Hijabg

On 5/31/2021 at 6:37 AM, Darius West said:

On 5/29/2021 at 6:19 PM, soltakss said:

A GM in our RQ2 game ran a journey across the Cactus Desert in the Wastes and had detailed rules about thirst, but one of the PCs had a magical bottle that filled up with weak, foul-tasting ale by spending a Magic Point, thus trashing his scenario.

GM didn't think that through.  

Exactly.

This could have been a great opportunity to force the players to choose between thirst and dehydration on one side, and being drunk, reeking of bad breath and dealing with a hangover the day after on the other side. It might be weak beer, but you have to drink a lot of it to stay hydrated in the Wastes.

Maybe some stranger has seen this magical artefact in action and is plotting to acquire it, by force, by ruse, or otherwise. Maybe that stranger is a priestess from the Paps, and this magical bottle comes from there, maybe dating back from before time and before the death of Genert. Maybe it's linked to some grain goddess instead of Eiritha.

Anything can become a challenge, and even more so in the Wastelands.

Another source would be the old Nomad Gods board game, or its french edition, Les dieux nomades. Not exactly a great source of background information, but one to consider nonetheless. The french edition also has a nice map.

On 5/26/2021 at 9:39 PM, jajagappa said:

It's included in Jeff Okamoto's campaign log which you can find here: https://www.seiyuu.com/okamoto/writing/campaign_log_2_0.pdf

That campaign log is pure gold. I remember reading it entirely over a few days like it was a novel a few years ago. 

If you read this Mr. Okamoto, thanks again for sharing those amazing stories with the community at large. I wish there were more campaign logs as riveting as this one !

It must have been so amazing to play this whole campaign with Sandy Petersen as a Game Master. His rendition of the Plateau of Statues is one of the clearest and most gripping images I have of Glorantha in my mind, and his twisted and at times almost sadistic sense of humor only made the whole thing even better.

On 5/26/2021 at 9:37 PM, craigm said:

Perhaps a more constructive option would be to pick up the PDFs of the Stafford Library (assuming you haven't done so)

I actually have bought them in print, thank you very much.

I have bought pretty much everything related to Glorantha and Runequest that has been sold by Chaosium and its publishing partners over the years. As well as pretty much everything edited in french. And a whole bunch of Cthulhu stuff, as well as everything for Pendragon, Stormbringer, and Nephilim,  And more obscure things as well that were not Gloranthan but were close like Chaosium's reedition of Carse and Tulan of the Isles from Judges Guild.

I am willing to spend a lot of money when it's worth it, like I did on Glorantha: The Gods War (from Petersen Games). If I were a collector, the Arkat's Saga might be worth 350$ as a collectible item, but I am not a collector. My pleasure is in reading, not in possessing.

Do you have any other constructive options to propose ? Can we find 10 people to make a group buy of some sort so we can actually read this for a decent price ? 

14 hours ago, Thoror said:

of course they want to share Glorantha with us.

They could share this document with us very easily if they wanted, but they decided to keep it for them, and for the few rich people who can afford to pay an outrageous price for it.

I really wish someone with the power to do it would understand that there is more worth in sharing Arkat's Saga with us here than there is in keeping it away from us. 

19 hours ago, Rick Meints said:

Spending a lot of time and resources on something to sell 50-100 units just isn't worth it when that time can be spent elsewhere

Don't spend ressources then. Just share it online, for free, in its current state. No editing whatsoever. 

I am disheartened to read about all those artificial obstacles that are being raised to prevent us from reading that document, and even more so when it's clear none of those issues will ever be resolved in time: Arkat's Saga in its current shape and form will never be shared with us, ever, since if Chaosium decides to ever publish it, it will be heavily edited and transformed into something else. We will never read the old original manuscripts. Never ever. 

When I think back about Greg Stafford's generosity, his eagerness to share his vision and to answer our questions as we explored the world he had discovered, I wonder where that spirit is gone now, as it sure doesn't seem to be an aspect of Chaosium's Wyter anymore.

Imagine how great it would be to read this together as a community, to comment it on this forum, and see how things have changed, how some other things should better be reinterpreted or forgotten, all while unearthing a few hidden gems along the way.

15 hours ago, Jeff said:

It also ends up with people speculating on the nature of the setting based on early drafts which Greg (or I) might cheerfully throw away, reject, or modify. 

That's the whole point. Glorantha is evolving continually, and as such it used to be different from its current state, and those differences, and how they evolve, have value from my point of view. It's an essential document for what we could call Gloranthan historiography.

I do not buy the argument that sharing this historic document in its current messy state would prevent any kind of future publication. Budget, timelines, human ressources, expertise, those are real issues that could prevent such publication. But sharing a draft that is already circulating publicly ? 

The only people winning anything by keeping this document secret instead of sharing it with us are the few people owning a print copy and using its rarity to force speculation over its price. 

We are numerous fans wanting to read this document in its current state, without any further editing, and we will be more than happy to deal with its shortcomings, be they handwritten erratas, bad jokes or non-existing indexes. 

It's frustrating to know that the only thing that prevents us, the community of hardcore Gloranthaphiles, from reading this foundation document is apparently nothing but a feeling that so far seems to have no grounding in reality.

This is not about publishing, this is about sharing access to historical artefacts. It would be like giving access to the Dead Sea scrolls to a bunch of old Rabbis - their interest is such that you know they won't be complaining about the poor conditions those texts have had to go through before reaching them. And who knows, maybe among those old sage someone will have an insight that might, in itself, give the whole thing enough value to warrant a proper editing overhaul and a widespread print publication one of these days.

That's how I feel.

I, for one, would be thrilled to finally read Arkat's Saga ! And I must not be the only old one.

8 hours ago, Jeff said:

I have no interest in publishing more unfinished manuscripts that appeal to a handful of people. I'd much rather finish them and publish the finished product that appeals to a broader audience.

I do not see how sharing the raw material online or as part of the Stafford Library prevents Chaosium from publishing it in a more polished manner in the future. Since you say yourself it would only appeal to a handful of people, it would certainly not hurt the sales of those future products. I am sure I must not be the only one who has bought practically each and every edition of everything I could find in print about Glorantha since immemorial times.

Your re-edited and illuminated version of the Abiding book might well be destined to achieve great success among new converts, but for us old grognards and godlearners there will be nothing as valuable as the raw material as written by God.

Quote

 

- "Are we there yet Dad ?"

-"Nochet, son, Nochet"

 

21 minutes ago, Joerg said:

the dragonewt individual is the unborn dragon inside the egg. The dragonewt manifested by the egg is a material projection of the entity inside the egg

Do you think it's the same for dragons ? Or is that a distinctive features of "newts" ?

Maybe all True Dragons are material projections of the Cosmic Egg ?

As a GM I like to use allegories to help me understand and explain alien concepts - for example I use the Internet as a kind of metaphor for the Spirit World.

The allegory I've been using for understanding and roleplaying Dragonewts behavior is that for them Time is flowing backwards.

They were born in the future, and in that future, beyond the cycle of reincarnations, they used to be perfect dragons. They are not evolving through dragonewt stages but devolving toward nothingness, trying to reach beyond the O (zero ?) of the Ouroboros. When their current life is over, they go to sleep into their eggs, and there they dream of a new life, and that life happens ! Some are suddenly born at the end of a sword, blood reaching up from the earth, up into their veins as they take their first breath, again. Seconds later they might be giving birth to some alien human life at the end of their Klanth, and then follow that human specimen for some time. Maybe they would remember their old hide, and how the human who gave them birth actually liberated them from this obstacle on the path to Nirvana. 

Basically, by turning around the flow of time you can give an alien perspective to anything you want . As a GM you do not have to reveal that perspective change to your players, you can keep it for you so that things can make sense for you, but remain beyond the understanding of your players - that's what magic is all about !

18 hours ago, Kloster said:

And in french

Isn't it "Phare à Hon" in french ? 

En français, ne devrions pas plutôt écrire "Phare à Hon", tel qu'expliqué dans la vidéo ci-dessous?

1 hour ago, jajagappa said:

But Faro (also "Pharaoh") is a gambling card game.

Far out !

Farro is also a type of wheat grain you can cook to obtain something similar to rice or barley. I've discovered it last year and it has become a favorite since. It has a nutty flavour and keeps a relatively firm texture even after being cooked.

5 hours ago, Ali the Helering said:

strictly imposed modernist structuralism.

Like the Godlearners ?

8 hours ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

Jon Pol Joni.

He even has his own rune:

He was in a famous hero band called Na-Metal Airship or something like that.

On 4/21/2021 at 2:59 PM, aumshantih said:

found a terrible new god at the bottom of the ocean floor.

That's a recurring theme in Sandy Petersen's work isn't it ?

I really like the Gloomshark idea. I think it fits really well. And it has tentacles ringing its mouth...

3 hours ago, dumuzid said:

more powerful and numerous baboon culture in central Genertela

Plains of the Apes 

Even stupider than that: Giants ARE spermatozoa. They are the reproductive cells sent by giant-mountains.

They follow the River of Cradles until they reach Magasta's Pool, going down into Glorantha's womb.

This would also explain why there are no giantesses: reproductive cells by themselves are sexless, and I would be tempted to say the same about giants. Spermatozoa are the perfect example of something that is clearly associated with masculinity without it being male in and by itself.

4 hours ago, scott-martin said:

Blue Meany

Speaking of Blue Meanies, did you know the Outer Atomic Explorers were living in a yellow submarine ?

Is there some mythical link between Sofala, the Turtle Queen who helped Orlanth during his Westfaring quest, and the Waertagi ? 

A Turtle Goddess carrying you and your friends on her shell could be seen as quite similar to a dragonship carrying a Waertagi crew.

25 minutes ago, Charles said:

why the Brithini even allow elves on their home island, when they could just tap them instead.

Oh My Glorantha ! 

I wonder if there is some kind of tapping ritual somewhere on Glorantha (maybe in Shadows Dance, or even on Brithos ?) where elves would get tapped at the beginning of sea-season, when nights are still freezing cold and days warm enough to melt the snow, much like what is done with maple trees each spring in the North-East part of America. From the elves perspective, this would be seen as some kind of ritual sacrifice, maybe even a propitiatory one, where they would give some of their own sap as we would ritually sacrifice some of our own blood. But who would take that sacrificial sap and how ? How would it be transformed, and who would be providing the heat, Yelm, Lodril, Zorak Zoran, some Certami, or maybe even Cragspider ? What are the sweet golden liquid's powers ? 

16 hours ago, Joerg said:

For the moon surface, I have the theory that the ball in the sky is only a huge reflector, and that its surface actually is in a large spherical hollow in the inside of the Crater. The moon has a mountain range called the Crown Mountains, beyond which you cannot see from anywhere on the Surface World. IMO that range looks identical to the crater rim.

The dark side of the moon is Glorantha herself.

On 7/26/2020 at 7:42 PM, Eff said:

We really need four or five explanations of why people fall in Glorantha. 

What about a sixth ?

6. (dramatic) According to Eurmal, people fall for Katagelasticist or schadenfreudian reasons: they fall because it makes us laugh. 

4 hours ago, Erol of Backford said:

For future is thee  a trick to uploading something?

I simply copy-paste the picture in the reply. Like I just did for this one:

Else, there is a "Other media" button at the bottom right of the reply box, and clicking on it unrolls an option to "insert image from URL".

56 minutes ago, Joerg said:

the Dome being constructed from brick or masonry in the image of Anaxial's Ark, only upside down to sail the advancing glacier from below. The Dara Happans brought Antirius (the remaining Cold Sun Disk, at least of their part of the world) inside the dome, making the world outside darker.

There is something in there that reminds me of the Lightbringers quest: going down into the darkness of the underworld to bring the light back. 

This old map of Babylonian origin is a good example of an older map being more abstract than modern maps.

Here is what I read about it when I was following the ancient art history course on Khan Academy. This was part of the chapter on Cuneiform writing.

Quote

The central area is ringed by a circular waterway labelled "Salt-Sea." The outer rim of the sea is surrounded by what were probably originally eight regions, each indicated by a triangle, labelled "Region" or "Island," and marked with the distance in between. The cuneiform text describes these regions, and it seems that strange and mythical beasts as well as great heroes lived there, although the text is far from complete. The regions are shown as triangles since that was how it was visualized that they first would look when approached by water.
The map is sometimes taken as a serious example of ancient geography, but although the places are shown in their approximately correct positions, the real purpose of the map is to explain the Babylonian view of the mythological world.

Taken from : https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/ancient-art-civilizations/ancient-near-east1/the-ancient-near-east-an-introduction/a/cuneiform

More information about the map on wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babylonian_Map_of_the_World

Quote

 

Objects on the Babylonian map of the world^[4]

1. "Mountain" (Akkadian: šá-du-ú) 2. "City" (Akkadian: uru) 3. Urartu (Akkadian: ú-ra-áš-tu) 4. Assyria (Akkadian: kuraš+šurki) 5. Der (Akkadian: dēr) 6. ? 7. Swamp (Akkadian: ap-pa-ru) 8. Susa (capital of Elam) (Akkadian: šuša) 9. Canal/"outflow" (Akkadian: bit-qu) 10. Bit Yakin (Akkadian: bῑt-ia-᾿-ki-nu)

11. "City" (Akkadian: uru) 12. Habban (Akkadian: ha-ab-ban) 13. Babylon (Akkadian: tin.tirki), divided by Euphrates 14 – 17. Ocean (salt water, Akkadian: idmar-ra-tum) 18 – 22. outer "regions" (nagu) 23 – 25. No description.

Carlo Zaccagnini has argued that the design of the Babylonian map of the world may have lived on in the T and O map of the European Middle Ages.

 

By the way, some of the maps shows in the posts above mine are examples of "T and O maps" of Europe which share a similar design.

Some examples taken from the wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T_and_O_map