same person. After all,
> the person who wrote that is hardly the one who got partly eaten by the
> dragon. I think this is what Greg says.
My equation of them was based on a rumour originating in California, from the Chaosium sphere of influence. Anyway: Everything Greg says is wrong, isn't it <g>?
> Neil Robinson said:
>> New GMs will find Glorantha overwhelming, to say the least.
> True, and I haven't seen anything that attempts to address this. (I wonder
> if that's a direction I should take one of my projects...)
On one side, the overwhelming amount of info on the world is what endears it to people who keep on reading the stuff. If it only were better organised.
--
-- Joerg Baumgartner joe@sartar.toppoint.de
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