davecake

My university gaming club once had entire theory of Gloranthan physics. Earth runes stack nicely and densely, you see, being square. But light and darkness runes, being perfect spheres, bounce off one another, and so never form anything solid. Air runes are almost spheres, but not quite - that little hook catches sometimes so you can feel a little resistance....

In a D&D game I ran I once used a variant of this symbolism. In the middle of an Empire that was effectively ruled by a group of (ostensibly) Lawful Neutral pledged magicians (the entire Lawful Neutral plane being a giant set of gears), a group of Chaotic Neutral magicians ran a casino filled with roulette wheels, the wheels spinning freely a magical counterpoint to the locked gears. Surely this gear vs freely spinning wheel dichotomy can also be a symbol of the hatred between the Zistorites and the Mostali.

I certainly agree that the Zistorites are cabbalistic. In fact, most Western magic is caballistic to some degree, though the mechanistic interpretation of the Cabala followed by the Zistorites is of course only one narrow interpretation of it. I also use as inspiration for God-Learner magic some ideas from John Dee's Enochian system - it may be anachronistic, but magic and technology proceed on different tracks in Glorantha. The idea of his tablets of letters, which can be enumerated in tens of thousands of ways, each of which is the magically name of a specific minor angel, is a different way of expressing a very similar concept, and of course is another system based on the idea of a divine language.

It is interesting that dragonnewts are notable avoiders of elemental magic (right from RQ1 days), while wyrms are significant enthusiasts, the Guide mentions Orlanth as popular with them, and the Sun Dragon cult in the Paris reprint we know of mostly about through Wyrmish adherent Windwhistler. It does make me think that EWF magic may have had more to do with wyrms than dragonnewts.

Thanks for the dragon article link, Joerg!

There are flowers that intentionally mimic the features of insects. These orchids that mimic wasps, for example http://www.australiangeographic.com.au/topics/science-environment/2014/09/deceptive-orchids-luring-wasps-for-pollination/ That is what elves with boobs are. Plants that mimic the allure of humans for plant reasons.

I agree with Peter that it's odd that we have no dragon or dragonnewt myths of Pamaltela at all except this one bit of speculation. I agree with Joerg that the real story may involve slarges or lascerdans. It is also possible that the Greater hydra have something to with it, and maybe more or less the results of chaos conquering the dragons (the Amethyst Dragon of Greater Chaos as an intermediate stage doesn't contradict this theory).

Not just the only mention in the Guide of the Dragon Age as a period of time, but perhaps the only use of that term in the Gloranthan corpus. Is it a useful term?

From the numbers, the dragonnewt culture described in this chapter is the *minority* dragonnewt culture - most dragonnewts alive are Kralorelan, and revere the Dragon Emperor. Of course, this proves nothing about its validity etc. The sections about Kralorela do seem to imply that humans can become dragons and gain access to draconic magic.

I am glad that dragon magic remains essentially the same as in previous editions, as do dragonnewt weapons. A few more details would be nice - but really, you could pretty quickly adapt the rules in WF #14. I like the idea that while everyone else is trying to increase their passions and runes, Dragonnewts are trying to hard to reduce and eliminate them.

Is there any further information about dragonnewt tribal genealogies other than this snippet about the Wondrous Mother of Many anywhere? And is there any more info about All Eyes Open But One? Resistance in Strength - is this reflected directly in other Kralorelan myth? Though it seems mostly connected to Hsunchen rather than Kralori culture myth. Dragonnewt ethics - this implies that a form of ancestor worship is both part of dragonnewt religion, and dragonnewt magical practice. Both are news to me. The comment about 'being outside of the cycle of reincarnation' is an odd way of putting - a dragonnewt that is in the cycle of reincarnation is not contactable as a spirit because it is probably incarnate and walking around. Scout dragonnewts are vegetarians, but devote most of their time to small game? In fact, in general the totally confusing and contradictory stuff on diet,with pg 75 directly contradicted by pg 71. This is just annoying and confusing to me (though I'm going with pg 75).

My favourite thing about this chapter is the opening sentence is contradictory - it calls the dragonnewts 'the eldest creatures', then says they are descended from dragons, which would make the dragons the eldest. An excellent way to start.

Regardless of the question of what the Fire Elves are like, I do not think the 'Elemental plane of Fire' characterisation of Southern Pamaltela is correct at all. I know there are a couple of illustrations that imply that, but I think that's mostly a God Learnerism - actually, the Nargan is the hottest part of the continent, beyond that (at least in the central part of the continent) is the Enmal Mountains (including Um) that are actually less fiery due to altitude (though probably volcanic). But no one who'd been there ever talked to the God Learners about it. And the Southern Nathan is crazily hot and inhospitable, for sure. In short, I lean towards the mythic map on page 697 being more accurate than the less detailed one on page 159. The Nargan is more burnt than burning. It's hot ash inhabited by some fire beings, not a thriving magic fire ecology. The Elemental plane of Fire description works for Firebergs, though.

To make eucalypts weirder, you can always add the deep strangeness of Australian childrens classic Snugglepot and Cuddlepie the gum nut babies. Kind of flightless nudist pixies who battle against the Big Bad Banksia Men. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snugglepot_and_Cuddlepie Either the Fire elves are literally impossible creatures of myth, in which case we can make up literal trees made of flame or similar, or they should be based on some recognisable earth plant, in which case Eucalypts are probably the best we are going to get.

Perhaps the rumoured Fire elves are connected to eucalyptus forests? Eucalypts are very flammable, filled with eucalyptus oil, fast growing and regenerate quickly after fire, in part due to fire triggered seed release (quite common in Australian plants generally), so fire is a natural part of the forest life cycle. Which would mean terrifying Australian style bushfires. Mythic inspirations abound - three that spring to mind immediately are that it might be an Aldryami mythic response to Pamaltelan mass deforestation by fire, that in combining both a response to fire and the cycle of regeneration theme it would make a fascinating mythic response to the Moonburn, and you could make a pretty interesting plant based version of the Phoenix myth. I'm always up for slipping some Australian detail in somewhere, obviously.

Aldryami Shamans Grove - I don't think we can take this at face value, rather Brin Brownthumbs might be an unreliable witness. 4 dryads and 3 water nymphs seems a lot of nymphs for 6square miles! And we don't know which of the animals etc are just coincidentally hanging around and have nothtypes ing much to do with the shaman. The range of spirits of types that aren't particularly Aldryami in nature, such as wraiths and ghosts, or plain earth spirits, is interesting. It implies that shamans of Aldrya do not limit themselves to spirits of that tradition by any means.

I think there may well be multiple Doraddi myths of origin, especially of the other races. I think this is probably true of many other Doraddi myths - there are local variants, and no particular cultural drive to make them consistent. The idea of imperfect copies is good too. There are different explanations of the sky, different lists of the gods, and so on. I agree the geographical terminology is a mess. FWIW, though, I think the Vadeli Empire variously included what is now modern Wongarassi, Umathela and Fonrit at times, but when the Guide talks about it finally being overrun by the slarges, it mens mostly the part that is now Wongarassi (and historically was the core of their empire). Fonrit was probably ruled by Vadeli at one point, but they lost control of it before they lost Wongarassi.

"heterodoxy and apostasy are nearly unknown" - quite a difference to previously, when Rootless and Renegade elves were rare, but definitely known? I'm a little disappointed that the religion ignores the 'Aldryami names' for deities and goes the straight God Learner name route, but it makes sense for the Guide. We get only slight hints as to the different approaches to most of the deities in Aldryami vs human society.

I had not noticed the interesting things hidden in the list of elf names on a previous read. Elamle meaning friend and Likita meaning Earth Power were notable to me. Interesting that pixies are noted as having magical powers, but invisibility isn't mentioned.

The history of the elves is quite Genertelan focussed, and it is interesting the Genert is treated as an obvious ally of the Aldryami whose death is a disaster etc - but Pamalt, who cheerily burns elves forests, is not mentioned.

Peter hits precisely on my biggest problem with the way the Aldryami are written up - the botany is bad! Many of the trees found in forests that are described as brown are actually flowering broadleafs, for example. It is also a very odd thing - to me it comes across as a very northern hemisphere attitude - to assume that the only forests that aren't coniferous or deciduous are jungles. The southern hemisphere in particular is FULL of temperate broadleaf forests that aren't deciduous or jungle. The idea that large ferns only live in separate eco-system, not within forests, is also weird to my personal experience. Large tree ferns are part of many forests I've visited. Reconciling this is complicated. My working assumptions at this point are: - ideas about Embyli are confused human ideas. Actually, brown or brown/green forests in particular contain minority populations that are technically Embyli, associated with flowering broadleaf trees native to those forests, but the elves don't draw attention to it that way. And our ideas about Embyli being usually small are likewise confused, based on assuming that Embyli implies jungle plants. Generally, there are a bunch of minority populations within forests that the 'view from 30,000 feet' tends to miss. Sometimes this will also include elves that are technically Slorifings too. - Aldryami do not think of their cultural differences in terms of dominant elf type. They think of them in terms of ecology type. The idea that the range of trees (and thus elves) in a region will be mixed is perfectly normal to them. Two forests that are described as 'mixed green/brown' might be considered totally different to an elf.

While I think this is true for Danmalastan/Zerendel, I am not sure it is true for the Vadeli Empire, which really only became established after the Vadeli had become hostile to the others. Though there would be slaves/captives, adventurous exiles, etc, I don't think it would be widespread.

Oabil and Chir are different parts of the Vadeli Empire, and only Oabil is described as being over run by Slarges - and Oabil is the South of the mountains part (eg see mythic map pg 691), roughly corresponding to the modern Slarge homeland of Wongarassi. I do think we lack useful info here. I'm not 100% sure that the pelmre and the slarges are simply the same thing - quite likely there is an unknown myth by which the pelmre acquired their odd alternating generations life cycle, and became modern slarges. Of course, its also possible that the known slarge/pelmre creation myth is just wildly inaccurate Doraddi supposition. Whether Lascerdans fit into this I have no idea - we know so little about them. Getting WAY off topic here though.

Joerg says "Personally, I don't think that there are any Pamalt-worshippers who aren't descendants of Dorad or from the same generation or earlier as Dorad." I personally think there are Pamalt-worshippers who aren't descendants of Dorad, but not many. Obviously its no longer canon, but in the old Pamalt writeup being a 'descendant of Dorad' meant you could automatically join, but there were procedures for foreigners and outsiders to join if they wish. I suspect this is still the case. Not just because I see no reason to change it, but because there are myths of Pamalt allowing foreigners to become part of the tribe (eg Keraun).

Quite possibly Tentacule is the divine version of the practice, the Wool Cloaks the sorcerous. I agree with the idea that its a mystic/primal version of Slavery - Ompalam the more worldly version, suitable for general populace, Tentacule more for dedicated magicians. Darleester a specific magically enforced form of slavery. The Fonritian sorcery is not a coherent school, rather a cluster of related traditions. I expect most of them allow Tapping of anyone or anything that you own, de facto if not de jure. I expect they have access to a lot of specialised knowledge regarding Tapping, learned from the Vadeli, who were masters. I think the Brithini obsession with the right ways to interact with the Eranschula/gods is not shared by the Vadeli. The Vadeli recognise the ancient laws that grant them immortality as a list of specific practices necessary for immortality rather than a moral code, and it turns out messing with spiritual practices that Zzabur didn't understand is often possible. So the question of whether the Ompalam is believed in by the Vadeli isn't that big a deal - the Vadeli believe in magical slavery, the Vadeli pursued magical slavery on a culture wide basis, forcing your slaves to venerate the anthropomorphised power of slavery makes perfect sense. Some individual Vadeli may do so as well, and as long as they don't lose their immortality thereby, what of it?