Shiningbrow

9 hours ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

all art is political

the best explanation to date of this art IMHO is "woman looking down at her own body" because uh that's what you see. that's not what you see looking at someone else, it's what you see looking down

(source: me looking down versus me looking in a mirror, where I look like, you know, a fairly average human being)

Body posture trance position.

On 7/31/2019 at 6:19 PM, PhilHibbs said:

or do I just say "Ok, you win, game over, what shall we do now, 'cos I have nothing ready!"

You say, "well, if you do this, I have nothing ready, so we're going to waste today's session...".

We've done that to a GM, who said this, so obviously playing was more important than "winning". We went the way the GM had prepared...  

9 hours ago, Imryn said:

It might be useful if I present what I think these two words mean. I don't want to get into a discussion about whether I am right or wrong, but would like to present them as a starting point for the rest of you to use in this interesting discussion

Matriarchy: A social structure where the majority of positions of power are occupied by women. There may be a few areas where men can hold positions of power but these would be limited and there would be a pronounced prejudice, and probably laws, against men gaining power outside these niches.

Matrilineal: Tracing ones ancestry through the female line only. More common in ancient times when the only parent that was certain was the mother, and the identity of a child's father was based on trust and wishful thinking. Probably less accurate in magical Glorantha than it is in the real world.

The examples cited have most of the elements of the first (without the strong limitations and prejudicial laws), as well as the second.

11 hours ago, PhilHibbs said:

Proscription in language never works....

Precisely the thought I had reading the previous post!!

What's a dragon? Does China have dragons (in stories, not RL)? Because, dragons have wings... Oh, wait....

What about vampires? Do all cultures have them? Yes... And no... And even in our own culture(s), have they stayed the same?

So, it's foolish to put up a label to something, and expect the world to conform to it... rather than the other way around.

8 hours ago, styopa said:

Your argument basically devolves down to the No True Scotsman fallacy.  You ad-hoc some narrow definition in your head, and then insist that according to THAT, nothing fits.  Personally I prefer using words with the meaning generally attributed to them by the world at large. 

I have to agree with this - the idea that a matriarchy would be exactly the same as a patriarchy, except gender roles are reversed. 

The very same Wiki quoted above has a long section on definition, etc, that contradicts some of the ideas expressed here, and then goes on to outline a few "possible" matriarchies (depending on those definitions). Hopi are one of those.

If we get away from thinking like "matriarchy is patriarchy with inverted gender roles", then obviously society would have quite different rules. Sometimes, those rules would surprise us. Maybe even allowing men to "dominate" some aspects of society.

Glorantha? Is Esrolia a matriarchy? And if we say "yes", then are we automatically bound to the idea that men can't easily rise to strong power? Or, will we use a different idea, and power and decisions are more egalitarian? (Yeah, I know it's already written... )

2 hours ago, Akhôrahil said:

Name two such matriarchal societies (I'm saying two because there is one that you could maybe, maybe, get away with). 

A quick search gives numerous examples... Hopi, Iroquois, Nair, Garo,, Nakhi.... 

4 hours ago, Pentallion said:

Well, it's golden anyways, and Eurmal put it there.  Whether it's mead, however.....

The description in the official write-up is only the one they tell people

4 hours ago, Ian Absentia said:

By that you mean boobs, yeah? 

Boobs... And wood.

1 hour ago, PhilHibbs said:

We might be past it (with major reservations, there are plenty of people I know who still think that way), but Orlanthi society isn't. I don't want all fantasy societies to be postmodern liberal progressive utopias.

Valid point... TBH, I agree anyway for various swathes of Glorantha. 

24 minutes ago, Joerg said:

The red-haired way basically is about giving up child-care and breast-feeding, leaving it to kinswomen

This is my point... Why does it have to be? 

In today's society, it's increasingly common for a mother to go to work not long after having a kid. This is not seen in any way to be an indicator of gender. 

Thus, I see no reason for why a woman in Orlanthi culture can't have her kids and go adventuring too... Without becoming "Vingan" (as a gender).

11 hours ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

well yes

the people i feel bad for are the people who have to learn it as a second language, it's batshit, who wants to learn a language with such a remarkably ridiculous number of vowels and even more ridiculous number of diphthongs.

That would be my job....

It's not the number of vowels or diphthongs... It's the lack of consistency in rules (including pronunciation).

I've recently been giving my kids sheets of irregular simple past tense words... And even the irregular have irregularities!

So, I'm happy to admit that English is a stupid language to be "the world language"!

9 hours ago, Joerg said:

That's one kind of Vingans. There may be Vingans who initiated into adulthood along with the boys (in case of late onset of half-seasonal cycles), and there are temporary Vingan defenders/protectors/avengers who leave their fully Ernaldan role for a prolonged crisis or a mission.

One thing I've not liked/agreed with about the Vingan discussion is that the idea of protecting kith and kin, home and hearth, is seen as a "male" role.

The idea that a woman has to be a different kind of woman (whether sexed, gendered, or other) to take up the fight... And not just the Ernaldan turned temporary Orlanthi... I find off-putting.

It somewhat borders on early Europe and America, where being a nurse was a woman's job, and running a company a man's. I thought we could get past this stereotyping *without* it saying anything about gender, sexuality, etc.

Secondly, I note Babeester Gor is there for the women who have suffered badly at the hands of men -- particularly enduring rape; and the getting of revenge. Where do men go to for a similar experience?

1 hour ago, soltakss said:

That is still a cult gender restriction, though, as membership of the higher orders of the cult is restricted.

True. I was just clarifying the situation.

Personally, I don't have a problem with cult restrictions... They all have them!

5 hours ago, Rojo said:

Having had a lot of questions related to this, I think now that this is quite related to the pantheon. Orlanth and other Storm gods let an open door to those rebellious with their sex; for example, Vingans. Fire and Earth gods /goddesses are more restrictives about that; for example, Ernalda accept Nandans as initiates (perhaps through her conection with Orlanth?), but the condition to achieve the status of priestess is still there. Water seems to be really flexible about sex; Helerites seem to been able to even change it. No idea about Darkness gods atm, my knowledge about them ir really limited.

Probably I’m wrong, but at least it makes sense to me.

@Jeff has stated that males will be allowed to initiate into Ernalda, but not progress further.

2 hours ago, Tindalos said:

Of course, according to the Sartar Companion, Creekstream River is itself a translation of "Afrasaronafra," meaning The River of River. (Or maybe of Rivers, in the same way as Shahanshah means King of Kings, or even Shan Shan seems to mean the Mountains of Mountains.)

Isn't that what you get in the UK? River Avon is like river-river... And other silliness after translation.

2 hours ago, Tindalos said:

A few cities do have an implication of their meaning, although it is a few. Maybe if more places had names like Fengsheng (Hill of the Phoenix) and we could figure out the rest it would be possible to have an anglicised name list.

Well, interestingly, there are some names translated, and others not. Beijing is North Capital, e.g.. No-one translates it to that. Though. However, where I am is the famous (in China) Xihu, which is usually referred to as West Lake. 

The Huanglong stadium is called Yellow Dragon. Etc etc. And, of course, the Summer Palace.

In saying all of that, I totally get (and perhaps agree) about the language use.

4 hours ago, g33k said:

Actually, I think this impulse needs to be looked at very carefully.

As Jeff has said, Kralorela is explicitly NOT Fantasy China.  The more and more specifically-China elements, and specifically-Chinese combinations of more-broadly-known elements, the more you make it into Fantasy China.

So, yes - deprecate the worst stereotypes that perpetuate problem tropes.  And yes - add (carefully) a few of those less-sterotypical bits of ancient China.  But the more of Ancient China you include, the more you make Kralorela into Fantasy China.

So lean-in on other, non-China resources.  Aztec, Maya(!), And other Mesoamerican "feathered serpent" iconography, and (both draconic & non-draconic) myth-cycles.  Southeast Asia.  Polynesia (not limited to Hawai'i!).  And sure... grab tidbits of Euro-something, just because.

And ALSO lean, most of all, into GLORANTHA, into the historic and mythic evolution of Kralorela since the Dawn -- who was there at the beginning, what elements are still there, who invaded or migrated in, trade brought what things from where, how did they survive the Lesser & Greater Darkness, what impacts did Chaos bring?  How did the much more numerous & varied Keets differ from the Ducks?  And the other Elder Races... Uz, Mostali, Aldryami, Beastmen, etc?

And so on...

What I meant was - there are 56 ethnicities that are within the land we call "China" now, that have greatly varying traditions, cultures, myths, values, histories. As has already been mentioned, shamanism.

I think for some of us, (again, which has been said) the problem is that it's westerner's impression of a fantasy China. And unlike the main areas, there's not a lot (as much of) a *real historical* China.... Which is what makes the cringe. It's not unlike the expectation that I drink coke and eat KFC, so that's what hosts will order for me when I'm invited to do a lecture... (I rarely have KGC, and gave up coke decades ago!) (*as I've already said, I've been living here in China for about 10 years now)

2 hours ago, Ali the Helering said:

I have to query this. Do you mean that Greg's original Sartar doesn't resemble certain northern European cultures and borrow their names? 

No. I meant that I think people don't cringe with the fauxness of it as much. That is, it has been successfully ported in a way that comes across as "fair"... The mix of reality and fantasy is good. The mix in Kralorela isn't, as shown by this thread.

(Of course, these are merely my opinions)

45 minutes ago, Joerg said:

but I can't see how Lianghe or Gongji is any worse than Sentanos or Tortun.

I don't know if you're aware, but both Lianghe and Gongji are real places in China.

Does Kralorela *need* to have something resembling Chinese language? 

6 hours ago, Leingod said:

Ah, so we can instead just hire a professor of South Asian Studies who had a professed lifelong love of language and wrote grammar books and dictionaries for obscure languages like the (extinct as of 2003) Klamath language and also taught Urdu. Seriously, I couldn't even guess how many languages Baker was fluent in.

I think almost literally every fantasy writer ever has come up with fantasy names for places... And the better ones have done it with different linguistically diverse namings... 

3 hours ago, Ali the Helering said:

While I understand the motivation behind this, and find it laudable in itself, I feel that we are engaged in a semi-conscious drift from Greg's intention for Glorantha. It was a playground for anthropology, not the invention of a game world that would be culturally sensitive. 

Stripping away his stereotypes may be satisfying to our sensibilities, but I think it leaves us with a world that is ever less Greg Stafford's Glorantha. ☹️

Ummm... There is a serious divide between the way the Indo-European inspired areas are done, and the way other cultures have been treated. That's the problem.

3 hours ago, RHW said:

REMOVE/AVOID

<snip>...queues, ...

Trust me, modern China already has...

3 hours ago, RHW said:

ADD

You seem to have forgotten the 56 different ethnicities (cultures) currently in China. As has already been stated, Kralorela is currently a mix of only a couple of the predominant tropes and stereotypes. I'm not saying your additions aren't valid, just that to drop some of the problems of the stereotype, there needs to be greater research into the real history, including the peoples.

7 hours ago, Joerg said:

Using names indistinguishable from Praxian or Orlanthi names would help? How so?

 

Tolkien did it... You can learn to speak Quenya or Sindarin.

Star Trek did it. And people do speak Klingon. I imagine also Vulcan and Romulan. 

And, of course, Navi from Avatar. 

Do people complain about how easy it is to mix them up? (Probably, but if you're a fan, it's not an issue).

3 hours ago, davecake said:

The problem with Kralorela isn’t that that Kralorela is confused with historical China. The problem is that is very recognisably Fantasy China, and a pretty Western view of fantasy China at that. Every other Gloranthan culture is less obviously an analogue for a single Earth culture, and has more uniquely Gloranthan elements. 

It is certainly true that we want to avoid a simple too obvious analogy for Pamaltela and other parts of Glorantha that have an obvious, non-European, analogue. But generally the effort has been put in to develop them as unique cultures not directly relatable to a single earth culture. 

Absolutely!!!

I'm sure this has been said (probably many times before), and often forgotten/ignored, but.... Glorantha is a very Euro-centric land. The main materials written so far centre around a Dragon Pass and environs that mimics various European (with some middle eastern influence) earth history.

To the east is the mystical, forbidden Empire of the Drago, where foreigners ate killed on sight, have "mandarins", and mimics some fantasy China (from a European/America perspective, as @davecakewrote above).

Further east and south are apparently analogues of Japan and south east Asia.

On the southern continent are the Pamaltelans... Analogous to sub-Saharan Africa.

To the north is Valind's Glacier, reindeer people, etc.

If, for some reason, they decided to add an Australian aboriginal or Maori type, I'd expect them to show up on an island far off in the south, far to the east of Pamaltela..   just because!

Glorantha, being a fantasy world with *every* decision being arbitrary, could have made the world completely different... But didn't. 

5 hours ago, albinoboo said:

No you are still saying that the creative process must be validated by race. That is the point you have made in every single post. You have demanded the right to censor on the basis of skin colour. You have decided that Chaosium writers are racists because they wrote a fantasy with elements of Chinese culture because they are not Chinese. 

I read at least two logical fallacies here...

Firstly, confusing "skin colour" with "culture" or history. Secondly, ignoring the effects of cultural racism with active and direct racism. 

Now, as I recall, when the team started writing about shamans, a LOT of time was spent trying to get it right and.not be offensive or disrespectful. How is @JonL saying anything different?

1 hour ago, styopa said:

 

...really makes more real-world sense to anyone than

"You're level X (why?) and they have armor class Y (why?) so roll above Z (why?) to do damage to them."

I wrote a long piece about this elsewhere... It ignores so many other sources of modifiers... Plus for Bless, plus for Bears Strength, plus for feats, plus for a whole slew of other things...when I tried D&D recently, I was always forgetting one modifier or another. 

The counter to that was "but you always have to check a table"... Statistically, that's likely to be required only about 5% of the time if you don't have it written down. (5%, because some numbers are obvious! Like 01, 02, 99, 00... It's only required when the math isn't straightforward)

1 hour ago, JonL said:

An outsider who studies deeply can indeed learn quite a bit, and even sometimes do great work. I have a Euro-descended friend who writes mystery novels set in 19th Century China and, thanks to having spent years living over there, she manages to not be inadvertently hurtful. The key part there is the years spent living with and really getting to know the people she's writing about. An outsider can also notice things that insiders might take for granted, fresh eyes bringing new insights to bear. This too has value.

I'm not disagreeing with the content, but I do with the context.

I think it would be extremely difficult to find anyone who is not a devoted scholar on the subject to help out with a bronze age China. Modern Chinese are as far from "Kralorela" as most of us are from our very distant ancestors.

Experts should be experts... For bronze age material, I don't think anyone from the modern era has any advantage by nationality over any other.