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Sir_Godspeed

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Everything posted by Sir_Godspeed

  1. I suspect the broken Council/Bright Empire might have taught something like this at some point.
  2. One major theme of Glorantha, that of Storm vs. Sun/Sky is pretty likely derived from ancient Egyptian myths. Orlanth is akin to Set/Sutek, and Yelm is Ra or Osiris. The fun spin is not only the change in landscape, but also the typical reader's sympathies. It's as if Stafford went "okay, but what did all of this look like from Set's perspective?"
  3. Ooh, that's very fascinating!
  4. A bit late to the party, but keep in mind Orlanthi culture is clan-based. Use extended families, in-laws, cousins, aunts & uncles, third-cousins twice removed, etc. for all it's worth. Do you want a reason for the PCs to go somewhere? They've got a relative there. Or they can accompany a relative there, a well-connected adult who's got business or a mission, or is on a pilgrimage or virtually anything. Combine this with the differing cultic affiliations to add a secondary dimension. Do you want the PCs to get involved with something in an area? Someone there is active in the same cult as one of the PCs relatives. "Oh, you're Ghirrigan's kin? I know him well, we both spent a good deal of time financing and building the shrine to our god here. C'mere, I know somewhere you can stay. Tomorrow we will talk with my sister, she'll know about that thing you're looking for." And of course, sometimes this will be a sham. 😉
  5. I am in AWE. I saw the studs on the lamellar or whatever that was, holy crap. And your non-metallic metallics are fantastic.
  6. I knew that Dragon Pass was named after an actual pass, I just never knew there was a huge f***-off skull nested above it. How is this not on some book cover somewhere, that's metal as hell! XD
  7. Woah, wait, the ACTUAL dragon pass has a giant dragon skull over it?! I am just learning about this now! Is this still canon, or is it just a specific version that Oracle cited that might be no longer canonical? Also, on another note, since this is apparently the only crossing possible - is it heavily fortified on either side, or is the "only" a bit of an exaggeration?
  8. This is cool as hell, well done!
  9. What if stars in Hell are primarily infrared? Incidentally, what do Lodril's volcanoes look like from below?
  10. Sir_Godspeed

    Otters ...

    Wait, newtlings are herbivorous? I'd at least assumed they were omnivorous like humans, basically. So they don't fish or gather clams or anything like that?
  11. Dont they look to Top of the World as their primary sacred site rather than Kero Fin as well? Or is that a generalisation?
  12. Shucks, rarely have I received such glowing recommendations. I'm happy to have inspired something. ^^ As others have mentioned, the Monomyth we see in writings appear to be a result of a historical syncretism that took centuries, perhaps first occuring in the Lightbringer-First Council era between Heortlings and their Elder Race allies, and exported and expanded with the Lightbringer missionaries. Then, perhaps later, there's a Bright Empire syncretism that marries Orlanthi and Pelorian myths into a somewhat cohesive whole. This is what the God Learners latch onto, and just... turbocharge. Monomythical concepts and narratives appear to be exported to virtually the entirety of Glorantha, and appear to be internalized so thoroughly that it's hard to envision them never being there. Or maybe it's a case of the writers just needing SOME level of common ground. But we do find "canonical" cultures that buck this trend. If you want to get into a brain-twister, the Entekosiad features some example of what we might call "subaltern" Pelorian traditions, that are less interested in the Monomyth, and whose roots are in the Green Age rather than the Golden and Storm ages. This is the area of painted men naming the animals species and the Pale Queen ruling the cosmos and abstractions of heat and matter transforming again and again. I wouldn't make it my FIRST Stafford Library read though. In Revealed Mythologies we get a glimpse into the East Isles Vithelan mythology, which also generally bucks the monomythic trends. One of my favorite aspects here is that they don't really have a Greater Darkness apocalypse (well, sorta, but not completely), but rather an illusory empire that is snuffed out of existence with the Dawn. It's not completely opposed to trends in the Monomyth, mind you, the East Isles still struggle with rapacious sea and storm gods, and does face Chaos, but it unfolds differently than in Central Genertela. I'm also tempted to look at someone like Zzabur's perspective on things. He's got some... ideas on what has actually transpired. As for my own writing, since the Yggling stories, I've also tinkered with a completely-invented North Pentan Muskox people's myths, which admittedly kinda follows some monomythic motions, but from a very different perspective than the Theyalan Orlanthi. A more radical departure is also a sort-of Shargashite Heresy I've been brainstorming. I like taking ostensibly one-dimensional things and going "ah, but actually it's really deep and profound" and seeing where it can take me. The idea was to make Shargash a deeply tragic character, a once noble and vital figure that self-immolated in grief into a fell and terrible bringer of vengeance with the death of Yelm. The Only Loyal Son. It's super counter-canonical, but fun to think about.
  13. People aren't generally optimizers, but "sufficient-izers". To borrow from economic theory, we're usually not "Homo Economicus". Our understanding of choices is limited, our perspective flawed, and the amount of effort we're willing to put in to achieve some goal is definitely limited as well. A lot of cults in Glorantha probably survive because they are "good enough" for their worshippers, and changing cult to something potentially more materially optimized would just be too much hassle. (and to reiterate what Jeff said, cults aren't just packets of spells, they're communities that open up social benefits.)
  14. Controversially: it probably also took less to impress people in the past, because gigantic virtual spectacle driven by a professional class of story-inventors and special effects people wasn't a thing. So St. George killing a dragon the size of a RL Nile crocodile was plenty impressive enough. Someone outwitting the Devil with some clever wordplay or practical jokes was plenty impressive enough. The idea of villains with plans within plans wasn't all that common. And ironically, these more down-to-earth feats could relatively easily be paired with ludicrously massive events like a global Flood or someone killing the sun because a cosmic sense of scale was not only less understood, but more malleable and plastic. Or in other words, the devil is as smart as the storytellers need him to be. The hero is as strong as the storytellers need him to be. How does this affect Glorantha? Not sure, but imho we can take comfort in that stories, even of "true" events conform to the world-understanding of whoever is transmitting the story. I'm sure the conflict between Orlanth and Yelm feels more grand in a literary urban culture than among a band of hunter-gatherers, even if it still boils down to "storm killed the sun".
  15. Not really, there will always be people who'll need to stay behind to care for said elderly, or care for young children, etc. Now, granted, some of those will themselves will be the older kids and the comparatively more able-bodied and clear-minded elderly, but there'll always be a minimum of "regular" adults. Then there's the the need to care for the animals. There's just no avoiding that. Older kids can do a lot, but you'll still need some adults. Lastly, I presume some potentially-armed adults need to stay behind just to guard the stead. At least attempt to prevent counter-raids, or keep watch, and so forth. There's also maintenance. Things still need fixing, producing, collection, etc. There's also food. A mustered militia can hunt and forage, but they'll probably have non-combatants helping out with cooking and the like. If it's anything like medieval armies, that number of people might be equal to the actual militia, but I'm not sure how comparable that is. An area will quickly become drained of edible stuff, so some food will always have to be transported, so that requires manpower too, and unless it can be gotten by looting the enemy, then that also means draining the foodstores back home. I could be wrong, but as I understand it, the actual potential number is probably closer to 30-50%(??) of all adults (a larger percentage for the males, lower for the women), and that's for a *short* period, admittedly. After a relatively short time, this becomes unsustainable.
  16. Divine genealogies are essentially maps made by mortals attempting to chart out how divine powers relate to each other. They're descriptions of what relations look like to mortal perception, rather than necessary encompassing the relations-in-themselves. They are effectively analogies. It's a bit like referring to a company as a "daughter company" of another company within a larger concern structure, even if that company might actually be older than the parent company, it just happened to be bought up recently. Or when a less powerful king would send an envoy to a more powerful king, addressing the more powerful king as "father" and himself as "son", utilizing the analogy of family relations to succinctly capture their diplomatic positions. Or it's like looking into light and finding out that it behaves both like a wave and as particles, depending on how you approach it. The simple answer to the above is: they're all true, but not in all contexts. Sometimes it makes sense to approach the relation between Ernalda and Esrolia as sisters, other times as mother and daughter, other times as something else. "Family" is essentially an analogy that scholars of Glorantha (and the real world!) found useful because it is both familiar and intuitive, and it is quite flexible. But it probably is not flexible enough to capture the mind-boggling complexity of divine interrelations - which ultimately is sort of the point, I bet. I'd argue the same is also true for divine gender in Glorantha, or the social class of gods, or the number of arms they have, or their skin color, or their temper and humour, etc. etc. These are mortal attempts at filling in descriptions for phenomena which are just so, so, SO much more than humans could ever hope to accurately grasp.
  17. To what extent do Storm Pentans WORSHIP the East Sting Wind (ie. Gagarth) as opposed to just offer propitiatory sacrifice?
  18. It's not so bad, the Grain Goddesses ARE Ernalda in some sense, just like Ernalda IS Asrelia or Voria or Gata or Imarja or Maran and so on. From what I know, in regions outside Central Genertela, Ernalda will often be worshipped under the name of the local Grain Goddess, ie. Seshna in Seshnela, Ralia in Ralios, etc.
  19. I am working off comments made by others here, if characters can use bladed tools, then that's good. It's not a prerequisite, it just feels like we're avoiding handing someone an in-universe idiot ball just for the purpose of being "thematically consistent". I just don't like it when writers seem to go "OH, so it's an elemental based logic - welp, better make EVERYTHING based around those lines" and turning it into a somewhat absurdly stereotyped setting. It has so many examples of cultural cross-pollination and outliers and synchreticism that I don't even think it fits Glorantha. tl;dr: I don't think some mythical darkness origin of wasps should be enough to justify some kind of primal hostility between wasp-riders and Yelmali if more pressing and practical historical and contemporary issues makes it useful for them to work together. Also vice-versa.
  20. Like when someone decided that the Yelmalions don't use swords because swords are Storm-aligned weapons, and spears are Sky-aligned weapons? Gotta admit, not a huge fan of simplifying things that much.
  21. It seems that part of the moral or theme is also that imperfections are to be expected, especially in the face of adversity, but one must press on regardless, somehow. This seems a very fitting lesson for the Esrolian mindset. Compromises are a part of survival.
  22. Does this confer any specific legal rights or privileges? (like being freed from serfdom or getting rights to appeal to certain courts or something to do with taxation or tithe) Or is it more a case of convention and case by case? (ie. Lunar authorities are likely to see you as somewhat reliable and preferable to deal with and to hand work or responsibility to, etc., non-Lunar authorities within the Empire are more likely to not hinder you as much to avoid getting in trouble)
  23. Not necessarily, they can work with clay tablets, papyrus and animal-derived parchment. This is what makes paper special by default in Glorantha.
  24. I don't think ANYONE in Glorantha have DNA, to be honest.
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