M Helsdon
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Everything posted by M Helsdon
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Too big, which is why I am now concentrating on filling up empty space. The appendices and index (which is about 14 pages) could be ejected. Will have to ask Jeff if I can.
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Which is covered in my book... Just realized that the adoption of certain weapons & armor, and styles of fighting is also mentioned, but only in passing. Useful tip.
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Will look out for it. Hardcopies are now in my hands... and as is the way of things, have spotted four formatting errors/typos. There will be more... [Cover not final.]
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UPS stay they've left the package in a local off license... Hopefully I'll be able to collect them today or tomorrow and find out what the printer made of it. I already know of two typos (always seems to happen). I've decided to take a break from drawing more sketches - the fine work with a 0.1mm pen has done my eyes no favours. Was using a Rotring for the first eight but discovered a Mitsubushi pen gave not only finer lines, but better control. Rotrings were always the best pens back when I was drawing in the 70s/80s, but they've obviously been hit hard by CAD and their quality has diminished.
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The Lunars adopt entire regiments from other cultures! The only borrowing we know of which canonical is the kopis sword from the nomads. Anything else is baseless speculation.
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If I recall correctly, the Romans probably took the gladius, pugio and the pilum from the Celtiberians, chainmail from the Gauls, and certain details of their helmets too. The scutum was an old Italic design, and in use prior to its adoption by the Romans. Fighting the Romans was risky - even if beaten they came back at you with your weapons...
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Thank you. Each chapter is prefaced by a very short piece of fiction to set the scene, but reference book is the intent. Whilst scenarios aren't outlined, there's detail which could drive all sorts of campaign events... It's more that the Romans inherited armour from both Greece and then the fractious kingdoms of the Diadochi. There was a long period when the Hellenistic military defined the form of arms and armour across the civilised Mediterranean, with the other major powers, Rome and Carthage, pretty much adopting their arms and armour, and initially much of their style of fighting. The Romans diverged away from phalanx warfare relatively early on, but old equipment was used in new ways. The Romans 'inherited' almost all of their equipment from someone else, and their military genius was more in combining and utilizing its capabilities in new tactical ways than developing any new weapons or armour. Those pieces you are seeing as Roman are more of the era of Alexander and then the Diadochi when the Hellenistic kingdoms battered away at each other whilst the barbarian threat in the west loomed large after defeating Carthage. There was a point when the surviving Diadochi attempted to create their own legions to fight in the Roman way, but too late. It may or may not be canonical, but I've attempted to portray how the Pelorian and Orlanthi styles bleed over, so that there are Orlanthi wearing, for example, pteruges, with any Sairdite figures mixing together the two traditions even more. There are also a number of distinct traditions: there are sketches of two Yelmalions, and whilst they are both phalangites, the style of their armour is very distinct.
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Never tried. Instead what you are seeing is a mélange of various Bronze Age/Iron Age types and styles ranging down to about 200BC or so. There's quite a bit of scale, but scale armour goes back to the Bronze Age, so what you are seeing are inspired by Hittite/Mitanni etc. armour. Am trying to be very careful to avoid any Republic or Imperial Roman. The main 'inspirations' are Anatolian, Mesopotamian, Mycenaean, Thracian/Dacian, Greek, Macedonian, and southern Italian in a mash-up. Some real historical armour was fairly 'weird' and I've taken delight in drawing a Storm Bull Champion wearing a very applicable early Corinthian helmet... I should add that the 'large' versions are annotated, as this activity commenced when a reviewer wanted illustrations of the pieces of armour described actually being worn. Not certain if every piece appears in a sketch, but there's a wide variety of armour and weapons, and it's given me the opportunity to draw a few helmets that don't appear on the non-definitive helmet illustration page. Additional: hardcopies are now en route to me via... UPS... So if I can collect them, at least one will be coming to Dragonmeet. Here's another sample... drawn as three different images, scanned, combined with the shields drawn on the PC added, and then the figures shaded using Paint. [Note that additions have caused changes to pagination since the last sample.]
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Sorry, I didn't see this comment. Where do I get it? Drawing on a pad of paper or on my computer, or a combination of both. I have made use of a few pieces of ancient art (often for shield designs) modified for Glorantha. For example, this piece is a combination of three or four Greek vases:
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It requires a license from Chaosium, as it breaches numerous intellectual properties. I am not, however, proposing kidnapping anyone. It will, or will not, be released, when the stars are right. You are seeing some of the illustrations, not the text, which goes into detail about the nature of warfare in a Bronze Age/Iron Age world, with added magic. Whilst I am not an expert on such warfare, there's sufficient detail to act as a take it or leave it resource (there are three methods of forging an iron sword, for example, four if you include major sorcery), and mini-articles on logistics, which will leave many people cold, are scattered throughout. There are numerous colour-coded text boxes - green for logistics, black for brief real world comments, orange for snippets relevant for Orlanthi, yellow for Solar, red for Lunar etc. Some material may or may not be in Wyrms Footnotes, as I provided a five thousand word essay, which may have been cut. Here's the current Table of Contents, with the reduced appendices... Please note that whilst I've attempted to make it as canonical as possible, it doubtless deviates from canon, especially around things like Chronomancy.
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Pondering what to do next... Decided to see if there was an 'imbalance' of forces...
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No doubt. This, and much else was covered in the article I wrote for WF#16. Another one... Am starting to use these to force chapters to end on a full or nearly full page (which means there are only another twelve to do - less if cavalry, as a cavalry sketch tends to occupy the space of two or three foot figures).
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If I can get it printed in time, I will be bringing a copy to Dragonmeet (not for sale).
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A repeating chariot-mounted ballista... The Lunars have very few working Deretinic chariots at any one time, of either the heavy or repeater variety. Unlike a NSTV these chariots aren't easy to manufacture or use. Note the two operators, one casting a spell to stop the thing from jamming. The driver is preparing to set the four horses in motion...
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Another one...
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These sketches are made using pen and ink, and then digital corrections and shading using Paint and Word (very primitive). The latest is a composite of three sketches: zebra, harness and rider. A very long time ago, I used to draw, but arthritis and lack of time meant that there are the first drawings I've made in about twenty or thirty years. Some of my very old stuff can be seen here: https://www.deviantart.com/atlancalli Below is the Zebra rider 'in context' - unfortunately the text about lancers is on the facing page. The armor is derived from Jan's illustration; I did deliberate making it striped black and white or 'chequerboard' but thought it might be too much. The Dacian style helmet seemed to fit - I experimented giving it a black-and-white crest and decided it didn't need it.
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Latest teaser...
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These sketches resulted from a review comment that there needed to be illustrations labelled to display the pieces of armour. I couldn't afford to pay a professional artist to do these, so had to sketch out a few. So the first four were drawn (the first four on the top line) but didn't really show a very wide variety. Then it was obvious that animal armour needed an illustration. A few more were drawn, and slotted into the Regional Warfare chapter, and then it was obvious that more were needed for the Battlefield chapter for the components of a shield-wall or phalanx... You see where this was going? Meanwhile, the smaller versions were used to illustrate the Army Lists. The whole project started from a chat at Dragonmeet two years ago, and has just... grown into a 300+ page document which now regularly crashes Word. Excerpts were due to appear in the next Wyrms Footnotes, but may have been dropped to reduce the page count.
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Ssp Ankh - living image, has been suggested.
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Just a teaser. There are two 'finished' versions of these sketches: one twice the size and one much larger, often with shading.
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It's a teaser. Actual versions of the images appear either twice or four or five times that size. For context, here's a sample page. Note that the text has been altered. [Earlier images were removed after the antics of a non-uz troll nearly caused me to leave the forum.]
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Here are the mini versions of sketches of various Gloranthan warriors/soldiers... [Note: the images are only roughly to the same scale, and reins and harness for mounts not the final version.]
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Probably eaten - those that weren't killed or fled.
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Mello Yello is currently held at the Sun County penal salt mines.
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Baroshi, in addition to being a deity choice for the Eleven Lights, is, I suspect, a patron deity of the Snakepipe Dancers, another of the regiments of the Sartar Magical Union.
