Squaredeal Sten

What do you imagine Caladraland cuisine is like? I note some relevant facts: Caladraland is mostly jungle. Their agriculture is mostly slash and burn, and they do not plow. It is very productive, due to Caladra and Aurelion's magic. Their dominant grain seems to be wheat, If I read the small map in the Grain Goddesses section of the Earth Goddesses book correctly. They are adjacent to Esrolia but much different in lifestyle, religion, and politics. I am not sure what the RW inspiration for Caladraland is, if any, but it does not seem to match the Amazon jungle ( which is not volcanic) and while the vulcanism and slash and burn agriculture might match ancient Nicaragua, the dominant grain is definitely not maize. I do imagine that wine grapes do well there because Vinvale, volcanic soil, and all that. Jungle often means fruit from the trees. I might imagine squash and beans grow well there, because those crops originated without the plow. There is no indication of olive trees, so if they fry food it is probably done with animal fat.

Absolutely, that is clearly implied.

I have been reading The Earth Goddesses / The Grain Goddesses section. pages 87-95. I see that "every land area has its own Grain Goddess". Should I interpret this as meaning that (1) the worship of each is restricted to her own geographic area, and (2) therefore the 10% bonus to Bless Crops for Barley (whose Grain Goddess is Pelora) is not available outside Peloria. (3) and there will be no shrines to Pelora in Earth temples outside Peloria. It would seem to follow that beer is cheaper and more plentiful in Peloria than in Sartar. I mesn real beer. not wheat beer. (Note that to me, this does not imply a big long distance trade in beer from Peloria because transporting liquids is hard.) A subsidiary question: Do hops exist in Glorantha?

But given that abstraction, how does one get in the way? The enemy can also maneuver, and with no zone of control or grid, how does "in the way " work? Obviously the GM can house rule it, but why ask us all about a GM unique house rule?

Yes that is the way I read it too.I It will take careful planning and extending the duration of the spell to get much benefit.

About the "getting in tbe middle" question: unless there is a gap to get into I don't know hiw you can do that in melee in this or any other game. ? maybe Grspple? But the second Adventurer can double team the enemy, which usually means a win; and yes the first Adventurer can disengage under that rule.

It appears that yucca is related to agave. A useful plant family. So do Praxians make tequila? IMHO better than fermenting bags of milk.

Yucca root! Remember Prax is modeled on the U.S. Southwest. If you don't like that you will have to eat turnips, parsnips, radishes.

The washed. cooked pulp is edible. and the cyanide is a valuable by- product when re- concentrated. It's a win-win situation for us snackers and Black Fang Brothers. There is an overlap between the two groups.

To me, this indicates a need for an "official" book on the Wolf Pirates & associated topics. Or a couple of adventures plus background write-up. I realize that other people may not feel the same desire.. But with attention shifting toward Esrolia and Heortland, more of us will be wanting that.

Thanks for resurrecting this fascinating topic. Since the cult of Ygg has now been published in the Lightbringers book, I wish there was a sourcebook and/ or an adventure or two to flesh out the Wolf Pirates. I note Jeff's writing a year or two ago about the cults mix among the Pirates, so they include a lot of Orlanthi and other people from everywhere Harrek's circumnavigation touched. I put some of that into Caravanserai. But I am glad I did not need to touch on cultural aspects, because I was ignorant of everything Joerg wrote in this thread in 2019.

Now going south from Nochet to Rhigos, where the ruler is the Demivierge, and thinking about Jeff's recent Facebook posting about thinking of Gloranthan society as a network in which the cults are the nodes: I am puzzled about the Demivierge, because she does not match the image of an Ernaldan priestess ruler. How would she qualify as a priestess? I know there is a Rune spell fir transferring a pregnancy, but I don't think it is an Ernalda cult spell. If not ErnAlda. then what cult, and how does that fit into the Esrolian network? This seems to me to be important for adventurers visiting Rhigos. Or even passing near the city. Is there a write up of this that I could read? Or is it lost in an out of print fanzine?

Which trak3s us back to: So what accounts for the Esrolian women having "cultural weapon skills"? Not as cult skills, because that is a different step in character creation.

About negative modifiers: Ihave used them while GMing, and have also used fractional modifiers, that is "roll against half your skill". My difficulty with negatives is that low skill characters have NO chance of success, while with fraction al modifiers they have some chance. About splitting out specialty skills: If your game is going to have a great variety of those then that is a great idea. But if you use RQ's category modifiers you need to make it easy to reference those in play, else players may forget to use them.

That looks similar to commissars in early Soviet armies. That historical example implies to me that Esrolian armies will very very strongly emphasize following the agreed battle plan, and be less flexible when unexpected events happen. [I am not saying that Real World armies in general were very flexible before radio, nor that most Gloranthan armies would be much better, despite magic such as Wind Words.] Which makes the battle of Pennell Ford exceptional, in that in such a composite force, Harrek provided the flexibility to counter the unexpected. Superheroes will do that. A yet unwritten story should include what the Ernaldans did in that campaign.

So in Nochet / Esrolia that view is acted upon in a more consistent way, unlike Sartar where it is just a comment. - and the men seem to have absorbed that ideology. Even monarchical governments often tend to operate by consent of their populace. I don;t think there is anything wrong with that; It gives the region a different flavor, tells the players they are not in Kansas any more. Well back to the wonderful city of Oz Nochet. I am working on tomorrow night's adventure. Where Samastina will not be caught behind a curtain, is not Oz at all.

OK, the Nochet Adventurer's guide still contains "We keep the men working hard on the land, which keeps their minds away from war and conflict: a well-worked man is a happy man." but what was deleted is only significant if pointed out. NAG still contains, under How are Women Different, speaking of men: " What they are not is leaders: this has been proven a thousand times. They are either too warlike, too kind, or too mercurial at heart, their focus blurs, and they soon forget their charges. " But i do see that the more denigrating phraseology has been deleted or toned down.

But if we take away thise views, what is left to explain the matriarchal society?

As I understand it, it is that leadership by men is undesirable because men are more violent, less thoughtful vs. impulsive, and less long term thinkers. As I read 'Esrolia the Land of Ten Thousand goddesses" I perceive that from page 10, "What is the difference between women and men" which begins "Women are superior to men in every way. They are shoirt tempered and prone to violence, selfish and unable to keep promises, "... and ends ""What men are not is leaders..." and also the second paragraph of 'What makes us great* on page 9, and the second paragraph of " How do we live" on the same page,

Somewhst. yes. I suppose it boils down to "What is the extent to which the Esrolian characterationn of men in comparison to women has been internalized by the men and women who are not in the noble and priestly tiers of society?".

As I understand it the Esrolian matriarchal society prefers women in leadership positions because they are said to be less impulsive, more emotionally stable and long term thinkers. Men do the heavy work in the Vogarth Strong Man role. and fight in the "Ernalda's protector" role, while women are the brains. Also, as I understand it. both sexes get the same cultural weapons skills in character generation. This brings me to questions: Do Esrolian women participate in the militia system. the Irillo Hundreds? (if not, how and why do they get trained in those weapon skills?) If so, are their sex role expectations in the militia different? In my one instance of dealing with this in my own character generation, making an Esrolian male character who rolled participation in the battle of Pennel Ford, I decided that as a teenager he had been in a militia company whose captain was a woman. Indeed for distinguishing himself in battle (saving his captain who had been Befuddled) he was promoted to file leader and got the captain's recommendation, so after the war entered the Issaries cult as a caravan guard. He was very appreciative. The implication being that the officers are (or tend to be) women and the higher in rank you go. the closer you get to a glass ceiling, the higher proportion of women. Does this match your own vision. of Esrolia?

It is my impression that: 1) A lot of canon material originated as fan material in various fanzines. Most of which are out of print now, and cannot be reprinted due to original authors not being contact-able. So Glorantha has been a multi-person collaboration for decades, with wise editorial control.. 2) Of course it got Chaosium edits along the way, Including some significant revisions. For instance "the west" was once presented as semi medieval, not so now in canon. You who were participating when I had lost touch with Glorantha from the mid 1980s to 2018, please correct my possible error. Anyway, Jonstown Compendium material ought not to suffer from the out-of-print problem.

On the other hand, another SPOILER Alert: Some of that is the way you played Six Seasons. At least one if the Black Stzg rune spells will go a long way to keeping the Six Seasons player characters alive at the end (6th season), and the clan wyter is only going to be killed by bad luck or bad player management, otherwise he is merely sidelined for most of Company of the Dragon. - END SPOLIER- When I ran it, The default assumption was that the player characters would take at least one Black Stag rune point, and shortly thereafter would have the opportunity to initiate into the gods' cults. taking more rune points. I pro rated their acquisition of skills and magic over the next year. My argument is that the clan invests in these new adults. And Gordangar. foreseeing the conflict ahead (it's in the 6S book) accelerates their training.

When I ran Black Spear, among the long term effects I took from it was that my Adventurers had seen Argrath at his worst and most vulnerable. This was after they had seen him in Company of the Dragon, where he is super competent, alert, and friendly. So if was interesting to see how the players themselves reacted to Argrath when he rose to Prince. They have his confidence, he doesn't doubt their loyalty because if they had meant him harm they had their chance to do harm in Prax, and instead they healed him. He owes them from Black Spear. But they never are so tactless as to remind Argrath of when they saw him strung out. He is a questgiver. Anyway, to summarize, Argrath is capable of playing many roles. Capable of being all things to all men, though not simultaneously. So when you ask how Argrath acts, ordinarily you might think about what he wants from the people he is dealing with.

I hope the Nochet Adventurer's Huide is doing really well. Because I would like it in hard copy. The parts on different approaches to the city for the newcomer are going to get intensive use next week and I am going to print pieces out to help my GMing flow. The only criticism I have so far is that the street names would be easier to find on the maps if they were in a larger font. Perhaps a major street map with a lot of the other layers suppressed more?