From: Nick Brooke (100270.337@CompuServe.COM)
Date: Sat 25 Jun 1994 - 12:46:36 EEST
I was absolutely gobsmacked by Mr.Man: a completely marvellous piece! Reading it, I could hear his thin, reedy voice (I imagine) coming through loud and clear. This is a *wonderful* introduction to the South.
> Hmmm, how do you determine this...that is, what was dropped in RQ3 but
> not from Glorantha?
KoS p.68: "For seven days the soul lingers near the body." Mind you, for rules purposes I'd say that this indication of time is about as meaningful as "forty days and forty nights" or "three score years and ten" would be.
> I'm more concerned with how they treat foreigners (esp women)... Can
> Orlanthi even go there, or would they be persecuted? If not, it isn't
> much use unless you start out there, or for 'strangers' like Arlaten.
I suggested a month or so back that the Rokari (and other Malkioni) are far more worried by heretics than they are by pagans. Heresy corrupts the Holy Church, while pagans haven't been a threat to it for centuries. I'd imagine Orlanthi mercenaries are regularly hired in Safelster (the "What the Wizard Says" line on how unreliable Storm folks are must refer to something like this, IMHO), and that foreigners from further afield would perhaps be even more welcome (after all, they don't have their relatives waiting in the wings if their power waxes great enough). Like the Varangian Guards.
I'm also unconvinced by SiP's dogmatism. I think Arlaten's sexist views are extreme even for a Rokari. Any comments, Mike?
Like "Marc LeMain" (that's "Makla Mann", to the likes of us).
No disrespect to Michelle, of course. Gloranthified names tend to shift.
> Lhankor Mhy must be able to see something of the future, otherwise how
> could his seers identify horrible fates and wisely impose geases on
> newborn nobles?
My opinion: it's easy, using Cyclical Time.
If a squalling brat's grandfather was drowned in the High Tarn on Waterday in Sea Season, I'd lay a geas so that he'll avoid that place at that time. The spirit of the pool must have it in for him and his family - and if it's done something once, it'd be easier to do it next time.
So Lhankor Mhy's skill at record-keeping (oral family tradition, in this case) is crucial to his geas-imposing abilities.
Other geasa dealing with relations with totem animals etc. will stretch way back to pre-Orlanthi Hsunchen times, perhaps. Again, it's the Lhankor Mhy sage who remembers why it is that the clan has these attachments. And who understands and interprets the name of the child. ("Your name is 'Rolf', meaning 'Dog', so I lay upon you this obligation: that you never eat the meat of a dog, for dogs are your brothers.")
Some of it is like augury: if the clan once assembled for battle, and three ravens flew across the field from left to right, and we lost, future chief- tains would be obliged to shun battle on a day... (etc.)
To an animist world-view, whatever spirit or force moved the ravens on that long-gone day is still around, and it only makes sense for us to interrupt the patterns that it's trying to set up, by striving to avoid repetition of disastrous circumstances.
But this is a job for Mr. Memory, not the Amazing Zelda and her Fortune- Telling Crystal Ball. You can't see the future in Glorantha, but you can influence or ask the gods and people who shape it. Zzabur's "Map of the Future" is, in this sense, as reliable as Hitler's "Map of the Greater German Reich" -- a blueprint for his intentions, not a freak wormhole in the space-time continuum.
I loved "Khalana and Orlantio", like all your earlier myths and legends. More, please!
[no, not Loskalm!]
When I studied modern history, years and years ago now, they said the structure of Nazi government embodied something called "institutional Darwinism" - you set up a whole bunch of organisations doing the same kind of thing, and hope they'll compete each other into being more efficient. Perhaps this is part of the secret of the KOW?
> Oops, that seems to be a Lost File. Maybe Nick has a copy, it has a
> toe cut off and thrown into a pond... Nick?
Honest, he's making perfect sense. I'll fish it out...
___
Ed:
> Instead of a single heroic individual forging a new path, what if many
> many unheroic people kept throwing themselves at it. Sure, most would
> be snuffed out, but eventually the path would be trodden enough. This
> sounds so familiar as I write it, I think it must have happened in some
> form in Gloranthan history.
It may help explain how the trolls are trying to end the Curse of Kin: all of the previous "failed" attempts erode the problem, inch by inch.
> The main thrust of the argument was refuting the ridiculous notions of
> the Red Empire being opposed to the Storm Gods, obviously...
"Opposed? Of course we're not opposed! They stand for Rebellion, we stand for Perpetual Revolution -- it's just a more modern, philosophical way of expressing the same idea. If we were so different from them, how could we ever have come to replace them in the Middle Heavens?"
> Caused no end of problems for a Carmainian Humakti sword wantabe in
> Pavis who was also an Adept. Had to be real careful with the sorcery
> to prevent his superiors from finding out. . .
And this in a *Truth* Rune cult? I suppose he could say he'd sworn a lot of Silence vows, or that he thought telling his Sword so late in the day would be like an Ambush... but it still feels odd to me.
How'd he ever get the time to be both?
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