From: Paul Reilly (paul@vulcan.phyast.pitt.edu)
Date: Tue 01 Jan 1991 - 09:56:33 EET
My players keep changing their minds on which way they are going, so I am
furiously "designing ahead" of them. Here are some initial notes on Loskalm
which I'd like to submit for discussion; I'd be happy to clean these up and
hopefully incorporate some people's suggestions (if you'd like to make them)
in some future issue of the Digest.
- Paul Reilly
General Notes: First, see the entry in the Genertela Book.
Population: c. 3,200,000 (c. POP 32,000)
Capital: Northpoint; religious capital Southpoint.
Society:
Before the Syndic's Ban Loskalm was a feudal Hrestoli state prone to the
same sort of corruption and vice that afflicts most countries. A fortunate
series of strong-minded and ethical rulers combined with the isolation
imposed by the Ban promoted the transformation of Loskalmi society into
something approaching a practical implentation of the idealistic principles
of the prophet Hrestol.
Modern Loskalm is a successful idealistic state. Its success is based on the
honorable enforcement of rational personnel selection criteria in business,
religion, and civil and military government. Cynics maintain that such a
system could only evolve in a fully isolated state and that the system is
inherently unstable, soon to devolve into power-hungry men grabbing and holding
the high offices available. However, no one can deny that the system is
currently working extraordinarily well.
Loskalmi society is pervaded by customs and stories designed to promote the
service ethic. The ideal Loskalm citizen would be happy to stay home and farm,
minding his own affairs, if only duty did not call him to various unpleasant
tasks, e.g., being King. As soon as his labors are done, the ideal citizen is
supposed to thankfully retire to the farm; many public figures actually do so,
giving up power voluntarily. Most Loskalmi at least pay lip service to these
ideals. Where a Rokari Count would say: "Servant, fetch me my ermine robe,"
his Hrestoli equivalent might complain "I suppose that in order to present our
province in the proper light I must wear the ermine robe while meeting the
Ambassador. Horace, would you be so kind as to bring it here?" Similarly,
a Hrestoli Knight might say "If only I had not been chosen to bear the burden
of Knighthood I would not have to attend these tedious parties."
Within the Kingdom of Loskalm there are four important hierarchical
organizations, each concerned most with the affairs of one caste. The
government, headed by the King, oversees and administrates the other three in
some ways, and handles "official" contacts with outsiders. The military is
responsible both for defense of the kingdom and keeping order at home. The
Church is responsible for the spiritual welfare of the people, for
overseeing the use of sorcery, and for insuring adherence to the principles
of Hrestol and Malkion. Finally, there exists a class of people whose
titles could be translated as "co-ordinators" or "seneschals" who oversee
mundane matters of production and supply appropriate to the Farmer caste.
Note that each organization includes member of various castes and that the
leaders of each are Lords in their own right.
Military: 11 units each of 2000 Knights and 3000 Men-at-arms during the era
of conflict with the Kingdom of War. Considerably less earlier, especially in
the years immediately after 1582. The tax base of Loskalm is strained to
support the military of 1621 but appears to be able to sustain this level of
effort indefinitely; any further expansion of the military will involve
noticeable cuts in the standard of living or erosion of Loskalm's capital
endowment, however. An example of the tremendous expense involved in
maintaining this army can be seen by examining horse feed alone. Each Knight
in the army needs at LEAST two horses; the average is four. Additional horses
for messengers, wagon teams, etc. number over 20,000. Thus the army has over
100,000 horses, each of which eats ten times as much food as a man. (This food
must be produced by agriculture, since army horses are typically "on duty" and
may not forage on low-quality grass for hours every day.) Thus a minumum
agricultural production sufficient to feed one million people must somehow
be found for the horses in a country of just over three million. All these
figures are based on conservative estimates and assume perfect storage and
distribution of grain and hay; the actual figures are no doubt much higher.
Half of the Loskalm farmers' production is probably going directly to the
military.
Before the Ban each province of Loskalm fielded its own independent military,
and local lords often had small military units loyal to them personally. The
King had a following about twice the size of any provincial Count's and spent
a lot of time discouraging rebellion by a show of force. Now the military has
become very professional and is loyal to the Kingdom as a whole. Every man in
the army knows that advancement is fair and based on ability, and that they
will be given useful tasks not beyond their ability to accomplish. The
esprit de corps is very great.
Each province is responsible for maintaining one "legion", currently
consisting of 200 Grand Knights, 1800 Knights, and 3000 men-at-arms. Each
legion has perhaps the same number of attached non-combat personnel; for
example every knight has his own squire to maintain his horses and equipment
at peak readiness and to assist him in battle in emergencies.
In addition, there are three special legions. Two are directly maintained
by the King of Loskalm and are directly descended from the old national army;
one is the specially organized legion consisting of Grand Knights, mostly
from the militant Church orders. This legion alone represents one of the
greatest concentrations of sorcerous power in Glorantha outside the Brithini
lands. Borrowing a leaf from the Lunar magic regiments (who in turn based
the idea on certain "forbidden" God Learner ideas) this legion is beginning
to learn to combine their powers in a synergistic way to produce miraculous-
seeming effects.
Religion and the Church:
Hrestoli Malkionism. During the Ban the religion of this kingdom
became extremely orthodox and virtually all adherents of alternative forms of
Malkionism and of various pagan faiths were "strongly encouraged" to convert
to the state religion. The Church and the government are so intertwined in
each other's affairs that foreigners often consider them to be one organism;
however, there are two distinct hierarchies involved.
The Church in Loskalm has taken on many of the functions that are served by
countryside pagan cults such as Ernalda in other, less orthodox, Hrestoli
lands. Loskalm has an almost bewildering profusion of Saints and there seems
to be a patron Saint associated with almost any activity; many of these
Saints actually seem to serve the function of the pagan gods. In a few
cases, they ARE pagan gods; for example, St. Fronela of the Fields. Her
story indicates that she was an early woman of Brithos who left to teach the
arts of agriculture, particularly the cultivation of (insert whatever the
Grain Goddess Fronela's grain is here). The primitive tribes there learned
from her for many of their own lifetimes and afterwards remembered her as a
goddess. She had tried to teach them of the ways of the Invisible God, to
whom all worship should be directed, but during the Darkness they became
confused and took to worshiping Fronela directly. Hrestoli know better;
they worship not the Saints, but they do revere the holy dead who are in the
bosom of the Invisible God, and they will ask them to intercede with Him on
their behalf. Any superficial resemblance between these right-thinking
followers of the Invisible God's Saints and pernicious sinful pagan cultists
is purely coincidental.
Also in the array of supernatural beings known to the Hrestoli are various
Demons and the Damned. Demons are malignant entities formed when the null-
ness of Chaos interacts with the basically personal and sentient fabric of
Glorantha. These entities take on a semblance of life and spirit but at the
core are essentially empty manifestations of the Void. Common Demons
include Lust, Vengefulness, etc., who operate in the realm of the mind and
emotions, and a whole host of lesser demons who tend to possess individuals
or objects and infect them with the emptiness of Chaos. This empty core
sucks at the fabric of the Invisible God's Lawful Creation and spews it into
the Void; from this draining the demons can derive a fraction of the lost
"beingness" and apply it in some trivial way, such as the so-called "chaotic
features". Long ago, duringor even before the Ice Age, the amoral Brithini
and their opponents the Wakbothi somehow learned to control this draining
process by abusing the powers of sorcery. This was the origin of the
various Tap spells and certain related spells; they are forbidden because
they eat away at the fabric of the One God's creation. Tapping is
completely prohibited, even of chaotic beings. Other chaos-based spells are
either prohibited or discouraged depending on their exact function.
The Church very largely controls the teaching and practice of magic in
Loskalm with the exception of a very few state-supported "tower sorcerors"
and their pupils. The training of would-be Grand Knights in magic is almost
entirely in the hands of the Church, as is the training of the Wizard-Priests
of the Invisible God. All mages entering into their training in the more
advanced arts must first spend time learning of the Philosophy and Ethics of
Magic.
( New Knowledge Skill, Hrestoli Ethical Philosphy. Base 25% for Hrestoli-
raised people, 05% for others.
This skill covers both abstract ethical questions, such as "When does the
potential for good consequences of an action outweigh the actual harm done by
it?" and the practical applications of this knowledge to various situations.
Success in the skill will solve simple ethical dilemmas well-known to Hrestoli
philosophers or bring to mind applicable examples (sometimes with apparently
contradictory messages) when used on tougher problems. A special success will
allow the resolution of knotty moral dilemmas, while a critical success can
bring a genuinely new insight if the problem is new or relatively rarely
encountered.
This skill can be abused to justify an apparently unethical action to a
moral Examiner with a skill penalty such as x 1/2 for a "questionable"
action or a more intense penalty for obviously wrong actions.
This skill is taught to Knight and Wizard candidates; those applying for
Lord status should have this skill at 75% or better. This skill can improve
by experience.
There are a number of related skills, such as Hrestoli Moral Philosophy,
Rokari Ethical Philosophy, and Lunar Ethical Philosophy, each with a
"relatedness" modifier.)
Caste Status in the Church
The Hrestoli affirm that each person who been given the appropriate
abilities should, if they wish, rise through the four castes. Everyone in
Loskalm starts out as a Farmer; however, within each caste there are many
stations and occupations available. Within the Church there are many paths;
some begin and end within the bosom of the Church, others lead the devout
out into the World.
Farmer Caste in the Church
The Church includes several orders of monks and nuns who, as novices,
actually spend years or decades primarily serving as actual farmers while
also learning as much of the higher religious doctrine as seems meet and
proper to the Abbots or Abbesses charged with their care.
In addition to these, the Farmer caste in the Church may include several
other types of person. One of the most prominent is the Acolythist, usually
a young man or woman who assists a Wizard with his sorcerous and religious
duties, serving some of the same functions as an apprentice and/or "altar
boy". Other church Farmers include scribe's assistants, various craftsmen
in the Orders, and the Squires of Knights in Military Orders.
The Knight Caste
While to many outsiders the idea of Knights participating in the formal
religious life of the church seems strange, it is only natural to the
Loskalmi.
Besides the fighting Knights, the church includes some "knights" of a rather
different nature. Healing skills may be substituted for violent ones in
qualifying for Knight caste due to the "military" applications of these skills;
thus a High Healer sworn to non-violence could successfully "graduate" from the
Knight class and qualify for sorcerous training without ever lifting a weapon.
Certain Church orders are sworn to non-violence and follow this path.
In additon to the Church Militant, the Knights of Loskalm turn to the Church
for instruction in the arts magical. The Church treats the training of these
Knights as an important duty and tries to impress upon the Knights the vast
responsibility that comes with the attainment of such power. Occasionally a
Knight-in-Training is deemed unsuitable for handling great magical power; the
typical Church response is to quietly shunt him into magical dead ends or
to teach him spells that are difficult to abuse, such as healing spells.
The Wizard Caste
Obviously this is the Caste most often associated with the church in the
minds of the public and of outsiders. Full Priests (and some Nuns) in the
church are always of Wizard caste and must qualify as such; not all of them
concentrate in learning the sorcerous "blessings" however. Many, having
earned Wizard status, are content to go out as parish priests and serve in
this capacity for the rest of their lives.
Church Wizards perform not only the obvious religious functions of preaching
and conducting religious ceremonies but (as is common among religious figures
in Glorantha) also perform apparently "secular" duties. This is part of the
all-embracing nature of Hrestol's religion where every act can be performed
not only for the self but also for the One God. Priests serve as court
Wizards, as advisors, as healers for the public, and even as "commercial"
magicians. Note that the basis of Western society in Glorantha is not only
economic but also religious and spiritual; religious duties and economic
necessity are
inextricably entwined. The Church in Loskalm is not cordoned off into a
separate sphere which ordinary people visit on Godday and holy days; it is a
living force which penetrates deeply into the lives of noble and commoner
alike.
It is not at all unusual for a wizard-priest to set up what looks like a
combination of a commercial venture and a church to alien (e.g., Earth)
eyes; to the Loskalmi the business is itself a religious venture. Remember
that Hrestol preached that each caste had Work which it could perform to
glorify the One God and thus sanctify the Work and themselves; a Wizard's
spells are just as holy as his Blessings in church when both are performed
with devotion. For that matter, the weeding and plowing of peasants, the
righteous battle of Knights, and the good administration of government are
also all Holy Works when performed with devotion.
Note that the Wizard caste includes some secular members.
The Lord Caste
Church leaders, like all Hrestoli leaders, are de facto member of the Lord
Caste. Typically the Church leaders are highly adept sorcerors and deadly
warriors (or talented Healers) in addition to being at least competent
administators.
The Church leadership works with the civil government. Church officials
serve as advisors at every level of government; the Ecclesiarch at Southpoint
is in some ways as important as the King at Northpoint. Cooperation between
Church and State in Loskalm is currently very good, almost frictionless.
Church leaders in the Lord caste have titles that we might translate as
Ecclesiarch ( at the Kingdom level), Bishop (at the County level), General
(the head of an Order), Monseigneur (at the city level), and Abbot or Abbess
(the head of a separate religious establishment housing dedicated Church
personnel). Those lower than this in the hierarchy are typically considered to
be of Wizard caste.
Law and the Church
The Church in Loskalm is subject to the law of the land; however, magic is
considered the proper province of the Church and magical offenses are tried
under Church law. Most of the Church laws and the penalties for breaking them
correspond to common sense if one takes into account the background of
the Malkioni world-view; for example, worshipping pagan gods is considered
simply to be granting some of your spiritual power to ancient and irresponsible
sorcerors with the moral standing of two-year-olds. This is clearly an
anti-social act and must be discouraged. Setting up a pagan temple in Loskalm
is giving these bozos from before Time a magical beachhead in the midst of
a peaceful country and is not to be tolerated.
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