From: ian i. gorlick (igorlick@bnr.ca)
Date: Sat 06 Aug 1994 - 14:23:00 EEST
Concerning the aging of ales:
There once existed in England a custom of laying down a barrel of ale at the
birth of a son and broaching it on the son's 21st birthday. (I have no idea how
often the ale went off in that aging process, but the custom seems to have
endured for a while.) Source: "Inns, Ales, and Drinking Customs of Old England"
first published back in the 1800s but reprinted in the last decade by one of the
heritage presses. (I forget the author's name and the publisher's. Sorry, I am
at work and not in my library.) I recommend it as a useful source of cultural
information about brewing and brewers and beer-drinking, not technical
information about how to make beer.
Info request:
I am trying to get email to John Castelucci of RQAdventures, but my mail is
being returned for a bad address. The one I've got is grendel@sfsuvaxl.sfsu.edu
. Could someone please send me his correct address? Are you out there, John?
Info request:
I have caught part of the debate about saintly magic as proposed by Sandy, but I
have not got his original description of the justification for it and the rules
for using it. I think that I have opinions on the matter but I feel it unfair to
join the debate without having seen this. Could someone please send me a copy?
yet another Info request:
A while back there was some discussion of a different view of sorcery. I think
the term "toe-clipping" got attached to it somehow. Apparently the sorceror
creates some sort of an alter-ego, superficially resembling a shaman's fetch,
and that is the base of his magical power. Could someone please send me the
original description of this? The basic idea sounds interesting.
RE: X-RQ-ID: 5464. "Help a poor newbie!"
I am having a hard time understanding your position. This is probably because I have been playing RQ in Glorantha for so long that I can't see it from your newcomer's position. I am afraid that I can not comment on the adventures in RoC (I haven't read it because someone else in our campaign is planning to run it in the future). I suspect that Sun County might be more satisfactory to you. You can base a new group of players inside Sun County as local farmers and militiamen.
Shadows on the Borderlands contains a truly excellent adventure called "Gaumata's Vision". I loved this one and it is easy to send a Sun County party into it. A smart party should not have much combat and there is little treasure.
Strangers in Prax contains extended adventures that put more emphasis on interacting with strange people. I am particularly looking forward to having my mob of Sartarite loyalists meet the Lunar Coders, similarly Barran the Monster Killer should be exasperating for them to deal with.
I fear that the packs that have given me and my group the most fun are no longer in print. Griffin Mountain and Borderlands have been the backbone of my campaigns for over a decade. (Griffin Mountain got re-issued as Griffin Island, but I didn't like most of the changes that I saw.) (Can anybody out there say if there is any chance of Borderlands being reprinted some day?)
There has been some good stuff come out in Tales of the Reaching Moon. The latest issue about Pamaltela has a couple adventures that I suspect would satisfy you.
I fear that many published adventures are likely to suffer from similar complaints as the RoC adventure. The basic problem is that it is fairly easy to write adventures that involve combat and looting. Writing good human drama or suspense stories is very difficult. Much of the best stuff that has happened in my campaign was spontaneous, the world and the PCs and I just got rolling along. Stick it out a little longer, as you get to know Glorantha better and start running the occasional adventure of your own creation, you should come to love it.
As for herd-men and ducks, I disagree with you. If you don't like ducks (and it seems that many don't), then just write them out; but I will continue to use them for comic relief and for tragedy. Herd-men are a potential source of massive misunderstanding and social conflict. Your players are unlikely to appreciate that they are animals, they are far more likely to assume that the morokanth are using evil magic or drugs to destroy the minds of real humans. Build on that misunderstanding, bring them into conflict with the morokanth over it. Then let the truth dawn on them. Suddenly the world is a much stranger place than they thought.
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