Women in Glorantha

[Joerg]

6 minutes ago, jajagappa said:

As I recall it was stated somewhere that she carried the Black Spear into exile (or that it was hidden away by the Black Spear clan). Either way Kangharl doesn't have it.

Does that mean that Kangharl had no Orlanth Rex magics like Command Priests or Command Worshipers? Or is Orlanth Rex cult initiation independent from mastery over the tribal wyter?

Not that Kangharl lacked a power basis when he could ask the occupying Lunar "friends" nicely to pour atrocities or at least an increased tax burden on his foes.

 

Speaking of mastery over the tribal wyter, neither Temertain nor Kallyr managed to get more than a flicker out of the Flame of Sartar. Still, the fact that there was a flicker means that the national wyter was suppressed, not departed.

 

Sorry about the thread-jacking. Time to start another thread, probably better in the RQ forum.

Edited December 22, 2019 by Joerg

[Jane]

6 minutes ago, Joerg said:

Sorry about the thread-jacking. Time to start another thread, probably better in the RQ forum.

RQ? Why? This isn't rules-specific in the slightest, and in fact the next thing I was going to quote was from Thunder Rebels - HW. I agree that we're drifting somewhat, though. It does look as if the main problems female rulers have isn't their gender, it's the Lunars, and possibly excessively loyal tribe members.

[Eff]

It would be fairly simple to interpret, on the basis that Sartar, an Issaries follower, was only a king due to being King of Dragon Pass and was Prince of the Quivini otherwise (and also on the slimmer basis that the Trader Princes of Maniria are also Issaries worshipers), that "king", "queen", "prince", (and other unattested titles) refer to formal representations of a particular god, with "king" or "warlord" referring to Orlanth, "prince" to Issaries, "queen" presumably to Ernalda, and so on down the traditional ruling ring. The ruler of Sartar being the Prince would thus be a political statement about their peaceful, amicable intent in ruling.

As such, Kallyr, as queen and warlord and prince, would be concentrating executive power into her own hands. A controversial decision, but one that may also seem inevitable in the aftermath of the Dragonrise and the overall difficulty of knowing who to trust.

 

(This also implies, together with the clan questionnaire answer about the lesson of the EWF being "priests shouldn't rule, kings should", that Orlanth Rex and the Alakoring rites displaced an older tradition where power was shared between different members of the confederation/kingdom ring...) 

Edit: the difficulty, of course, is that the language is thus entirely different from what we expect the plain English to mean and not in a consistent way, either.

Edited December 22, 2019 by Eff

[Jane]

32 minutes ago, Eff said:

It would be fairly simple to interpret, on the basis that Sartar, an Issaries follower, was only a king due to being King of Dragon Pass and was Prince of the Quivini otherwise (and also on the slimmer basis that the Trader Princes of Maniria are also Issaries worshipers), that "king", "queen", "prince", (and other unattested titles) refer to formal representations of a particular god, with "king" or "warlord" referring to Orlanth, "prince" to Issaries, "queen" presumably to Ernalda, and so on down the traditional ruling ring. The ruler of Sartar being the Prince would thus be a political statement about their peaceful, amicable intent in ruling.

Oh, nice! I'd completely overlooked the "Trader Princes" connection. And of course, Sartar himself was very much a Hero of Issaries. His descendants, somewhat less so... though possibly the cult of Sartar could be seen as a sub-cult/hero-cult of Issaries? Specialists in road building, and in getting people to work together.... sort of. Just don't ask about Salinarg.

And now I think about it, there we are back on topic. Female values. Getting people to work together, and building non-warfare things, probably with earth magic.You get good enough at female values, you get to be top ruler, even if you do have the handicap of a penis.

Edited December 22, 2019 by Jane

[scott-martin]

27 minutes ago, Eff said:

and also on the slimmer basis that the Trader Princes of Maniria are also Issaries worshipers

With a band of companions he traveled to the edge of the sea, and there he contacted a great spirit which could guide and protect many tribes — which could protect a kingdom. After that Westfaring success Sartar was recognized by the many peoples as their ruler. His original title was First (Prince) of the Quivini.

Who controls the route west of Dragon Pass?

 

[JonL]

4 hours ago, Joerg said:

The job of "King of Dragon Pass" was actually open for gender at the time of the conquest between Sartar and the first Feathered Horse Queen.

I very much believe that if the FHQ at the time of the rebellion had been more into Kallyr than Fazzur, Starbrow would have become King of Dragon Pass. 

Look at where e everyone's eyes are directed in this illustration:

[Bill the barbarian]

5 hours ago, Joerg said:

Let's hope it didn't hurt the tiny Barbarian brain...

No quibbles with the result of that process, though.

an acknowledgement of my greatness from Joeg and being cruised in the fora (hell... asked if I wished... we’ll draw a shade on this, shall we? :), all in one eve.
My head is simply swimming... It took the visit of three spirits to make good ol’ Ebenezer go gaga and swoon...

Cheers

 

Edited December 22, 2019 by Bill the barbarian

[Joerg]

1 hour ago, Eff said:

It would be fairly simple to interpret, on the basis that Sartar, an Issaries follower, was only a king due to being King of Dragon Pass and was Prince of the Quivini otherwise (and also on the slimmer basis that the Trader Princes of Maniria are also Issaries worshipers), that "king", "queen", "prince", (and other unattested titles) refer to formal representations of a particular god, with "king" or "warlord" referring to Orlanth, "prince" to Issaries, "queen" presumably to Ernalda, and so on down the traditional ruling ring. The ruler of Sartar being the Prince would thus be a political statement about their peaceful, amicable intent in ruling.

Nice idea, although Sartar himself has been described as a Larnsti - a cultist of a very obscure mystical subcult of Orlanth present only among the Hendriki, worshiping Orlanth Larnste as the reincarnated or Changed version of the Celestial Court entity. Other than being an excellent host for the cult of the merchants, providing all that security and infrastructure, including market towns and cities, I haven't seen him use any magics that you would normally associate with Issaries. The negotiator and peace-making aspect may be the closest Sartar comes to performing an Issaries quest (and as per King of Dragon Pass, there is nothing to stop a suitably Orlanth worshiper from attempting the Issaries quest there, if at a slight penalty).

I think it is perfectly possible to describe Sartar only in terms of the Orlanth cult (with its obscure niche subcults Larnste and Rex) and personal heroquesting experience. He had obviously maxed out his Change rune while being able to muster at least average Stability (Stasis) for the changes he had brought. But then, I already said that the Larnsti are a mystic brotherhood, probably plagued by their own form of Enlightenment when it comes to their use of the Mobility rune (which may also be expressed by a number of geasa) while bringing Stability.

None of Sartar's heirs to the kingdom (up to 1625) have displayed any hint of personal Issaries magics. They do have a strong inheritance of building knowledge, possibly in the shape of a grimoire (but then, the Orlanth cult doesn't allow sorcery...) that is part of the wyter abilities. Saronil may have added (to) this with his apprenticehood with the mostali near Shaker's Temple (which probably translates to servants of Isidilian rather than wanderers from Greatway, with Isidilian another hero of Change to Stasis as a Quicksilver Mostali and master of transmutations).

1 hour ago, Eff said:

As such, Kallyr, as queen and warlord and prince, would be concentrating executive power into her own hands. A controversial decision, but one that may also seem inevitable in the aftermath of the Dragonrise and the overall difficulty of knowing who to trust.

The terms "Queen and Warlord", "Queen of the Kheldon Tribe council" @Jane mentioned from Composite History of Dragon Pass both appear to be terms by which the Vendref Densesros struggles with the concept of a female ruler in the Orlanth Rex fashion that he has little experience with as his culture doesn't have this subcult, and Grazer chiefs holding all these male rulership aspects.

 

1 hour ago, Eff said:

(This also implies, together with the clan questionnaire answer about the lesson of the EWF being "priests shouldn't rule, kings should", that Orlanth Rex and the Alakoring rites displaced an older tradition where power was shared between different members of the confederation/kingdom ring...) 

That change actually was made before the dragonfriends came to power in Orlanthland. Hardros Hardslaughter, the hero of the Tax Slaughter of 575 who finished Arkat's Command on the Heortlings, was made a Great Living Hero rather than the high king of the Heortlings. A Great Living Hero was a mortal heroquester who received regular worship, which gave him demigod-like powers. History of the Heortling Peoples names two more Great Living Heroes in context with the Machine Wars - the (prototype Tusk Rider) Aramite Varankol the Mangler, and the Hendriki Renvald Meldekbane. Agelessness may have been a side effect of this status.

Lesser capital H heroes may have cults, too (like Hofstaring), but these Great Living Heroes apparently have entire tribal confederations backing up their magic.

The Ruling Council of Orlanthland may have been a lot closer to the Ernaldan/Esrolian ideal of rulership by committee than the Rex cult (outside of the Sacrificial King mode). The Rex cult may have quite a bit in common with Lokamayadon's cult of Tarumath the High Storm, the excesses of which may have been the motivation behind abandoning the position of High King of the Heortlings.

There is a chance that the Adjustment Wars between the Hendriki and the Esrolians were fueled by the implications of the Rex cult. What the heck did Alakoring carry across the Rockwoods?

But then, Harmast Barefoot had the Grandmothers of Nochet panicked when they recognized his at best slightly altered Berennethtelli tribal tattoo as that of Kodig, the nemesis of the reign of the Grandmothers until his heir Rastagar was foully betrayed.

1 hour ago, Eff said:

Edit: the difficulty, of course, is that the language is thus entirely different from what we expect the plain English to mean and not in a consistent way, either.

That's the point where people start to introduce weird fantasy terms or loans from completely unrelated cultures and provide a translation in brackets. Greg did this a lot, e.g. his Dara Happan definition of Justice in GRoY: "Denseb, meaning Measured Command from Above", but @Jeff appears to prefer terms from modern English over archaic or loaned names.

With Kallyr, Leika and Londra of Londros we have three powerful female rune levels or heroes of Orlanth, with Ivartha the Skinner of the Cinsina providing another Orlanth Rex queen. RQG's iconic sample character Vasana continues this trend as a role model for players of RQG, with her half-sister Yanioth continuing the role model of the Ernaldan character with agency and motivator of the party.

Samastina's party had two Ernaldan priestesses - Samastina herself, and her visionary snake priestess Keva. (See Prince of Sartar comic chapter 4, and the examples in HQG).

The Feathered Horse Queen as avatar of Kero Fin and the Earth Queen is another strong Ernaldan player, as is Ernalsulva of Sartar: Kingdom of Heroes.

5 minutes ago, JonL said:

I very much believe that if the FHQ at the time of the rebellion had been more into Kallyr than Fazzur, Starbrow would have become King of Dragon Pass. 

They were cousins, few generations apart. Only one father of a Feathered Horse Queen has been named: Sartar, father of Yoristina, the second FHQ and ancestress of all her successors. There is a chance that Saraskos had a full sister, too...

But then, that close family relationship wouldn't have stopped the royal house of Sartar, which appears to have a habit of re-marrying the lost branches of the family (Kostajor's kids - possibly including Salinarg's wife, or Saraskos whose paternal great-grandfather Sartar also is his maternal great-grandfather.

 

But yes, the House of Sartar, or at least the succession of Saronil, was a bit misogynystic with the way Onelisin had been omitted from the succession, but then she presumably had left the royal palace soon after her initiation, and children of the House of Sartar initiate early as a rule. She is the only child of Saronil who didn't get a royal fortress/broch named after her. On the other hand, Saronil sacrificed his life for his granddaughter by her, so not all bridges had been broken between father and daughter.

Jarosar was Onelisin's younger brother, and while he proved to be a fine Orlanthi and decent king, he was the first rather non-descript Prince of Sartar. His (in the end futile) intervention on behalf of his father's childhood friend Palashee brought the Kingdom of Sartar onto the radar of the Provincial Government, and brought on the personal vendetta of Phargentes and his successors with the House of Sartar.

But then, would a cat-witch have been a responsible ruler for the Kingdom?

[Minion1stClass]

So much trouble because humans have learned nothing from the Uz. Men are good for making babies and hunting. It's what they want to do. Let them do it. Then they do not interfere with the real women's work! Which is everything else!

My dark troll is going to have words with the Ernaldan priestess married to the Anmangarn chief when she is back from becoming a rune lord. Trust a human to keep the men in line ONE TIME and they give the Lunars shit they shouldn't have. 

In conclusion: Phah! Humans! Uz all the way!

[scott-martin]

19 minutes ago, Joerg said:

Larnste

Daddy!

I suspect the now-vestigial Soul Arranger mythos hints at many esoteric mysteries preserved in the Guide of the Dead. Telling also that some people say Larnste engineered the birth of Umath while an issaries (I imagine a preposterously cute cherub, probably disguised as Groucho Marx) was born explicitly to grease the cosmic gears and make it happen. One force, two factors.

Of course today we have the modern Issaries so who could ask for anything more? But we digress! I am eager to discover trader princesses to the immediate west who can shed light on these things and if anyone is still following the original post the book The Distaff Gospels came up over cocktails the other night. Highest recommendation.

 

[AndreasDavour]

The little phrase ""What my mother's sister told me", the female viewpoint on Sun County life" made me very curious, as I find Sun County a very cool place to have adventures. Do you have that text around @Jane or do someone else?

[Jane]

25 minutes ago, AndreasDavour said:

The little phrase ""What my mother's sister told me", the female viewpoint on Sun County life" made me very curious, as I find Sun County a very cool place to have adventures. Do you have that text around @Jane or do someone else?

I'll have it somewhere. Not even sure if I ever finished it. I'll go hunting.

[Bill the barbarian]

Well Joerg another excellent day where the damn software will not let me give you the thanks you click you deserve. 

47 minutes ago, Joerg said:

Other than being an excellent host for the cult of the merchants, providing all that security and infrastructure, including market towns and cities,

and roads, leave us not forget that he built a road or two...

 

1 hour ago, Joerg said:

With Kallyr, Leika and Londra of Londros we have three powerful female rune levels or heroes of Orlanth, with Ivartha the Skinner of the Cinsina providing another Orlanth Rex queen. RQG's iconic sample character Vasana continues this trend as a role model for players of RQG, with her half-sister Yanioth continuing the role model of the Ernaldan character with agency and motivator of the party.

 

And here are two more...

The malani current ruler is Queen Amalda Edrufsdotter is the daughter of the previous king. a humakti I think

Torkani: Yrsa Nightbeam not sure but I wonder is she worships a darker deity.

[Qizilbashwoman]

16 minutes ago, Bill the barbarian said:

Well Joerg another excellent day where the damn software will not let me give you the thanks you click you deserve. 

and roads, leave us not forget that he built a road or two...

 

And here are two more...

The malani current ruler is Queen Amalda Edrufsdotter is the daughter of the previous king. a humakti I think

Torkani: Yrsa Nightbeam not sure but I wonder is she worships a darker deity.

It always seems reckless to elect Death as a leader. Where are the Malani?

Also why are there limits to the number of likes we can give? It should be contigent on the number of likes we get that day, so more likes means you need to give more likes.

[Bill the barbarian]

Just now, Qizilbashwoman said:

It always seems reckless to elect Death as a leader. Where are the Malani?

 

The malani are an interesting breed and are often considered bad news. This is not their first humakti ruler.

Quote

 

Malani Tribe

The Malani tribe has a long and deserved reputation for violence and war. People say the Malani willfight over anything. For nearly three centuries,their kings (who serve Humakt God-of-War) have ruled from Two Ridge Fort and taken tribute from weaker neighbors

 

From the Sartar Companion Page 7

They are one of the tribes that Apple Lane was meant to separate and service ( read pacify) with an Uleria and Issaries Temple as well as a temple to all deities. They are also the western most members of the Jonstown Confederacy. and I believe remained as a “free ally” of the Lunars.

I believe they were too friggin crazy and did not worship Orlanth so were left alone.

[Joerg]

28 minutes ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

It always seems reckless to elect Death as a leader. Where are the Malani?

North of the Colymar, south of the Creek, with Two Ridge Fort their tribal seat, and seat of a major Humakti temple/legion. Both the Malani and their splinter tribe, the Lismelder, have a history of Humakti as chiefs or kings.

There is a freeform about the split of the Lismelder off the Malani - "The Fall of the House of Malan". Great fun, and very instructive... one of the few Glorantha Freeforms I never managed to get the referee's collection in an auction.

[Bill the barbarian]

1 hour ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

Also why are there limits to the number of likes we can give? It should be contigent on the number of likes we get that day, so more likes means you need to give more likes.

Im all honesty, I rate a day that I run out a very good day on BRP Central. I don’t give out amy all my likes to one topic only (as a rule, more on that in a sec) I like to be quite diverse in my rewarding. So for me a truly great day with great posts and lots of variety to be had is when I run out before noon. Now, I do have to learn to ration as per our economy, sometimes I have used up all my likes on far too few varieties.

Ah, first world problems. Love ‘em!

Cheers

 

Edited December 22, 2019 by Bill the barbarian

[g33k]

3 hours ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

Also why are there limits to the number of likes we can give? It should be contigent on the number of likes we get that day, so more likes means you need to give more likes.

I envision this resulting circle of "likefarming" where people just do a bunch or "+1"s so all the 'farmers can Like it...  <shudder>

But perhaps I'm just a cynic.

Or maybe my idea belongs over in the E. Munchkin thread (though honestly that vision feels more E. coli) .

[Bill the barbarian]

16 minutes ago, g33k said:

But perhaps I'm just a cynic.

 

no

[g33k]

9 hours ago, Jane said:

... Seriously, though, we're being misled by the limitations of the English language, normally used to describe a very different culture. "Prince" comes from "Princeps", first among equals. Which still isn't an accurate description of the role played by the House of Sartar in forming and leading the "kingdom", but English simply doesn't have the right word for the job ...

Thank you, this works very well! 

Princeps it henceforth is, IMG. 😁

Given how very gendered the terms Prince and Princess are in English (and particularly the implications of the -ess, which upthread was rhetorically queried as "can you imagine Princess Kallyr?"), I wish this usage (or something like) had been done officially, in the published matter...  It's not like we don't have Khan's and Satraps and such-like titles, giving ample precedent to use of Princeps.

Princeps solves the Prince/ss problem, I think?  I mean, historically I think they were always XY persons, never XX, but AFAIK the term carries no inherent linguistic gender (which Latin often does, so ... win!) .

[Bill the barbarian]

38 minutes ago, g33k said:

But perhaps I'm just a cynic.

 

Here ya go kid take a couple of clacks and buy yerself an ice-cream cone and head this flyer  it’ll cheer ya up...

Cynical at his age...

https://www.chaosium.com/the-smoking-ruin-other-stories-pdf/

Edited December 23, 2019 by Bill the barbarian

[g33k]

58 minutes ago, Bill the barbarian said:

Here ya go kid take a couple of clacks and buy yerself an ice-cream cone and head this flyer  it’ll cheer ya up...

Cynical at his age...

https://www.chaosium.com/the-smoking-ruin-other-stories-pdf/

<takes clacks, sniffling> "th-th-thanks, mister!  kin I have a hug, too?"

<walks away with full moneypouch, tossing clacks back over shoulder>  "Here, mister!  After the hug, I don't need the clacks!"

<starts running as soon as finished speaking>

 

Edited December 23, 2019 by g33k
gotta ensure the getaway

[JonL]

3 hours ago, g33k said:

"can you imagine Princess Kallyr?"

Yes.

[HeartQuintessence]

Waiy Kallyr Starbrow ia female?

Inthought they had been refered to as He in material.

ok well thats inyeresting.

 

So how do you all write women and women related things in your campaign?

[Joerg]

11 minutes ago, HeartQuintessence said:

Waiy Kallyr Starbrow ia female?

Inthought they had been refered to as He in material.

ok well thats inyeresting.

That should not have been a noteworthy realization. About on par with some people's realization that Kallyr was not a duck.

What are your sources that you managed to miss this rather well-established fact?

But then, Kallyr may have female plumbing, but it isn't entirely clear how she identifies her gender. She behaves very male, according to her character sheet for the Sartar High Council mini-freeform that was published in Wyrm's Footprints:

Quote

She is haughty and volatile, and easily goes into fits of shouting and accusation.

In Orlanthi society, this is tempestuous male behavior. Females are stereotypically calm and collected.

 

11 minutes ago, HeartQuintessence said:

So how do you all write women and women related things in your campaign?

Currently between campaigns, although I plan to do a bit more with RQG on our occasional regional meetings.

 

Exogamous marriages make up a lot of the considerations I ponder for female PCs and NPCs in my Sartar games. This is something definitely under-developed in the RQG material I have seen so far, but really well-done in Ian Cooper's HeroQuest books The Coming Storm and The Eleven Lights.

The usually patrilocal marriages in Orlanthi society lead to the brides entering a clan different from their birth clan, and becoming active members there, bound by their desire to create the best possible conditions for their children. The Coming Storm keeps track of the lineage of people in the clan, and of the clans of origin for the wives (and occasional husbands) married into the clan.

A young bride will come into a household likely headed by her father or uncle in-law, with her husband one of several sons of the household (though not necessarily the household head). The steadmistress and her mother-in-law (possibly the same person) will usually have undergone a similar trial, which may make her both sympathetic and demanding, and possibly jealous of her privileges. There are likely other young wives with yet little standing in the household or clan, potential allies as much as they are potential rivals.

In most cases, the new wife will be among several daughters of her clan who also married into this clan, but political marriage are far from rare and will send young women into clans with less previous intermarriage. But then, this is often balanced by such wives coming from higher status background (and marrying into higher status, too).

 

I am a bit unsure how and by whom marriages for the semi-free tenants are arranged. A tenant household (!) is bound to the land they work on, and a temple, a noble household or occasionally a wealthy free-man's household. The individuals in the tenant household are fairly free to leave that obligation (with little more than the clothes they wear and some provender for their journey) and go into service with someone else or with an organisation like a temple/cult. However, every such loss of manpower will create a loss in income both for the tenant household and for the landlord household the tenant household is supposed to support.

Getting a marriage partner for a resident tenant will be in the interest of the landlord household as much as for the tenant household. Becoming a tenant's wife or husband may be less desirable for a person from another clan, but even so there may well be people who would be marrying up in terms of standard of living if not in status. An exchange of semi-free status wives between semi-free households will be fairly normal.

But then there may be tenant households whose members aren't (long term) married. There are plenty of acceptable ways for a woman to get pregnant. If this happens as the consequence of temple rites, the child born to a single woman may well be taken in by the temple for a higher status education and career.

In this thread of mine I attempted to depict a couple of households in rural Sartar. Never mind the Elmali spin, let's look at the female characters.

One thing I tried to build in is the sometimes temporary nature of marriage. Temporary marriages are anything but uncommon, and while their locality defines the clan of any children of this union during that marriage period, the marriage may be mutually agreed to be prolonged (as a contract between the two clans involved) or terminated upon completion of the marriage term (and any pregnancy that may have resulted in that time, regardless whether by the husband or in temple rites). Note that I mentioned the pregnancy status of these NPC women, as another reminder how important this is for the clan and household.

Pregnancy comes with a passion that can be invoked on many activities. So is child-care of various kinds. Ernaldans doing such motherly stuff will have a blessing. But even fathers may use this as an occasional augment.

In my old Balmyr tribe Hero Wars game, one character was an Ernaldan healer who had three children from previous marriages in three different clans. The player, a single mother of two in real life, found this a quite relatable background.