ve4grm

Well, this has gotten well beyond my familiarity with Glorantha. As far as my initial question goes, we've come to a solution wherein the ZZ is actually an incarnation of Zolan Zubar, who doesn't have the Disorder rune like Zorak Zoran, and doesn't work with undead. Instead, anything he summons will be Darkness spirits and ancestor spirits.

So we'll still clash on many things, but not the big one.

Thanks for your help, everyone! I got way more response than I expected.

Please continue the philosophical debate!

16 hours ago, jajagappa said:

Perhaps both have had a vision that they must reform Black Arkat's Lost Band to keep the World from Ending. Or maybe drawing on the 13th Age One Unique Thing concept, they are the last living "Children" of Arkat despite their cult affiliations and different species.

3 hours ago, Kloster said:

Good. Very good.

Missed this suggestion earlier. I may revise my own OUT to accomodate this. Thanks.

1 hour ago, g33k said:

Have you seen this thread, @ve4grm ...?

I did, yeah (though I admittedly had trouble parsing it). Lots of interesting theories about the Kitori that I'll pass on to that player if he's interested. The runes listing (Air Darkness Death) will be interesting, for sure.

And I see far below that it confirms Zolan Zubar to be enemy of undeath. Useful!

This is all great stuff, everyone.

1 hour ago, jajagappa said:

As long as the ZZ cultist does not reanimate the dead, you should be able to work them together. Remember that for the most part, dead bodies simply represent food for trolls. No issue with that for the Humakti. ZZ will be more focused on mindless rage and hate, Humakt on the inevitability of Death. That violence and hate come to Death is not an issue.

No, for the first part. Doesn't mean the Humakti will murder the ZZ, but might sternly emphasize that Dead is Dead. If the ZZ accepts that constraint at whatever point they attempt to raise the undead, then fine. If they continue, then clearly the Humakti must act to keep the boundary between Life and Death secure - anything else breaks the Great Compromise.

Zolan Zubar was a Dawn Age god, who largely seems to have been subsumed into Zorak Zoran after the Gbaji Wars. Possibly still accessible as a Darkness spirit, but not a figure particularly known in the 3rd Age.

A good common point of interest/reference is Arkat. Arkat became Humaktsson to drive back Gbaji, but it was not enough. He later became Arkat Kingtroll to embrace the rage and violence needed to destroy that manifestation of Chaos. 

Perhaps both have had a vision that they must reform Black Arkat's Lost Band to keep the World from Ending. Or maybe drawing on the 13th Age One Unique Thing concept, they are the last living "Children" of Arkat despite their cult affiliations and different species.

Yeah, my general thought was for the fighting styles and mindless rage, we might disagree on things, come into conflict on how to treat the dead, but largely be able to work together.

The undead was really the big issue, and I can see I was right to question it. Right now we're discussing reflavouring his summoning of undead to actually be Darkness Spirits (elementals, basically?) So that's one option.

As for the Zolan Zubar connection, since this is 13th Age, every character has a One Unique Thing. His is that he is a reincarnation of Varzor Kitor. (Who himself was an incarnation of Zolan Zubar I guess?)

(For reference, my own One Unique Thing is going to be that my Humakti died on the battlefield and was brought back somehow. He doesn't know how or why, and it certainly wasn't by choice, but it left the Rune of Life burned into his flesh. Life is now his personal rune, as well.)

My only real source of Zolan Zubar information that I've been able to find has been a wiki: https://glorantha.fandom.com/wiki/Zolan_Zubar

And they basically say this:

Quote

They fight the six foes: undead corpses, possession spirits, ghosts, death spirits, spirits of disease and curses send by women.

Based on other things I've found, this might be referring to bound spirits from Zolan Zubar? Something for Shamans? I'm not entirely sure. If this is true, though, then finding a way to reflavour the summons as something else would probably be best from a story perspective as well.

Any thoughts, besides just "Darkness spirits"?

Or am I wrong about Zolan Zubar?

(Technically this game is 13G, but all of the questions are from a flavour standpoint, not mechanical, so I figured I'd post in the more active forum.)

So we're starting a Glorantha campaign. I have little knowledge of the setting, but have been reading a lot. I chose to play a Humakti (Sword of Humakt) and another player was looking at a Zorak Zorani character.

Obviously there's the fact that the gods themselves aren't fans of each other, and there will be conflicts in the way we fight and/or treat the dead. Gore and massacre, vs honour and respect, etc. That's fine. We can roleplay around that, and still work together for a greater cause.

But the undead thing is giving me trouble. ZZ characters can summon undead, even to the point of having a constant undead companion. Is there any legitimate way that a Humakti would excuse that and not want to murder the ZZ?

(Secondary question - the ZZ character might actually use the ZZ class mechanics, but be more closely associated with Zolan Zubar (so many Zs...) who seems to not really like undead either? I can't find much about Zolan Zubar. Any insight into the god would be useful.)