Ian Absentia

A collection of liberal arts degree side notes, popular fantasy riffs, personal in-jokes, and '70s-era counter-culture references, not intended for scholarly publication? Yes, like so many gamers' house campaigns. 🙂 So reaching back to this era in support of what current canon is supposed to be is an act of generous accommodation. The seed is there, but often not yet even the root. The Lozenge on which we play is perched atop a mighty, but inverted pyramid. !i!

As I understand it, yes. The technical aspects of clothing and textile arts have developed differently across the world, though, sometimes by happenstance, sometimes out of necessity, so the degree of sophistication varies. At its most basic, you have a pair of leggings, each hung independently of the other to either side of a loin cloth, presumably from whatever waistband is holding the loin cloth up. Through development for purposes of comfort, durability, fashion, what-have-you, the pieces are modified and unified toward a single garment. I mentioned sleeves earlier, which originally were hung from or laced to a yoke worn over or under a tunic, or attached to the tunic itself. Take a look at a dress shirt or most button-up shirts, and you'll see the vestigial remnant of that yoke and how it was incorporated into a tunic. Curiously, the codpiece has not been carried forward into modern men's apparel, except perhaps in certain athletic clothes. Tailoring clothing to a human form that doesn't either destroy the material or unduly discomfort the wearer is a surprisingly sophisticated technical accomplishment, requiring either better materials, better methods, or a better understanding of the human form, and generally a combination of all three. Where do various Gloranthan cultures rate in terms of the textile arts? !i!

Yes and no. They're fundamentally hose or leggings -- how they're held up and/or interconnected is a matter of separate, but related, design and sophistication. The notorious codpiece was one of those interconnecting pieces employed for either modesty, protection, pride, convenience, or some combination thereof. Think of modern pants or trousers as the unification of several separate pieces as textile arts and tailoring became more sophisticated, in much the same fashion that sleeves were eventually unified with tunics. NB: Developing a seam that doesn't split under stress is a son of a bitch. !i!

Am I the only one who expected to see "Now 60% off at our Redbubble Store"? !i!

I think the degree of canon-in-play (vs canon-as-writ) depends upon the degree of what I call "course correction". I've willingly grappled with this more so in other games (notably Classic Traveller's Third Imperium) than in RuneQuest, in which I've long since conceded that I wasn't going to wrap my arms fully around the game world (and, frankly, having despaired of the unrelenting minutiae of the late-90s Glorantha-Digest). A "high canon" game begins with any and all information available as written and -- this is important -- as understood. GM and players reconcile their mutual understandings of the setting and begin play, which almost out of necessity begins to diverge from canon. A "high canon" game features a number of junctures at which the GM and players "course correct" to adjust their actions in play to align with the expectations described in published material. The "height" of the canon depends on how often the course of play is corrected. During play, as GM and players remind each other of what the world's really supposed to be like? From session to session, as they reflect on what's transpired after play? From publication to publication, as new material is released or purchased? Do you "ret-con" events in play that don't match canon to make them fit the official setting better? I've done this sort of campaign with other games before, both as GM and as player. It can be very gratifying, if nit-picky, and certainly not to everyone's taste. I've also played "loose canon" games, which, almost paradoxically, seem to require an even greater understanding of a setting to be comfortable with just...letting...everything...go.... Kind of like music or cooking, I reckon, where you really need to know what you're doing before you can improvise effectively. Knowing what to leave out is at least as important as knowing what to put in. !i!

I dunno, man, she keeps "disappearing" a little too conveniently. It's certainly my best contender for the Your Dumbest Theory thread. !i!

Hunh, lookee what I found here in Plunder, p.24 on the Gems/Jewelry Table: 01 Costume jewelry that serves as a deed 64L Looks like maybe someone's right to resettle might be up for grabs. I wonder how that got out of the Sun Dome vaults? Now we have the plot to The Maltese Falcon brewing. !i! [P.S. Jezra is definitely the true identity of "Muriah" -- that's where she can be found.]

All things considered, I'll count this as a tally in the column for the conservation of wetlands and their ability to de-energise and retain the flow of water. I doubt that's high on the list of the Grantlanders' priorities, though. Still, gold stars for not "reclaiming" the Great Bog a decade earlier! ⭐⭐⭐ !i!

In the interest of opening doors to opportunity (and heroic survival), it's reasonable to assume that some priests of Hon-Eel are among the resettled. And though maize may not be the crop ordinarily favored among the Grantlanders, in a time of crisis, worshippers of Hon-Eel may be able to step to the fore and offer relief where other crops fail. We should assume that water from the boggy Zola Fel has been available for controlled irrigation up to the Wind Stop, but c.1621-22 is locked up in snow and ice upriver. And it's just too cold to support decent crops of any kind. Following the Wind Stop, there's flooding down to the Great Bog, but the Grantlands are largely south of that, so...better off than Sun County? Has anyone speculated on the productivity of fishing from either the Zola Fel or Corflu? !i!

Or how about Age of Empires (the original), featuring Brian Eno, Tony Levin, and I think even Peter Gabriel sneaks in there occasionally! !i!

I didn't intend a 1-for-1 comparison, but was instead looking for a handy example of what happens when Party B wishes to have Party A out of the way. You're right -- I mixed cultural metaphors. (Damn, son, two for two!) There are better real world comparisons for the Grantlanders from Central Africa, Eastern Europe, the Balkans, the fundamental situation being: Imperial Power X creates an arbitrary border. Within that border is Party A, either displaced by Party B or forced to live alongside Party B. Everything more or less works as long as Imperial Power X is there to keep the peace. Imperial Power X withdraws, and in the ensuing power vacuum Party A and/or Party B attempts to remove the other from the territory. How polite or horrific the endgame may be is a matter of conjecture. I invoked the term "ethnic cleansing" -- a very contemporary term that I promise to avoid in the future -- to cast the pending situation in an imaginary world in bitter irony. This isn't a heroic rout of an invading army, but the displacement of thousands of farmers, tradesmen, families. In short form, Argrath and the White Bull Society "liberate" Corflu and "destroy" the Grantlands, which sounds great in the 25-word narrative about a victorious military campaign, but the unintended consequence of that same narrative is the implied fate of the civilians left in their wake. The term I used was incendiary, yes, and mostly intended as irony, but interestingly I never included specific statements like "there's nothing left, Argrath's nomads committed genocide, so all the people you know are dead and the places you built and fought for were destroyed" or described "ethnic cleansing of some vibrant and established culture" -- those statements were inferred and apparently attributed to me. Nope, just Party A, Party B, a power vacuum, and the realistic opinion that things are going to get ugly as grudges real or imagined go unchecked. You know, the kind of situation in which heroes will do extraordinary things to save the things they care about. !i!

Well, since we're wagging our dicks about, my references to "ethnic cleansing" remain on the nose. Universal annihilation, without exception? That sort of absolutist language was yours, but thank you for attributing it to me by insinuation elsewhere. The upheaval will turn ugly for the Lunars, though, and being merely driven off the Grantlands is an optimistic outcome on par with native relocation in the US westward expansion. There will be a spectrum of persecution and outcomes in the ethnic cleansing to come, largely dependent on the means of the victims and the fortune of their timing...just like it does in the real world. It's a hot-button term -- I can understand your reaction. You should read up on the subject. As I stated elsewhere, there's an apocalyptic shorthand used to describe the outcomes of the Hero Wars, and they elicit reasonably emotional responses in their readers, clearly not limited to my own. Sometimes it takes time and effort, and the occasional forum thread, to break through a 25-word synopsis, whether it's the liberation of Prax, the Reforestation, the coming Flood, or whatever. We appreciate your indulgence. !i!

You know, I'm still looking for where someone stated that, exactly. It's been nice seeing more nuanced support of broader adventure opportunities, rather than the apocalyptic shorthand used to describe the region in development updates. The same will certainly apply to the Reforestation and the Flood and, undoubtedly, every Hero Wars prophesy. !i!

My next research project. Can you tell I was born in the Bay Area? Southern California, you say? !i!

This is good stuff, even right here. In Argrath's wake following 1624, with the official Lunar military presence expelled, there's going to be a certain amount of depopulation and someone's going to have to do something with that Lunar compound. By the way, the second image down, with the farmers moving into the grand architecture -- reminds me of what the citadels in Balazar must look like. !i!

And for that, you get a star! ⭐ I mentioned up-thread that Refuge has been adopted into canon as a different city unto its own, free from copyright entanglements (as has Carse/Karse). There've been a couple of threads over the years about the how and why, but the names live on while the identities adapt. So, Sanctuary needs a home somewhere. Definitely my thought. Truth be told, Pavis and Sanctuary are a little redundant, and putting them both on either end of the same river moreso, but I'm feeling more of a role for Thieves' World on the ass-end of the Zola Fel in 1625. !i!

Thanks! And I'm willing to go to bat over the time frame. For an organically occurring community, yes, it's unlikely over roughly 10 years. But for construction of a dedicated military/industrial outpost, not without precedent (though my New Corflu is an amalgamation of several precedents). Venice definitely took it's time getting to (and surpassing) this level of development -- and New Corflu has none of the elan of Venice. Think of early San Francisco tacked onto a military base. Your panoramic view of Comacchio is very much how I envision New Corflu. !i! [Edit: Really, I blame Gunda and the Wolf Pirates for turning up in 1613 -- they pretty much place a cap on the timeline. Had I my druthers, I'd have started the boom-bust development at least a decade earlier, but then there would've been no reason for Gunda to turn her nose in scorn without sacking the place.]

Thank you! You should see my sister's and my daughter's -- naturally doubled rows of lashes. Like mascara without the bother. !i!

As I've alluded to previously, I've been noodling with mashing up Corflu and Sanctuary for some time. This conversation inspired me to take my colored pencils out and liven up one of my working drafts from a while back. Behold my highly non-canonical campaign map of Corflu c.1624. The premise is that there are several rocky outcroppings near the edge of open water (outlined in heavy black), the most prominent of which became home to Old Corflu (as seen in the original RQ2 Pavis and HQG's Pavis:GtA). Mostly through a series of ambitious dredge-and-fill operations (which are surprisingly low-tech), the Lunars filled shallows, drained higher and more solid ground via a network of ditches and canals, linking several other rocky outcrops. With development comes commerce, with commerce comes the River Folk and even other Praxians looking for stability and prosperity. Note: No dedicated "shipyards" as such, though there's room for it. Some of you will (hopefully!) recognise familiar outlines, many of which will only be specifically relevant to the lucky few who own a copy of the Thieves' World boxed set.* !i! [Edit: *Or, duh-doi, a copy of any of the Thieves' World anthologies!]

I wear none of these things. Please, enlighten me. !i!

Planning on placing an advance order for timber with the elves? I understand they're very accommodating in that regard. !i!

Yes, yes, I see your point (and I forgot about the Fall of Whitewall in 1620 -- I thought it was later). Perhaps it's more appropriate to say that there's a greatly diminished role for Corflu once Karse is connected to an inland supply chain. Well, like any good boomtown, it's boom and bust in rapid succession. This is a very relevant question, and one probably not clearly defined by extant sources. Maybe it does under the right circumstances, depending on how the war in Dragon Pass is going in any given year. There's certainly food and goods from the Grantlands to support the troops stationed in Heortland. The problem with any campaign of expansion is reliance on an extended line of support. Perhaps the Lunars are forward-thinking enough to develop redundancies? You know, provided they can afford to do so. And thus we arrive at Casablanca. Full disclosure, Corflu is where I placed Sanctuary from Thieves' World, not at Refuge where it was originally playtested as I understand. Not that any of this matters, as Refuge is it's own non-copyright-entangled town now. Before long, the Beysibs...er...the Waertagi are going to turn up and it all goes to shit again. !i!

But it was a glorious glimpse of heaven while it lasted! !i!

See, @seasparrow? Open a can of human beans and out spills goodness. I'll comfortably concede this. Spotty mangroves aside, Corflu is where swamp meets sea. It can, however, serve as a pivotal military depot for the Lunars. With investment of sufficient resources and engineering (and tell me the Lunars aren't into that sort of thing, am I right, @Nick Brooke?), Corflu can, and should, become a garrison and transfer hub for naval support of the invasion of the Holy Land. Maybe my earlier assertions were a little grandiose, but I'm keeping my claws in deep on this one. I exaggerate to make a point. Why wouldn't I? Admission in hand, though, the Lunars have been a recent presence in Prax dating back to the invasion of 1608. They are a distinct cultural and generational influence dating back prior to the Grantlands settlements. I feel certain that, circa 1625, we have the all-important demographic of young men aged 13-21 well represented among the displaced culturally-Lunar Praxians. And here's where the rubber really begins to grip the road. Even a more modestly-expanded Corflu, utilised by the Lunars as a military garrison and depot, is going to be virtually unrecognisable from what we last saw depicted in Pavis:GtA. -- the military/trade boomtown I described earlier. It won't necessarily be pretty, but it'll be bigger, and growing every day, either from Lunar investment or from congregation of river folk looking to prosper on the periphery. As order begins to unravel upriver, it's going to be one of the last identifiable -- and fortifiable -- bastions of "Lunar" presence in Prax. even after it's liberated in 1624. It's one of the places Lunars are going to congregate to be near others of their kind, and the boomtown is going to surge again. For most it's going to be the end of the line, but for those of means, like the Raus', it's the jumping-off point for...someplace better? Maybe a safer passage back to the Empire than north through hostile Prax? Okay. I finally feel like I'm getting my feet under me in the 1625-and-forward Era. !i!

This, plus Casablanca-in-Corflu is rapidly making life in the southern Zola Fel Valley my new best incentive to move the timeline forward from 1621 to 1625. !i!