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Ten Thousand Iron Dwarves


Erol of Backford

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10 minutes ago, Eff said:

Rufelza is a name that only is used for the Moon that rose in 1247 ST.

Maybe, and maybe my sources have been retconned away (or were only ever a Lunar perspective), but back in Hero Wars we read: “Rufelza is the Red Moon: red blood, red earth, and red rage. She was created when Wakboth the Destroyer impregnated the great goddess Glorantha, and born when the Spike exploded.” (Hero Wars, p. 85). That would make the 1247 ST moon Rufelza returned/Natha re-incarnated, no?

I think it was the heroquesting as time travelling allusions in comments above — I don’t think it was stated outright — that got me thinking again about the Mostali as Skynet and the dwarfs as its/their little terminator drones.

37 minutes ago, Eff said:

the World Machine is presumably more of a worldview than a physical arrangement

But possibly the worldview of a Hal 9000 or one of those pesky bombs from Dark Star. Of course, it might be funnier to play it that the AI doesn’t have the power to make good on its threat to unmake the world and if all its “I’ll help them now to betray them later” plans come to nothing and are merely helpful. But I ramble

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1 hour ago, mfbrandi said:

Maybe, and maybe my sources have been retconned away (or were only ever a Lunar perspective), but back in Hero Wars we read: “Rufelza is the Red Moon: red blood, red earth, and red rage. She was created when Wakboth the Destroyer impregnated the great goddess Glorantha, and born when the Spike exploded.” (Hero Wars, p. 85). That would make the 1247 ST moon Rufelza returned/Natha re-incarnated, no?

I think it was the heroquesting as time travelling allusions in comments above — I don’t think it was stated outright — that got me thinking again about the Mostali as Skynet and the dwarfs as its/their little terminator drones.

But possibly the worldview of a Hal 9000 or one of those pesky bombs from Dark Star. Of course, it might be funnier to play it that the AI doesn’t have the power to make good on its threat to unmake the world and if all its “I’ll help them now to betray them later” plans come to nothing and are merely helpful. But I ramble

I mean, that text is clearly not a Lunar perspective, and it is also clearly a metaphorical statement about what many people in Glorantha think about the meaning of the Red Goddess- in between Devil and savior, product of destruction and creation. In other Hero Wars-era products and writing, and from the period right after, "Rufelza" refers specifically to the big red orb in the sky. 

I think that broadly, I don't quite get why the Mostali ought to be malevolent, and since I've already gone in on sympathizing with Aldryami and Triolini (and Vadeli) I might as well go in on sympathizing and empathizing with Mostali. 

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Though a Lunar through and through, she is also a human being.

"I just read an article in The Economist by a guy who was riding around with the Sartar rebels, I mean Taliban," -Greg Stafford, January 7th, 2010

Eight Arms and the Mask

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5 minutes ago, Eff said:

I think that broadly, I don't quite get why the Mostali ought to be malevolent, and since I've already gone in on sympathizing with Aldryami and Triolini (and Vadeli) I might as well go in on sympathizing and empathizing with Mostali. 

Indeed - and to add to that, I personally believe that if a "fantasy race"/species or even culture ever seems so globally unsympathetic that it's impossible to imagine playing as them, then adjusting them to be more sympathetic will produce a better and more satisfying game. YM(&G)WV.

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7 hours ago, Aiun said:

I personally believe that if a "fantasy race"/species or even culture ever seems so globally unsympathetic that it's impossible to imagine playing as them, then adjusting them to be more sympathetic will produce a better and more satisfying game. YM(&G)WV.

Maybe, and I wouldn’t want to impose my vision even on myself, never mind anybody else. However, I have a perverse tendency to take the opposite view: if an aspect of a culture seems unsympathetic, try to get into that mindset, rather than adjusting it to fit my preconceived idea of what is sympathetic — extend sympathy rather than taming the “wayward” culture. (And, yes, for some aspects, I wouldn’t bother: I am not interested in the Bronze Age War Crime Glorantha Nick Brooke so hates.)

The SAGA tendency — “things were much better back when …” — is familiar, and playing the Mostali as this turned up to 11 seems appropriate for a stasis cult: even the very first motion/change (way before the first life) was a mistake, marring the initial cosmic perfection. I don’t recommend an IRL program of cosmic sterilization, but I could imagine playing such a character, even though I suspect it would degenerate into satire. As to how the Mostali could wind the clock back to zero, well they do seem doomed to failure, don’t they? And playing technological progressives as the ultimate “conservatives” — although what they are trying to conserve is long gone, if it ever was — seems like a fun idea. But you know …

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I see the dwarves as a conflict between an ideal and reality, tightly constrained yet moving forward nevertheless. They are, in my view, the closest to a XXth century human you will find in Glorantha, or at least a 1970s hippy Californian view of an abstraction of the USSR, combined with Chaplin's Modern Times and Metropolis. Atheistic, exploited, innovative and natural team players.

And like the USSR, there is repression of dissent, horrible disasters and bureaucratic nightmares, but also a lively underground, art and resistance to opression.

For dwarven villains I use the faceless Decamony and its enforcers, with worldwide evil plans, But even those plans are creative and sometimes inspired, if doomed to fail.

Despite the so called stasis, they adapt very fast to the resources available, and they are surprisingly open minded towards the resources they use.

In this case the idea that they do not check the Godtime means they can use Dinosaurs as motive power for the Curustus capstan, despite dinosaurs never being part of that particular part of the machine, nor surely the capstan itself. They use a frightening creativity in a Wile E. Coyote way, to how you can raise a continent, because the master plan says we need a continent here.

My own end state for the dwarves after the Hero Wars would be the final loss of the last True Mostali, the Politburo Decamony replaced by Worker's committees in the main dwarfholds, and declaring the repairs are complete, now we can stop with the five year plans and try capitalism for a while.

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Returning to the original question, my interpretation of the Iron War is that most of the war the only dwarf directly involved was Arapan the Counter, who worked for/with Isidilian and offered resources, weapons and exotic items, useful against the Zistorites. 

When the New Unity Army appeared to be winning (though some say when they appeared to be losing) the fourth battle, Steelfall, Arapan in some way summoned a Dwarven army that appeared suddenly. They quickly wrapped up the battle, killed an Orlanthi demigod by shooting him in the head, engaged in a bloody fight with the Uz contingent in the New Unity Army, and forced the remains of the New Unity Army to return all the mechanical plunder, with compensation in metal and dwarven goods. Most of the Army demobilized quietly and left with their payment. Then the dwarves took anything of value in the Clanking City and booby trapped it completely. 

I assume they returned the same way they came, probably an extension of their tunnels prepared in the 10 years since the beginning of the War, or maybe even earlier, when the dwarves decided Zistor had to be purged and the stolen dwarven knowledge / technology recovered from the God Learners.

At the end of the day Zistor was no more, several orlanthi and draconic heroes / demigods were lost, gods manifested fully in a break of the Compromise and the dwarve achieved objectives they could not have achieved on their own. 

It is sure that the plundering and the trapping was not done by the iron dwarves, so we can expect additional contingents of other castes in the army, so the actual army will be several times larger. Losses are difficult to estimate, as the dwarves remained controlling the field of battle. I still expect Greatway was the main contributor, and that it is this service what softened the Decamony attitude towards Openhandism. The recovery of all mechanical elements may be dwarven greed or a requirement of the Decamony, though the compensation to the New Unity Army is another openhandist sign to me, as I do not see traditional dwarves in a position of strength compensating others.

The sources seem to indicate this was an impressive force, probably reinforced by the casual killing of what probably was the strongest Orlanthi hero, using Shock and Awe tactics. I am sure some Gold dwarf really liked the idea of such a nice round number as 10,000, but it still may be an exaggeration from the members of the New Unity Army to justify their acceptance of the Dwarven demands. 

I picture the Iron General as a kind of Space Marine in enclosed armor, shooting Renvald with a bolt pistol when he complained against the dwarven demands, then saying in Bruce Willis' voice: "Anyone else wants to negotiate?"

 

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It has been 700 years so many magics will be gone. However I expect minor drarven constructs, so tons of gremlins, nilmerg maintained mechanical traps and gobblers tuned to most metals.

Most traps would be focused on the places where Zistor and Orlanth manifested, as I think they are the only interesting remains that the dwarves could not take back with them. Depending on your preference, the dwarves may have left untouched the divine remains.

I am sure fulgurite created by Orlanth's sacred lightning will be a powerful relic for the Orlanthi, and there may even be drops of Orlanth's blood laying around. I also would play that Zistor's remains corrupted any dwarven technology that came close, so it may still be there, buried and accesible only by trapped corridors. There may be special teams of corruption hardened nilmergs slowly disassembling and piling up segregated pieces of Zistor parts. Some nilmergs may have been subverted and be trying to get any susceptible automatons or even humans close to Zistor's remains...

A sci-fi scenario with remnant AIs, malfunctioning automatons and piles of metal, guarded by animated ballistae, pressure plate operated pits and strong storm spirits.

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The two main refs are:

Quote

The Ten Thousand then entered the depths beneath the Clanking City, sealed off the island and scoured the island with awful magical curses.

History of the Heortling People (2007), page 57

and

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Only the Clanking City’s ruins were left, cursed, diseased, and entrapped by dwarves.

Guide to Glorantha (2014), page 137

Given that the city was trapped, we can assume that the dwarfs were unable to remove most of the troublesome materials or the city would be just a ghost town, like Whitewall. They've carted off all of the magic materials, and Nilmergs have long since destroyed what every was missed. It's all in a warehouse waiting to be curated, recycled or just identified as a world machine part (Warehouse 13, Indiana Jones, etc). Nilmergs have long since destroyed what every was left. So it must be the actual structure itself that is problematic.

I imagine the city above to be mostly ruined - collapsed towers and domes, shattered columns, blocked and flood areas. Lower areas have survived better, but the dwarfs deliberately collapsed and flooded the subsea tunnels. Now think very big...

The very problematic areas are where the city enters or connects the other side. Portals and meta-magical ducts that diectly connect to Yelm that powered the forges, basements that are actually in the Underworld. Huge summoning grids once powered by shackled gods, but now containing trapped entities bleeding in from Spirit World (and the souls of dead adventurers. The deep bore that funnelled material directly from the Chaosium into the forges to make the weapons is still there as it can't be blocked. Kilometre high Adamantine capacitors made from plundered parts of the Spike, that can't be disconnected from a mana tap in the Green Age. These and many other installations are tied in deeply to the structure of the world machine. The enchantments involved to either break, block or render harmless the structures are just too large to deal with at the moment (the moment being 700 years or so). The Dwarfs are dealing with many other large projects - like preparing the chain.

I'm not sure which is really more deadly, the dwarf traps or the what's left behind. The flooded areas are likely have some huge sea monsters bound to the area (per Call Monster and its example). I see the dwarf traps as being there to stop idiots trying to use the remaining structures. I suspect they are the equivalent of large sorcery spells, with the duration set to 100s of years, many likely powered by the very things they are set to trap. Simple things like glued floors that tap you to nothing, Death magics that trap your soul, to act like a hungry ghost (along with all the others).

Overall the Clanking City is much worse and much more impenetrable than the Big Rubble. 

Edited by David Scott
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Much better expressed than I could. Many of those portals and structures are the actual body of Zistor, and probably immune to most things while its divinity remains.

After all, the New Unity Army needed to break the compromise and bring Orlanth himself (though I am sure they say that the Zistorites broke the compromise first...) to defeat Zistor.

 

Quote

For ten years the New Unity Army besieged the Clanking City, until Orlanth himself manifested to destroy the hateful abomination in 917. The final destruction of the Clanking City is the inspiration for epic literature throughout the Holy Country.

We can assume that the Dwarves struck in the mop up phase, when the compromise was restored and the Orlanthi heroes were recovering.

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  • 8 months later...
On 9/12/2022 at 7:06 PM, jajagappa said:

Gemborg would go through tunnels via the Vent, the Iron Fort, and on to the Machine Ruins. 

I understood the tunnels stopped short of the Clanking City and the dwarves came out and crossed the sand bar, not sure where this was written? Did the dwarves link the Clanking City with tunnels after it was destroyed?

On 9/12/2022 at 10:39 PM, Joerg said:

Any such underground structure need to take into account the thrid dimension. Dwarf tunnels may include endless stairwells or ladders. As you pointed out, the Underground holds hostile volume occupied by Krarsht aad her get, and by the trolls, and there are realms of enclosed liquid fire or enclosed water to avoid, too.

On 9/13/2022 at 12:24 PM, Joerg said:

Hundreds of Rock Dwarfs to create and maintain the access tunnel, several teams of Lead Dwarfs to handle water seals, a whole bunch of Quicksilver kitchen workers, gremlin and nilmerg Tin handlers, Gold foremen, and Silver sorcerers taking down God Learner wards, and Brass dwarfs recycling those geared prayer combination machines.

Would dwarves not set wardings on their tunnel systems with "intruder alert" reverberating through them when breached or even a very early proximity warning when some crab-like bug or darkspawn creacher came within say 50m of a tunnel?

On 9/13/2022 at 3:24 PM, mfbrandi said:

But we know the only way to prevent the parts wearing — becoming increasingly imperfect — is to stop them moving.

Unless the heal themselves and regenerate and so there would be an epiphany of sorts, the dwarves need the eleves to make all parts of the World Machine organic and alive, that's the real goal, constant regeneration of worn parts, self healing... I like this. Not sure how it relates to the 10k dwarves, possibly the management of the Clanking ruins was putrefying the world and so the dwarves needed to intervene. Maybe the elves could do some good by covering the Clanking City with growth and so it ends up like Babylon in ruin but with lush greenery?

On 9/14/2022 at 6:41 AM, JRE said:

I picture the Iron General as a kind of Space Marine in enclosed armor, shooting Renvald with a bolt pistol when he complained against the dwarven demands, then saying in Bruce Willis' voice: "Anyone else wants to negotiate?"

The real reason I was rereading this was that I am curious why the 10k dwarves killed Renvald? He was burned and so there is no burial mound... sad for such a hero to have been wiped away with the wind or is that the way its is supposed to be? Do we know who which dwarf/dwarves shot him with a bolt pistol?

 

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2 hours ago, Erol of Backford said:

the dwarves need the elves to make … the World Machine organic and alive … constant regeneration of worn parts, self healing … I like this.

Then go for it. And think about how the elves need the dwarves, too. Reconcile opposites and put a finger up to the Glorantha stick-in-the-muds. It is the only humane thing to do. 😉

I haven’t checked, but I am sure that at the time I was thinking of the dwarves as a Stasis cult and that they took that really seriously. Moving parts are a design flaw — flying in the face of Wittgenstein’s discussion of the faulty roller design.

NOTORIOUS VØID CULTIST

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21 hours ago, mfbrandi said:

Wittgenstein’s discussion of the faulty roller design

Lol, the rollers on dwarvish elevator cab doors are always wearing out.

Related to the dwarves, they killed proud Renvald. He carried the Blue Sky Shield which likely had some absorption ability as it blocked evil spells but calling it the sky shield makes me think it had air elemental binding enchantments and or maybe lightening abilities? Any one venture to guess?

He also wielded the Green Water Spear that cut through their hellish protections. Curious if that would be like the adamantium spike which ignores magic and prevents those touched by it from using magic for a short duration? 

 

Edited by Erol of Backford
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On 5/25/2023 at 6:18 PM, Erol of Backford said:

Did the dwarves link the Clanking City with tunnels after it was destroyed?

I would suggest no - it needs to be air gapped.

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On 5/25/2023 at 5:19 PM, Erol of Backford said:

Related to the dwarves, they killed proud Renvald. He carried the Blue Sky Shield which likely had some absorption ability as it blocked evil spells but calling it the sky shield makes me think it had air elemental binding enchantments and or maybe lightening abilities? Any one venture to guess?

He also wielded the Green Water Spear that cut through their hellish protections. Curious if that would be like the adamantium spike which ignores magic and prevents those touched by it from using magic for a short duration? 

Does anyone have suggestions as to details on the shield and spear?

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On 5/25/2023 at 6:19 PM, Erol of Backford said:

He carried the Blue Sky Shield which likely had some absorption ability as it blocked evil spells but calling it the sky shield makes me think it had air elemental binding enchantments and or maybe lightening abilities? Any one venture to guess?

What happens when a Blue Sky Shield is held up against a backdrop of blue sky? It blends in. So my guess is that it helps conceal the wielder when fighting in the open air (maybe particularly when flying?).

On 5/25/2023 at 6:19 PM, Erol of Backford said:

He also wielded the Green Water Spear that cut through their hellish protections.

Sounds more like something that works like acid and burns away magical and physical armor. Perhaps given the color and the elemental association it is associated with growth or with draconic/serpentine elements. The latter would fit a spear that works like poisoned fangs biting into the foe's armor. If more the former, then maybe like algae/spores that feed off of and destroy the armor.

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17 hours ago, jajagappa said:

Sounds more like something that works like acid and burns away magical and physical armor.

hellish protections of wizards made me think of damage resist of a high magnitude say 20 or so whereas an adamantium spear would ignore that.. but a spear that spews acid could be useful in many ways as well?

17 hours ago, jajagappa said:

Blue Sky Shield which likely had some absorption ability

It said it absorbed wizard's spells but the camouflage idea is intriguing...

Thanks!

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  • 4 weeks later...
13 minutes ago, Erol of Backford said:

I assume it leaves deposits of metal ingots in its wake...

Why would it do so? That would benefit those who have stolen from the dwarfs. The point of the Gobbler is to consume (and likely burn away) whatever it is meant to consume. I'd make it ash if you want something in its wake.

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