From: DevinC@aol.com
Date: Fri 27 May 1994 - 00:55:07 EEST
Devin Cutler here:
Regarding the Uroxi Mad Dog Templars outside Hazard Fort in Risklands, someone inquired as to what kind of initiation rites they might use, and someone else suggested it be like a hazing.
I agree completely. In fact, when my players played in the Risklands, and two Uroxi wanted to join the Templars, I had the Templars invite them to drink and party with them and then bed down near their encampment for the night. When the PCs were asleep, the Mad Dogs stole their weapons, covered their (the Mad Dogs' that is) bodies in mud and furs, put goat heads and other animal head masks over their faces, and ambushed the party....posing as Broos.
This was, of course, a test. The Storm Bull worshipper that fled (after all, unarmed and unarmoured against Broos twice your number would make many an Uroxi flee!) was derided and cast away. The one that decided he would fight to the death with his bare hands was immediately welcomed into the fold!
It was great to see the pained looks of "no way Devin, this is completely unfair......6 Broos against two of us unarmed!" on the faces of the players, and then the laugh as they found out the joke.
Alex writes:
"And most pre-Renaisance
cultures believed that their gods were indeed active, interventionist, and
absolutist, none of which stopped them being at each others' throats,
disagreeing on fundamental questions of belief, and all the other fun stuff
I think also happens in Glorantha."
"More like "faintly informative": the information turns out be be true, but
one could hardly deduce the exact facts on the ground from the granted
divination. This isn't the kind of "just the facts, ma'am" information
which would be likely to enforce fine details of religious practice on a
squabbling populace."
Nick writes:
"Perhaps our Devin should reread the RQ:AiG and/or RQ Daily archives, if he
imagines I never write on rules mechanics. Or check with Oliver & Co about
the proofreading and mech-check I did for RQ:AiG's last draft. As Peter's
post, above, this red herring irritates me no end! A hate-figure is being
set up: the "Gloranthan Scholar Who Never Plays RuneQuest And Ruined My
Game". Whoever he is, he ain't me!"
I have found it very interesting that, during this Scholar/Gamer debate I have never once named anyone specifically as one or the other, but many people have put THEMSELVES into one camp or the other and then denied that they were part of ANY camp.
I also never said Nick was or was not a "scholar". He has apparently assumed that mantle for himself. For the record, I have never heard Nick being hostile to gaming suggestions (hostile to high-powered gaming suggestions maybe (g)).
Others have been, however. And I will try to reiterate one last time that even if you deny that such hostility to gaming oriented issues exists on the Daily, the fact remains that enough people perceive this hostility that we should all try to be more accepting of other people's areas of RQ/Gloranthan concerns.
Since I have never called for a halt to Scholarly discussions and have never skewered anyone for engaging in such, I would simply ask that those with a more Scholarly bent give the same courtesy to those of us with a more gaming-oriented focus.
I think the above paragraph says it all.
"Write:
don't faff around complaining that other people are doing it instead. And,
if you don't have anything interesting to say, announcing that this is the
case is hardly worth your while or mine."
I did. In fact, I posted two long writeups of magic items and got no response whatsoever. Did they suck? Where they usable? Feedback, along with courtesy, (and constructive criticism when criticism is in order) encourages writing and contributing.
I wrote:
"Some of the characters that Nick mentioned in the Daily intrigued me, and I
wouldn't mind hearing more about them.
I especially enjoyed the tale of Urrrgh the Ugly, and would like to see more from other campaigns."
I did not mean to imply that Urrrgh the Ugly was a creation of Nick's campaign, although it sounds like it from my syntax above. Urrrgh was in either Sandy's or Ray's campaign (I forget which one).
An antecdote from my campaign:
The party was basically geased by Mostali from the Nidan Mountains (the geas took the form of magically implanting iron time bombs inside the bodies of the PC's and promising to remove them when the geas was completed) to slay a certain number of trolls. This in compensation for the fact that they had inadvertantly passed on some information that caused trolls to ambush and slay some Mostali.
After wandering around the fringes of Guhan (or is it Halikiv, whichever is in Northwestern Ralios), looking for Trolls, they came upon a group that was a bit too large for their tastes (they had hoped to ambush a lone troll hunter or two and do the job piecemeal). This group was led by a Priestess and was stopping to parley/question the party.
While the party tried to hurriedly discuss amongst themselves what they should say to these trolls, Thane Kiri Windstorm, a rather pompous and arrogant arse*ole whom nobody likes but everybody respects, walked up to deal with them. The party, thinking Kiri had come up with a brilliant alibi, relaxed and waited to hear the great fast talk Kiri was about to perform.
Troll Priestess: "Why you do come to our places human peoples?"
Kiri: "We came to hunt trolls."
Needless to say, the PC's, the players of the PC's, the GM, and, most of all, the trolls were completely taken aback. So taken aback that Kiri skewered the Priestess with his sword before she could react!
Unfortunately, the rest of the fight proved tougher than the party would have liked, once the Uz became organized, and although the Trolls were eventually routed and prisoners were taken and delivered to the Mostali, the party decided never again to allow Thane Kiri Windstorm to parley with anyone or anything.
And now the tale is told in bars around Greydog of how Thane Kiri slew a Troll Priestess with one blow through the power of brutal honesty (or brutal stupidity depending upon one's viewpoint). Already an itinerant Humakt Priest has used the incident in a sermon to show the power of Truth.
Regards,
Devin Cutler
devinc@aol.com
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