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Fonrit resources?


Harrek

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More exhuming ancient Simon Bray content from the digest 

Simon Bray said, in 1997:

Quote

In Afadjann I have Fida'Is the Slave Sunbird who tumbles across the sky in his
death throws until his final conflagration in the west. In my mythology he was
beaten by a deity called Um-Oradin, who struck out against him for being an
overly oppressive ruler. This event was clearly visible to the world as the
Sunstop, Arachne Solara's web being perceived as Um-Oradin's whips. Fida'Is is
lead through the heavens by the Star deity Karkisso (lightfore) on a long chain.

 

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Not specifically, but I'm vaguely reminded of a lengthy blog or discussion on the nitty-gritty of slavery in Fonrit, how it would work in terms of inheritance, marriage, household economics, demography, etc. 

In trying to dig it up, I'm not sure if I found the right thread, but here's a couple that might be interesting (not taking responsibility for various peoples comments): 

https://forum.rpg.net/index.php?threads/glorantha-adventures-in-fonrit.734315/page-3 

https://www.glorantha.com/forums/topic/darleester-and-the-masarins/

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I figured it had something to do with the Necklace of Pamalt that Garangordos sort-of recreated with his Glorious Ones.  The way Zzabur puts it, the rune entities of the Maseren were the first 'True Beings'; Zzabur claims to be one himself, and claims the authority to instruct mortals on the nature of the cosmos because he is a 'product of the Maseren,' while mortals are products of the Paseren, the 4th Action/Storm Age.  I know this isn't Tolkien, and linguistic/phonetic similarities in Gloranthan subjects are usually just that, but my interpretation would be that as the only free people in Fonrit, the masirin are claiming to be the only True Beings there (or anywhere else, probably) in the Malkioni sense, which would justify them within that framework in enslaving gods, spirits and other mortals as imperfect emanations of themselves.

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On 3/11/2020 at 2:51 AM, Harrek said:

Thanks for the replies so far. I have both Enclosure #2 and Heroes v1 #6, but I didn't remember that these volumes contain information about Fonrit. I just bought the Revealed Mythologies and Monster Island pdfs, so that is covered also. 

Definitely check out Enclosure 2!

Has anyone mentioned the Fonrit LARP?

In my Umathela game, Fonrit was the looming enemy (to the aldryami and their humans). Simon Bray, Martin Hawley, Peter Metcalfe, and I were working up some material. I've got a work in progress homeland. My draft is from 2007, so people's thinking might have evolved. Here’s an excerpt that talks about Ompalam’s magic:

Quote

 

Garangordos and his brothers and sisters, the Gargandites, introduced the worship of Ompalam the All-Powerful. He is so immense and mighty that humans can scarcely comprehend him. Instead, they worship one of the many gods or spirits, the small divines, who acknowledge Ompalam as their master.

Each city has its own favorite, though Garangordos and the Gargandites are popular everywhere. Some of the native deities like Ernamola also receive worship, especially in the countryside.

Masarin and the wealthier free men and slaves often initiate or devote themselves to one of the small divines.

The Garangrapha is the sacred text, and includes a number of obligations and prohibitions for worshippers. Its guid- ing principles offer much insight, but no magic is directly available from the book.

 

 

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The thing I've always wondered about Fonrit is what would happen if the slaves actually managed to escape from their bonds.

Namely, what would happen to the culture that they follow? I doubt the slaves have known any other culture or deities aside from the ones that are forced onto them by their cruel masters. It would probably be VERY terrifying for a liberated slave to go from slavery to the complete unknown. Not to mention that nearly everyone in Glorantha gains magic from the worship of their deities, and I doubt they would want to keep their old gods who treated them like shit. I wouldn't. But then, they would need to deal with people who actually are able to still use magic when they escape. And assuming they can keep away from the awful slave masters for long enough, what is next?

I'm not familiar with this part of Glorantha lore. But I would imagine their best option would be to move to another culture in the surrounding area. That opens up some interesting questions. Is it possible for one to completely assimilate into another Glorantha culture with cult membership and everything? I would hope so. 

Maybe they could come into contact with the Lunar Empire somehow? The Lunars don't mind slavery, but I doubt they would accept COMPLETE slavery, like the rulers of Fonrit do.

Edited by Redmoongodess
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24 minutes ago, Redmoongodess said:

The thing I've always wondered about Fonrit is what would happen if the slaves actually managed to escape from their bonds.

Namely, what would happen to the culture that they follow? I doubt the slaves have known any other culture or deities aside from the ones that are forced onto them by their cruel masters.

The Fonritans are not slaves because of their masters.  They have cruel masters and worship cruel gods because the universe is a cruel place and slavery the best way to live.  That's why previous attempts to free Fonrit (the God Learners had a good try) did not last very long.  The Fonritans are well aware of the concept of freedom and associate it with the deranged murderers of Jotoku.  

 

 

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16 minutes ago, metcalph said:

The Fonritans are not slaves because of their masters.  They have cruel masters and worship cruel gods because the universe is a cruel place and slavery the best way to live.  That's why previous attempts to free Fonrit (the God Learners had a good try) did not last very long.  The Fonritans are well aware of the concept of freedom and associate it with the deranged murderers of Jotoku.  

 

 

I, for one, would rather have an setting that can be changed by the actions of the Players.

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1 hour ago, Redmoongodess said:

The thing I've always wondered about Fonrit is what would happen if the slaves actually managed to escape from their bonds.

Well, consider who tends to be a slave in Fonrit.

There's the Veldang of course, the blue-skinned descendants of the mythic Artmali Empire who the Glorious Ones conquered, and whose descendants make up the bulk of the enslaved population in Fonrit afaik.  They've lost most of their tangible connections to that past, but I think it's safe to assume any successful large-scale revolt would involve Veldang heroquesting to rebuild those connections.  According to the Hero Wars prophecies in the Guide, something like this unfolds in the 1620s: a Veldang slave and a Teshnite adventurer successfully complete a heroquest to heal Artmal and gain his Blue Moon tidal magic.  That Veldang adventurer leads an initially successful revolt that liberates the core of a New Artmali Empire before the slavers manage to regroup sufficiently to start retaking territory with the full force of Afadjann's typically horrific magic.  When things grow sufficiently desperate the New Artmali join forces with probably the only other independent Veldang power in Fonrit: the Chaos-worshiping assassin cult of the demigoddess sorceress Seseine Kallig.  Per the prophecy, both the Artmali and their slaver opponents descend deeper and deeper into Chaos magic, until their conflict gains the name The Demon Wars.  The role of heroic characters in that mess could be to thwart Seseine Kallig and bring the Artmali revolution alternatives to delving into the same Chaotic powers as their enemies.

Then there's truly foreign slaves: captured Umathelans, Genertelans, East Islanders etc., first-generation outlander slaves.  They'd bring their own traditions, suppressed by the Fonritian noose-magic but waiting to be unleashed by whatever event brings on the revolt in the first place.  If some of these foreigners proved the efficacy of their tradition by defeating the slavers' own champions, as Harrek the Berserk did in Laskal (not that he was ever enslaved, to my knowledge), or otherwise benefiting the revolution, that could lead to substantial conversion among freed slaves.  Give people the freedom to choose, then present them with a really attractive option, and they're likely to pick it.

Then there's all the rest of Fonrit's slaves, the Doraddi- and Veldang-descended Torab people.  As Metcalph says, they're not living under an imposed yoke exactly: Fonritian culture is their culture, even if it means that 7 out of 10 Fonritians lead brutally truncated lives as enslaved manual labor.  Ompalam's chains are sunk deep, and it would be a tremendous undertaking in both Glorantha and the Gods Realm to break them.  Now I don't know much about the Middle Sea Empire's conquest of Fonrit specifically, but from what I understand of MSE imperial methodology their main strategy in trying to spiritually liberate Fonrit would've been to demonstrate how Fonrit's slavery-theism was just a local variation on traditions they'd seen all over the world, how all theistic myth really derives from a singular monomyth, etc.  Which results in things like Fonritians conflating Ompalam and the Invisible God.  The Middle Sea Empire tried to liberate Fonrit through absorption and integration, and that's just not how systems like Fonrit's die.  No.  To free the Torab people from their own spiritual slavery, they're gonna need something new, something to counter old Garangordos's aphorism that "existence is slavery."  They need people within their society to stare their system in the eye and say "This has got to stop," and then those people have to gather the spiritual steel and the physical bronze to bring that system to an end by whatever means necessary.  They need their own John Brown.  Which, honestly, sounds like a hell of a pitch for a campaign.

Edited by dumuzid
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There is the city of the free in Fonrit, Jokotu, named after the Garangordite who took on the role of Bolongo and who ascended his brother through murder. Everybody who makes it there is eligible for citizenship and is no longer considered a slave.

The leader of the Renewed Energastor movement hobbles through the land preaching a message of peace, fertility and liberation for the descendants of the Renewed. Now the Renewed still adhere to the slavocracy model of Fonrit, they just refrain from the worst excesses against their slaves as do the Oldsters.

The Oldsters claim that brutally suppressing the slaves is what confirms the order of things and what thereby preserves the world. They are worried about the more lenient ways of the Renewed, and they are frightened about the power of Jokotu and whatever Veldang demons might be awakened. The events outlined in The Hero Wars Begin on p.562 justify those fears.

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Telling how it is excessive verbis

 

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Dumuzid, that is an amazing answer and I hope that they release that Fonrit book within the next 2 years because I would gladly run an campaign based around everything you typed.

 

On 3/22/2020 at 2:23 AM, Joerg said:

The Oldsters claim that brutally suppressing the slaves is what confirms the order of things and what thereby preserves the world. They are worried about the more lenient ways of the Renewed, and they are frightened about the power of Jokotu and whatever Veldang demons might be awakened. The events outlined in The Hero Wars Begin on p.562 justify those fears.

I'd take demons over slavers any day.

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1 hour ago, Redmoongodess said:

Dumuzid, that is an amazing answer and I hope that they release that Fonrit book within the next 2 years because I would gladly run an campaign based around everything you typed.

Well sign me up for whenever that happens.  Years ago I played an Elmal-worshiper in a FATE: Glorantha campaign who made it his Argrath-style life's quest to destroy Ompalam in the Hero Wars, and succeeded.  I'd love to give it another shot in RQ:G.

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On 3/20/2020 at 5:10 AM, Harrek said:

Has anyone developed Garguna, the biggest city of Afadjann, any further than it is described in the GtG? Map, place descriptions, people of note, masarin houses etc.?

I know the Chaosium Fonrit book planned for HeroQuest was going to be set in Garguna, and some work has been done on it. But I do not expect it will be completed any time soon, there are other priorities and a lot of things ahead of it in the queue.

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Yeah, seems like it won't be published any time soon😔 A map of Garguna would be nice to see, because now I have to create everything from a scratch.

I have an image in my head how Garguna should look like. I planned to use ancient Babylon as a reference for the city (central parts at least), because there are a lot of nice 3d pictures of the city. In my mind I would add a bit more Persian, and arabic flavour in general to ancient Babylon. The slums are something else of course.

Any more suggestions for architectural references? 

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1 hour ago, Harrek said:

Yeah, seems like it won't be published any time soon😔 A map of Garguna would be nice to see, because now I have to create everything from a scratch.

I have an image in my head how Garguna should look like. I planned to use ancient Babylon as a reference for the city (central parts at least), because there are a lot of nice 3d pictures of the city. In my mind I would add a bit more Persian, and arabic flavour in general to ancient Babylon. The slums are something else of course.

Any more suggestions for architectural references? 

Ancient/Medieval Ghanaian, Songhai and Malian architecture. Lots of adobe. Complex, large earthworks stretching for miles and miles. 

Admittedly, Fonrit might be a bit more wet than the Sahel, but I believe these are solid inspirations. Someone else mentioned ancient Egypt as well, possibly by way of ancient Sudanese/Nubian architecture (smooth pyramids, obelisks, etc.) 

Mud_architecture.jpg 

songhai.jpg 

d000e1e58210c4f381fd571e06d576fe.jpg 

images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSQKcUEsUlJfHiHJBcULj5 

194217591_400a0ea751_b.jpg

Larabanga-Mosque.jpg?fit=1200,750&ssl=1 

Note that a lot of these are of medieval origin, rather than ancient, but Glorantha kinda works by levelling civilizations that would perhaps otherwise have been at different stages at different points in time (Praxians are inspired by post-contact Great Plains Indians, for example, making them inspired by literally modern peoples).

Edited by Sir_Godspeed
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I wonder what the story is that requires houses to be festooned with spikes. 

The village near Alone with the big spike in the middle of the house springs to mind.

Simon Phipp - Caldmore Chameleon - Wallowing in my elitism since 1982. Many Systems, One Family. Just a fanboy. 

www.soltakss.com/index.html

Jonstown Compendium author. Find my contributions here

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26 minutes ago, soltakss said:

wonder what the story is that requires houses to be festooned with spikes. 

Those are structural.  They're long beams and posts integrated into the mudbrick construction to help bear and transfer loads.  Similar construction methods used by the Pueblo people of southwestern North America don't use them as frequently, but you can see some jutting from the walls of buildings in this picture, where they're used to support the weight of roofs and second-story floors:

These adobe homes in Taos, N.M. were built with building techniques that trace back nearly 3,000 years.

The wooden beams are especially important for helping mud-brick structures survive earthquakes.

1 hour ago, Harrek said:

Any more suggestions for architectural references? 

In addition to those excellent Malian examples above, I'd suggest cross-referencing with the (sadly less intact) primarily stone architecture of Great Zimbabwe:

Image result for great zimbabwe (Side View)

Image result for great zimbabwe (Aerial)

 

 

Edited by dumuzid
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The struts along the walls are to the best of my knowledge primarily for climbing the outer walls. This is necessary because the walls need to be periodically re-covered with wet adobe. 

There's probably also a decorative element to them as well, as they pop up in buildings that are too low to require climbing struts.

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