The God Learners Episode 16: Ernaldan Adventuresses: Blood, Sex, and Rock'n'Roll

[Lordabdul]

Episode 16 is about Earth pantheon cultists! Our guests are Episode 16 of the God Learners podcast is about playing Ernaldan cultists and other Earth pantheon initiates! We have Katrin Dirim and Claudia Loroff with us, who summarizes Ernaldan priestesses as "blood, sex, and rock'n'roll". We discuss Ernalda's role in Glorantha and in our games, how to play non-combative characters, what the best Earth magic is, orgies and pregnancies, and more! Plus: Gloranthan cooking!

Edited October 5, 2022 by Lordabdul

[mfbrandi]

For a sex and blood and rock and roll take on Earth rites (that made me feel quite ill, but Your Nausea May Vary), see the novel The Shattered Horse by S P Somtow (Somtow Sucharitkul for those with long memories). The “horse” in question is the Trojan one.

[Rodney Dangerduck]

Nicely done overall, very useful and enlightening.

I do question one of Claudia's theses, that Ernaldan "rites also include quite a bit of sex as a healthy community requires a steady supply of children.  Compared to Earth, Glorantha has very little infant (and maternal) mortality and disease.  Arguably, there is much less need for Gloranthan women to have lots of kids to maintain the population.  This has been discussed on BRP.

Edited October 5, 2022 by Rodney Dangerduck

[Jeff]

42 minutes ago, Rodney Dangerduck said:

Nicely done overall, very useful and enlightening.

I do question one of Claudia's theses, that Ernaldan "rites also include quite a bit of sex as a healthy community requires a steady supply of children.  Compared to Earth, Glorantha has very little infant (and maternal) mortality and disease.  Arguably, there is much less need for Gloranthan women to have lots of kids to maintain the population.  This has been discussed on BRP.

Claudia knows that - Glorantha has a lower infant and maternal death rates than the ancient world (although not anywhere near as low as the modern world). But it also has a high adult death rate due to war, famine, spirits, monsters, etc. As a general rule, roughly about 1/3 of every human community in Glorantha is comprised of children under the age of initiation. Unnatural events like the Crimson Bat, the Great Winter, magical disasters, and the like hit Glorantha with shocking frequency. Greg and I worked out big spreadsheets on this, and ultimately what comes out is that there is still an incentive to have lots of children to continually replace that cadre of young adults. 

[mfbrandi]

3 hours ago, Jeff said:

But it also has a high adult death rate due to war, famine, spirits, monsters, etc.

Do these not affect the infant death rate, too? I’d think these would be even harder on children, but that may be wrong.

[Rodney Dangerduck]

8 hours ago, Jeff said:

But it also has a high adult death rate due to war, famine, spirits, monsters, etc

Assuming that one agrees with your argument, (I have reservations) shouldn't a PC have more than a D6-1 siblings?  An average of 3.5, some of whom may have died, is a very low rate of fertility and pregnancy compared to historical Earth.  With some access to Bless Pregnancy, that just 2-3 pregnancies.  Hardly lots of sex to preserve the species.

[JRE]

I at least propose several magical and alchemical anticonceptive methods in Glorantha, if only to allow women to break women from the pregnancy - nursing - pregnancy cycle. If you can choose when to get pregnant, you will have less kids, but I hope happier and healthier. 

Lots of happy consensual sex is always better. Or as a gipsy blessed / cursed me once, thirty years ago "May God repay you with many attempts and few children:"

[French Desperate WindChild]

43 minutes ago, JRE said:

I at least propose several magical and alchemical anticonceptive methods in Glorantha, if only to allow women to break women from the pregnancy - nursing - pregnancy cycle. If you can choose when to get pregnant, you will have less kids, but I hope happier and healthier. 

Lots of happy consensual sex is always better. Or as a gipsy blessed / cursed me once, thirty years ago "May God repay you with many attempts and few children:"

Agreed 

it even could be an ability obtained by any woman during the adulthood rite (like orlanthi able to predict the weather)

[Rodney Dangerduck]

2 hours ago, JRE said:

I at least propose several magical and alchemical anticonceptive methods in Glorantha

A lot of fan material, even official stuff, seems to assume this.  Would be good to have something more official, whether a spell, an herb, or as @French Desperate WindChild suggests, an innate ability.

[Beoferret]

The cookbook! I listened to the whole podcast (admittedly, over the course of several interrupted sessions) and got some good ideas from it. But the cookbook reveal is pretty darn exciting. I didn't catch what kind of foodstuffs are included though (maybe because of the broken way I listened to Claudia describing it.) Are the recipes derived from real dishes from antiquity? 

As an aside: may I recommend to all you culinary history geeks the Youtube channel "Tasting History" with Max Miller? Some good stuff, including Mesopotamian-derived recipes. 

[mfbrandi]

44 minutes ago, Beoferret said:

"Tasting History" with Max Miller? Some good stuff, including Mesopotamian-derived recipes. 

“Do you want a recipe from the white book or the blue book?” It must have been a recipe from the blue book that made Max go blind for three days in Mesopotamia.

(Will this mean anything at all to those outside the UK?)

[Lordabdul]

8 hours ago, Beoferret said:

As an aside: may I recommend to all you culinary history geeks the Youtube channel "Tasting History" with Max Miller? Some good stuff, including Mesopotamian-derived recipes. 

You may! I had already linked to that channel in the Journal of Runic Studies once, for this ancient Babylonian lamb stew. If there's another particularly interesting recipe we should be looking at, feel free to post it, or ping me so I include it in the next newsletter!