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Bohemond

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Everything posted by Bohemond

  1. It is a common mistake in thinking about history for people to assume greater continuity with the past than actually exists, especially over long periods. Speaking as a professional historian, I think the burden of proof generally rests on the assumption of continuity rather than the assumption of discontinuity. Sources by definition cannot prove discontinuity over long periods because sources do not document what doesn't happen or exist. Thus, in the absence of clear evidence, one should not assume continuity. The fact that modern Maltese racing traps have some vague similarity to Roman racing chariots does not mean there is a direct relationship between the two beyond the fact that a need for a light vehicle was common to both systems of racing. But this is a fairly irrelevant debate for discussing the Sartarite use of chariots.
  2. Racing traps like the ones used in harness racing (shown here) are loosely similar to the racing chariots the Romans and Greeks used, although they are controlled sitting down rather than standing. But they're not directly descended from Roman chariots. Modern harness racing seems to have emerged only in the 16th century and didn't really emerge until the later 18th century (SFAIK). So this isn't an example of historical continuity so much as independent convergent evolution of the form.
  3. I think it's important to factor in the issue of terrain when discussing the degree to which chariots were used in warfare. Historically, the cultures that relied on them heavily tended to be Middle Eastern cultures where warfare was happening on broad plains. Flat land is very conducive to chariots, whereas very hilly ground is not--if driven too fast, the chariot easily overturns, throws off its riders, or shakes so much that aiming a missile weapon becomes difficult. The Mycenaean Greeks seem to have used chariots militarily, but at some point during the Greek Dark Age they appear to have abandoned that practice and relegated them mostly to transportation and sports. Homer displays a memory of chariot warfare in the Iliad, but doesn't understand how they are used--his warriors ride chariots around the battlefield and then leap out to fight on foot when they find a target. The Archaic and Classical Greeks and the Romans throughout their history did not fight from chariots and instead built their military systems around infantry, which works much better in the terrain they had. Among the Celts, chariots enjoyed some use in warfare, but mostly for pre-battle displays of bravery and as a sort of emergency evacuation vehicle. The Classical world primarily used chariots for sport-racing, and those chariots were surprisingly light, stripped down vehicles--the charioteer was expected to balance on the axle instead of enjoying a 'carriage' to ride in on top of the axle. Our popular imagination is heavily shaped by the various theatrical and cinematic versions of Ben Hur, which don't really accurately capture the nature of Roman chariot racing. What does this have to do with Glorantha? Prax and Sun County and perhaps Sun County and the Local and Dinacoli clan lands in Sartar are good flat fields conducive to chariot warfare, but the hilly and forested nature of much of Sartar means it would be hard to use chariots effectively in combat unless one had special magic to counteract the bouncing it will do on rocky terrain. I think Sartarites would use chariots primarily for ritual matters, to provide a speaking platform for a chieftain to address his forces, and as a spell-casting platform that can be repositioned as necessary (but probably not for a lot of spell-casting while the chariot in in motion). It's also worth noting that lots of deities in both the real world and Glorantha are depicted driving chariots--Zeus, Apollo, Hades, Thor, Orlanth, Valind, Yelm, Ronance. But with the exception of Ronance, these are gods associated with the Air or the Sky,. where the 'terrain' is a lot less rocky and one can assume that divine power smoothes out whatever mystical surface the chariot moves on. So I could easily imagine a priest of one of those gods using his magic to ride his chariot above the battlefield (sort of like Gagarthi riding their horses), throwing down spells and missiles as air support. But in the absence of a specific 'Fly Chariot' spell, I would think that would require a fair number of rune points to get a chariot, one or more horses, and one or more riders into the air.
  4. I think this is a very important point. In Glorantha, myth recapitulates social action and social action recapitulates myth. Almost all important social activities/practices/groups have at least one myth that justifies them, and most myths act to create social activities and practices. It's the chicken and the egg--both came first. "Why do we hate the trolls, grandpa?" "Because Orlanth fought and defeated them." "Why does Orlanth fight the trolls, grandpa?""Because they are horrible monsters that we need to fight." People tell the myth of Orlanth defeating the Dark Woman because people need myths to use as tools to protect themselves from trollish aggression. And people are a target of trollish aggression because the myths reinforce the hostility between them and the trolls. As agnostics sometimes say today, it's awfully convenient that God turns out to hate exact/y the things his followers hate.
  5. I think it's important to recognize that these races tend to need things that harm the other races. Trolls are voracious eaters and left unchecked can devour literally everything. A group of trollkin are like locusts, so if they get onto your tula they will just eat until they can't eat any more, which can easily destroy herds and fields. Troll eating is horrific to humans--they don't cook their food so they will literally just rip a chunk off a still live animal or human. In battle, they sometimes sit down to eat the people they've just killed, as well as their own fallen. They are just as bad to Aldryami forests. And they love eating dwarves because dwarves go into their rock gullet but are more easily digested, which is very pleasurable for trolls. In a world where food production is a serious challenge, where famine and starvation are legitimate threats, and whole cults exist to counter that, trolls are the embodiment of one of the most dangerous principles in the world. Trolls NEED darkness, whereas humans and elves NEED sunlight. Elves are similarly a threat to human food production--they dislike the human tendency to cut down forests and till fields because to elves that is constraining the natural development of vegetation. I imagine that aldryami look at fields and grain silos like abattoirs or slave colonies, where their little plant brothers are tortured to prevent them from achieving their natural growth and are then slaughtered just when they are about to reproduce. Dwarves view vegetation rather the way humans view mold--something disgusting that gets everywhere and ruins and sickens things if you don't clean it away regularly. Dwarves need order and perfection, and no other species lives up to their standards. Humans and elves and trolls just run riot over everything and cause trouble for the project to repair the World Machine, so not only are they a nuisance, they are a nuisance that is actively getting in the way of the dwarves' primary agenda. They also view pretty much all organic things as components for their own projects--when they need troll gall bladders they just go out and harvest them, which understandably infuriates whoever is on the receiving end of that treatment. Because their own society is generally so rigidly structured, they are inclined to look down on other races as -at best- children that need to be taught how to be seen and not heard. They find biological reproduction unpleasant and disgusting, so the fact that other races actively celebrate it grosses them out. Their rigidity also makes cross-species understanding hard to achieve because they literally can't understand how other species think. (I suspect the elves have the same problem). They make horrifying weapons that other species can't understand and can't easily defend against, especially iron, which is toxic to trolls and elves. They are also locked in conflict with both trolls and elves for control of the same basic resource--the earth itself. Dragonewts are simply unpredictable because their thought patterns are utterly alien to anyone who's not a dragonewt. It's nearly impossible to predict how they will react to something, which means you can't easily make peace treaties with them--how would know they would actually keep them? You kill them and they come back--that's absolutely terrifying! In that sense, they're sort of like zombies--driven by an alien mindset and even if you kill them you can never be sure they won't return. Think about how easy it is for two historical human cultures to misunderstand each other. To take just a few more extreme examples, white Americans often struggle to understand the concerns of Black and Native Americans and can't understand why those groups won't just let things like slavery and genocide go. Nazis demonized Jews to the point that many literally regarded them as inhuman, and white supremacists view Blacks as less-evolved humans ("they don't feel pain like we do..."). If that sort of monstrosity happens in our own world, and not even two centuries ago, imagine how much more antipathetic actually different sentient species would be to each other.
  6. I like the idea that the Cult discovered that Silence is a positive force in itself, not just the absence of sound--in other words the silence it produces spreads like like or heat and is capable of infecting people, who lose the ability to make sounds.
  7. All Gloranthan peoples observe the Sacred Time in some manner, because it is a moment when the cosmic order might collapse and therefore needs to be reinforced with rituals that reaffirm the cosmic order and strengthen the gods in their constant struggle during the Godtime. So even if they don't organize their calendar the way the Theyalans do, their calendar has a two week period that happens to coincide with the human Sacred Time. Probably the first day celebrates Subere, the Dehori, and the most ancient ancestors who first emerged out of the primal darkness. I imagine that Gorakiki's rituals and those that honor the mothers of the various insect species happen early in this period. Yelm's arrival is certainly remembered, though not celebrated. He invades, they fight him and lose. Argan Agrar and Xentha are honored for their leading the trolls up to the surface world and establishing a place for them there. This would be a very somber ritual, because it marks the trolls exile from Wonderhome and thus probably has some element of lament in it (perhaps a two-day ritual--on the first day they must prepare to leave Wonderhome and on the second day they commemorate establishing their specific community as one of the deeds of Argan Argar). (Part of me is picturing this as a sort of trollish version of the Passover...) AA's defeat of Lodril is probably also commemorated. Kygor Litor's rituals would probably involve something honoring her role as the Great Mother. Her defeat of Thed would be a major ceremony as well (re-enacted with a broo or other chaotic creature) Zorak Zoran's rituals would reenact some of his most important conflicts, such as his defeat of Yelmalio at the Hill of Gold. Xiola Umbar's ceremonies commemorate one of her great healings or midwifery events. Her ceremonies may take place at the same time or right after ZZ's rituals (since they are twins). The last day probably commemorates whatever the trollish version of the fight with the Devil in the Underworld looks like--devouring pieces of him, honoring Arachne Solara for spinning the web that holds Time together. Looking at this, I can imagine that the first week is mostly peaceful and celebratory, honoring the troll ancestors and the primary forces and darkness. I picture lots of drumming and dancing, interacting with the ancestors and darkness spirits. At the end of that week, Yelm arrives. The second week is all about the events of the Lesser and Greater Darkness (or however the trolls term those period). These rituals are more about violence, conflict, suffering, and the triumph that destroyed the Devil and secured the safety of the cosmos.
  8. Perhaps not 'forced to adhere'--no one can make you do anything. But possibly it makes your outlawry visible to all Orlanthi.
  9. I agree--Ernalda's law doesn't involve compensation for misdeeds. Serious offenses--desecration of temples, rape, assault of priestesses--are resolved only with bloodshed. Maran Gor is Ernalda's dark face and Babeester Gor avenges crimes against the earth. And yes, the conflict between different views of the law is exactly the sort of thing Germanic literature loved to explore through tragic stories. When women feature in early Germanic literature, they are often caught between the obligations of birth family and marital family. Do they avenge a dead husband by killing their brother (who killed the husband), or do they avenge a dead brother by killing their husband (who killed their brother)? Sometimes there is no good way out of a terrible situation.
  10. Keep in mind that outlawry (in historical medieval Europe) is only something that a specific community has the power to impose--As the chieftain of the local community, I can declare you an outlaw in my community but the next community down the road has no real obligation to accept that. In Sartar, however, perhaps one of the powers of a chieftain/king/prince/lawstaff-holder/member of the Orlanth Rex subcult is the ability to make binding outlawry, which is observed by all clans/tribes. Perhaps there is a ritual for casting someone out of the community and giving them over to Gagarth.
  11. Speaking as someone who studies violence in the Middle Ages and teaches the subject, I think I can shed some light on how this system emerged historically, which helps us see how it might operate in Sartar. Historically, feuding emerged as a mechanism in cultures that had weak central government, because it allowed for the enforcement of law by the victim of a crime without having to have recourse to a government-maintained law enforcement system. If A harms B, B or B's relatives (whose family group has been harmed) have the right to inflict a reciprocal injury on A (or on A's family group). When B harms A, however, A and his family now get a justification for inflicting violence on B and his relatives. This is because there is no central justice institute that can take a bird's eye view of the violence and decide who is responsible for starting the violence. Intention doesn't matter either; the side that is suffering the current injury is focusing on the damage done to it. This deters crime by creating the threat of reciprocal violence against the criminal and his kin, Since this view of violence creates a cycle of constant reciprocal violence until one side is completely destroyed, feuding cultures typically developed some version of compensation (wergeld). This allows A to pay a fine for B's injury. If B accepts the compensation, he is agreeing to forego all further rights of violent vengeance. It is likely that the two sides would bargain over the amount of compensation, factoring in things like the degree of lost ability caused by the wound, the degree of humiliation the wound causes, the social value of the victim and his kin (the higher the victim's social status, the higher the compensation ought to be), the degree to which the paying side is afraid of the other side, the actual circumstances of the injury, and so on. So even if the law says the compensation for the wound is 5 shillings, that was probably a starting part for the negotiations, rather than a fixed amount both sides automatically accepted. However, while compensation was the peaceful, socially-encouraged method of resolving the dispute, it was seen as the less honorable and less manly method. Paying compensation implied that A is afraid of B, and accepting compensation implied that B is afraid of A. So while the community might lean on A and B to agree to compensation, A was never under a legal obligation to offer compensation and B was never under a legal obligation to accept it. Either side might insist on violence instead. So if A's family are mostly shepherds and B's family are weapon thanes, A probably wants to pay compensation, while B might be reluctant to accept it and might insist on a higher payment than was strictly customary. If B is the shepherd and A the weapon thane, B might try to demand compensation and A's response would be to refuse and dare him to make good on the violence. Notice how much honor, masculinity, and so on are tied up in this. The side that pays is probably seen as less manly and the side that accepts might feel like its pride is still wounded. If the payment gets made, it's often because the community has pressured both sides into accepting the deal because the community doesn't want the violence to continue disrupting society, because violence has a way of spilling over and dragging more people into the conflict. Now this system doesn't quite make sense in Sartar for several reasons. 1) magical healing can undo a great percentage of the harms of violence, even death. So it makes sense that if a wound has been healed, the compensation would be much lower because the victim has suffered only a social injury, not a lasting physical one. 2) Sartarites have chieftains who can adjudicate disputes in their clan as an outside authority. Tribes have kings to adjudicate disputes between clans, and there is also a Prince who can adjudicate disputes that happen across tribal boundaries. These authorities function as judges, but not as law enforcement, meaning that vengeance is still being inflicted on the personal level not by a state authority. Because of 2, the game takes inspiration from Iceland, where there was a loose system of chieftains who had judicial authority but not police authority. In Iceland, if a chieftain issued a ruling in favor of one side, the other side was free to ignore the ruling, but that would tend to force the chieftain into giving military support to the side he ruled for, essentially turning the judge into an ally of the victorious party and making him honor-bound to support the side he ruled for. The judge is not doing it because he legally has to enforce his verdict, but rather because his honor has been insulted and he stands to lose prestige if he allows the other side to ignore his judgment. But Iceland is a weird example because it doesn't really have a government beyond a court system. Elsewhere in Early Medieval Europe, there were kings who had a wider degree of authority. So we have to sort of hand-wave the fact that the game is trying to use a system that doesn't entirely fit the cultural examples it's drawing off of. With all of this in mind, let's look at Desperate Wind Child's scenario. Hasshole taunts Innocent. He inflicts a social wound (the insult) but not a physical one. Social wounds on their own do not deserve compensation, so Innocent has no legal grounds to demand compensation. Instead Innocent's only culturally acceptable option is to engage in violence against Hasshole or his kin, to prove that he is actually a man. If he fails to do this, he is likely to be mocked by both Hasshole's community and his own. Chalanans will urge him to forgive the insult, but given that it will make him look unacceptably weak, he probably can't afford to do that. Ernaldans will remind him that there are always other ways to take vengeance, such as cursing Hasshole or the like, but they will still feel that Innocent has to do something. Forgiveness of the insult is not an option, because it will tell everyone that Innocent is an easy target for violence, and that's going to make him a problem for his clan. He doesn't go to the ring because this is a personal matter, not a clan matter. But he might go to his kinsmen who are good warriors and urge them to help him make good on the social injury. So Innocent gathers a group of his kinsmen and goes looking for Hasshole. He confronts Hasshole and demands a retraction of the insult. If Hasshole refuses, the only real option left is violence. Perhaps Innocent sends someone to negotiate a way out of the dispute. A Chalanan might try to shame Hasshole into retracting. A Lhankor Mhy might try to persuade him or warn him of the consequences of not apologizing, an Issarion might try to bargain down the apology in some way, a Humakti might seek to intimidate Hasshole with the implication that if Hasshole doesn't apologize, he will be facing Innocent AND the Humakti. An Ernaldan might appeal to shared family ties, or seek to make peace over whatever led Hasshole to make the insult. But if Hasshole doesn't back down, Innocent must either engage in violence or live with the shame of not being able to avenge the insult.
  12. Warning: Spolier alert: This post discusses a key event that happens in Six Seasons in Sartar.
  13. I think everyone is excited to see these and know when they're going to be available (I sure am!). I think the grumbling is not about the books themselves or even the news, but about the way the build-up teased that these might be available now, rather than in 4-5 months. This approach took something we're all excited about and turned into a reason to be frustrated, whereas a less suspense-building approach would have just elicited enthusiasm. Saying it's here and then revealing that 'it' isn't the book but rather just the publication schedule is sort of like telling me I'm getting a really great birthday present and then when my birthday arrives I get an IOU for something cool.
  14. It seems to me that the PCs earned the armor (especially if you require them to do some work to figure out how to actually make armor out of it). Taking that away by having it fade away or having dragonewts come after it feels a little mean-spirited to me. So rather than making it impossible to make or taking it away, it seems to me the way to deal with this is to make it a really good but not game-balance destroying set of armor. So give it some combination of A) better armor points than simple leather, B) lighter encumbrance value than normal for its armor points, and C) some small bonus that normal leather armor doesn't provide. For example, For example, it might have the AP of light scale, but 1 less ENC and grants the wearer 1 pt of Countermagic or Spirit Screen while still being compatible with Protection and Shimmer. That's a cool treasure item that doesn't unbalance the game.
  15. Keep in mind that most fantasy RPGs emphasize 'killing monsters'--the PCs are humans or elves or dwarves and just about everything else are 'bad guys' who exist for the PCs to 'kill and take their stuff'. That's never really been RQ's main focus. One of Stafford's many great innovations was to situate the opposition species as having their own complex cultures. The trolls have a rich and complex society. So do the elves. And the dwarves. And the Telmori. And the Scorpion Men and the Broos and so on. (OK, those last two are chaotic and mostly monster species, but still have some sort of culture). And the humans have a lot of variation. So the things you are able to fight aren't just 'kill and take their stuff' baddies. They exist in their own eco-systems and if you are in conflict with them, you might wind up fighting them for their stuff, but you also might wind up negotiating with them for co-existence, or heroquesting to win them over as allies, or having to team up with them against some common enemies that seem even worse. And those other species have their own political and social and religious divisions and while you're fighting a species, another group of that same species might be willing to work with you. The recent thrust of RQ has been to sharply move away from PC murderhobos to PCs that exist within a community of some sort, and that community can be a rich sort of conflict and story-telling all on its own. You can certainly run RQ in a 'kill them and take their stuff' mode, but that's just one facet of the game world. That's why there are only 180 pages of monsters--the game is inviting you to stop viewing them just as monsters and more as antagonists of a much more complex type, with whom you can tell much more complicated and nuanced stories. In fact, you can run whole campaigns in which the enemies are entirely human and in which non-humans have only occasional guest-starring roles. Figuring out how to ruin the clan your clan has hated for centuries can be way more interesting than killing the goblins for their treasure.
  16. One of my players decided he wanted to worship Argan Argar (as a Sartarite). Apart from the write-ups in Troll Gods and the Sartar Companion, are there any major myths or texts dealing with him? Any idea what his initiation rituals look like among Heortlings?
  17. The Pharaoh's magic was so power in doing this that it apparently extended into our world...
  18. I'm not familiar with this 'first confrontation with Nontraya and ZZ' that you mention. Do you have a source or a specific myth for this? I'm really trying to flesh out Ernalda's mythology for my campaign.
  19. That's EXACTLY what I was imagining. She's wearing a fedora and carrying a bullwhip but still looking fresh and cute...
  20. I am in the process of setting up a largish (30-40 players) Sartar LARP campaign and I'm looking for some help running it. About the game: The campaign as currently envisioned will be running quarterly in the Greater Chicago area (so ideally the narrator would be in the Chicago-Milwaukee area as well, or at least willing to make a regular commute for it). It's going to be focused on political, social, and religious conflict within the Lismelder tribe in the period of the Lunar occupation. It will be using a stripped-down version of the Heroquest system but will be rules-light. Player base is likely to include a mix of those familiar with Glorantha and total newbies. My intention is to focus on what makes Glorantha different from other fantasy worlds. About me: I've been gaming in Glorantha for since about 1980 and I've been involved in LARP (live-action role playing) for about 30 years. What I'm looking for: Ideally, I'm looking for someone who has familiarity with both Glorantha and LARP (and how LARP differs from table-top). In LARP terms, I'm an Immersive Gamer with a very sandbox style of GMing, but I don't need in other narrators (in fact, a diversity of styles is particular helpful in LARP). Since the game is likely to wind up exploring the Earth tribe goddess in various ways, I'd particular like female narrators (since a guy running women's religious mysteries can seems kinda skeevy). I'm also interested in exploring Sartarite society (its practices, customs, assumptions, etc) and putting them in tension with the Lunars (who will not explicitly be 'bad guys', since there will be Lunar PCs), so if you're interested in 'social and cultural history', you'd fit in very well. You don't need to have all those traits, but one or two of them would be nice. If you think you fit the bill (or at least a couple of the key items), send me a DM. I'll be glad to answer questions either in a DM or in the thread.
  21. I am trying to make sense of the HQ (now QW) rules about Lunar magic and I cannot figure out how the Lunar phases/stretch penalties work. It says in HQ p. 182 that "A Lunar magician can use her Lunar Phase to create glamours mimicking the runes that Phase can replace. The direct use of the Lunar Phase incurs a Stretch penalty of -6 (see page 103) – unless: (1) the Lunar is an initiate of a Lunar New God cult and is creating glamours in accordance with the teachings of that New God; or (2) is using a Lunar grimoire. The use of the Lunar Phase as an augment does not incur a Stretch penalty." Point 2 is clear--grimoires aren't affected by the phase of the moon. But point 1 has me stumped. The Seven Mothers are Immortals not New Gods, so that seems to say that an initiate of one of the 7M is at a greater penalty than an initiate of one of the New Gods. Irripi Ontor is the Mother of the Full Moon, while the Red Emperor is the New God of the Full Moon (among a couple others), so this seems to say that the Emperor's magic is more powerful than IO's because the Emperor's magic isn't subject to stretch penalties. And what does any of this have to do with the actual phase of the Moon? To make things more confusing, in the Highwall Inn scenario it says (on page 7), "The Phase of the Moon is important to any Lunar magician. This episode begins on Wild Day, and there is a Full Moon. This means the Lunar magicians can act without stretch penalties when using Glamours. This will change, at nightfall, as the day changes to Empty Half and glamours will receive stretch penalties." But if I'm reading HQ p. 184 correctly, there are no Stretch penalties on Empty Half day--stretch penalties are only applied on Crescent Come and Crescent Go. So under what circumstances are stretch penalties actually applied to Lunar magic? If they are only applied on Crescent Come and Crescent Go, why is it supposed to be beneficial that all stretch penalties are cancelled on Full Moon day? And the quote from p. 182 I mention above seems to say that the 7M cults ALWAYS have a stretch penalty, apparently regardless of the Moon phase. Is that what's getting cancelled on Full Moon day.
  22. Thank you, that helps!
  23. Do we know anything about the wyter of the Lismelder tribe? It's not likely to be Lismelder herself, given what happened to her. So I'm curious if there are any other ideas about it?
  24. The stuff in Enclosure really helps! Thanks!
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