Ali the Helering

Nope, Scott Morrison's still in charge...

I feel the same with the 'hatred' for Sheng Seleris. The Romans derided and hated Attila because he was their enemy, but that didn't make his discipline any worse than decimation or his slaughtering worse than theirs. Temujin massacred, but so did European, Central Asian and Chinese monarchs. He terrified them, and they presented him as bestial. The only reason one can speak of the 'positive' side of Genghis Khan is due to revisionist historians rediscovering the truth of the situation. I think one should view Sheng Seleris in the same manner. Does he slaughter? Yes. Is he unspeakably evil? No more than Argrath, Harrek, Godunya, the present Mask... Glorantha surely encourages us to more nuanced approaches to absolutist claims and interpretations. Or perhaps we should simply embrace the Dark Side and Make Argrath Great Again?

Nahh, can't agree. Make that Erronious Jaranthir.

I am extremely fond of ayran - far too fond for my cholesterol readings! Llamas produce a low volume of milk, but very mineral-rich and lactose-heavy. It can be used to make cheese, but seldom is. I am unsure of the latest canon, but it used to be that there were camels atop the Shadow Plateau.

Sheep's milk produces more cheese per unit volume than does cow's milk, and can produce yoghurt and butter. While wool doesn't make a linothorax, it makes very good padded/quilted armour.

Absolutely. They still needed some breeding stock, however, since they were a large item to restrain on a Minoan trading vessel!

Yup, so one could easily imagine 300k sheep for a population of 100k humans, scaled up to 375k sheep for 125k humans. Feel free to decrease it for a lack of central organisation, but one can't discount it. There is also evidence for a significant cattle-raising capability on Crete.

Absolutely, Joerg. However, the highest estimate for Minoan population is 100k, 25k less than Sartar. The statistics are therefore not entirely inappropriate for sheep herding across Sartar as a whole.

Pretty please with a side order of kæstur hákarl. Be warned, if it doesn't appear, you will receive two servings instead.

An interesting paper from the Textile Society of America "The Aegean Wool Economies of the Bronze Age" by Marie-Louise Nosch of the University of Copenhagen states "At Knossos on Crete, the palace economy focused on wool as a means of achieving standardized textile products; other secondary products from sheep and goats, such as milk, skins, horn, sinew, lanolin, and meat, only occur sporadically in the palace records. The Knossos palace monitored 100,000 sheep, primarily wethers for optimal wool production since castration provides more homogeneous fleeces. Other flocks of sheep grouped female animals and their lambs. Some 700 shepherds tended these flocks throughout central and western Crete. In the villages, and around the palace of Knossos, ca. 1000 women and children were occupied with a wide range of tasks related to textile production, primarily wool. Each year the Mycenaean flocks provided ca. 50-75 tons of raw wool; after cleaning this amounted to 25-40 tons for textile production. Mycenaeans use logograms to designate a piece of textile, and each of these pieces are woven from 1-10 kilograms of clean wool. Thus the annual yield of raw wool would provide fiber resources for between 2500 and 25,000 textiles." The economic product from herds must not be eclipsed by that from crops.

As with so many things Gloranthan, I think the key is to look at the magics available to the people. Maran (Gor or otherwise) is excellent for exposing new seams for open-cast mining. Swems and other earth-borers (Uz or Hsunchen) can find and retrieve isolated nodules. Lodril and some of the Sons and Servants seem perfectly suited, and in the east the Earth Eater offers a likely candidate. Aldryami who speed a plant's growth can disrupt rock with fast-growing roots. Etc, etc to your heart's content, and your varying Glorantha... 😁

With the addition of Cragspider, her Great Uz and a black dragon, this will be quite a force!

This is dumb? I had always assumed it! Ooops...

Ahem. "Olds"? Grognards, if you don't mind.

Proximity to housing meant less time lost due to walking to and from work and hence higher productivity, a lower probability of large predators, and somewhere to run to in the event of bandit raids. If you were purchasing it, the closer it was the higher the probability that the land had been 'improved' by previous owners, so the price increased commensurately. The peculiar thing (to our way of thinking) is that these prices appear to have been stable across a wide area of numerous nations for many hundred years. Since the house rent when 'bordering a field' is so much higher I can only assume that the field is included, but I have no evidence for this. Very sorry for being confusing!

Fine, just going by what I was taught at Cambridge Uni. While they are not all knowing, I wouldn't dismiss it too readily, but there you go.

Alternatively, the weak link in the chain starts screaming "Run away, run away, we're all going to die!" and the others are demoralised..... I actually knew a player who did that a lot🤣

Etymologically it means 'tent dweller'.

Some years ago I compiled RW price lists from across the bronze age 'Near East', which are remarkably consistent. The prices are in 'heavy' shekels as far as can be told, a standard measure even before coinage. 1 mina = 60 shekels, 1 talent = 60 minas. (The sources being a variety of national Law Codes and actual sales documents.) Real Estate Acre of land around settlement 3 “ “ near the “ 2 “ “ further from the settlement 1 Acre of established vineyard 60 House rent 1.5/year House rent, noted as bordering a field 4, plus 3 baskets of dates/year House Purchase 5 talents & 30 minas of lead! These prices refer, of course, only to states where private ownership of land was normative.

That's so often the nature of mysticism 😁

Thankfully they have 'straight' answers as well.

I know, it simply sounded better to me. Sometimes art must overcome precision😜 As it happens, I used to work at the Uk's Trademark Registry!

Copyrighting

Try the Exeter Riddle Book. Especially the obscene ones.

Some artists use carved lobster shell, so it should only be an issue due to their uz association.