Sightseeing in Glorantha

[Nel]

One of my preferred readings from Antiquity is the Description of Greece, where the 2nd century Greek traveler Pausanias describes many cities, buildings, statues and sceneries along with historical or mythical events related to them.

I already designed Journey, a game for writing a travelogue.
And I played a business trip from Walim to Nochet.

Now I want to test my new game, Dreams in 3D, in Glorantha.
But this time my aim is to go sightseeing larger than Real World places.
I mean larger in a loose sense:
An amazing landscape as the Arrowmound in the Skyreach Mountains, a massive temenos as Esrola's Throne in the Shadow Plateau, or an impressive masterwork as Iphigios' Statue of Hwarin Dalthippa in Jillaro.

Imagine a character who visits a place:
What does he see?
Why is it relevant for him?
How does he feel?
 

Dreams in 3D is a game whose purpose is evoking sensations by describing places or moments.

[Jape_Vicho]

Què collons això és un escrit de Glorantha en català!? Crec que és de les últimes coses que m'esperava, però es veu que la vida també dóna bones sorpreses de tant en tant, m'ho llegiré de cap a cap. 

[Bill the barbarian]

1 hour ago, Jape_Vicho said:

Què collons això és un escrit de Glorantha en català!? Crec que és de les últimes coses que m'esperava, però es veu que la vida també dóna bones sorpreses de tant en tant, m'ho llegiré de cap a cap. 

Man oh man, I started reading this and I am thinking c’est tout en Francais, mais je comprende juste un couple des les mots and je comprende pas tout le sens...that is I understand a few of the words but not the meaning. Google translate steered me straight and told me it was Catalonian... wow. So close to french. 

So, am i off topic? Hell no! This is what travelling does to one, perpetually throws one off balance twixt the familiar and the alien. I do not know if that was your intention sir but it worked that way for me! Thanks Nel for starting this thread.

Cheers 

 

Edited February 12, 2021 by Bill the barbarian

[FungusColombicus]

2 minutes ago, Bill the barbarian said:

Google translate stem straight and told me it was Catalinan

Hey Bill be careful... is CATALONIAN... you may upset people... is like calling a Colombian Columbian...

PS. and yes... that is a beautiful language... somewhere teetering between French and Spanish...

[Bill the barbarian]

30 minutes ago, FungusColombicus said:

Hey Bill be careful... is CATALONIAN... you may upset people... is like calling a Colombian Columbian...

Spelled it that way and the friggin’ (%$#@$T^)* spell checking demon said I was wrong and corrected it to what you see...

* don’t bother to translate!

ETA
so mistranslation is a part of traveling and having to navigate the possible insults one can innocently utter and the skill or luck required to sidestep the perilous minefields found. We are on topic (if ya kinda squint) but we should be careful. This is potentially an excellent topic and we are too near the beginning of it to derail the engine.

Edited February 12, 2021 by Bill the barbarian

[FungusColombicus]

7 hours ago, Bill the barbarian said:

Spelled it that way and the friggin’ (%$#@$T^)* spell checking demon said I was wrong and corrected it to what you see...

* don’t bother to translate!

ETA
so mistranslation is a part of traveling and having to navigate the possible insults one can innocently utter and the skill or luck required to sidestep the perilous minefields found. We are on topic (if ya kinda squint) but we should be careful. This is potentially an excellent topic and we are too near the beginning of it to derail the engine.

Psss... Next time just blame it to the accent... The trick work for the Durulz and me every time...

[Bill the barbarian]

17 minutes ago, FungusColombicus said:

Psss... Next time just blame it to the accent... The trick work for the Durulz and me every time...

So, you are saying I should have ducked my responsibility?

[Ladygolem]

Just wanted to stop by and say both games are really beautiful! It's a breath of fresh air (literally, in the case of Dreams in 3D) to see these kind of narrative based approaches to the setting, which is where I think Glorantha shines. I immediately realized Journey would be perfect for my partner and I's Heroquest campaign - it's basically a travellogue around Prax, and while the usual combat and mythic wars and struggles aren't absent from our story, they're far from the focus. I can see trying to combine it with some of the encounter tables you find in Pavis & Big Rubble or Griffin Mountain - the sourcebook could determine what sort of creature of person is met, then Journey determines the nature of the encounter. Overall, really great stuff, and I look forward to seeing what you create in the future as well!

[Nel]

A brief example game of Dreams in 3D

First of all, I choose the Dynamic mode, thus my only two zooms are going to be Raise and Widen.
1d6: 1-3 = Raise, 4-6 = Widen
A Raise zoom means that its subject becomes more relevant, feelings are stronger, the risk is higher.
A Widen zoom means that its subject is put into context, gets related to another elements.

Now I create a character and a situation.
After randomly taking a look at the Guide I choose a small place, the Troll Woods.
I read some snippets and open the Glorantha wikia to have some canon to begin with.

I am Corkun, a Kitori from the Troll Woods. I am telling the tribe elders about my visit to Styx Grotto.
(By the way, I use to play in first person because I find it to be more immersive)

Who is Corkun? What can he do? Why did he go there?
I don't know yet. These facts and many more details will be improvised during the game if they are needed.

Turn 1
1d6: 5 = Widen
I felt hopeful.
I left home alone, but Imit joined me at Neqat before leaving the Troll Woods.
And many more Kitori and trollkin joined us as we were approaching the Shadow Plateau.

Turn 2
1d6: 2 = Raise
Why wasn't I afraid that anyone attacked our troupe?
It was Imit who realized why we were safe:
She pointed to the sky and commented that a thick cloud was covering us from sunrays since many hours.
That was a good omen!

Turn 3
1d6: 4 = Widen
I'll never get used to the maze that Styx Grotto is!
From the shelters in the ground, through solid rock tunnels and bridges over streams, down to deep caves with polished walls and covered by black glass that are the remnants of Azek Loradak, the palace destroyed in the battle between Ezkankekko and Belintar.
The Bifid priest guided our troupe to the Trail of the Tail.
How nicely she pronounced the D and Z sounds with her tongue!
She explaint us that this ravine is the mark on the ground left by the Great Serpent when its tail crushed Belintar's feet.

Turn 4
1d6: 1 = Raise
At last, the day came:
Freeze Day, Movement Week, Sea Season.
We celebrated the Bigger Serpent by dropping on the Trail of the Tail the snakes each one of us had been properly feeding during the year.
Our anaconda!
The one I hunted. The one our whole tribe cared for.
How powerful it looked around the post on the tribe square!
You all would be proud of our anaconda if you watched it fighting against all the other snakes.
They hissed! They bit! They entangled! They suffocated! They swallowed each other!
Until there were only two left:
Our anaconda and the python Imit brought.
You all can be proud of our anaconda for it ate the last competitor!
The Bifid priest blessed our anaconda while it crawled the Trail of the Tail down to the deepest caves.

Turn 5
1d6: 3 = Raise
After our fellows from the former Kitori Empire congratulated me, our tribe and the Troll Woods, the Bifid priest invited us to dance the Stompers' Echoes.
You all know that this is my favourite ritual, and I assure you that I stepped as heavily as I could.
When we finished, my knees were pleasantly trembling, and I was barely breathing with a fulfillment smile on my lips.
Finally, the Bifid priest carved our tribe's rune on the wall of the Trail of the Tail:
You all can be proud, for our tribe has helped to feed a new Great Serpent.
While coming home, Imit realized that an even thicker cloud covered our troupe from sunrays during the whole trip.
This is a good omen.

[EricW]

Training a real world robot AI is really hard, millions of repetitions are required to develop skill. But all this time consuming training can be drastically shortened by using a good simulator. In the simulation, time can run much faster than the real world, allowing you to pack years worth of repetitive skill development training runs into a single night.

You are what you dream.