Grievous

46 minutes ago, Jon Hunter said:

Alexander was the earlier commander who was the exception i meant and is a good early example of logistics.

Ok here you encounter my  working definition of logistics, leaving off the land and leaving devastation isn't using effective logistics. Logistics as i'm referring to it separate logistic structures, and the existence of planned supply lines that enable army's to move fast and not devastate the surrounding population.

The existence of Angus Farquilis answers my core question its a detail id either overlooked or more likely forgot. I'd just defined some lunar logistics stuff in Filicher for my games was just checking it fitted the setting in a moment of self doubt .

I don't think we should assume that Gloranthan logistics goes beyond foraging and living off the land completely, even for the Lunars. The existence of Farquilis indeed implies that they recognize logistics as important, but to me it certainly doesn't mean that they aren't foraging/living off the land. Indeed, Farquilis and his organization could be there to partially organize and coordinate just these foraging activities in an efficient manner! Otherwise, I think we'd be looking at far too modern logistical practices.

That said, certainly I do think Farquilis/the Lunars also coordinate goods (and services, both mundane and religio-magical) from their supply bases for their field armies and garrisons, to some extent. Further, a large part of their job is to organize local merchants to provide them with what they need in distant areas. This means - we should note - the bringing-in of coin to pay for these merchants (which is a logistical challenge in itself).

However, I think there will always be times when the Lunar army simply takes what it needs from the local population. Of course, this is not sustainable (economically or diplomatically), so they have these other measures setup as well and they will hopefully take primacy in more peaceful periods where they supply garrisons, with the army spread out in more manageable chunks and so. But when armies gather, they will have to resort to foraging to sustain the huge logistical requirements and this will be a considerable burden on the local population/lands at the best of times and an absolute ravaging at the worst.

19 minutes ago, jeffjerwin said:

Yes, and isn't it interesting that there's a person missing from the list of Kallyr's ring...? (see: http://www.jane-williams.me.uk/glorantha/kallyr/complist.cfm). The picture in the Glorantha Sourcebook (p.42) makes it clear that Jar-Eel manifested at the moment the web of AS was spun, which is also where Eurmal let go of the net/web (his final act of treachery). The picture shows someone in a hare costume letting go (thus giving the mythic gap that the Lunar heroine could exploit) before Kallyr flees. I think Elusu "high Trickster priest", one of Argrath's oldest companions, was the culprit. This of course doomed Kallyr. (This is just my Argrath the Villain theory, by the by...)

I think Argrath created his various genealogies synthetically by hero questing. But the Telmori could smell him correctly, and they had to be disposed of. This also served the purpose of drawing many tribes onto Argrath's side. The later Wolfrunners/Wolfskins might have stolen the skins of the dead Telmori wolf-brothers and were shown by Argrath how to dominate their spirits - kinda like Harrek, as it happens.

 

Argrath of course knew that to tear down the Moon he had to fuse the Heortlings and the Kethaelans and the Praxians into a single force. This required deception, treachery and real-politick along with heroism and diplomacy.

That's some mighty speculation! I like it.

31 minutes ago, jajagappa said:

Fully agree.  I really like the updated looks provided in the Sourcebook.

Oh yes indeed - if anybody thought this thread was anything but a love song to the new looks, well, they were wrong. 

30 minutes ago, Roko Joko said:

OK, well *I* remember zero pictures in which Orlanth is depicted directly, rather than as something like a statue or a fresco, except for in the HeroQuest stills in King of Dragon Pass.

If you can't remember any either, your impression might not be a true memory.

I grant you that - they might also well be pictures I have (wrongly) assumed to be depicting Orlanth. I could go digging, but actually finding the pictures is - to my mind at least - less relevant to my point than the impression that I was left with.

Certainly there are at least the woodcut representations, which Joerg mentions above, and which I do remember from the time I was introduced to Glorantha. No four armed deities there. I always liked the woodcuts actually, and still do, even if I'm a bit unsure how to place them in the "new order" (they definitely hearken to a time when the game was more viking/dark age in feeling). I could see them having a role as "common art" depictions of the gods that you could find around clan tulas and in/around houses, as opposed to more erudite art that would be found at temples and holy sites. The first would be done by people less familiar with the gods (though really pretty much everyone in Orlanthi society is somewhat familiar even on a personal level), thus depicting them more or less as regular people, reflecting roles and tasks one finds in society, while the latter would be done by (or for) holy people who have deeper knowledge.

The question of artistic interpretation in Glorantha isn't exactly comparable to our world, though. Considering these people have actually seen their gods, they would depict them as they experience them. Sure, there'd be artistic license, which could put multiple arms where there originally wasn't and such and there would be differences between people/experiences, which would account for variety. Of course, there'd also probably be a feedback loop there where the artistic depictions would actually start changing the actual visuals when the gods are encountered, which really touches on plenty of themes about Gloranthan metaphysics. Still there is a living connection to the gods which is of a different order from mystical experiences in our world.

I'll also slightly disagree with multiple arms in our real world being only to hold more stuff - visuals like that are a feature of mystical and/or psychedelic experiences in our world, too, or at least are a close approximation of a visual experience that is otherwise nigh impossible to convey.

There was the idea discussed here in another thread that the magic-as-WMD thing really only happens during the Hero Wars, developed first by the Lunars and then by Argrath's Sartar Magical Union. I think that's at least true in the current age in Glorantha, but certainly similar things may have cropped up in earlier times. So, maybe most Gloranthan current armies aren't quite so accustomed to taking such things into account and thus may actually fight more traditional-like. Of course, that's not to say magic isn't a huge factor, there's still going to lots of less world-shattering magic going around which brings in things that are indeed quite unlike our history (like crazy flying Orlanthi).

This brings up a dichotomy that comes up in considering fantasy warfare, which is certainly present in Glorantha. I think most people initially want to approach fantasy battles as somewhat looking like their historical parallels, except just spiced up with magic. This is because people start from their expectations, which are mostly historical, but is also due to lack of a true understanding of how the magics available would change the battles (because while the magics are new to us as gamers, they wouldn't be new to the generals in-fiction). As you learn more about what makes Glorantha unique, and really start to understand the impact of various magics, you realize that this initial "simulation" of Gloranthan warfare is probably not an accurate rendition of how battles here should really look.

At this point one struggles with the question of whether to a ) work with game mechanical implications as first principles in defining how war should look or b ) sticking with a more "Glorantha is historical warfare, just spiced up with magic" approach, which may not hold up under intellectual scrutiny or power-gamer abuse. I know that this is a dichotomy that I run into in my thinking quite often. 

10 hours ago, Roko Joko said:

You remember it from where?

To be honest I don't really remember a place where Orlanth was consistently and definitely depicted, but I'm talking about a general feel for his appearance I've picked up from Hero Wars/Heroquest era material (and also some Runequest stuff I've seen). Basically, I remember him as a bare-chested ur-Orlanthi, not much different from the Orlanthi you might otherwise see or maybe even from a generalized vision of Thor. I guess he could've been blue back then as well, but I only remember black and white pictures.

To re-iterate a point made elsewhere, I'm very stoked to see a more consistent visual depiction of various gods and other things being a part of modern Glorantha. I'm also very interested in the decisions, influences and considerations that go into developing the Gloranthan look, hence this thread. There's still so many things I'd like to see more visual representations of (I wasn't expecting to see a depiction of the Red Emperor- even if rather small - in the Sourcebook, something which I've wanted to see for a long time), but I'm loving what we're getting and they are a big part of making this setting really take over real estate in my mind.

1 hour ago, M Helsdon said:

Mostly true for light cavalry (animal and rider lightly armored if at all), but not so true in ancient warfare, where heavily armored cataphracti who pursue too far, can themselves become isolated and destroyed. Heavy horse armor significantly reduces the range of heavy cavalry. There are several cases in our ancient history where one side's cavalry was drawn off to pursue a retreat (or a feigned retreat) and either failed to return, or returned too late to influence the outcome.

That is certainly true, and the quote of course comes from a time when there was pretty much only light cavalry around, so "the only true rule" is somewhat contextual. But yes, the point still being valid that routing tends to lead to horrible casualties.

30 minutes ago, M Helsdon said:

The losing side takes most casualties when it routs. Most opponents will take the opportunity to take their enemies in the back as they try to flee. Heavy cavalry is most effective against a disordered foe, but often won't or can't pursue as far as light cavalry.

"The only true rule for cavalry is to follow the enemy as long as he retreats."
- Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson

Always loved that quote. Really captures the cavalry spirit and also hammers home the point of a rout being devastating.

2 hours ago, Jenx said:

As the person who drew all of those halos, there are two simple answers:
1. They look cool, I like drawing them, so I put them on people.
2. In-universe, I'd say it's a visual representation that the Pelorians use in their religious artwork, so it is included in this as well. The Halos on the Solar pantheon are  a sunburst, and only important figures in that pantheon have them, usually some the highest ranking one or the most important in a grouping. Yelm is basically all halo on there. The Lunars probably use that instead to signify a direct connection to the Red Goddess - notice how none of the Seven Mothers (save for She Who Waits, of course), has a halo, but everyone who comes from the Goddess does.

Cool. I didn't think about it from the in-world religious representation angle, but my mind kinda already incorporate the halos as a visual sign of Lunar magic (and now seeing the Solars have 'em, why not for them too) happening. That's probably from seeing them occur "real time" in the King of Sartar comic. They are definitely a cool gimmick!

Your comment about She Who Waits actually brought up a pretty obvious connection that I never really thought about (though I probably should've). The being who the Red Goddess will become in the future took part in creating her in the past. Now that's mastery of Time!

1 hour ago, Tindalos said:

For Orlanth's blue colouration, I'd look towards woad. (Or vice versa - woad is actually to imitate the appearance of Orlanth)

As for the arms, while it wouldn't surprise me if four was a sacred number to Orlanth (with representing his aspects, or his four weapons and thus mastery of the other elements) it's probably just to hold all his stuff. I mean, he's got to hold the thunder, the sword of death (when he's got it), the lightning spear, the dragon head, shield of Aran, bag of winds, the axe of earth, and many others beside.

Having multiple arms is very helpful.

Yeah, I can see a sort of inversion of the "barbarians in woad" thing there (though that's an inversion on the meta level). The odd thing about it is that conjures up questions about the blue-skinned peoples of Glorantha (usually associated with the watery folks) and any relations to Orlanth, but I guess there's room for multiple kinds of folk to have the same skin tone in there, esp. since if Orlanth wants to be blue, he can be bloody blue by me.

I'd love to have multiple arms, sure. I guess I need to go do some Heroquesting.

This kinda feels like a stupidly simple question, but I wonder: why is Orlanth blue and four (sometimes six) armed?

Having gotten my feet wet in Glorantha back in the day, this certainly wasn't how Orlanth was portrayed as I remember it, but now it seems to be his canon appearance. I love it, but I wonder where this came from?

Another thing I'm now wondering about as I look at all the god art in the Glorantha Sourcebook is all the halos. Some gods/heroes get them, others don't. I wonder at the significance there (interestingly the entire Lunar pantheon gets them - as well as Belintar, who seems the odd one out).

That picture of Arkat is the [REDACTED BY GBAJI].

I never realized the connection either. Now I can't stop imagining Mignola visiting Glorantha in comic form in the now... oh my...

Color me somewhat confused as well. So, how has the shift progressed/happened in Dragon Pass? I'd really like a blow-by-blow of sorts.

Fine, winged helmets may be tacky, but I'll be damned if that valkyrie isn't cool as Niflheiml!

So you are saying the Aldryami play elaborate games of Tower* Defense with each other?

(* Dare I say Flower Defense? Now there's an idea for a Gloranthan computer game. ) 

Absolutely. I'm an old school gamer, but I was never into Runequest in the old days. The game seemed goofy and strange, and this combined with the haphazard (and less than illustrious) art of those days came together to produce a feeling that the game wasn't well thought-out. Now, there certainly are bits of Glorantha that are whimsical, but I would never say the game isn't well thought-out now, so it's fair to say that I was mislead (or just wrong, if you don't want to be generous to me). Also, consider the much maligned ducks in that context. They did look goofy, but now seeing some of the more "modern" portrayals of them I'm able to move beyond goofy and really appreciate them (I mean that duck on the Cradle looks badass).

It was King of Dragon Pass that brought me into the fold actually, from there graduating to Heroquest. KotD had a clear sense of art direction (even if it isn't currently considered to be exactly how Glorantha is intended) and that helped me digest it (though I wasn't a huge fan of the ducks there yet tbqh) and formulate a conception of the world and its workings. It definitely influenced how my first forays into the setting in role-playing looked like in my mind's eye, even though at that stage My Glorantha Definitely Varied from canon. Now, I'm very glad the game is moving away from the pure viking/anglo-saxon look to something different, more unique and that a lot of attention is put on the art. That has brought me completely into the fold and I will be running Runequest when the new game comes out - which feels odd after so many years of staying away from it. My interpretation of Glorantha has also moved to be aligned with the canon, and the art has something to do with that as well.

So, yeah, art is definitely important - at least to how I conceive of these things. I would say especially so for something like Glorantha. It's also definitely something that makes me buy books, so though it isn't cheap to produce, I'm pretty sure it gets people investing.

19 hours ago, soltakss said:

Which is as good as, if not better than, the Gloranthan poetry we know and love. "Foul Slime ...", "Wandering Son, Jealous Uncle ...", "Flee, flee" and so on.

That translation gets the point of the text, but definitely not the art of it - so I'd say it's a bit better in the original language. Not exactly easy to translate!

On 1/11/2018 at 11:00 PM, Yelm's Light said:

Nice.  I particularly liked the song, though I don't speak a word of Finnish.  A group of Eiritha followers dancing a fertility rite, perhaps.  (I know, I have Prax on the brain...)

The lyrics are from a poem from Kanteletar, the song by a Finnish folk band Värttinä (you can find that song "Raijan Joiku" on Spotify, at least) and I actually found a decent English translation:

You are very welcome here
my grand, my honoured guests
to join our joyful party
to celebrate the day

We rarely meet each other
or come together these days,
not in these fields of Väinölä
or the song lands of Kalevala

Sing, sing out, my dearest brother
Call, call out, my darling,
Take your time to celebrate,
Sing your joy for all to hear!

Take your lovely kantele,
play your golden song,
fit your fingers to the strings,
Let the tones, the songs ring free!

So that the whole village
and people everywhere would hear
the sweet sounds of Savonia,
The beautiful songs of Karelia.

Yep, in fact the Bear would be a far more important animal/venerated deity for the "run-of-the-mill" Finns in those days.

Of course, the Sami do live in what is Finland today as well, and at least nowadays reindeer flocks are a thing for any old Finns - Sami-heritage or not - that live in  the north (Lappland). But yeah, reindeer as such aren't a thing in mid or southerly Finland.

I was watching this video from the Finnish National Ballet and - though I usually wouldn't consider ballet to be very Gloranthan in feel - this one sort of struck a chord (it's a rehearsel of a ballet inspired by Kalevala, the Finnish national mythos, so has a more traditional feel). My mind's eye can see this in Glorantha.

The dance starts at around after 3:50 (-11:05), if you wanna skip the rest.

https://www.facebook.com/oopperabaletti/videos/10154893126881716/

Maybe someone will be similarly entertained/inspired!

1 hour ago, JonL said:

I'm very much of the opinion that the various powers are elephants being pawed at by blind men. Not even the Arkati, God-Learners, Grey Sages, Henotheists, or others who come at them from multiple angles have the whole picture.

The Arkati at least seem to have figured out that many of the appendages they were feeling out weren't actually part of the elephant at all, but belonged to other feelers!

Later the God-Learners told us that it was a clay elephant (and please ignore the feeler).

I think that's a theme that's certainly there, but I don't think it's intended to be the defining or a singular theme. It's just in mystical experience, there tends to be (at least at first) a polarity and dynamic relationship between all and none, one and many, and pretty much all dualistic ideation, etc. At the end, it tends to resolve in the manner that the mystic recognizes there is actually no distinction between the two opposite ends of the spectrum. For a roleplaying/literary setting, esp. focused on myth and mysticism, those polarities are great drivers of story tension. Build opposing factions at the ends of these polarities and watch them go to literal or metaphorical war, with individuals transcending the particulars of the conflict and their cultures to acquire an Illuminated understanding. New cultures and religions can then develop from ordinary people trying to interpret these mystical insights, facilitating a future turning of the cycle of opposition.

This dynamic of tension and paradox is wonderfully illustrated in Arkat vs Nysalor. At the end of Arkat's and Nysalor's battle, it seems like Arkat wins, but even in winning, he has come to resemble his enemy. Maybe it wasn't Arkat who triumphed? Or maybe the Arkat who triumphed was more Nysalor than Arkat. Whatever the case, the two started at opposite ends, but with mystic insight, perhaps they came to see themselves in their enemy.

I have always struggled to put the EWF precisely into these terms, though. Not a branch of Glorantha lore that I'm in any way well versed in, I feel. 

The "We Are All Us" Lunar Empire vs individualistic Orlanthi fits very much, I think. The paradoxes are there as well: what's a whole culture of individualists who seem to cleave almost bindingly to tradition? Or the Lunars as a conquering collective that is (at least for the highest of Lunar devotees) all about individual ascendance beyond restriction? The Lunar philosophy seems to (at the high levels) recognize this paradox and plays around with it. Argrath seems to be doing something similar to the Orlanthi. I think any winners in this conflict will have come to uniquely understand their enemies and have been transformed themselves by the process. But again, I think there's more threads there than just individualism vs. unification.

Hrm, a bit long-winded here, but I think that's gets at it.

17 hours ago, David Scott said:

Another discovery was that everyone has either a spirit or a soul and that this was your preferred interaction with the divine. Generally speaking if you have a soul you can become a spirit practitioner, and a soul a divine practitioner. Some with souls can use spirit magic up to a point but no more, they can't become shaman, they are called the Empty in Praxian terms. They are cut off from the flow of the spirit world all around them, they have no access to the spirit rune or the spirit world unless specifically accompanied by a shaman. When left in the spirit world unaccompanied, they will pop straight back into the middle world. Those with spirits may also be strong in the runes of their gods.

That seems pretty significant! Is this a soul vs spirit thing a general feature or something unique to the Praxians?

That raises some pretty meaningful and interesting questions regardless. What's the other significant points of having either a soul or a spirit? What about when you die? Can you go -get- a soul and from where - a god perhaps? What the heck is a soul anyway? What about getting a spirit (from a spirit, or a spirit to -be- a spirit)? And is there a similar distinction that leads folks towards sorcery? Those are just to scratch the surface!