I want to be a baboon!

[icebrand]

4 hours ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

the issue with glorantha is, iron is not irl iron, baboons are not irl baboons, gravity is not irl gravity, etc..

we have no proof of any griffin in our world 🙂

 

"Enchanted iron" is steel (which at some point in history was considered magic)  Unenchanted is iron (which isn't really better than bronze for weapons and stuff).

Gravity works the same than IRL, but it's probably a spirit or something, etc.

YGWV but stuff works just like IRL, only there's a mythology reason instead of physics.

yes, there is may be no gravity, but stuff falls exactly the same as if there were, so all those are moot points.

I really don't know the zoology qualifications of perrin & co back in the early 80s, but to me it's much more likely the baboon has that STR due to the creator not being familiar with the animal vs deliberately giving them high STR for balance or lore purposes.

[21st Century Moose]

On 12/28/2020 at 2:56 PM, French Desperate WindChild said:

dad was not killed during the battle of Boldhome against lunar, but when the ennemy clan attacked our tula (no hate lunar, but hate the ennemy clan / or the trolls / or broos ....)

Their rivalry with the Weasel clan is legendary. 

[Baron Wulfraed]

4 hours ago, icebrand said:

Gravity works the same than IRL, but it's probably a spirit or something, etc.

YGWV but stuff works just like IRL, only there's a mythology reason instead of physics.

yes, there is may be no gravity, but stuff falls exactly the same as if there were, so all those are moot points.

What if there is an unknown high mass object OUTSIDE the bottom of the "universe" sphere -- if it is far enough away, and massive enough to exceed Glorantha's pull to center of mass, the gravitational pull would be practically parallel for all corners of the Glorantha land mass.

Of course, what keeps the "universe" sphere from being drawn into this massive object is something else (Gloranthan equivalent of "Atlas" -- standing on the massive object and supporting the sphere on his shoulders). Can't use mutual orbits, as that would make things (since we posited the object overwhelms Glorantha's land mass) on land weightless. Hmmm, turn the situation on its head: The sphere is in orbit, tidally locked with the SKY facing the object, and centrifugal/centripetal force takes the place of gravity...

Needs some work on details...

 

[Joerg]

10 hours ago, icebrand said:

YGWV but stuff works just like IRL, only there's a mythology reason instead of physics.

Mostly correct, there are properties of the material world that derive from the magic associated with the myths. Quite often, a rule is derived from "this first happened in the Green Age". (Although, in another sense, anything happening the first time is a Green Age transition from undefined to defined. Thus the first application of Death on Grandfather Mortal was a Green Age transition, inscribing itself undeletably onto the cosmic laws.)

There still is a set of observable rules that form Gloranthan physics.

 

And there are strong differences between Glorantha and the normal world we know. The changes in day length between summer and winter correspond to moderate latitudes, while the experience of the sun path is closer to the latitude of the tropic of cancer or slightly further south towards the equator. That's true for all of Glorantha, and for nowhere on Earth.

As a result, nobody in Glorantha would associate the cardinal direction of south with the sun. If you want the sun to shine into your house entrance, you either greet it (facing east) or say farewell (facing west). Or you have a vertical light shaft, an interior court.

The logical direction for the long stairway up a solar ziggurat built within Time would be oriented to the east, so that the priesthood mimics Yelm's re-ascent into the sky. For Godtime, there is no preferred direction of ascension based on solar movement, as all the movement Yelm did prior to his run to the Gates of Dusk was purely vertical - first descending out of Aether, then slightly rising to avoid the first arrival of the Oslir. (And afterwards downwards in steps for the cold sun disk of Antirius until it fit under Manarlarvus's dome.)

The Footstool in Raibanth implies that the god rested his feet sitting on his throne in the city of Yuthubars above, usually shown in a northwestern direction from the Footstool (towards the Crater, really). That makes a southeasterly approach along the stair up to the temple atop the Footstool somewhat likely, as a supplicant would approach the god from the front (as shown on the Gods Wall). A southern approach would mean that Yelm sat on his throne facing the Celestial Court on the Spike at all times, looking up to the Glorantay.

 

10 hours ago, icebrand said:

"Enchanted iron" is steel (which at some point in history was considered magic)  Unenchanted is iron (which isn't really better than bronze for weapons and stuff).

There are hardly any pieces of iron in the archaeological record that don't contain some carbon. While it is possible to de-carbonize and thereby soften wrought iron through prolonged exposure to heat in an area with little carbon monoxide and some excess oxygene, this takes quite a bit of time, fuel and hammering. Even then, you are likely to arrive at some carbon still alloyed to the iron phase.

In other words, practically every bit of iron you have ever encountered is a steel.

The "enchanted" steel  would be hardened steel, a wrought piece of ordinary steel hardened in the carbon monoxide part of the flame to form more cementite, a hard and well-defined compound containing three atoms of iron for each atom of carbon.

"Cast iron" contains quite high amounts of cementite, and is known for being brittle and not ductile enough for smithing. The only ancient culture that produced pig iron was china, where the cast pig or iron was exposed to air to lower the carbon content in order to arrive at steel for smithing.

 

Alternatively you might be thinking of crucible steel, discovered in India and traded over long distances almost like bronze two millennia earlier, with customers like Ulfberht, the famous Frankish sword smithy of the Viking Age. Carbon content in that is high, but it is a different form of carbon than in either austenite or cementite, giving that material enough ductility to be wrought by smithing while retaining superior hardness without getting brittle.

 

Meteoric iron usually is an iron-nickel alloy, a material that could not be reproduced prior to the industrial age, from when we also get various types of steel alloys featuring other metals, leading to plenty new properties (like stainless steel).

Steel is as much a word for iron alloys as bronze is a word for copper alloys (including stuff like arsenic copper).

 

In Gloranthan context, "steel" and "iron" are interchangeable. Same for "brass" and (cast) "bronze".

[Bill the barbarian]

Just a tad off topic but still good.