Ian Absentia

Sure. See Pagan Publishing's The Golden Dawn. Finding a copy may be a bit of a task, but there's a scenario dealing with Arthur via the Mythos that's more than a little dark. !i!

And, you know, Red Sonja would not be out of place in the highly anachronistic 10,000 BC. Full Disclosure: I own a copy of this movie. I sort of love it, sort of hate it. Thanks to this thread, I watched it again last night (as well as my copy of Whale Rider a day earlier). I didn't realise that it was a Roland Emerick film. Last night I hated it. Visually, it does some great things (hooray for axe-beaks!), and it capitalises well on some non-mainstream archaeological theories suggesting higher degrees of technological development occurring thousands of years earlier than generally supposed. But the writing's awful, and the producers clearly felt, "Well, as long as we're allowing theoretical anachronisms, let's just throw in some schlock to make it more exciting." Stumbling blocks to my enjoyment last night: Racially diverse focal tribe, but racially homogeneous peripheral tribes. Galloping mammoths. Domesticated horses capable of supporting a rider. Weird geography (the heroes apparently start in the tundra of ice age Central Asia, go "over the mountains," through a jungle into the veldt of southern/eastern Africa, then north into Egypt). I'm giving it a pass on limited metallurgy. Don't get me wrong -- I love it and I hate it. It does have a lot of potential inspiration for a Balazaring campaign. But, please, don't describe your mammoths as "galloping". !i!

Quoted for emphasis. One of my favorite Jarmusch films -- I don't know how I missed this one. Despite all superficial appearances, I reckon that none of this film takes place in the mortal plane -- the train ride out west is the departure into the Spirit Plane. Aspiring Humakti take notice. !i!

Because he lacked the necessary combination of STR and DEX to be a druid? That is what we're still discussing, right? !i!

Yeah, it may be worth differentiating between the Hero's Journey and something akin to heroquesting as experienced in Glorantha. Otherwise we're going to be wading through pages of posts about Kung Fu Panda and Space Chimps and every movie where the protagonist discovers "what makes them special" or "gets their mojo back." The heroquesting narrative features departing the mortal or "real" world to encounter archetypal characters and situations, and a return with a boon. I cited Whale Rider earlier, initially out of similarities to another movie, but also because of the presence of supernatural events in an otherwise realistic story and a key moment when the main character is taken out of this world in mythic fashion to return later with a boon that heals her tribe. !i!

*cough* (Kimba the White Lion) *cough* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kimba_the_White_Lion !i!

And it pretty much is... until the beaching of the whales, and Pai riding the lead whale underwater and dying. The story takes place superficially in the mortal world, but passes through all of the stations of a heroquest, culminating in passage to and return from the underworld, bearing boons of cultural tradition and leadership. The more I think on it, the more it really does look like Disney cribbed the story after Taika Waititi walked. !i!

Before Moana, there was Whale Rider, which I'd totally forgotten about until just now. Contemporary, and not especially "Gloranthan" at all, but there's a heroquest at work here. And evidence that Disney steals yet another story. Damn, just...damn. These movies were a lot of fun. And, yes, good inspiration for the look and feel of Glorantha, particularly under the current art direction. Even the huge soft spot in my heart for this film can't give it a pass. But you finds Glorantha where you finds it. I watched this just last week! Almost explicitly part of the world of Glorantha (see RQG, p.364). !i!

I was actually referring to the 1625-onward narrative of the Praxian nomads' ethnic cleansing of the Grantlands settlers. But there you are -- sauce for the gander! !i!

Wow. Is now a good time to discuss the on-going ethnic cleansing in Prax? !i!

I'm inclined to agree. Praising imperialists for their noblesse oblige is a bit like....well, praising them for their noblesse oblige. I mean, thank you for the scraps you've left us, because everyone's better off under a stable system of imperialist oppression. Are We All Us? Or are We All You? !i!

Warning: Animals were definitely harmed in the production of this photograph. But note the saddle, the length of the lance, and the one-handed use. Stirrups are a given. This is, of course, not the only way to use a lance. !i!

Beware. Here we are, poised on the brink of this rabbit hole. There's a persistent assumption that the development of technology follows a fixed evolutionary path as demonstrated by our own world. T'ain't necessarily so. !i!

Yeah, but which Bronze Age? The stirrup is a long-accepted feature of Glorantha's. It does, however, remain a bone of contention among purists. !i!

[duplicated post]

I'm suddenly reminded of the picador in bullfighting. (No lie -- when I was little, we'd sometimes find bullfights on the UHF end of the dial. That's pre-cable for you young 'uns. Weird and kind of sickening, but fascinating -- the bullfighting, not UHF broadcast.) The charge with the lance was usually solidly couched under the arm, but also involved some finesse that definitely relied on the momentum of the horse for impact. Maneuvering and stabby-stabby was the business of the matador and banderilleros -- that was their DB in action. I might still be inclined as a GM to ask for a Ride roll upon a successful hit with a charging lance, just to see if you dislocate your shoulder or fall off your mount. !i!

When will we see a fillable PDF version? !i! [That's a joke, son. I say-I say, a joke!] [Edit: Wait, no. Now I'm scrolling up and realising that, of course, others asked first and weren't joking.]

I like this, because I've sometimes mused that it doesn't matter so much how strong your mount is in a charge if: a) you're not strong enough to hold onto your lance upon making contact; and/or b) you're not strong enough to hang onto your mount. !i!

Acknowledging that a short long spear may classify with longer short spears, and that longer short spears may classify as shorter long spears, what is the shortest practical "lance" for mounted combat? Or the shortest practical "pike" for hoplite infantry? What is the length of spear that Goldilocks would use for both combat on horseback and on foot with a shield after dismounting? And what would you call it? !i!

Darned if I can find my notes now, but I recall that this was essentially the fix I used for my recent cavalry soldier/cattle rustler character. His lance didn't get any shorter when he dismounted, but was still useful as a long spear, so we bumped up the STR requirement if used one-handed. It was a glaring, if easily remedied, hole in the core rules, particularly given the prominence of "hoplite" soldiery in the canon. !i!

In consideration of the bowtie, my vote is for the Nightlife rune. !i!

Roger Zalazny's Lord of Light (a book I can't recommend highly enough) describes a coterie of scientifically/psychically exalted planetary colonists who model themselves after, primarily, the gods of India (one of whom is effectively the Buddha, who emerges to break the unending cycle of divine privilege, but that's not germane to this discussion). One of them, Nirriti, is actually a devout Christian, who fashions himself as the Dark Lord of necromancy, raising armies of soulless human husks to kneel and pay homage to his faith for eternity. And to march forth and take over the world. Again, not a positive take on the reputation of the Necromancer. The spiritualist movement of the turn of the 19th century perhaps pursued a more positive take on necromancy, promoting the notion of communion between the living and the dead as a means of solace. It had its more cynical agendas, too, not the least of which was often outright charlatanry. Revivication and raising of corpses didn't figure highly, though. !i!

So, this is one of those instances where we find, on one hand, there's the world as it really is, then on the other, the mechanics intended to model that world. It's a situation not unique to this particular game, and is seen in every edition of RuneQuest. Do you let the world as intended guide play and create exceptions to the general rules? Or do you let the rules dictate the manifestation of the world to create a divergent Truth? There will always be square pegs paired with round holes. !i!

Crossing over with Bill's Which Year Should I Play In? thread, the character I recently played in a RQG campaign set in 1625-27 was originally an NPC from a RQ3/HQ1 campaign I ran, whose background was as an outlaw from Sartar, run off to Prax after instigating hostilities between the locals, the Grazelanders, and the occupying Lunars. After a storied career as an NPC outlaw in Prax, the RQG GM and I aged him forward five years and played his homecoming to Sartar after the Dragonrise. I had a lot of fun playing a character who was clearly a criminal under one set of circumstances, who goes on to become an eminent thane under another. Where to go with this? Early adventures can be low-fantastical, rough-and-tumble outlawry in Prax, conveniently dodging a lot of the mythology, ramping up into the big leagues as the years tick along, transitioning from one body of support material into another. !i!

Very true! And, unsurprisingly, they are subject of much loud comment, both praise and derision. Just goes to show you. You can't organise freedom. !i!