albinoboo

9 minutes ago, lordabdul said:

Oh yeah, good point.

Yeah the style is obviously totally wrong for Glorantha, so I imagine the same kind of semi-broken perspective but with a different art direction.

I'm wondering though -- checking back on a lot of Gloranthan material, I don't find many references to paper (papyrus/parchment/whatever) documents -- a lot of references are to sculptures and bas-reliefs and things carved or painted on vases and such. I suppose a lot of it is because it gives a definitive historical feel (especially for material that's "in character" and looks back at long gone eras of Glorantha), but I'm now wondering how common would be paper documents and maps compared to tablets?

Fazzur Wideread commissioned the Great Survey of Dragon Pass, there is the Jonstown Compendium, the Reckoning Scroll, Treatise on Horse Breeds and the History of the Black Horse Troop.  Bas-reliefs are a relatively new art style for RQ content. 

I would say the temples of various trade Gods, in the case of the Orlanthi, Issaries. Merchants caravans need to know where to go. 

34 minutes ago, davecake said:

While that is a natural assumption, I'm not sure it is correct. They seem quite distinct from the slarges both racially, and in mythic origin. 

Though we have several reptilian mysteries in Pamaltela to consider:

• Why are there no dragons or dragonnewts in Pamaltela? 
• Why are there so many hydrae?
• The Pelmre of Doraddi myth explains the origins of the slarges to the Doraddi - but are the pelmre really the same as the slarges? In particular, have the slarges always had their peculiar alternating generations reproductive cycle, or did this change at some point? 
• The slarges themselves are of course an ongoing mystery, as regards both the eccentric practices of the giants, and the more regular practices of the regular sized slarges. 
• The Earth titans (Genert and Pamalt) are both represented as reptiles below the waist - and perhaps this means the minor earth female spirits/temple guardians that are known in Genertela have male equivalents, even are somewhat fertile or otherwise more numerous in Pamaltela?

Most dragonnewts allowed themselves to be slaughtered with the coming of chaos. Only in Kralorela and Dragon Pass did the Dragonnewts  resist. Dragonnewts form the Dragons Eye sent out colonies later.

Top down maps have existed since the first millennium BC. I would say a more urban civilization, like the Lunars, would have maps based on proper surveys. The Sartarites maps would be less precise and ad hoc. The link is fragment of a map of Babylon. Https://www.bl.uk/picturing-places/articles/picturing-cities 

1 hour ago, Julian Lord said:

I've always been really annoyed with the Gloranthan game world distances being so small -- particularly as a hiker with a serious respect for the RW ones.

I am a LOT slower now than I used to be, but once I walked 115 kilometres in 2 days, which would be a significant stretch on the Glorantha map, but far shorter in RW terms ; I'm genuinely puzzled that Sartar is not much larger than a very local collection of villages is in RW, as the narrative scale appears to be in contradiction to the geographic one.

I generally rule that map distances in Glorantha are double what the map scale seems to indicate.

If you look at the early Anglo Saxon kingdoms they were 100 miles  across, the Italian city states weren't any bigger. The bronze age kingdoms of Syria were small, similarly the Bronze age kingdoms of Greece. You are used to walking in todays world with paved roads and easy navigation. Sartar is a much less tamed landscape, that requires the traveller to go off road to get to places. The big reason why Alfred the Great drove off the Vikings was because he established across Wessex fortified towns 25 miles or so apart. Saxon armies could march and have a secure source of food every night whereas the Vikings did not. This made the armies of Wessex more mobile than their Vikings opponents. Supporting 5 or 6 people walking 100 miles is relatively easy, supporting an army is much more difficult. 

30 minutes ago, Beornvig said:

Long suffering RQ GM's like myself need many, many fully-fleshed out adventures and campaigns in the vein of Borderlands, and NOT in the vein of Griffin Mountain (which I love, but has been the source of never-ending work for me).

If you could even have smaller adventures available for purchase online, or in some periodical format that would be great.

The strength of D&D was frequent and prolific modules.  Whatever format it comes in, we need more, and lots more adventures/scenarios/campaigns with full stats and such.

If you are prepared to dig about on ebay you can get some old white dwarf adventures for RQ3, mostly from issues 80-100. You can also can get tradetalk magazine from drivethru.rpg that have some RQ3 and HQ adventures. 

3 minutes ago, Imryn said:

That might have been the ostensible reason given, but the christian church had a deep seated hatred and fear of women long before that. Women were controlled by so many elements of society that the church didn't need to add any more to persecute them to their hearts content. Women were already property, not people, and women were stoned for adultery (including when they were raped) where men were not punished at all for the same crime. Amongst a whole load of other inequalities.

By binding priests to celibacy the church was attempting to make them immune to "temptation" - the church feared women's supposed ability to control men by giving or withholding sexual favours. If the priest broke the vow the woman would be severely punished as a "demon temptress" - the priest would get a penance (a couple of "our fathers" maybe).

All in all it was a sordid and disgraceful (and very long) period in our history, and elements of it are still with us today. I don't see any reason why we have to transfer all of that shit stuff into Glorantha. In many ways the authors have obviously attempted to make Glorantha a much more level playing field for sexual equality than the real world ever has been, but this slipped through the net.

As I said earlier, I would substitute the "Feel no Love" geas for the celibacy ones as it achieves the same end result without the inherent unfairness.

Odd how the Greek orthodox church parish priests are allowed to marry and always have been. 

3 hours ago, The God Learner said:

Don't forget the Buddhist hatred of women! 

A silly objection, but if you prefer to have modern, sex-positive unicorns, then by all means go ahead. (If nothing else, I'm sure the Lunars have plenty of them.) 

That's not a Unicorn, that's a broo

13 hours ago, Joerg said:

Did you use Rome itself, or did you use e.g. the formerly Etruscan or Latian cities under Rome's dominion for that model?

The Sartarite cities are all fairly recent, about six generations ago, or less. They are somewhat different from Greek or Phoenician/Carthaginian colonies in the lack of strong bonds to founding cities in a distant motherland. The Etruscan settlement and the formation of their cities might be a better parallel, the establishment of the La Tene oppida, or (slightly outside of the Ancient parallel) the Hanseatic cities along the Baltic coast. All of these happened within a generation or two, in many cases as planned cities.

The Tarshite cities (including Alda-Chur) are older than this, as are the tribal towns of Runegate and Clearwine. In contrast, the last founding citizens of New Pavis are just dying out, and quite a few of the founders of Alone are still alive.

 

The Tribunes came into existence after 30 years of the Republic. In a more general case, the first 250 years of the Roman Republic, the main domestic issue was the conflict of orders. The Patricians were slowly forced to open all the offices and  the major priesthoods to plebians. The voting system of the Republic, throughout its existence, was rigged in favour of the rural tribes as opposed to the urban tribes. The rural poor could not afford to go to Rome for elections leaving the wealthiest votes to count the most.

7 minutes ago, Joerg said:

Your version isn't that far from the model the tribal confederation cities of Sartar work. Urban clans are called Guilds, and they usually don't have direct affiliations to a single of the constituent tribes. Guild members make up probably half of the citizenry of the cities (not counting the non-citizen paupers accumulating in the cities that may have no votes in the mayoral elections).

Exclusion from the city rings is unlikely, IMO, but the city rings will be geared towards a majority of the constituent tribal leaders if they agree on a point of policy. If the city ring has seven members, and each tribe has one guaranteed seat, then the urban population has at best two or three seats. If you look at the mayor of Wilmskirk in Sartar High Council (a freeform published in Wyrms Footnotes and reprinted in Wyrm's Footprints), you have proof of guild involvement in the city ring.

Each tribe supports something like an urban clan of tribesfolk resident in the city. While they may not be kin in the sense of rural clans, they are represented by the tribal king or his deputy on the ring, and that person will have the say in the allocation of tribal land and buildings inside the city, and represent them in legal disputes inside the city.

Some guilds or temples will be land-owners in the city, too, while others are mostly tenants of the tribes. Non-citizens can be resident tenants, too.

Tribal members are citizens, but what happens if your clan dissolved due to war, famine or other catastrophes? Can the survivors that fled into the city still claim tribal membership even though the clan that was a member isn't any more?

Tribal residents are part of the city militia, and are expected to participate in urban upkeep, too, even if their residence is only temporary (say for a few years before returning to their clans).

There are other temporary residents in the cities, e.g. mercenary companies headquartered here. It isn't quite clear whether such groups are here as sworn guests or companions of some urban faction, as sworn guests or companions of the city ring, or by some other formal agreement.

I also expect there to be some royal land inside each of the cities, with e.g. the Cult of Geo as tenants.

I was using the real world Roman Republic before the tribunes as a model. The  clans act like an Athenian deme or a Sienese contrada. 

In my version, each city in Sartar had a urban tribe. This tribe contained the poor and middle classes but the wealthy and holders of priesthoods were members of a rural tribe. Each urban clan was responsible for  an area of the city for civil and infrastructure matters.  Things like fire fighting, maintenance of roads, walls and minor shrines, minor legal disputes and crimes.  However urban tribe members were excluded from the city ring. The Lunars tried to exploit this and the PCs tried to stop the Lunar agents.