Fronela: Greenwood & Tundra & Uncolings

[Jeff]

When talking about the various Hsunchen or Hykimi people, let's start here:

"Through the Golden Age, most of the world had taken shape, especially the division between gods and lesser beings. The gods and spirits were able to change their form, but mortals were not. At first life was wonderful and perfect, but eventually many mortals lost contact with their animal selves, thereby losing touch with Nature and succumbing to the vices of agriculture, politics, war, priests, and wizards. Those people were doomed, for all those things proved useless in the Gods War.

When Death came into the world, the remaining people followed the Horned Man and found Hykim and Mikyh again in the Spirit World. Hykim and Mikyh taught their descendants how to survive in the world, how to be reborn again, and what new ceremonies were needed to preserve the world." 

The Hsunchen believe that after death, their souls are reborn into their own tribe, failing to distinguish between the human and animal members. Death rituals reflect this belief but vary greatly from tribe to tribe.

That's the key similarity among all the Hsunchen peoples - they do not distinguish between the human and the animal members of their tribe. An Uncoling herder recognises the reindeer he herds as members of the same tribe as him, distinct from all outsiders. Sure the reindeer has a different function within the tribe, different duties and expectations, but they are of the same family. The reindeer is kin in a way that the inhabitants of Easval or Zoria are not. When that herder dies, he expects he may be reborn as a reindeer.

Now a Loskalmi scholar might look at the Uncoling as consisting of a bunch of humans and their reindeer herds, and on a material level they would be right. We have some 300,000 Uncolings between Loskalm and Rathorela. They survive as pastoral nomads who assemble for rituals and trade. And so on. That understanding is correct but limited.

The Uncoling know the full truth - they are they people who have remained in contact with their animal selves. They and the reindeer are the same people. The reindeer offer themselves for their kin - they agree that some number must be sacrificed so that the tribe may continue. When a reindeer is to be killed, its kin come to it, ask it for its sacrifice, and thank it for its offering. It is slain with the Peaceful Cut and its kin weep and celebrate, and no part of the offering is wasted. Meat is eaten, fur and hide used, and even the bones are used as tools. All Uncoling know that they too have made that same offering in a past incarnation and will again in the future. This is the cycle of life-death-life, the way of the Uncoling.

[Garrik]

Interesting tidbit from the Well of Daliath:
 

Quote

 

Uncolings (Reindeer People)

Population: 50,000.

 

Source: Hsunchen Peoples of Genertela (2003) – The Well of Daliath (chaosium.com)

Obviously now superseded by the GtG entry (300,000) which goes back to the the Genertela box. Nevertheless, it is interesting that such a number was used by Greg Stafford and Jamie Revell at the beginning of this century. (The entry is dated to 2000 and 2003.) Why would these gentlemen have scribbled down such a number, when they surely had access to the Genertela box?

[davecake]

In Glorantha generally we know that some animals are intelligent, and treated differently to the rest of their species as a consequence. The intelligent fish in the Zola Fel are one well known example, but there are many others. In the Green Age, perhaps all animals were like this - or perhaps all humans (and other intelligent species) more like animals. Perhaps all animals seem like this in the spirit world. 
I think part of the Hsunchen worldview is that some animals are more ‘awake’ in the mundane world than others. You just accept this, much like some humans are shamans and more in the spirit world. 
I think among the Hsunchen of herd animals, there will be usually be a myth in which they agree that some must be eaten for the good of the tribe. Usually, it’s the ones with the animal bodies. They are thanked and revered for this.
Sometimes, among predator peoples (the Hsa, I think most likely) the animals eat the human bodied. This is also acknowledged as correct (or at least, with good reason - the human who was eaten may have committed some crime, such as breaking a taboo, perhaps unknowingly). 

I think even in tribes like the Uncolings that must eat their animal relatives, you ask them if it’s ok. And it’s wrong to kill them if they ask you not too. Sometimes an intelligent reindeer will ask not to be eaten, and that should be respected (killing it against its will is murder). 
The real question is whether they will cannibalise (or at least use the body parts of) humans who consent, such as the very elderly who know they will not survive the winter. 

I think it’s also possible that the Uncolings have some form of long term transformation magic and sometimes winter as reindeer, but I don’t think it’s universal. In rules terms something done by great spirits/tribal wyter, not something individuals are capable of. And they think of this as turning back into the ‘real’ reindeer forms. I think there are probably such wide scale transformation magics among many Hsunchen - it seems entirely wrong that the only Hsunchen who experience full animal form are those who spend 6 or 8 rune magic points to do so. 
Also magic that lets you have your spirit in an animal body are probably common among Hsunchen, not just the full body transformation. 

Tangent - a long standing annoyance to me, that fully transforming into animal form is very expensive for Hsunchen (and Hsunchen-ish cults like Yinkin and Odayla) compared to other magic). And a special example of this is vampires getting to transform into wolfs and bats without any mythic explanation. 

Edited March 29, 2022 by davecake

[Brian Duguid]

13 hours ago, davecake said:

I think it’s also possible that the Uncolings have some form of long term transformation magic and sometimes winter as reindeer, but I don’t think it’s universal. In rules terms something done by great spirits/tribal wyter, not something individuals are capable of. And they think of this as turning back into the ‘real’ reindeer forms. I think there are probably such wide scale transformation magics among many Hsunchen - it seems entirely wrong that the only Hsunchen who experience full animal form are those who spend 6 or 8 rune magic points to do so. 
Also magic that lets you have your spirit in an animal body are probably common among Hsunchen, not just the full body transformation. 

I've gone down a route similar to this for my JC Hsunchen book, and spent some time working on how to allow easier or longer-term transformation for certain peoples without affecting game balance. I've taken the view (and obviously it's non-canonical) that the Uncolings only have Transform Self magic, but it is "one-way" i.e. 3 Rune points to become human for a while, and 3 more Rune points to change back (6 points total compared to the 8 points for an hour in the standard Hsunchen cult description). For game balance, they switch between "natural" human and animal forms, not semi-divine or enhanced ones as is the case for other Hsunchen.

As so often, there is a tension between the rules, which promote consistency, and the world, which may or may not be uniform. JC should be a place where it is fine to present alternative perspectives and we should not get hung up about that. We are very familiar with the Hsunchen which are broadly similar to humankind in scale (wolf, bear, lion, boar, elk etc), but once you acknowledge that there are Hsunchen whose totem beasts are fish, snakes, frogs, bats etc, I think it becomes much more obvious that there shouldn't be a one-size-fits-all approach.