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What did Greg Stafford think of the Orlanthi and Lunars?


creativehum

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4 minutes ago, creativehum said:

The whole image is clearly part of some Lunar propeganda program. No wonder the Brits fell for this nonsense!

You have the chronology slightly wrong. Sandy came to the UK in 1986 and told us that American gamers with no previous exposure to Glorantha thought the Lunars were the setting's good guys. (Well-informed Brits were interested to hear this, as obviously the Lunars are baddies). This was a few years before the first issue of Tales of the Reaching Moon, which is the first explicit example of "Brits falling for this nonsense" (that is, if you read David Hall's editorials with a profound and inappropriate lack of irony) that comes to mind. Hope this helps.

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1 hour ago, Nick Brooke said:

You have the chronology slightly wrong. Sandy came to the UK in 1986 and told us that American gamers with no previous exposure to Glorantha thought the Lunars were the setting's good guys. (Well-informed Brits were interested to hear this, as obviously the Lunars are baddies). This was a few years before the first issue of Tales of the Reaching Moon, which is the first explicit example of "Brits falling for this nonsense" (that is, if you read David Hall's editorials with a profound and inappropriate lack of irony) that comes to mind. Hope this helps.

Hey, hey... I meant no offense to Brits. And as far as timelines go, you are deep into weeds of RuneQuest's history that I know nothing about. I came to Glorantha by way of Hero Wars. So a lot of the ins-and-outs of 80s and 90s publishing, editorial, arguments and more is legend to me. 

My timeline of the events under discussion has been based entirely off this thread!

A couple of pages back...

On 5/26/2020 at 4:03 PM, lordabdul said:

I heard the story from different sources (mostly some interviews with Sandy Petersen) that Greg and the other mostly-north-american designers were favouring the Orlanthi in the early days (if not by "preferring" them, at least by having planned a whole bunch of books on them), but after travelling to the UK and meeting the British fans, they were amazed to see people who were pro-Lunar even though they read the same books as the US fans... Greg then allegedly decided to keep any future writing more "neutral" than what they had planned.... I'm not sure if I'm phrasing this all correctly and conveying the information accurately, but that's the general idea from what I understand.

And then you replied to that post:

On 5/27/2020 at 12:19 AM, Nick Brooke said:

The way I remember hearing it from Sandy Petersen (at Games Day 1986 in London) was that players who were new to Glorantha with RQ3 and read through the Gods of Glorantha (1985's "Red Box") What the Priest Says narratives came away thinking the Lunars were the "good guys" and the Orlanthi were some terrible bunch of wreckers. (Because they didn't have the WB&RM / Wyrms Footnotes / Cults of Prax / Pavis box hinterland, and didn't know how the game had usually been played before).

So I thought you were confirming Lord Abdul's take on the story. I thought the "players who were new to Glorantha with RQ3 and read through the Gods of Glorantha" you referenced were the British players Lord Abdul had referred to. I see now this was not the case! (Please keep in mind, again, all matters of RQ2, RQ3, different publishers across The Atlantic, and so on, is something I have no solid reference to. I'm aware of all of it -- but mostly I'm digging into Glorantha itself.)

So, again, apologies for the error on my part.

With that said, the Voices section of Gods of Glorantha seems to go out of its way to favor the Lunars and contort the Orlanthi!

It is fascinating how a few choice words and images as a starting point can often influence the direction one's thinking goes on in the long term.

Thank you for the clarification!

 

Edited by creativehum
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"But Pendragon isn’t intended to be historical, just fun.
So have fun."

-- Greg Stafford

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My recollection of those UK rq cons is that the Lunars were generally seen as the bad guys, in scenarios and in the big freeforms. As a counterpoint to this, during the Fronelan freeform 'How the West was One' the Arrolian Lunars were accepted into the side of those who were fighting the forces of evil Chaos. The Lunar players from the Lunar Empire joined the side of All Chaos.

 

I echo the thoughts of others upthread who note that in Glorantha, excess and evil are native to all cultures. It is responsibility of each culture to manage their internal affairs. I'm sure we can all point to times in history and note rulers and elites who are delusional and who see enemies and conspiracies everywhere.

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1 hour ago, fnordland said:

during the Fronelan freeform 'How the West was One' the Arrolian Lunars were accepted into the side of those who were fighting the forces of evil Chaos.

The Lunars helped fund the new college at Sog City University, so of course they were good!

 

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I've always thought that it was supposed to be Lunara bad, because a) Chaos, and b) imperialist aggressive expansion and starting wars etc on (relatively) peaceful people who just want to stay in their own little block of land and be left alone (barring the in-fighting, feuds, regular raids, etc). 

And anyone who want a to destroy Ducks is pure evil in my book!

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25 minutes ago, Shiningbrow said:

I've always thought that it was supposed to be Lunara bad, because a) Chaos, and b) imperialist aggressive expansion and starting wars etc on (relatively) peaceful people who just want to stay in their own little block of land and be left alone (barring the in-fighting, feuds, regular raids, etc). 

And anyone who want a to destroy Ducks is pure evil in my book!

Or Lunars good, because a) greater gender equality, b) cultural inclusivity, c) higher technology.  

I agree with your sympathy for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Durulz.  🦆🦆🦆

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29 minutes ago, Shiningbrow said:

I've always thought that it was supposed to be Lunara bad, because a) Chaos, and b) imperialist aggressive expansion and starting wars etc on (relatively) peaceful people who just want to stay in their own little block of land and be left alone (barring the in-fighting, feuds, regular raids, etc). 

And anyone who want a to destroy Ducks is pure evil in my book!

The Sartarites can only be described as 'peaceful' by stretching the word to its very limits.

Rather, they don't have their act together enough to conquer anyone.  

But they're pretty violent.  

That being said, the Lunars are imperialists and the Sartarites only become such when Argath takes over and then they soak Peloria in blood and set it on fire.

 

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11 minutes ago, John Biles said:

The Sartarites can only be described as 'peaceful' by stretching the word to its very limits.

Rather, they don't have their act together enough to conquer anyone.  

But they're pretty violent.  

That being said, the Lunars are imperialists and the Sartarites only become such when Argath takes over and then they soak Peloria in blood and set it on fire.

 

Which just goes to show 'empire bad'. Which someone earlier pointed out is pretty much a rule of Glorantha.  And anyway, that only happens if the Sartarites 'win'. Otherwise it's the LUnars blowing stuff up. Or the Pentian nomads or...

But I agree with your characterisation of the Sartarites.

The more I think about it the more I think both the Lunar Empire and Argrath's 'empire' end up bad.  Those are in no way the same things as the Lunar way and the Orlanthi way.

The world was saved by the great compromise and there is always another way.

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34 minutes ago, Ali the Helering said:

Or Lunars good, because a) greater gender equality, b) cultural inclusivity, c) higher technology.  

Hmmm, well.let's look at this...

A) is questionable. Especially if looking at the Yelmic parts. At the very least, there's arguments to be made on both sides. 

B) probably, but you sort of have to be if you're going to conquer everyone (and want it to last more than a few years). Neither are particularly interested in including the other into their cultural though.

C) should be completely irrelevant for a moral value judgement.

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9 minutes ago, Shiningbrow said:

Hmmm, well.let's look at this...

A) is questionable. Especially if looking at the Yelmic parts. At the very least, there's arguments to be made on both sides. 

B) probably, but you sort of have to be if you're going to conquer everyone (and want it to last more than a few years). Neither are particularly interested in including the other into their cultural though.

C) should be completely irrelevant for a moral value judgement.

Screw you, hippie. If you're seriously saying the Lunars didn't bring about greater gender equality than had existed in pre-Lunar Dara Happa, then I have no interest in anything else you write because you're clearly off your meds. You can conquer people without being culturally inclusive if you're prepared to be a total arsehole about it, which the Lunars aren't. I agree with you on c), but can understand why technophiles wouldn't - for me, social progress is more important than technological, and there is no doubt that the Lunars are terrifyingly progressive.

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Greg's favorite depended on whose point of view he was writing from at the time. Mine as well. All of the Gloranthan cultures have something really interesting, admirable, noble, whatever about them. And also something really awful, destructive, ignorant, whatever about them. They are mortals, after all.

The only culture he could never sympathise with was the Mostali - hence the "Why I Hate Dwarves" article. And maybe the Brithini. 

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49 minutes ago, Nick Brooke said:

Screw you, hippie. If you're seriously saying the Lunars didn't bring about greater gender equality than had existed in pre-Lunar Dara Happa, then I have no interest in anything else you write because you're clearly off your meds

Somehow, what I wrote came out to be the exact opposite of what I meant... 

No, I was referring to the decidedly unequal society of Dara Happa... and the still strong patriarchy when questioning Ali's "gender equality" claim of the Lunar Empire. Sure, they may be less unequal now, but we can argue about the equality levels of Orlanthi (which have numerous female leaders) against Lunars (which had/have some important female personages). 

58 minutes ago, Nick Brooke said:

You can conquer people without being culturally inclusive if you're prepared to be a total arsehole about it, which the Lunars aren't.

You can. I don't think that "imperial expansionism, but culturally inclusive" trumps "not empire building at all".

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40 minutes ago, Ali the Helering said:

Whilst I agree that technology in and of itself doesn't make things moral, it does enable things that can make life qualitatively better. 

Public health, better communications, as obvious examples.  Do we have to invoke Monty Python here? 

Well, that's been an argument in RL for a very long time... Is it better to be a slave in an advanced culture, or free in the boonies?

 

And, yes, yes we do! 

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8 minutes ago, Shiningbrow said:

Well, that's been an argument in RL for a very long time... Is it better to be a slave in an advanced culture, or free in the boonies? 

Slavery exists in the boonies too. Freedom in the more advanced tech also

Is it better to be a slave to a brute in the backwoods or a free citizen with greater safety? 

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32 minutes ago, Ali the Helering said:

As opposed to the guys with Urox, Babeester and Ereltharol, such great paragons of reason, moderation and pacifism? 

Actually, side note - I don't see "Urox" referenced anywhere in RQG. Do Orlanthi just call him Storm Bull now?

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12 minutes ago, Ali the Helering said:

Slavery exists in the boonies too. Freedom in the more advanced tech also

Is it better to be a slave to a brute in the backwoods or a free citizen with greater safety? 

True, but it appears to be much much less standard than in the Empire, and even the lower castes aren't doing too well either. From what I've understand, getting out of serfdom in Orlanthi culture is a lot easier than in the evil empire (of course, there will be different levels). But in theory (and probably practice) there's far greater class mobility amongst the barbarians than these more "civilised" moonies.

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25 minutes ago, Shiningbrow said:

True, but it appears to be much much less standard than in the Empire, and even the lower castes aren't doing too well either. From what I've understand, getting out of serfdom in Orlanthi culture is a lot easier than in the evil empire (of course, there will be different levels). But in theory (and probably practice) there's far greater class mobility amongst the barbarians than these more "civilised" moonies.

Do you have particular sources? 

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4 hours ago, GAZZA said:

Actually, side note - I don't see "Urox" referenced anywhere in RQG. Do Orlanthi just call him Storm Bull now?

One of the problems with Glorantha is that different peoples have different names for the same being. While this is great in a storytelling / fiction way, to players and GMs, in an RPG it just adds another level of complexity which makes for potential confusion. The god learners did the Hero with 1000 faces thing and grouped the same being with its plethora of names together and said "we call it x, and it's the same as y and z. RQG goes back to basics and sticks in most cases to a single name. In the upcoming gods book, you get the extra layer of names:

Quote

He has many names including Urox and Bisos, but he is best known as the Storm Bull.

or put another way with a different cult

Quote

There are several solar cults who are often identified with Yelmalio.[...],Antirius, [...] Elmal [...] Kargzant [...].

 

Edited by David Scott
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In my first HW campaign (as a player), I played a Black Horse mercenary in a multicultural group, including two Sartarites and a Lunar. In the end, our Lunar had become a general of the imperial army, and provoked the mutiny of his troops against the Red Goddess he judged too much chaos-lover... One of our Sartatites became hegemonic, imperialist and believed a good non-Orlanthi was a dead non-Orlanthi. And any Orlanthi who didn't agree with him was a non-Orlanthi...

I'm sure Greg Stafford had an enough wide and deep vision of Glorantha to have himself considered such situations.

Nota: in the end, I was convinced the only good guys were Atroxists... 😇

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Since we're all going all in now...

I find the argument "When we invade your lands we'll let you keep the parts of your culture and faith that don't interfere with our cultural and theological imposition" to be kind of a weak-sauce argument on behalf of the Lunars.

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"But Pendragon isn’t intended to be historical, just fun.
So have fun."

-- Greg Stafford

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