From: isaac@twics.com
Date: Sun 22 May 1994 - 07:15:54 EEST
Hi everyone, me again.
Thanks for all your replies on Ralios and High and Low Sorcery ... it was a great help to get a few pointers. Something occurred to me about the nature of Ralios in particular, and the West in general -
I don't know whether anyone will agree with me, but there seems to be a tendency to attempt to force Ralios - and Safelster in particular - into a kind of "Renaissance / Italian" mold. To me this seems rather a shame, especially as it seems to entail a large amount of rationalization of the essentially Gloranthan nature of the land to make it "fit" into a setting which doesn't really seem to spring all that naturally from the social and geographical background. Maybe this is a general tendency in RuneQuest of late, equating Glorantha with the real world, but it does seem rather to water everything down...
With that in mind, I wonder if the following might not prove food for thought
for a re-appraisal of the Safelstran (and possibly even Ralian / Seshnelan)
"reality". It's just a proposition, so please feel free to lay into it with
gusto. I just thought a fresh approach might be liberating...
A Modest Proposition for Safelster -
In the centre of every Safelstran town and village stand two things : a church, and a fort. Essentially they serve the same purpose : to make the people do as they are told.
Everyone who has ever tried to exercise control over any part of the
Safelster region has come up against the same problem : geography. Throughout
the entire area of the vast tracts of land which are subsumed under the name
"Ralios", from the mountains in the farthest east to the ocean in the farthest
west, there are no major geographical barriers, no obstacles to transportation
and travel. Any society that tries to oppress its workers (read : peasants)
has found that those same workers have a tendency to simply up and leave, to
abscond. If they don't like the way they are being treated, they can just as
easily find somewhere else to leave.
From the earliest times, Safelstran societies have had to cope with this problem. As a result, two major tendencies can be observed. The first of these is the tendency to decentralization; in areas of greatest freedom of movement - noticeably the eastern reaches of Ralios - societies tend to be clan-based, and extremely individualistic. The second tendency is one of control of the population by fear and force - physical as well as spiritual - which is most noticeable in the "western" societies of the Safelster region. Thus the fort, and its spiritual equivalent, the church, form the most typical features of the Safelstran community.
The presence of a powerful, authoritarian body of soldiers in a community has a profound influence on its society. Authoritarian structures breed an authoritarian mindset, with individual initiative being quelled, and a tendency to react to direct commands and orders being strengthened. A major proportion of the Safelstran "lower classes" consists of typical "oppressed peasants": they do as they are told by their overlords, and their priests tell them that to do so is God's will.
The ideal Safelstran society (by which I mean the one proposed by the
"western", Rokari-based world view) is, however, far from the reality. The
four castes of Noble, Wizard, Warrior and Farmer are all well and good in
theory, but the past few centuries since the fall of the oppressive and
militaristic Kingdom of Jorstland have seen the rise of a growing
entrepreneurial class bringing wares and luxury goods from the fashionable
west and generally encouraging the trade which has become the lifeblood of the
Safelstran city-states since the old kingdom's collapse. Many of the upper
classes are in debt, and the number is growing. In response to this, many
states have taken drastic steps such as arbitrarily declaring nobles' debts
null and void without compensation, as a result of which leading merchant
families have begun to group together for mutual protection against such
excesses. The Free City of Wexten may be an example of one such community
which has been established in reaction to such authoritarian rule. The
balance of power in the early 17th century is a delicate one.
Just a thought. Any comments, anyone?
Thanks for reading!
Cheers from distant Nippon,
Gary
(Gary Newton / Isaac@twics.com)
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