Darius West

On 6/13/2022 at 7:07 AM, JRE said:

The social structure of orlanthi does not really benefit from crowds of people, as the clan land is limited, so once you have enough people to work your land, there is no incentive to have extra people, except in time of war, and you need to prepare that a generation early. That is why I propose population control, as the alternative is low intensity continuous warfare. That is the benefit for orlanthi of small families, peace with the neighbours.

I must disagree.  Every bronze age society has a huge impetus to populate.  Every child represents an extra pair of hands to bring in the harvest and engage in unpaid farm work until they achieve their majority, and possibly long after that if they want to inherit.  This was one of the main population drivers of all agricultural societies and it is only in the post WW2 era that this has begun to change in the developed world, but it hasn't changed in the undeveloped world.  High populations and high pop growth rate are also extremely necessary for any group that engage in regular warfare.  Small groups get trampled by large groups.  This "trampling" is how those who lack land are accommodated, they fight and win or lose and die.  This is extremely relevant to Orlanthi tribes too, as their regular feuds are symptomatic of this process.

On 5/23/2022 at 9:14 PM, JRE said:

Women independence.

There are several factors, and we will touch some others, but for me the main one is the low infant death ratio. We know of some magic that helps pregnancies, and the general magic use practically guarantees that in attended deliveries survival rate will be 100% for both mother and child. Although we still expect a high casualty ratio in human males and a lower but significant ratio among human females due to the higher systemic violence, that probably means smaller families and much less pressure on pregnancies for women, as the dead males are socially disposable. If marriages are mainly monogamous, of course. So there will be an excess of single women without partners and widows, which are those better suited for adventuring and other independent life choices.

A higher women independence would balance out the decreased number of married males and decrease social tension, and bring a more equal social weight, though we have irregular results in the cultures described in the literature, but that is not the point today.

I disagree. Seriously look at how Esrolia functions.  They are not strictly Orlanthi, but they are Orlanthi enough.

The driving factor in population growth in the Bronze Age and in most agrarian ages subsequent was that having children was a source of free labor.  Children equal wealth, assuming you have excess land to work.  Motherhood is a means to power, because every child you bring into the world is another human being who is completely loyal to you, and whom you can barter into a politically advantageous marriage or work in the fields.  You seem to think that small families are a virtue, but in this context they are not.  There is no impetus for small families at all.  Unmarried widows will barter for husbands, or will become matriarchs who hold the land they have gained in several marriages in trust for some of their children.  The notion of an excess of single women ignores the fact that there are Hero Wars going on, and there are plenty of war cults that are eager to take female recruits, or will only take female recruits like BBG and Vinga.  Mothers ARE the means of production and they own themselves.

17 hours ago, kolponomos said:

 Everything was all good until they got a really strong strain of Pineapple Kush that someone had laced with phencyclidine and then Scrappy-Doo appeared and would not go away.

But drugs wear off...  

we need to face the fact that Scrappy-Doo was the shark that Scooby jumped.

19 minutes ago, EricW said:

The Lunars will help - all you need to do is become a Seven Mothers trainee initiate...

Correct...  Let's just say there are options available and that is certainly one of them.  On the other hand, Teelo Nori is all about running food relief and shelter for the poor.  Medical aid is potentially available from them.

On 6/9/2022 at 11:24 PM, merlyn said:

While the sordid business at Tintagel does produce Arthur, the Morte and the utter collapse of Britain before the Saxons afterwards may suggest that the right was short-lived.

No Arthur, no Enchantment of Britain, no golden age, no Pendragon Game imo.  You would be stuck in a nasty, ugly, brutal and short dark ages campaign.  Do you fancy retooling Harnmaster for Britain?

Gondo's Herd Man Treats **.  Standard Stall in the New Pavis Main Market. Gondo the Fearless (Male 39y/o from the Village of Maughry) is a tall, dark haired  man with rather large eyes and a dark sense of humor, who enjoys selling his quasi-cannibalistic wares.  He insists on offering any newcomer to Pavis a serve of his fried ladyfingers.  He is good friends with the local Morokanths and certain Zorak Zoran trolls. For many people, mock pork is an odd  and taboo food, and there are those who suspect that Gondo is an ogre, but in fact he an honest and philanthropic fellow who remains an initiate of Stormbull  who is a very proficient brawler, though no longer an adventurer, due to old wounds and a young family.  He lives in the village of Maughry, east south east of Pavis and is a reliable friend to those he gets to know, having stepped in to save people from being injured in riots and so forth.

On 6/7/2022 at 11:37 PM, creativehum said:

Did your players ever have a problem with the core, cultural conceits of the game? We had a good, solid talk last night, prompted by one of the players doing a heartfelt monologue about now having reading the first chunk of Le Morte, discovering “Uther is shit, what he does is horrible, horrible,” and wondering if they can murder him.
 

Hmm... IDK.  Frankly I don't think Uther is the problem here.  Not entirely at least.  After all, Merlin is the enabler for the whole sordid episode, and what happens is not so far removed from Merlin's own allegedly demonic conception.  And yet, out the other end we get Arthur.  Apparently sometimes two wrongs can make a right...  Those pagan deities have a sick sense of humor imo.

I have a scenario which I have been writing where you play New Pavic kids in 1612.  They are siblings and their daddy was melted defending the walls from the Lunars, while their mother has been struggling to make ends meet by taking in laundry and occasionally becoming a "proto-ulerian encounter" at night.  The kids have jobs they need to do to help out, but they are low paying and exploitative.  Then their mother takes ill and is bed-bound.

The problem is that the Chalana Arroys have all fled to Horn Gate, so there is no easy solution.  The kids have a series of difficult choices to make about how to save their mum.

2 hours ago, g33k said:

Ha.
Hold my beer!

===

(I'll just tell the Uroxi -- "See that guy?  Holding the beer?  That's the beer I was bringing you... but he stole it!"
... It was nice knowing you...)

Heh, I often play a Stormbull.

On 3/7/2022 at 7:42 PM, g33k said:

???
Of course they're right!

Just as the people who say they aren't, are also right.

The metaphysics of Glorantha are confusing... and intentionally without absoutism and "One True Way".

I am dobbing you in to the Stormbulls!  That is straight up illuminism 🙂

17 hours ago, David Scott said:

No (but see below). Although the Twin Stars have the Moon and Sky rune, The Twin Stars form an eponymous separate spirit society (see post above). T

Thanks for this rather expert clarification David.  Half the reason I have raised this topic is because I am ill informed about it.  Obviously you have put serious thought and research into the Twin Stars.  I hope other interested parties read it and find it useful.

Oh it's all too late for them, don't you see?  They all believe their great dane can talk FFS.  SAN?  What SAN?

I like to juxtapose my weirdness with gritty realism.  Bandit ducks will have feather diseases from living rough.  Your spells may light up like a fluorescent tubes, but you are still wearing scavenged sandals that have given you flat feet due to your low strength and the weight of your armor and pack.  Yeah, and just because you are an adventurer and sometimes a hero doesn't mean you can duck your financial obligations.  

Glorantha owes a lot to the Sword and Sorcery genre from its inception, but it is a different animal.  Yes, there are axe armed barbarians stalking ruins filled with weird monsters that will make you do a horrified spit-take when you meet them, but those barbarians aren't hostile to magic, and in fact will likely have quite a bit of their own to buff their skills.  

Glorantha is also all about mythology being brought to life.  Stepping onto the Hero Plane is every bit like when Dorothy wakes up in Oz and the film is in color.  The spirit plane is a psychedelic nightmare that periodically morphs back into the plains of Prax (or wherever) like a peyote trip.  When you meet a god, they morph between their aspects as you speak to them, often appearing to have multiple arms and faces.   Chaos when you meet it physically blights these places like an ugly acidic stain that eats at reality.

I find Glorantha works best when you merge the mundane and the fantastic.  I mean, consider newtlings, they're kind of amazing little frog-guys, but you will still cuff them round the ear-holes when you discover that they have been noshing on fish guts that are supposed to be curing into garam for sale to the Lunar occupiers.  You have to make rent like everyone else, and if you live in Glorantha, newtlings are nothing special.  The pleasure and the shock of Glorantha is making the mundane fantastic and the fantastic mundane.  Therein lies the frisson and the shock.  Ultimately you come to think like a local.

2 hours ago, Rodney Dangerduck said:

How do you interpret "income"?  We have, perhaps erroneously, interpreted that as your yearly income, say, 60L for a Warrior.  And not including what you gain in gameplay.  Under that ruling, an extra 6L a year is nothing.

If you do include stuff gained in gameplay, tithing is a pain.  And also a pain to calculate.  One of our players is a tax lawyer and we joke about how he could hide our income as "capital gains" and deduct "expenses" etc...

Income is the money you earn.  If you raid the Rubble and pull out 1000L, that is all income. The God Issaries himself keeps track of these things in his divine ledger, which Etyries still checks, and Styx help you if you come up short on your tithes when you die.  That is where ghosts come from, rejected from their afterlife for double dealing the gods over a few measly coins when their eternity or rebirth was at stake. Only illuminates are immune to this.

14 hours ago, soltakss said:

Except for Bastard Swords, they aren't Bronze Age but I like them. 

Bronze Age ain't always Bronze Age.  IMG bastard swords are a product of Jrusteli cavalry reforms, much like the stirrup and the chimney.

This is a great scenario btw.  Loved it.

5 hours ago, FlamingCatOfDeath said:

The provinces should be thankful that the Crimson Bat isn’t intelligent, if it was it would likely become the imperial governor of particularly troubling provinces. Then again if it was intelligent it would probably set up a cattle based broo breeding facility to provide themselves with a soul supply that Doesn’t cut into the tax base.

Well, as it turns out, the Empire has been experimenting with stomach size to walktapus flesh research for feeding their troops.  Walktapi regenerate continuously, so wile they are subjected to stomach acid, they will never disappear completely, and the person consuming the walktapus flesh need never eat again thanks to chaotic regeneration, plus there is the added bonus that if they die, a walktapus will gradually spawn from their body, creating fresh headaches for the folk who killed them.

Your broo breeding program is inspired Flaming Cat of Death, and I would personally bump you up the ranks of the Imperial bureaucracy if it were ACTUALLY based on merit rather than nepotism and prostitution, but feasibly we might be able to draw upon existing research to march excess walktapi into the maw of the bat.  One hand washes the other...

On 5/30/2022 at 6:11 AM, French Desperate WindChild said:

no, just some women

facing a drama, people (any gender / sex) have a lot of different reactions

some will become violent

some will remain silent or withdraw to the clan (for a long time or not)

some will "remove" it and continue to live as usual

etc

 

so yes it is a good idea to have a woman following bab's after that

but a lot will continue to be ernaldan, the show (life) must go on

I would suspect Maran Gor would be a good choice too.  The Barren Earth.

6 hours ago, Ironwall said:

So we know the cult breakdowns of several cultures, but how many people initiate into multiple cults I doubt there's a list of specifics like how many engizi/orlanth or ernalda/chalana arroy but how often would you find a person in glorantha who is a member of multiple cults in general

Multiculting is a very expensive hobby.  Each time you become an initiate, you have to spend 10% of your income on the cult in tithes.  Obviously the dirty trick here is to become an illuminate.  Consider the excess of time and funds that becoming a Priest or Lord involves however.  Now admittedly if you reach an august rank, the temple likely covers your expenses so you won't starve, but if you have to spend 90% of your income on 1 cult, and 10% on the other, you have no beer money.  You might as well commit hara kiri at that point (jk).

1 hour ago, metcalph said:

I think it's more like Spirit Cults - in one place you have a coven dedicated to the Morning Star and in another to the Evening Star.  They have common practices and magics but there is no Star Witch or coven thereof that worships all the magics of the Stars.

I suspect that there wouldn't be such a tradition at all if there were no effective cult to it.  I suspect that you likely take a primary spirit patron, and then gain the others as associates.

On 5/31/2022 at 6:38 PM, metcalph said:

I imagine their favourite spirits are Pole Star, Morning Star and Evening Star.

They are certainly listed as 3 Spirit Deities in the Praxian traditions in Tales of the Reaching Moon 14 &15.  If we add the Twin Stars into the mix, the tradition begins to seem quite large.  I wonder if any of the other major deities of the Constellations are part of this tradition, and wonder how organized it might be.  Clearly it is a shamanic tradition, and I would expect to see all the deities marked on Prax's Spirit Wall.  The night sky is a powerful place, especially in Prax where the Sky Dome is so often clear and visible. 

On 6/1/2022 at 9:57 PM, Orlanthatemyhamster said:

So, When the Great Compromise is enacted and (all) the dead follow the Sun back to the surface world, why do some Gods stay dead?
Thinking of Baroshi from Snake Pipe Hollow, yet many others come back (Ernalda)?

This Is (this) separate from annihilation from Chaos?

Death is a direction in Glorantha.  Under the correct conditions you can walk back from Death to Life.  It is likely that before the discovery of the Death Rune, it was far easier to return from Death, which was likely merely an extreme expression of the Underworld (before time).  In some ways gods are eternal, but in others they are simply trapped in their addiction to power.

It does raise the question of whether the (Lunar pantheon)Twin Stars are part of the tradition too.

I just noticed this tradition, and while I can imagine a bit about what they are like, what is known about this shamanic tradition from actual written (dare I say "canon") sources ?

On 5/29/2022 at 5:37 AM, svensson said:

Do fetches ever manifest in the Mundane Plane?

I direct your attention to RQG page 306 Shamanic Abilities: Materialize Fetch.

On 5/29/2022 at 5:37 AM, svensson said:

Can they possess a material body?

 Same page, Possession, also, Waha (and other) Shamans can put their fetches into their mounts.

On 5/29/2022 at 5:37 AM, svensson said:

Is a fetch an ally of its own free will or a controlled spirit?

Fetches are unique, but they are products of their Shaman.  They generally have less free will than Allied Spirits as a result, but nothing is fixed in stone.

On 5/29/2022 at 5:37 AM, svensson said:

If there is a significant difference between a fetch and a spirit, what is it?

Shamans are always in the Mortal realm and the Spirit Realm, and are creatures of two realms.  The Fetch is the portion of the Shaman that is on the Spirit Plane when the Shaman is on the Mortal Realm, and when the Shaman goes into the Spirit Realm, then the Fetch minds the body in the Mortal realm.  They are binary and inextricably bound to each other. 

Spirits are not like Fetches.  Spirits exist only in the spirit realm, and that is why they are mainly invisible.  Spirits are not dead, and don't go towards Death the way dead sentient mortals do.