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Fonrit resources?


Harrek

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Also, and maybe it's just because I'm a historian from the American Southeast, but I can't help but draw comparisons between Fonritian society in the Antebellum South.  So, for a perhaps unexpected influence on Fonritian architecture, might I suggest historic Charleston, South Carolina?  The climate's just about right for Afadjann, and boy howdy did those slavers effectively substitute Ompalam for the Invisible God in their religious observances.

 

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A street of craft workshops, stone surfaced with plaster and painted in the cult colors of the Glorious One who presides over each trade.  All stand in the shadow of a spired temple to Tenoarpesas the Golden One, who reclaimed the power of slavery.

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Image result for historic walled house charleston

Urban mansions of the masirin, shielded from prying eyes by foliage, outer walls, and more fearsome unseen defenses.  The iron spikes that encrust their perimeters

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were originally Vadeli architectural flourishes, and serve as the physical matrices binding each masirin household's protective demons and warding spells.  Any slave who passes their influence without the leave of their master or other protection is certain to die a horrible death meant to demonstrate the futility of attempted escape to others.

Image result for charleston sc skyline

Viewed from the sea, temple spires stud the skyline of the metropolis Garguna, while the palace-estates of the masirin can spread over multiple city blocks.  The city's extensive Vadeli Quarter (from which comes its ever-burning lamps and other marvels) helps make it one of the great markets of the world.

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For a fictionalized and semi-stylized version of a bit of a mishmash of African architectural styles, the recent remake of Age of Empires 2 released an expansion/DLC with African civilization (Ethiopians, Berbers and Malians, hence the mishmash), but it looks undeniably good: 

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10 minutes ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

For a fictionalized and semi-stylized version of a bit of a mishmash of African architectural styles, the recent remake of Age of Empires 2 released an expansion/DLC with African civilization (Ethiopians, Berbers and Malians, hence the mishmash), but it looks undeniably good...

Oh-hoyyy-yuh.
Oh-hoyyy-yuh.
Oh-hoyyy-yuh.

(God damn it!)

!i!

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carbon copy logo smallest.jpg  ...developer of White Rabbit Green

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42 minutes ago, dumuzid said:

might I suggest historic Charleston, South Carolina?

Yes, and that I wouldn't have had as a first option on my list😁 But there is certainly something Fonritan in those pictures.

 

11 minutes ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

a mishmash of African architectural styles, the recent remake of Age of Empires 2 released an expansion/DLC with African civilization

Thanks for this, that's pretty much what I thought Garguna should look like. At least the official parts of the city, the Vadeli Quarter might look a bit different... 

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4 minutes ago, Harrek said:

Yes, and that I wouldn't have had as a first option on my list😁 But there is certainly something Fonritan in those pictures.

I can't find any good pictures online, but the spikes atop many Charleston historic houses' perimeter walls point inward, being intended solely to deter escape by slaves inside.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Hi,

I am a long time player. I've been making up my own version of Fonrit used from the myths in all of the books as best i can. I have a campaign made up i have titled "Shackles of the Storm" where the players can play the slaves worshiping all of the Oppressed Ones or be "slave masters" worshiping the more potent gods.  The story follows a Moses (Let my People Go) feel. where they find prophets have reawaken magic. I set the time frame of this game during the time of when Orlanth dies and the long winter is happening. When the breath comes back the prophets are also awakened in Pamaltela.

I have interpreted the gods as "renamed". Ompalam and Garangordos used divine magic to suppress the stories of the slaves every year (taken from an adventure in Pavis: Gateway to Adventure; page 317) where the Lunars of Pavis rename the gods to suppress their power. I took this idea and said what if the slave masters of Fonrit do this every year to ensure their Power; making their stories and heroquests "the true heroquests".

Here is my list of gods of Fonrit and what they do. it is unfinished and I've been working on for about 2 years. I've even tried to come up with runes for this particular culture.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/15UH82LWVw06XxSnOobnkCpuRwR0SftNAB1u1hU5fQe0/edit?usp=sharing

Some samples are: Subcults of Darleester: The Braider, the Warrior, the Bondman.

Now my most recent group is a bunch of teenagers and i thought that slavery and such would scar them. so i am currently running a game set in the Storm Age when the Artmali empire falls. again i played around with who is who and what is named what. I interpreted Baraku as Orlanth from my previous work. I said that Baraku came down the mountain Bandaku (the evil mountain) and is invading Pamaltela. The Artmali and Agimori must help each other with the fight because for he first time death has been verified to their land. in the end the Artmali must sacrifice themselves to this conflict can end ( at the moment) bringing forth part of the Greater Darkness. then a prophecy is told that the Empire will rise again after the One Responsible dies and finds his way back.

 

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1zpJ92tdyQkYOGp7HrDBamIiYS9GGdJhjpl6yoBEKsxc/edit?usp=sharing

 

Well this is my interpretation of things. I try to keep it canon but sometimes you have to set aside "true facts" and play with it. The Glorantha guys even said the myth are real at the same time based on whose perspective it is.

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  • 3 years later...
On 3/10/2020 at 6:40 PM, Sir_Godspeed said:

Read up on West African history for some inspiration. The Mali Empire, Ghana Empire, Songhai, etc (Basically everything along the Niger river, and westwards). While there is quite a lot of differences, these are the main inspirations for the region. 

Revealed Mythologies was mentioned already (although it's probably pretty scarce). I'm not sure if Middle Sea Empire has anything on them, someone might know. The Guide does have a section on Fonrit, of course, but I'm guessing you've already looked through that. 

 

The difference of course is that Mali etc. were not vile evil empires as Fonrit is. They practiced slavery sure, but so did Europe, it wasn't racial, and it was a lot easier for a slave to move up in the world and no longer be a slave in Mali than in Europe, to say nothing of Fonrit. A deep stench of Islamophobia with an anti black tinge to it runs through the RQ3 portrait of Fonrit, which 

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9 hours ago, Glorion said:

A deep stench of Islamophobia with an anti black tinge to it runs through the RQ3 portrait of Fonrit, which …

I would be interested to hear the completion of the thought.

If Chaosium must have Pamaltela as “Fantasy Africa,” perhaps they should hand it over to actual Africans to retcon it into something unrecognisable.

The tendency to present everything as in-world documentation by unreliable narrators confers “plausible deniability,” but some of the stuff in the recent Prosopaedia reads as ill-considered metaphor:

  • After the Greater Darkness, Pamalt called Noruma to rekindle the
    ancient fires. Kendamalar was reborn and was called Varama. He is now a
    slave, a bright orb of fire chained to an unyielding path, trapped by duty
    to his task.

    — p. 129

     
  • [Tenoarpesas] returned from the Underworld as both the power of Ompalam
    and as Varama, the now shackled sun. He reclaimed the power of slavery.

    — p. 119

Duty or slavery? I am tempted to say pick at most one. “Reclaimed”?

  • [Ompalam] is the corruption of the powers of the Center, where all should
    be balanced and harmonious, but instead are used by Ompalam for self-gain
    and tyrannical exploitation.

    — p. 91

So slaveholding seems to be some kind of metaphor for corrupt government and bondage more generally — everyone is a slave, possibly even Ompalam … especially Ompalam! — but he is also the literal god of slavery of a slave state. Is that a sensible choice? And of course he is obese, because what could be more corrupt than a fat person?

  • Tentacule is the power of possession. Anything that is held by anything
    uses the power of Tentacule. Even the living who hold onto life are
    subject to it.

    — p. 119–120

That is the one that particularly gets my goat: note that it is the thing held (e.g. the slave) that uses the power of Tentacule and the thing doing the holding (e.g. the slaveholder) that is subject to it. That looks a lot like victim-blaming. “But, of course, we at Chaosium don’t think that — that is just an unreliable, ironic, or evil Gloranthan writer.” But the thing is one can easily imagine this starting with thoughts like “the lover is a slave to the beloved”, “the addict is a slave to their drug”, and “employers have become addicted to cheap labour.” The thing about metaphors is that they are usually false, so in a world where they are literalised left, right, and centre, one has to take some real care. And if the free were banned from using slavery as a metaphor for — I don’t know — the next 400 years, would the world be any the poorer for it?

(Yes the exploiter may indeed be in turn exploited, and they may be trapped by their very act of exploiting others — but it is unlikely to be those at the bottom who are the agents of the whole sorry mess.)

Finally, Garangordos:

  • Garangordos brought the benefits of civilization, chief among them the
    ability for some individuals to treat other human beings as property to be
    bought, sold, and forced to work …

    Garangordos became the divine guardian of the temples of Ompalam …

    Garangordos is depicted as a black-skinned nobleman carrying shackles
    and a noose.

    — p. 44

I don’t really know what to make of that. It is not straightforwardly condemnatory like the description of Ompalam, and plausibly the IRL author is being sarcastic while the fictional Gloranthan author is writing from a pro-Garangordos POV.

Slow-witted as I am, I cannot figure out what Chaosium is trying to do with all the Pamaltelan slavery stuff, but I do wish they would stop.

NOTORIOUS VØID CULTIST

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4 hours ago, mfbrandi said:

I don’t really know what to make of that. It is not straightforwardly condemnatory like the description of Ompalam, and plausibly the IRL author is being sarcastic while the fictional Gloranthan author is writing from a pro-Garangordos POV.

The text from the Guide and Revealed Mythologies that the Pamaltela-related Prosopaedia entries seem to draw from does shift subtly from pro-Pamalt to pro-Garangordos/Ompalam in-universe perspectives as it touches on relevant subject matter.  Some of that voice seems to have survived the editorial journey into the Prosopaedia, but without the context of the surrounding material of its sources the, uh, motivation behind those rhetorical flourishes is missing.

Edited by dumuzid
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29 minutes ago, dumuzid said:

The text from the Guide and Revealed Mythologies that the Pamaltela-related Prosopaedia entries seem to draw from does shift subtly from pro-Pamalt to pro-Garangordos/Ompalam in-universe perspectives as it touches on relevant subject matter.  Some of that voice seems to have survived the editorial journey into the Prosopaedia, but without the context of the surrounding material of its sources the, uh, motivation behind those rhetorical flourishes is missing.

The motivation is simple. It is pro-Pamalt when it is describing the gods and myths of the Doraddi, and pro-Garangordos when describing the myths and gods of Fonrit. Just as it is pro-Orlanth when describing the Orlanthi, pro-Lunar when describing the Lunars, etc.

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2 hours ago, Jeff said:

The motivation is simple. It is pro-Pamalt when it is describing the gods and myths of the Doraddi, and pro-Garangordos when describing the myths and gods of Fonrit. Just as it is pro-Orlanth when describing the Orlanthi, pro-Lunar when describing the Lunars, etc.

Oh, yeah, I understand; I'm trying to express that this motivation is a little less clear in the Prosopaedia when the Ompalam- and Pamalt-centered sections aren't side-by-side, highlighting the differences between each other.

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5 hours ago, Jeff said:

The motivation is simple. It is pro-Pamalt when it is describing the gods and myths of the Doraddi, and pro-Garangordos when describing the myths and gods of Fonrit.

So the pro-Garangordos line is that Ompalam is “the corruption of the powers of the Center, where all should
be balanced and harmonious” even though Garangordos is the preacher of the teachings of Ompalam? I don’t get it. As I said, I am slow-witted.

NOTORIOUS VØID CULTIST

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My guess as to Ompalam's hostile depiction is that the Vadeli have revealed the horrible undeniable secret about him (ie chaos) and the Fonritans have been coping poorly with this ever since. 

Tentacle, for example, might be an attempt at providing a non-chaotic justification for cosmic slavery.  But the old ways of Ompalam still endure and Fonrit is still speeding towards a chasm. 

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15 hours ago, mfbrandi said:

So the pro-Garangordos line is that Ompalam is “the corruption of the powers of the Center, where all should
be balanced and harmonious” even though Garangordos is the preacher of the teachings of Ompalam? I don’t get it. As I said, I am slow-witted.

It would be hard in that GM-facing book, to conceal the Chaos rune.  You can only do so much 'pro'.

I imagine that most GMs and scenario writers would like to write scenarios that use Ompalam's cult as the enemy.  For adventurers from outside Fonrit, they will want to avoid being enslaved.  For adventurers originating in Fonrit - well I don't yet have a good enough vision of Fonrit to generate that.

Edited by Squaredeal Sten
I imagine..
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19 hours ago, mfbrandi said:
  • Tentacule is the power of possession. Anything that is held by anything
    uses the power of Tentacule. Even the living who hold onto life are
    subject to it.

    — p. 119–120

That is the one that particularly gets my goat: note that it is the thing held (e.g. the slave) that uses the power of Tentacule and the thing doing the holding (e.g. the slaveholder) that is subject to it. That looks a lot like victim-blaming. “But, of course, we at Chaosium don’t think that — that is just an unreliable, ironic, or evil Gloranthan writer.” But the thing is one can easily imagine this starting with thoughts like “the lover is a slave to the beloved”, “the addict is a slave to their drug”, and “employers have become addicted to cheap labour.” The thing about metaphors is that they are usually false, so in a world where they are literalised left, right, and centre, one has to take some real care. And if the free were banned from using slavery as a metaphor for — I don’t know — the next 400 years, would the world be any the poorer for it?

(Yes the exploiter may indeed be in turn exploited, and they may be trapped by their very act of exploiting others — but it is unlikely to be those at the bottom who are the agents of the whole sorry mess.)

I think you misread the point of this passage because it's rather clumsily phrased.

The central point of this passage is that people can be owned.

Tentacule is a God of Slavery.  But he looks like he is about treating any kind of owning of things as a form of slavery.  If you hold a stick, the stick is your slave.  And even those who aren't inanimate objects (ie, the living) can be subject to being possessed.  (But will themselves have the power of Tentacule over the inanimate.)

So the living can be owned just like the inanimate, so slavery is okay.

It's a horrific ideology, but I don't think it's victim-blaming. 

But this is written very clumsily.

 

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2 hours ago, John Biles said:

But this is written very clumsily.

Well, looking at “anything that is held by anything uses the power of Tentacule”, that is what I thought at first: it is an awkward sentence and what they really mean is that if a holds b, then a uses the power of Tentacule (on b).

But then we have “Even the living who hold onto life are subject to it” — here a is the living (the holder) and b is life (the held) and it is clear that the holder is subject to the power of Tentacule. So as you say, we have generalised, but it is quite clear that the cephalopod god has got the holder — including the slaveholder — in his suckery grip. One might even think that that is a good point — patriarchy binds men, slavery constrains the slaveholder, we suffer from doing evil, owning stuff traps the owners. All standard hippy stuff. I don’t suppose it is really that simple or generalises that well, but it is a point of view. (Of course, maybe Tentacule has his suckers into b, too — holds both parties to the ownership relation.)

I don’t know, but I suspect that we are then to see even Ompalam himself as the biter bit: all those chains he holds deliver Ompalam himself into the arms of Tentacule. Serves him right, you might think.

So Tentacule is how we are entrapped if we hold onto things. And we can say, “If you have possessions, you are not free.” In the light of that, “anything that is held by anything uses the power of Tentacule” looks less like a mistake and more like a take on “your possessions take away your freedom” (which — taken literally — is not the same as “you take away your own freedom by holding possessions”). Where your possessions are inanimate (without agency), this can look harmless: clearly it is a metaphor and it is not true (or as you might say, not literally true), but it might be used to make a point which is at least arguable. But isn’t Glorantha the champion of literalising metaphors? So maybe the house you cherish really has taken away your freedom, because the spirit of the building has invoked the power of Tentacule. Or I hold tightly my sack of gold, but when I am thrown in the sea and try to let go to swim to safety, I find that my gold has used the power of Tentacule on me, and I am dragged under and drowned. But then we turn to the case of slavery and it all turns to shit.

NOTORIOUS VØID CULTIST

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7 hours ago, Squaredeal Sten said:

It would be hard in that GM-facing book, to conceal the Chaos rune.  You can only do so much 'pro'. I imagine that most GMs and scenario writers would like to write scenarios that use Ompalam's cult as the enemy.

But … maybe … on a good day … with a following wind:

  • A GM can have a cult/culture/deity as the PCs’ enemy, even if the Prosopaedia write-up is from the point of view of the prospective enemy (and so positive).
     
  • The PCs’ enemy doesn’t need to be Chaotic. (And Chaos doesn’t have to be the enemy — but that’s just me.)
     
  • If the PCs were to be anti-slavery, anti-Ompalam, and anti-Fonrit, wouldn’t they be anti-Garangordos, too?
     
  • According to Jeff, the point is to be “pro-Garangordos when describing the myths and gods of Fonrit.” The tone taken toward the deity in their Prosopaedia entry isn’t supposed to dictate the PCs’ attitude, as far as I can tell.°
     
  • As far as Chaos goes, I guess Garangordos is to Ompalam as The Seven Mothers is to The Red Goddess.
     
  • To my eye, the entry for the Red Goddess looks pretty neutral — to the point of being from our perspective, rather than a Gloranthan’s, perhaps — even though the announced point was to be “pro-Lunar when describing the Lunars” and she has the Chaos rune. Extremes cancel out?

So sure, have the Ompalam cult as the enemy, but the need or desire to do that doesn’t seem to explain what look like odd inconsistencies of tone in the entries.

———————————————————————————————

° Well, the ostensible tone: there may be real-world author ironies of which the imagined Gloranthan author is innocent.

NOTORIOUS VØID CULTIST

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4 hours ago, mfbrandi said:

I guess Garangordos is to Ompalam as The Seven Mothers is to The Red Goddess

More specifically the Glorious Ones are equivalent to the Seven Mothers, but yeah, pretty much exactly.  Garangordos is probably closest to Teelo Astara, the focal point of the enterprise who ultimately has to die for the scheme to fully succeed, but the two don't line up perfectly in parallel.  AFAIK the Seven Mothers don't have a direct equivalent within their number for Jokotu, the trickster-traitor who knifes Garangordos once the Veldang conquests and elf genocides that founded Fonrit were done, either.

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On 4/23/2020 at 1:08 AM, GLewallen said:

If you need any more I've got google docs out the ass on organizing all my thoughts. those are just the Gods information for the players as if they wanted to worship them.

I've got a ton more.

Hi @GLewallen

I would be interested in the other material that you have done for your campaign relating to Fonrit and Pamaltela.

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