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svensson

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Posts posted by svensson

  1. 1 hour ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

    Your conclusion about this fact is based on your conception of dirty

    now imagine that in your culture, eating your own feces is good.  Now imagine why trolls don’t eat their own feces.

    for example maybe they consider that their  feces is what their body did not absorb. In that case there is no reason to eat them again.  That would be fool

    note I m not saying that is the reason, just that is not because a fact may be explained by our culture that our culture and the other one have the same explanation.

    We unfortunately have no source of elder races based on their own perspective

    not an issue if we play human, of course.

    While it's not considered 'canon', I personally like the writing in Mongoose's RQ2 'Races of Glorantha vol. 1'. This volume DOES discuss three elder races, the dragonewts, Uz, and Ducks, from their own points of view. Of course, these points of view are expressed 600 years or so ago in ST 900. I REALLY enjoyed both the dragonewt and Uz chapters.

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  2. @Hellhound Havoc Uz are more primal creatures than humans are. Uz have been consistently portrayed as 'always hungry' or, at the very minimum, very concerned about where their next meal is coming from. This goes back to RQ2 Trollpak and was reinforced in the RQ3 supplement 'The Haunted Caves'. In a game statistic sense, consider the effort required to feed an entire clan of SIZ 20 kinfolk. Things that humans find disgusting [cannibalism for example] are all used to keep themselves fed. Now imagine the work it takes to keep Redstone Caverns fed.... Just because Uz are 'always hungry' does not mean that they're always starving. Their hunger is a controlled one. But it's not unusual for a troll to grab a beetle for a snack if opportunity presents itself.

    But Uz are NOT ravenous beasts! They're thinking beings and are wise enough not to over hunt their home region. Like a person on a diet, they control their hunger with behavior and social pressure. And certainly there are things they will not eat, their own feces being your example [and a good one]. This is because they know that their system has gotten all the nutrition it's going to get out of it. And yet, trollkin WILL eat the feces of their betters, do gain nutrition from it, and Uz will eat trollkin without a second thought.

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  3. To the OP

    Because you are judging Uz by human standards. Let me explain:

    Firstly, Uz are not concerned about visual appearances. Their primary sense is 'Darksense', essentially a form of sonar more similar to that of whales than of submarines. Where humans judge shape and color, Uz judge shape [via sonar return not sight], texture, and smell.

    Secondly, Uz can eat and gain nourishment from *anything*, even rocks. And Uz are always hungry... there is no such thing as a sated troll and hunger is the top emotion felt by Uz. Even rage, pain, kinship, and love all come second place to hunger. The Uz love of texture even extends to their foods, as they enjoy the crunch of bone or stone as well as the taste of other items on the menu. Some foods that humans find disgusting [rotten meat, mouldy plants, live trollkin] are delectable to Uz as a combination of taste, smell, and texture.  A well off Uz keeps a large supply of foodstuffs available for when their hunger becomes so acute that it interferes with rational thought.

    Uz do not make much use of fire and, like Aldryami, have unusual ideas about the preparation of foods for their own consumption. Uz might boil food in a geothermal mud bath, or 'pickle' food in an algae filled pond, but roasting is something they picked up from humans and is not often used in their own environment. Uz don't bake at all, and often find soups unfilling and stews as finicky. Oddly enough, though, Uz are great brewers. Uz drinks are not for the faint of heart or frail of constitution, however. Humans drink them at their own very considerable risk.

    These two factors make Uz lairs dark, smelly pest holes to human senses, but snug, comfortable and safe by their own lights.

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  4. To the OP:

    The historical examples from Celtic and Anglo Saxon history, a 'noble' is born within the familial group who are hereditary leaders of a region. There are few, if any, other qualifications. Gaulish and Irish Celts had wide circles of eligible leaders... essentially all the grandsons of the father of the current leader. In a large prosperous noble clan, that could be up 25 eligible leaders, all cousins.

    HOWEVER, COMMA, BUT while many were eligible for leadership, each candidate required proven leadership ability in order to attract enough of the tribe to follow him. 'Proven leadership ability' really does depend on several things... tribal traditions, current political situation, and personal qualities [handsome, strong, wise, 'cunning', etc.] all played a role in proving a candidate suitable.

    The current tribal leader would usually designate an heir and that heir would have a leg up on the competition, but inheritance of leadership was by no means assured. An ill-favored foolish heir could easily be bypassed by a cousin who had the leadership qualities the clan looks for.

    Leadership was not usually won by conquest... that kind of fighting only happened if two contenders were so evenly matched that a battle and/or duel was necessary to decide the outcome.

    Warriors /thanes, were the trusted professional warriors of the clan chief. Their job was to patrol the clan's lands, enforce the leader's decisions, provide training and 'squad' level leadership to the clan war levy [the 'fyrd' or clan host], and to protect the people of the clan. Most of these men were not eligible to be clan chief, but were absolutely necessary to the reputation of the chief... 'Rannulf is a cunning warrior and a wise man. If he follows Gerd willingly, there must be something to the man.'

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  5. 8 hours ago, bronze said:

    How much of Zzabur Says is truth? He looks as if naturally taking credit for everything. He comes off as the single most unreliable narrator of the Gloranthan mythology. 

    Most prophets, even those in a world where magic is routine, are generally poor historians. They lack objectivity and, in some cases, the ability to reason.

    Zzsabur was preaching to a society [-ties] for whom the Orlanthi /Ernalda /Yelm axes did not penetrate to the depth they did in Peloria, Dragon Pass, Esrolia, etc. By  couching his Law Rune + Will power = Mastery philosophy in religious terms he took something frightening and made it... well, if not 'comforting' [nobody is 'comfortable' when it comes to Tapping, after all] then at least understandable. And placing that religious philosophy within the framework of castes, he neatly sidestepped the whole social injustice in the availability of magical training thing.

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  6. I don't see the defeat of the Red Goddess and the Lunar Empire as the death of myth any more, and probably less, disasterous than Arkat's defeat of Gbaji or the downfall of the God Learners and Dragon Empires were. Glorantha will change in the Fourth Age certainly but Great Lozenge has survived much worse than the downfall of the Scarlet Harlot. Yes, the changes will be great... just as all the changes in the cycle of the Ages have been.

    Trust Arachne Solora to keep it all stitched together 😉

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  7. It's as accurate as it needs to be for your table.

    IMG, NOBODY has a 'monomyth' that is completely correct, subjective and without bias or editing. There is no 'scientific method' in Glorantha, and every single piece of knowledge has some kind of agenda, bias, viewpoint, and so forth. There are no fact-checkers, and it wouldn't occur to anyone to do so. EVERYTHING is propaganda or hearsay, if not outright lies. There is absolutely no source of information that is dispassionate and completely objective. And the Gods are no help. They're the sources of most of the bias and prejudice, after all! Each deity is limited to only their actions and their perceptions within the Godtime framework... and each deity looks at the same event in VERY different ways.

    I look at it like my all-time favorite Star Trek character, Elim Garak: "Everything is true. Especially the lies..."

    Now, YGMV and all that. Your game is gonna be way different than mine. As the old saying goes, 'No set of rules, setting, milieu, or adventure survives contact with a referee intact.... And even fewer of them survive contact with Player Characters at all!' 😁

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  8. @Crel Oh, I LOVE the Mythology book. The artwork by itself is magnificent and the text is worth the read.

    I just don't think a new Gloranthan should go from the Core Rules to the Mythology book straight away, that's all. I think that the Glorantha Sourcebook is a good and perhaps necessary intermediate step.

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  9. 6 hours ago, Jeff said:

    Personally, I view it as the opposite. It is an essential book to understanding the setting. It is the decoder ring to get the interplay between mortals and gods in Glorantha (which to me is THE defining feature of the setting). But to each their own.

    Building on that, there is a conceit among RQ players, even longtime grogs like myself, to treat cults as a source for powers but otherwise they are of no more consequence than a modern sports team jersey.

    But I think a better way to observe RQ cults is to look at our modern societies and how deeply religious people try and live a sacred life in a secular world. Let's set aside everyone's knee-jerk retreat from the subject of religion and definitely set aside one's support or rejection of religion and consider how devout people live. Be they Orthodox Jews or Catholics [both faiths being highly organized and hierarchical] or believing fundamentalist Christians [whose approach is more individualistic], a devout life requires many of the same motifs... active interest in and engagement with worship, a certain level of scholarship in the faith, a distinct and clear moral code... This is the kind of thing a Gloranthan believes in their world. The Gods have a manifest proven existence completely separate of metaphor or allegory. Orlanth REALLY IS 'the air that you breathe', Yelm REALLY DOES bathe the land in his shining rays and allows crops to grow. A Gloranthan cultist's faith is central to their very being and reason for existence because the Gods are REAL and require the cultists' support as much as the cultist needs the God's support.

    The Mythology book helps explain all that.

    Membership in a cult isn't 'I became a Lanbril because I needed lockpicking skills' anymore, though back in RQ2 that was very much the case. Cult membership is part of your character's identity. Membership in multiple cults isn't all that common anymore, though it was back in RQ2, because the RQG rules are much more particular about meeting cult obligations. And that includes spelling out in clear detail what failing in your cult obligations means to a PC.

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  10. 1 hour ago, Joerg said:

    The Monomyth is close enough to Arkat's understanding of the hero plane. Fairly basic knowledge you should have for running a heroquest before considering possible mechanics for heroquests, IMO, but then I am a Glorantha scholar first, and only then a GM and scenario writer.

    The Monomyth is the God Learner's study of Arkat's interactions with the Hero Plane. There's 300 years between the death /apotheosis of Arkat and the rise of Jrustela. In between, many sources [including Arkat's cult itself - what was left of it] tried to purge the world of HQ knowledge, finding it dangerous. All that being said, I think there are VERY good odds that the GL's got some important aspects of Heroquesting wrong and in that error lay the seed of their destruction.

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  11. 1 hour ago, Akhôrahil said:

    What we really need - and that doesn't seem to be ahead in the publication queue as of yet - are rules for heroes and heroquesting.

    I think a more precise term is that we need 'frameworks' for HeroQuests.

    HeroQuests transcend the BRP mechanics and, IMHO, should test the player's knowledge of the myths they're trying to recreate or interact with. Yeah, I freely admit I get that notion for the KODP game, but I honestly do think it's a good notion. That does not mean 'succeed at x check point and get y power in the mundane world', however.

    But really, this is a whole separate topic /thread by itself.

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  12. 13 minutes ago, Russ Massey said:

    Thanks - I already have more or less everything in print. I guess what I was asking is whehter there is any game utility for Mythology before there are actual Heroquesting rules are released. I did feel that the Prosopaedia was of little use in GM terms.

    Other than understanding who the Gods are and who they're related to, the Proserpaedia can be pretty limited. It's useful for finding out who the specific Grain Goddesses or Thunder Brothers are as they are mentioned in passing. It's also useful if you're reading the forums and you hear all us old grognards grumping about the most useful Hunter god or why Humakt is hostile to Yanafal Tarnils and so on.

    The Proserpaedia shallows the deep end of the pool, providing relationships and references to Godly actions and the goals of their cults. The Mythology book is more like the deep end of the pool coming off a diving board 😉

  13. 2 minutes ago, Russ Massey said:

    But is it of utility to a GM who just wants to run a game of RQ?

    My suggestion is to get The Glorantha Sourcebook first and then look at the Proserpaedia and pantheon books. At that point then I'd decide whether or not to get Mythology.

    And remember, you don't HAVE to use any of this stuff. You really do have 90% of everything you need in the Core Rules. Your Glorantha WILL vary... from mine, from Greg's or anybody else's.

     

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  14. Well, I've just gotten through reading the Mythology book.

    Um, wow.

    Frankly, I've had to read several sections a couple two-or-three times to make sure I understood the implications and how it all knits together.

    Now, I'm a reasonably smart fellow and usually have little to no time for all the purveyors of 'madjickal' theory. I live in an area with a strong Wicca/pagan/New Age presence and with the exception of perhaps 8 people [who I respect immensely] I find most practitioners of 'madjick' of my acquaintance are categorically full of crap. I understand and accept that there are things that exist that we don't understand, but I've seen way too many magic rock cults come and go to buy into the Crowley-ist nonsense.

    HOWEVER... the Mythology book presents a fictional mythos and magical world written by a practicing [and from every single source I hear] well trained shamanist. I never had the chance to meet Greg Stafford, much to my regret, but I sense that he would be among the magic practitioners that I could respect as a mystical scholar and that comes shining through in this book. There are several things that I *really* like about the Mythology book... the statements 'the God Learner Monomyth is both true and false' and 'the Monomyth isn't the only way to visualize Glorantha' leave lots of room for at-the-table ruling while still maintaining a cohesive narrative.

    But make no mistake... this is NOT the Glorantha neophyte's reference. This book is for those of us who've been dancing around HeroQuesting for while now and are now, finally, getting enough answers about Glorantha's metaphysical world[s] that planning in-game epic HQs are now possible. Unless someone is really invested in Glorantha, they probably won't get a whole lot out of this book. If the Glorantha Sourcebook is Bachelor's in Glorantha Studies text, then Mythology is the Master's Degree document.

    Last thing:

    My corner of the world has been afflicted with a whole slew of cults. Antelope OR, where the Rajneeshis tried to take over a town, is less than 200 miles from my house. The Ramtha cult compound isn't 30 miles from where I sit right now. The Unification Moonies and LRons of Scientology have a significant presence here. 'Skeptical' doesn't even begin to cover my feelings about such organizations.

    That being said, I also know Ashatrur [Odinist], Wiccan, and shamanist practitioners who I deeply respect as people [their character, sense of right and wrong, etc.] and for the theological choices they have made. They're not the ones I would have made, but that's fine. When I say 'Happy Holidays' to them, I mean it sincerely. NONE of my comments about alt-religions is aimed at any particular person. Just like with any other life-choice how you choose to address the divine in your life is none of my affair. I have friends who range from hard-core atheist to practicing Bahai'is. My personal beliefs are more mainstream than that [I'm an Episcopalian] and if you think I'm judgemental about Scientologists [and I most certainly am], you should hear me go off about the shenanigans of the evangelical fundamentalist wing of my Protestant beliefs...

     

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