scott-martin

8 hours ago, Akhôrahil said:

chaoticism goes hand in hand with decadence

I have given up all my likes so remind me to come back. Your first question about the centralization of magic revolves around the "disenchantment of the world" model of religious history that was popular in Greg's formative years. In this model, as societies become larger and more complex, what we would consider significant magic becomes another specialty for a narrow proportion of the population to pursue. These specialists tend to be close to the state for various reasons: they're valuable and need to be protected or controlled, their activities bring them personal power in themselves, their function is part of the state-making apparatus so there is no difference. For just about everyone else, encounters with magic become rare and extraordinary to the extent to which the specialists become integrated into the state. When the interests of the magicians and the state diverge, you're in for exciting times.

Now as for the link between chaos and decadence, Greg's innate suspicion of empire is probably the biggest factor. Throughout his career he's been on the side of disruption. Storm gods are his favorites and Sartar wins the war because in his heart complex systems tend to be inauthentic and unsustainable. At times like the hero wars era the seeds of the failure take many forms: bureaucratic stagnation, failure to initiate, decadence, strange and exotic pastimes. Participating in these systems carries significant rewards for some -- often the entrenched specialists near the core -- but in Glorantha this is rarely a long-term good deal for anyone. Sooner or later the machine stops. Most simply get ground in the gears. Others drop out to seek authenticity in the form of a personal relationship with "magic" outside the usual channels. Some find chaos and become part of the problem.
 

1 hour ago, Joerg said:

I really like how you make the Rokari wizards' celibacy an admission of their inadequate ancestry. I wonder how much they select their wizards in training for physical characteristics...

Thanks. Even my hatred for them observes a certain delicacy around their obvious intellectual failures. But it's interesting that if the ancestral "zzaburites" have such a Napoleon complex need to be taller for the magic to work, that sounds like a different original gene pool from the baseline Brithini type. Whether that's simply a separate bride of Malkion bringing height (and probably blueness) into the system or something more sinister in its complications, I don't want to read ahead.

(I've never seen a reference to the old Vadeli being low in SIZ and I seem to recall the Veldang are relatively tall, for what that's worth. Height might also come to signify facility with magic at a certain historical moment, possibly with tall wizards staging some sort of coup within the blue caste. Also we are dealing with a civilization singled out in the texts for turning "ancestor worship" or genealogy into a military science, so these questions are important.)

The notion of them swiping perfectly good children from the other castes because there's a chance they'll turn out taller is a good one. I think we tend to imagine them only picking the smartest kids but I see little evidence of that in their society. In some eras we know that zzabur have taken women, presumably selecting for actual magical talent there. 

Thanks also for bringing up the kshatriya -- as you are aware, some theories have posited that the vedic castes evolved separately and came together in a pattern of conquests, alliances and other amalgamations, so at various points in history the proto-kshatriya tribes in particular might formally outrank the proto-brahmin, for example. In this model, while each caste now plays a stereotyped professional role (priest, warrior, bourgeois, peasant), each had or could evolve an independent cultural apparatus that substitutes or compensates for the other castes if cooperation breaks down. I'm most familiar with the concept in modern arguments that the brahmin are effete parasites and the kshatriya with their muscular, chivalric ethos really know what's going on. I'd forgotten this earlier so maybe that makes the deep analogy to archaic Brithos a little more direct. 

Cutting a lot to avoid turning this into a drastic resolution (too late) but it's probably pretty easy to evaluate a population's physical drift from the classic Brithini type by prevalence of various skin tones as well as SIZ. I'd probably start in Sog. We know the percentage dice for that, at least. And as for your henotheists, definitely my idealists in the far north. One thing we can always agree on is that Tanisor is a serious pain.

1 hour ago, Joerg said:

the second sentence is wrong about the combat training as far as Malkioni in general are concerned

I read all this stuff as how an observant outsider in 1625 Seshnela (Tanisor) would describe local cultural norms -- the facts on the ground -- while including local explanations and accounts of alternative Western practices where they support or at least fill voids in that narrative. Obviously the chapter reflects the "all you malestini must listen" Brithinocentric puritanical party line coming down from Leplain because that's what the wizards say, but the narrator is good to let facts that don't fit the dogma remain unchallenged. Modern Seshegi talars engage in war all the time. At best, the historical "use of weapons" in the shape of regalia defies strict caste boundaries, and then you've got the cavalry (to satisfy some ghost of the old "knights on horseback" image?). 

These facts are gold because they trace some of the ways their society has deviated from the Brithini ideal Since Time and may yet do so again. Maybe at some point the Tanisorians ran out of "legitimate" talars and these are really the heirs of the old horal caste (*) doing the best they can. They aren't censured for fighting because the wizards know the truth, but as the local gentry they're also happy to make someone else do the fighting first, which is where the people with hykimite lineage get pressed into service. Or something like that. 

Anyhow, the point is that the rokarites are doing it wrong and I'm happy the text supports this reading.

(*) not "horalites" in this context -- these people were remarkably good with horses before they were absorbed into Western society and retain elements of that heritage, not that of the original Children of Horal from the sagas -- but I'm probably already in trouble for reading sideways.

16 minutes ago, Joerg said:

There is a difference between the Men-and-a-Half and the Doraddi - the absence of plant lineages. This may have to do with the decline of Ernalda, or it may be an indication that they left before Dorad experienced death.

They don't have grain goddesses down there so archaic lineage-defining interactions with the local "likita" might have been extremely different, now that you mention it. Faranar is not Nyanka, etc.

EDIT FOR PRAX If the Genert and Pamalt systems were once congruent on this point I would not be surprised if the "Genertelan Nyanka" wasn't one of the parts that died on the northern side of the land bridge, forcing them to adopt new reproductive family structures or die out.

18 minutes ago, Joerg said:

Lodril answered the call to battle. He gathered the Agimori together and led them north and east to Vithela. After many adventures, a much-depleted nation crossed a now-vanished land bridge into Fethlon. They then turned west to Prax, to fight chaos in Lodril’s name

This is a great thread and this is the exposed gold. Whoever tells this story as being about "Lodrilites" might tell other stories about "Lodrili." Maybe they tried the plow already too and were drawn into the wars of the northern continent through contacts with neighboring civilizations. They may have diminished in the south and all the names have changed, but that's where it was before the last of their ways was absorbed into the Dara Happan underclass.

As for water and phallic deities (Pamalt the spear), this is probably another of those tantric references that haunt the lozenge. Before the lodril initiation their braves just know how to make it hot, or something.

My two clacks on the expansive art captions is that they're a good working compromise between (a) usability for vision-impaired fans who want an alternative text description of that big blank space in the layout and (b) a reasonable amount of extra detail and background "footnoting" the images for those who see the pictures. If both channels transmitted exactly the same information the picture would be redundant.

I wonder how many people would buy an annotated behind-the-scenes "Art of Glorantha" showing the process (assignment notes / "script," sketch, revision, production), talent interviews, rare unused / variant art pulled from various products that not every fan is going to own: the Guide, 13G, the Sourcebook, Prince of Sartar, etc. Maybe a glossy con fundraiser or something 

High praise indeed given the source. Maybe let's give the bloody rites of Arroin and other veggie tales their own thread when/if I ever get out of the office. 

She might well have stolen that Man Rune altogether, in which case Pavis Himself would be only a famous recent case. (Why are Green females designed to be so attractive to human males?) I hear you also on Sunripen . . . my fantasies of them casting it prophylactically on fields of ripening sprats like we immunize children may be a little broad, and either way it protects their bodies and not the more psychic forms of Gloranthan disease. 

Did forget one possible "consolation of Chalana" for them, though. Aldrya has no remedy against death. This is probably not a problem for most, but we probably see the occasional militant Evergreen get so spooked at the prospect of not coming back next spring that s/he takes the white robe to get close to resurrection. Maybe a few Browns as well. Either way, they're going to be, uh, on the nutty side.

1 minute ago, Darius West said:

Aldryami CAs

You got my attention. First thought there was "I know they have that weird 'special relationship' with Arroin, but what do they get out of the full Chalana that they can't get at home?"

Aldrya can Find Healing Plants through her independent Arroin connection -- dryads adore the wounded healer, which is probably a long Frazerian screed on the horizon in itself -- and is the source of Heal Body, which competes with CA (and Lunar) medicine in some ways. The tree goddess apparently also has independent access to Preserve Herbs, although the text is a little vague on this point. Sunripen prevents mold, rust and other "plant disease spirits" while discouraging vermin. (Naturally I imagine Miracle-Gro sells the secret now in extract form.)

So what does a well-rooted plant person _need_ from the white goddess? Plant disease spirits are a little controversial so maybe Sunripen only works in some circumstances, forcing an infected elf to seek alternative medicine. Maybe this is a kind of "war cult" for hygiene-driven types who hate vermin so much that they delve deep into the mysteries of cleansing . . . these would be militant "sweepers," driving all the bugs they don't like to the nearest troll territory in order to promote a healthier garden. Maybe new plant disease spirits are emerging that the old system can't deal with As The Hero Wars Begin.

And just maybe these people come into our hospitals offering friendship and weird plants as part of a long and sinister agenda to destabilize human healing institutions. (Yes, I did read a little Castaneda as a child and have relatives in Colorado to this day.)

Trivia: Heal Body is shared pretty widely among ("grain") goddesses but doesn't reach Eiritha until Pavis Himself spills the magic beans. This is of course a big deal in the pacts allowing the City to persist within Prax.

P.S. Arroin are happy to work with Humakt, especially when it comes to poison therapy. Even if that's just the Swords making sure the hospital stays open, there seems to be room there on the healers' side for pragmatic compromise. 

Thank you! Agreed rounding those hexes is tricky . . . Spol may feel downright haunted compared to the Blue Moon Plateau, depending on whether we draw the line around the top elevation proper (which Guide 308 implies, 114 hexes) or assume that the troll territory includes the upland forest as well. (Sort of a dodgy proposition based on what we know about their appetites, but they probably don't have a lot of competition.) In the former scenario, the Plateau is almost as densely packed with uz (3300 per hex, averaging 1.5X the threshold for "urban center" on the maps) as modern Ireland or New Hampshire is with people, which is a nasty prospect.

Sure, a lot of them are going to be trollkin and mutants but even a wretched enlo is hungry and takes up D6+6 SIZ. What awful things are they all eating? 

Latter scenario gets them down to about 1260 trolls per de facto hex of territory, so either way they're a whole lot more successful up there than the gloomy Spolites. 

(The disappearance of Jarasan as anything but a word on the map is ominous. I hope it's an omission because I like bird people, but maybe those trolls got hungry.)
 

59 minutes ago, Joerg said:

Orlanthi tattoos – are these mundane or magical in origin (i.e. are there tattoo artists in Orlathi society (presumably in the cults) operating with sacred inks, or are these markings divine gifts without the need for human intercession? Do the initiation marks retrace the divine markings received on the Other Side, but need human artists to retrace them in ink?

Vingkot's ring assigned the tattoo needle to the god-talker but an archaic form of the practice (branding, no ink involved to reveal the patterns) is specifically attributed elsewhere to Issaries, who uses then "the tattooing of power" to set his people apart. My current thinking is that the "marking bone" evolved into both the stylus and the needle and that the first writing in skin used charcoal. What becomes of the competing burnt-mark system remains to be seen. I'm fond of the idea it becomes written Trade, speaking of Elasa, cat and dog scratch, etc.

On 6/30/2017 at 8:00 AM, Joerg said:

Where is Zzabur - the Sorcerer who wields Law - active against Chaos? He is fighting the Vadeli for different reasons, and instrumental in destroying the Spike, thereby enabling the Void to enter.

 

It's almost as though the blue man were blind to what we post-Arkat people would consider "chaos" despite all his fine talk of Law, even through his ambitions (malkion the sacrifice) greased the road through which it entered creation!

But back to Chalana, I'm fuzzy on the mythological nature of poison, which might be a useful tangent to explore here. Poison feels completely mundane in the RQ materials, generally best treated (and brewed) with secular skills instead of spells. On the other hand, poison will affect a lycanthrope while broo are specifically immune to poison along with disease. And of course iron "poisons" some people and not others. Is there a chaos god of poison? Does its use damage the world? Or is this a secret of Gloranthan "alchemy?"

1 hour ago, Joerg said:

uncharted outer World folk like Altinae or Hrimthurs in the western parts.

With six Dark Runes west of the Jankley Bore the troll population there may be drastically undercounted unless they were brought to the edge of extinction in one of those elder race wars, maybe payback over Lentasia . . . and as for eastern outer world folk, Dozaki-Koromondol inverts the human demographics with 4 out of 10 known uz on the lozenge packed into that strange corner of the world. Even the mountains feel crowded with hsun chen. Substantial herds of lo fak retreating to the Panj Mao in winter, flocks of wind children (a lot we have yet to discover about storm worship here), white tiger people, etc. 

We'll put those scaling theories to the test as we survey the edges. The territories at the limits of the inner world are an obvious place to look for wilderness since they tend to be (a) remote from conventional man rune fertility systems and (b) "open to expansion" along at least one border. For example, the mapped portion of North Pent (roughly defined as east of the Troll Marshes, west of Jankley Bore and north of the edge of the central Pentite plateau) might be about 3/4 of an AAA map or 130,000 square miles, so if we extend up another half-map (200 miles, 3-4 days' ride) north you get an overall density equivalent to the modern Yukon. Granted, most of the population will cluster as far south as they can (especially with the Hot Lake so close) and things are going to get very strange up there, but that's how adventuring sages earn their beards.

Even if human habitation in North Pent stops short at the AAA edge (unlikely given label placement), the place is more desolate than modern Alaska or Khabarovsk Krai in the Russian Far East where the movie Dersu Uzala was set. That makes sense. It's harsh up there and normal man rune fertility magic hasn't gotten much of a toehold there . . . probably for various reasons.

Likewise, while most of the population of Eol probably stay as close to the Thunder Delta as they can, including a lot of the territory on AAA Map 8 ("Northern Erigia") gives them a whole lot of almost empty space to roam. As long as we can find them about 1/3 of a map (54,000 square miles) they're as lightly settled as modern Lapland. Admittedly there are still a lot more of them crammed into a smaller zone than we see across the White Sea, so clearly those people are "blessed" by their pacts with the Empire -- starting to suspect this is true in a lot of areas, with advances in trade and other magical technologies feeding population pressures that would be unsustainable in previous ages of the world or if those advances hit a hard wall called "hero wars." 

20 minutes ago, Joerg said:

There might be an explanation for the lack of such nowhere places - nobody is there to maintain them for the Compromise, so they ended up being folded away by the Compromise, possibly as Hidden Greens. After all, Glorantha is real where there are people maintaining their Sacred Time rites.

Thanks! It's a complex challenge because many of the "blankest lands" are between maps and claimed territories . . . and so we'll only get a sense of how empty they are once all their neighbors are resolved. 

As for explanations, I have to admit wondering whether hexes actually get larger around the limits of the inner world, giving humans who wander to the edge more relativistic space. This may have something to do with why the most ancient Brithini are so small, but that's a crazy though so I prefer your view. The "inner world" may simply be where the Compromise has been knit most strongly by the weight of mortal lives.

Test case: Silver Shadow is an easy enough benchmark since it's a perfect ring around the Crater extending as far as north Raibanth roughly 3.5 hexes (17.5 miles) away. We know the Crater radius is 12.5 miles so the total this-world land area is roughly 2335 square miles. Between the cities, the rural population is about twice as dense as the modern Peloponnese -- not exactly a lonely land, but we should expect nothing less within walking distance of such a vast concentration of wealth. Not Lonely.

The Hungry Plateau, on the other hand, gives 36,000 sable riders 86-7 hexes (about 1,900 square miles) to rove so this is a much wilder territory than the imperial heartland without being truly desolate. Presumably the graze is harsh but uniquely suited to the sable way of life, supporting 4X as many per square mile as modern Mongolia supports Mongolians. No wonder they're pleased with themselves! Not Lonely.

For modern demographers, areas with population density below 6 per square mile are considered "frontiers," approximating wilderness. This is not a rare phenomenon on 21st Century Earth: Navajo territory and parts of Maine USA only push the upper limit, and we find even fewer humans stretched across relatively inhospitable or remote areas from Namibia to Greenland.

In your travels, as you identify territories in 17th Century Genertela in particular where the math works out especially lonely, please let me know here. As a rough rule of thumb, 6 residents per square mile translates into a per-hex population of 130, so a 100-hex "frontier" could support maybe 13,000 people and feel as empty as Namibia, Navajo country or the forest of inland Maine.

Again, I am not nitpicking or challenging the numbers. I am simply looking for the wildest corners the inner world has to offer. After all, depending on how the population is distributed, even high gross densities can feel extremely remote -- the modern Black Forest here on Earth manages to support nearly 1 million people across the equivalent of 73 Gloranthan hexes (570 per square mile, equivalent to modern Maryland) and you could trek a long time there without meeting anyone but ancestors and other spirit neighbors.
 

2 hours ago, Byll said:

Granted there may be few cities and those almost all tiny by modern standards, but I had thought bronze age culture would have established large tracts of planed fields and (rough) roads/droves/trails (except of course in barren or magically dangerous regions) .

It's an interesting point. My initial suspicion was that those fields are clustered around the towns, leaving vast sweeps of more-or-less howling wilderness across most of the lozenge. But even by modern definitions, a "frontier" community means a population density under 6 per square mile (~130 per Guide hex) so a backwater like Skanthiland (rural population 25,000) would need to sprawl across 200-210 hexes to be as desolate as, for example, Piscataquis County here in 21st Century Maine. Likewise for a place like Eol (with a relatively primitive nomadic population of 250,000) to achieve the same population density as my mom's home county (where they have gas stations, antibiotics and satellite TV), we'd need to find those people 2/3 of an AAA page (5,300 hexes!) to wander. 

This is not a nitpick because while these population numbers are clearly canonical, beautiful and complete from the original transparencies, I don't know if anyone ever said they had to count living embodied humans exclusively. In my Glorantha these territories get crowded with spirits loosely affiliated with the "community" or genius loci. A secular census may only manage to count 7,000-8,000 living Eolites and the place would still feel as empty as modern Lapland. But the bush sings with ghosts for those with ears to hear.

 

39 minutes ago, Tcneseleis said:

I suppose all Waertagi wars were naval wars against competitors

It might be worth refreshing what we know about these wars and these competitors to see how their mercantile monopoly evolved as well as how it was "maintained" (enforced) in the centuries before Tanian. Various far-flung cultures have "pirate" gods, for example. Others cultivated independent relationships with the oceanic powers. 

A bit of an edge case (is it published? is it fan speculation?) but Sandy spilled a few beans at the front of the '97 Lore Auction (Conpendium).

4 hours ago, Tcneseleis said:

never tapped a peasant in his life, not even called them bumpkins

This is an extraordinary line revealing deep logic around the Tap. Thank you.

54 minutes ago, M Helsdon said:

Bisos the Bull God of Pelanda and Carmania?

He'll do! The question was about survival, but it looks like the legacy of the Bull Shahs goes on strong in pockets like Tawenos and Hurvisos.

On the bull front, you might be onto deep insight with that primal scene. A brother may readily ally with foreigners, possibly sharing the secret in exchange for protection or revenge. What this entails for modern "storm" bull barbarians' relationship to their ox-making cousins is wide open but somehow I don't see the concept flying high on the chaparral.

Maybe Dromal, Dronar or some now-nameless caste-father of farmers contributed the secret in the north and the circumstances around this can easily fuel old grudges like the Tarjinian Bull. At last they had a beast who could really pull a furrow. The technology spreads. This may be the true weapon Syranthir wielded among the old bull people of proto-Carmania, so taboo that the locals would rather focus on the plow it makes possible. Either way, timing here is probably important if we need to restrict this agricultural capacity from warlords of Talor's era.

(As far as I am currently aware no bull god survives into Idovanic Carmania or the lunar era but I would be happy to be proven wrong. While applying "the rites of the bull" to younger brothers would be a good atrocity for the Carmangs to inflict on subject Pelorian nations and beyond, Third Age contexts have probably changed.)

Barntar could sometimes be a fosterling in the household of Orlanth, a more tractable bull-son from vanished Envorela who was separated from his own family and took the bull/ox decision with him -- as you say, kinsman of the ox.

But on the plow front, people have occasionally pondered that troublesome lod-plow from the Lodrilites whom the early children of Malkion subjugated and turned into "laddies." This is its own tricky field. 

Love it. This touches on the whole complex of castrating a sacred bull to create an ox but until I get a chance to really review "all the questions about Prax" that piece of it remains nebulous and probably taboo in berserker circles.

We know Dronar and/or Dromal comes to the table at the very start of the caste system with "the holy plow" already in hand but nothing about who or what originally drew it. Maybe it dug a shallower furrow in the yielding body of Britha and couldn't be easily transplanted until being modified Since Time -- explaining how Syranthir managed to cross Charg on his belly when Talor couldn't.

It kind of starts me wondering in earnest whether Malkion didn't start out with (or acquire) multiple peasant sons bearing multiple plow designs, with their stories conflated except for trace variations in the nomenclature. But that's a slippery slope. 

Either way, to me the success of the Western-style peasant in Carmania over Pelandan survivals probably hinges on the importation of higher-yield farming magic crowding out the old goddess religion.

I don't even know where the Barntar plow comes from. He's definitely a friend of the ox. Maybe the animals drawing the shaker priestess were his originally.

What prevented Akemite forces from simply following the Janube up to proto-Worian and then striking at Dorastor from the north? The Talsardians may have blocked an initial thrust in that direction but by 450 they were allies. Also it goes without saying that there is no Ban in force at this time. Nonetheless first Arkat and then Talor takes the long way around, finally forcing Kartolin despite all precedent. Did Talor's dealings with the Bull and/or blue people mandate what looks like an extensive detour? Was Rist simply a hairier prospect than the unvanquishable fort? I have theories but crowd wisdom is surer.

Bonus: does this shed additional light on Syranthir's unprecedented genius in daring to take his nation on a route his sainted predecessors refused to even consider?

2 hours ago, M Helsdon said:

the very erudite trickster Robert Graves who attempted to extract religion (and history) from the Greek Myths, eventually culminating in The White Goddess, which is a collection of speculation.

On the third hand, without the White Goddess and her sister books we would be unlikely to have the Red Moon Empire or be here to talk about it, so I'm inclined to be a little kinder to his enthusiastic overreach.

Likewise, on the viability of God Learner sources, in many if not most cases they are all we have, so even if that bathwater is filthy it's our best shot at recovering the baby.