From: Graeme Lindsell (lindsell@rschp1.anu.edu.au)
Date: Mon 30 May 1994 - 00:56:00 EEST
Pam Carlson writes:
>THERE SHOULD BE MORE DOGS IN RQ!
Again, I'm not much of a dog person. However, Glorantha (not necessarily RQ)
seems to have a lot more domesticated and domesticatable animals than Earth,
presumably for magical and mythic reasons. Prax is full of tribes that
succeed without the horse, another animal many earthly cultures found
essential.
I suspect that amongst the Orlanthi alynxes peform most if not all of the roles that dogs do/did in earthly societies. The only mention of dogs in KoS is the "Bad Dogs" episode, though this implies that there may be "good dogs" as well. Perhaps Orlanthi dogs are given the same role as cats in Earthly society, more chosen because people like them than for practical reasons. The Orlanthi preference for dogs may also be associated with their enmity to the Telmori: Dorastor mentions a "cat people" of Dragon Pass, but doesn't say whether these are Husnchen or the Orlanthi. A lot of domesticated animals may have originated when Husnchen tribes became more civilized, which could be how the alynx became an Orlanthi animal.
What other predators could be given a Gloranthan role? Somehow, the idea of a domesticated species of fox seems appealing, perhaps for Fronela, where I believe there are fox hsunchen. A Loskalmi squire could ride out hunting hounds with his clever foxes by his side...
Domesticated bears anyone?
Joerg Baumgartner writes:
>Speaking of which: what visible and audible effects does magic have in
>your campaign? There has been a long and fruitless debate about this in
>RQ4-list a few months ago.
I've recently tried to divide spells up into three groups: Bright, Visible and Invisible:
Bright: the effect is immediate and obvious (Thunderbolt, Multimissile).
Visible: you can tell a spell is working with a sucuessful Scan roll, or automatically if you have Second Sight/Mystic Vision /Soul Sight running. These are generally spells that have some physical effect, like Bladesharp and Protection, but don't necessarily do it in such a way that it's obvious.
Invisible: only a critical Scan will tell you a spell is working, and you need a success at Scan if you have Second Sight etc running (Mindspeech, Emotion spells, Dominate. Illusions are in this category: though the effects are visible/audible/tangible etc, the fact that it's caused by a spell isn't)
As for what the visible and auible effects are, I like them to vary. Except for Bright spells, I don't think many Gloranthans can tell what spells are just from their visual effects.
Sandy Petersen writes:
> In any case, the "wide open oppressed" rule only needs to
>apply to Safelster itself. The Orlanthi to the North and East aren't
>particularly oppressed.
Whereupon we get _another_ load of freedom loving Orlanthi fighting evil oppressive foreigners. I'd also like to have at least one major group of Malkioni who aren't portrayed as essentially oppressive (I don't think fanatics like the Loskalmi are very tolerant to non-Hrestoli in their midst), perhaps nobly battling the truely barbaric Orlanth of the North and East.
It sin't to say I don't like the original idea, but I really wouldn't like this to be true of all or even most of Salfester.
--
Graeme Lindsell a.k.a lindsell@rschp1.anu.edu.au
Research School of Chemistry, Australian National University, Canberra.
"I was 17 miles from Greybridge before I was caught by the school leopard"
Ripping Yarns - Tomkinson's Schooldays.
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