Orlanthi mean streaks

[Sir_Godspeed]

16 hours ago, Rodney Dangerduck said:

Well, Luther and the Enlightenment sort of "won" over the "conservative Catholics", and life is still interesting here on Earth

Most Christians worldwide are still Catholics, so not really, actually. (and at any rate, the Protestants were inherently fractious, so not really comparable. You could arguably compare the Lunar Empire more to the Rashidun/Umayyad Caliphate, in that it was a relatively new/innovative religious movements tied to a rapidly expanding empire - but there's a lot of differences here too, and comparisons involving anything Islamic have an unfortunate tendency to spin out of control, so I'll lay this dead for now.) 

 

I do agree that Glorantha could probably still be "interesting", but the "status quo" would be markedly skewed in favor of this gargantuan central-Genertelan polity, for one. Maybe it finally collapses a few decades/centuries down the line. Maybe it undergoes major internal changes. Maybe it engages in a cold war with renewed Seshnelan imperial ambitions. Either way, storm barbarians seem like they would fade out of relevance, if Orlanth could truly be usurped not just locally, but cosmically.

Edited February 8, 2020 by Sir_Godspeed

[Sir_Godspeed]

6 hours ago, soltakss said:

Orlanthi see the Lunar Empire as bad because the Red Goddess embraces Chaos. She rode out on the Crimson Bat and sent a whole host of people mad just by seeing her.

They could probably forgive a lot of the lunar stuff, but that is the defining moment.

Of course, things like Ogres, Broos and Scorpionmen serving in the Lunar army and the Lunars training the Vampire Legion don't help matters.

 

And she is claiming dominion over the Middle Air, Orlanth's traditional domain.

[Lordabdul]

4 hours ago, tedopon said:

I have never understood why people fancy a culture....[...]

We don't "fancy" the Orlanthi culture any more than we "fancy" any other thing we play. Playing as Vikings or CIA agents or Conan characters or British 1920s investigators doesn't mean we "fancy" northmen culture or American foreign policy or bloody barbarians or pre-WW2 imperialism... in many ways, playing as these characters is actually a way to deconstruct all the things that are bad about them and the system that created them, and sometimes explore themes that are relevant to today. If I only wanted to play characters that belong to groups or cultures that are obviously "good" and "nice", I'm pretty sure I wouldn't own 95% of the RPG books I own.

10 hours ago, soltakss said:

They could probably forgive a lot of the lunar stuff, but that is the defining moment.

Yeah they have a lot of good reasons to see the Lunars as vile and abhorrent. But the Lunars also have their own point of view and are far from being objective "villains". If anything, the Lunars are probably the closest to what we can understand here on Earth. I imagine that plenty of people in the Lunar Empire are disgusted by many things the Red Emperor did (like Chaotic alliances), the same way plenty of people on Earth are disgusted by the many things their governments did in the past couple centuries. To me, a Lunar storyline/campaign is the best way to use fiction/gaming as a way to reflect on real-world issues -- more so than playing as Orlanthi (they have relevant themes, but less so IMHO).

[davecake]

On 2/7/2020 at 5:46 PM, lordabdul said:

My vision of it is that it is has very little social mobility.

I think it has quite a lot. Sure, less than the modern day, but wealth really counts in Orlanthi culture. A rich carl can become a thane, a thane can become a chief. Its far more socially mobile than Solar culture, or even Esrolian (where the major houses have a lock on power, so lineage counts strongly).

This isn't a straight positive though. It means ambitious Orlanthi leaders are competing quite aggressively for glory and wealth - and the quick paths to both involve violence. An ambitious low born Solar leader has to find a way to make money that is legal and probably requires noble patronage and probably still has to suck up to the nobility for generations - for example, use their wealth to become a priest of a cult eligible to retire into the Yelm the Elder cult, leverage money etc to get noble favour, maybe marry into a family with full citizenship, to give their children or grandchildren a chance at real power. A similarly ambitious Orlanthi can become a thane or a chief in one generation, if they can get enough wealth and reputation - and a shortcut to both is straight out stealing stuff from your neighbours at sword point. And the legal system is such that wealth and status is going to give you a lot of ability to resist legal attempts to restrain you, as long as you are open about it (unlike Solar culture, in which attempting to advance yourself by raiding your neighbours might get you executed). The Ernaldan customs emphasise peace making because they really need it - there are strong social incentives to start violent feuds. 

[davecake]

On 2/8/2020 at 8:17 AM, Sir_Godspeed said:

Narratively, unless you're Kralorela, empires exist to rise and fall in Glorantha.

The Kralorelan narrative is that when Empires rise and fall you try really hard to pretend its the same Empire all along. 

[davecake]

On 2/7/2020 at 1:00 AM, scott-martin said:

We know Orlanth's way is objectively more vibrant than everything the Empire can provide at this moment in history because we know who ultimately wins the Hero Wars, at least from an exoteric perspective.

Argrath wins the Hero Wars. He has to change Orlanthi society a lot to do so - he is at least as significant in this respect as Alakoring - and somewhat in the other direction, Alakoring reduced the influence of priests and magicians and increased the power of kings and chiefs to fight against dragon mystics, Argrath wants to increase the influence of magicians by bringing in dragon mystics, and eventually will want to reduce the power of traditional clan chiefs and kings so he can build an Empire. We get Argraths Imperial perspective on this as the triumph of Storm, but you could write it from another perspective as the final submission of Orlanth to the Dragon Emperor  via Lunar utuma or something like that 

[davecake]

Viking sagas were the go to sources for Orlanthi bad behaviour for a long while, and probably still are - while the recent tendency is to make the Orlanthi less Viking in cultural trappings, their legal system is still quite similar, so many of the plots hold well.

In particular, Njals saga shows how even the best efforts of leaders who want peace can get dragged into a vicious vendetta by their clans/families. It was a big inspiration for a famous Orlanthi story, the story of the enmity between Lokamayadon and Rastalulf ending in the Immolation.

Another one is Grettirs Saga, which shows how outlawry can basically lead straight to the life of a classic murder hobo, as Grettir, pursued by his enemies, basically wanders about asking each settlement if there is something or someone he can slaughter for cash - and it also shows how one feud can involve a lot of incidental death of those peripherally involved. 

Speaking of Lokamayadon, by the end of Argraths saga there are probably more than a few traditionalist Orlanth comparing Argrath to Lokamaydon, and accusing him of 'Lokamayadism', the crime of changing religious rules for personal power. 

[Akhôrahil]

5 hours ago, davecake said:

The Kralorelan narrative is that when Empires rise and fall you try really hard to pretend its the same Empire all along. 

Same thing with Dara Happans. "Yep, this foreign invader, it turns out he's the proper Emperor after all, so it's all good and the Empire persists. Nothing to see here, move along!"

Edited February 10, 2020 by Akhôrahil

[Sir_Godspeed]

10 hours ago, davecake said:

a famous Orlanthi story, the story of the enmity between Lokamayadon and Rastalulf ending in the Immolation.

I had forgotten how similar they are. Got a chuckle out of me when reading it the first time. I was half-expecting the same laconic joke at the steadburning. 

While Old Norse might not be in vogue any more for visual representations, and while the Orlanthi have a more urban aspect added to them than the Iclandic did until industrialization, reading the Icelandic sagas is definitely a valuable tool to get a look into the mindset of an agricultural-pastoral clan society.

[Darius West]

One of the thing that nobody has mentioned enough is the Orlanthi penchant for nob-jockeying for position.  Remember in the tournament set in Boldhome, and all the Orlanthi were united against Lunar tyranny, then Greg shouted from the back of the room "But who will be King?" and the unity dissolved into a shambles within minutes?  Now a good Orlanthi might not even want to be king, but you can bet there is someone ambitious who does, and whom the less ambitious Orlanthi simply cannot abide, or who is their clan's long term partner in feud.  Orlanthi are very divided against themselves.  This division is a point that Fazzur understood, as he grew up with it, but later commanders didn't really understand it, and so couldn't exploit it (or Argrath had managed to unite the Orlanthi enough that the old tricks didn't work anymore).

Edited February 15, 2020 by Darius West