Jump to content

Treading on a future we may never get to see


JRE

Recommended Posts

This is treading on a future we may never get to see (the 1630s), but it is interesting that the three kingdom Talar will face against probably the independent West Reaches and then Phargentes, in the North, and Safelster arkati and Arkati influenced orlanthi from Lankst, which means both Invisible Orlanth and the Chariot of Lightning at the forefront of the conflict.

I like that it takes the spotlight from Argrath and the Red against Blue conflict. The Talar has Mostali and Brithini support, so this can go two ways, either a monotheist reaction against the invisible storm, which means they see the invisible storm as a threat. or the Western forces are actually on a crusade against theists, starting with the nearer ones. A weirder option would be to have the Talar as Gbaji, but it does not resonate as powerfully. 

Phargentes success and the fact that he manages to return from several deaths (if we trust Ethilrist) would mean his new Lunar way (probably his mother's idea) actually manages to reunify and revitalize the Empire, including Saird, Holay and probably Talastar and Brolia, which brings a lot of storm related peoples. I would expect he reaches some kind of accommodation with the Storm Pentans, so he may have  succesfully integrated a non-competing Orlanth-Red Moon structure, as Eff envisioned.

Pity it all falls when Sheng eats him.

  • Like 1
  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, JRE said:

This is treading on a future we may never get to see (the 1630s), but it is interesting that the three kingdom Talar will face against probably the independent West Reaches and then Phargentes, in the North, and Safelster arkati and Arkati influenced orlanthi from Lankst, which means both Invisible Orlanth and the Chariot of Lightning at the forefront of the conflict.

I like that it takes the spotlight from Argrath and the Red against Blue conflict. The Talar has Mostali and Brithini support, so this can go two ways, either a monotheist reaction against the invisible storm, which means they see the invisible storm as a threat. or the Western forces are actually on a crusade against theists, starting with the nearer ones. A weirder option would be to have the Talar as Gbaji, but it does not resonate as powerfully. 

Phargentes success and the fact that he manages to return from several deaths (if we trust Ethilrist) would mean his new Lunar way (probably his mother's idea) actually manages to reunify and revitalize the Empire, including Saird, Holay and probably Talastar and Brolia, which brings a lot of storm related peoples. I would expect he reaches some kind of accommodation with the Storm Pentans, so he may have  succesfully integrated a non-competing Orlanth-Red Moon structure, as Eff envisioned.

Pity it all falls when Sheng eats him.

I see post moon fall as more a post nuclear apocalypse world. I mean the gods no longer answer, magic no longer works, even the memory of magic grows dim, given that when chaos eats things the memory of what was eaten can disappear. Empires would be completely stricken, all their communication and battle magic would simply no longer work. Worse, people would be hungry, too hungry to bother with empires and world affairs. Instead of magicking up a bountiful harvest, people would have to learn from scratch how to grow food. And the first few harvests would be dismal, bugs would eat the food, crops would fail, and nobody would have any idea how to fix it.

No wonder it was called the age of illiteracy, anyone who got hold of a book would burn it for warmth. I mean its not like all those colourful descriptions of magic and divinity would be any use to anyone in the post moon fall world.

Edited by EricW
  • Like 3
  • Haha 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, EricW said:

I see post moon fall as more a post nuclear apocalypse world. I mean the gods no longer answer, magic no longer works, … when chaos eats things the memory of what was eaten can disappear. Empires would be completely stricken, … crops would fail, and nobody would have any idea how to fix it.

Wow! This sounds great. Sign me up.

  • Haha 1

NOTORIOUS VØID CULTIST

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 10/27/2022 at 10:34 PM, EricW said:

I see post moon fall as more a post nuclear apocalypse world. I mean the gods no longer answer, magic no longer works, even the memory of magic grows dim, given that when chaos eats things the memory of what was eaten can disappear. Empires would be completely stricken, all their communication and battle magic would simply no longer work. Worse, people would be hungry, too hungry to bother with empires and world affairs. Instead of magicking up a bountiful harvest, people would have to learn from scratch how to grow food. And the first few harvests would be dismal, bugs would eat the food, crops would fail, and nobody would have any idea how to fix it.

No wonder it was called the age of illiteracy, anyone who got hold of a book would burn it for warmth. I mean its not like all those colourful descriptions of magic and divinity would be any use to anyone in the post moon fall world.

So a bit like the collapse of Civilization that happened at the end of the Bronze Age?  

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

9 hours ago, Darius West said:

So a bit like the collapse of Civilization that happened at the end of the Bronze Age?  

Possibly, but that collapse was caused by a new kind of weapon, or rather sudden widespread availability. The Egyptians knew about iron before the Iron Age, but their only source was meteoric iron, so it was incredibly rare.

Possibly some hyper aggressive groups discovered all the shocked and confused survivors were easy pickings, and didn’t need new weapons other than their aggression, so maybe it was similar.

Edited by EricW
Link to comment
Share on other sites

32 minutes ago, EricW said:

Possibly, but that collapse was caused by a new kind of weapon, or rather sudden widespread availability.

Now, I may have this wrong — in the long run, you won’t lose money by betting against my opinions — but I thought the switch to ‘iron’ (i.e. steel) in the Mediterranean and thereabouts was due to the difficulty of maintaining supplies of the ingredients for bronze, there being few dead gods to scavenge from. Sure, steel made better — lighter, stronger — weapons, but it took more than that to push everybody over the technological hump: in the end, people shifted to iron because they had to, not because it was better.

  • Like 2

NOTORIOUS VØID CULTIST

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Scotty changed the title to Treading on a future we may never get to see
On 10/31/2022 at 8:02 AM, mfbrandi said:

Now, I may have this wrong — in the long run, you won’t lose money by betting against my opinions — but I thought the switch to ‘iron’ (i.e. steel) in the Mediterranean and thereabouts was due to the difficulty of maintaining supplies of the ingredients for bronze, there being few dead gods to scavenge from. Sure, steel made better — lighter, stronger — weapons, but it took more than that to push everybody over the technological hump: in the end, people shifted to iron because they had to, not because it was better.

The fact is, nobody really knows what caused the Bronze Age Collapse.  There are plenty of theories.  I like to view the Invasion of the Sea Peoples as the Earth equivalent of the Wolf Pirates attacking into the Holy Country.

As to what caused the change-over from Bronze to Iron/Steel, ultimately steel holds an edge better, and can be reworked without being completely melted, unlike Bronze.  It was the Hittites on Earth who are credited with the widescale introduction of blast furnaces and iron working.  In Glorantha it is the Mostali, and some Westerners who serve as the main sources for iron.

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Darius West said:

As to what caused the change-over from Bronze to Iron/Steel, ultimately steel holds an edge better, and can be reworked without being completely melted, unlike Bronze.  It was the Hittites on Earth who are credited with the widescale introduction of blast furnaces and iron working.  In Glorantha it is the Mostali, and some Westerners who serve as the main sources for iron.

In a period of collapsed internation trade, th raw materials for bronze get hard to get - I don't think there's many places with both copper and tin close by. Even if iron isn't as easy to produce, it's raw materials (iron ore and charcoal) are way easier to find close ot each other.

Which is quite the opposite from Glorantha where copper, tin or storm-god remnants bronze are all fairly common andevenly spread while iron is sourced only from the dwarves (as well as being a pain to work with compared to bronze, like in our world)

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, Darius West said:

ultimately steel holds an edge better, and can be reworked without being completely melted, unlike Bronze

I think one of the arms race theories of LBAC on Wikipedia mentioned mass-produced cast bronze weapons. My guess is that cast bronze is less brittle than cast iron (presumably, a cast iron sword would be suicide), but perhaps there is a metallurgist here who can squeak up.

IIRC — and as always with my off-the-top-of-the-head rambling, caveat emptor — reworking iron without completely melting it is one of the ways of getting the all-important small amount of carbon into it.

In retrospect one of the oddities of early RQ: unalloyed iron suppressed magic, but who would want to equip themselves with unalloyed iron weapons and armour, anyway?

NOTORIOUS VØID CULTIST

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, mfbrandi said:

I think one of the arms race theories of LBAC on Wikipedia mentioned mass-produced cast bronze weapons. My guess is that cast bronze is less brittle than cast iron (presumably, a cast iron sword would be suicide), but perhaps there is a metallurgist here who can squeak up.

IIRC — and as always with my off-the-top-of-the-head rambling, caveat emptor — reworking iron without completely melting it is one of the ways of getting the all-important small amount of carbon into it.

In retrospect one of the oddities of early RQ: unalloyed iron suppressed magic, but who would want to equip themselves with unalloyed iron weapons and armour, anyway?

My father is a chemist with a background in metallurgy and has schooled me on the properties of various metals.  Yeah, cast iron swords are a no go. 

As to the unalloyed metal issue. what we call iron and bronze in RQ are not those metals as we know them.  Bronze is Hu Metal, and Iron is Ur Metal.    

  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, Manunancy said:

I don't think there's many places with both copper and tin close by.

If we are talking about the real world, then the place where the most copper and tin are located in the Mekong River.  Lo and behold, this is where we find the oldest bronze objects, and they are ancient bronze drums afaik.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, mfbrandi said:

I think one of the arms race theories of LBAC on Wikipedia mentioned mass-produced cast bronze weapons. My guess is that cast bronze is less brittle than cast iron (presumably, a cast iron sword would be suicide), but perhaps there is a metallurgist here who can squeak up.

 

 

Bronze alloys are overall more ductile than the high-carbon cast irons, and bronze weapons in the historical RW Bronze Age tended to be made via casting and then work-hardening the metal portions from a relatively high-tin alloy. Bronze armor tended to be made from a relatively low-tin alloy that would be cast into ingots and flattened into sheets and shaped from there. 

Bronze can't be tempered the way most steels and cast iron can, because quench-hardening requires the characteristics of the carbon-alloy crystalline structure. Instead, copper alloys and copper itself are annealed (heated to soften them and then cooled, which can be done via quenching for nonferrous alloys) and then work-hardened to reach the desired material properties. 

All of this is for real-world copper alloys- Gloranthan metals have been frequently said to be analogues rather than exact duplicates of the real metals, so if you want to have tempered bronze or wrought bronze you are of course free to. 

  • Like 1
  • Thanks 1

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

Link to comment
Share on other sites

17 hours ago, Darius West said:

My father is a chemist with a background in metallurgy and has schooled me on the properties of various metals.  Yeah, cast iron swords are a no go. 

As to the unalloyed metal issue. what we call iron and bronze in RQ are not those metals as we know them.  Bronze is Hu Metal, and Iron is Ur Metal.    

In our world cast iron becomes steel by using oxygen to draw out some of the carbon, by melting the iron, then working the hot iron to squash out all the impurities.

The pure wrought iron can then be gently recarbonised back to steel by melting the iron mixed with charcoal, though there are many variations on this process.

Some superior steels were created when molybdenum chromium or whatever we’re added - the ingredients of modern stainless or high strength steels. Ancient chromium steel must have seemed like magic, bright and shiny after all else rusts away.

Of course no way of knowing if post moon fall Glorantha follows any of these rules

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I haven't really thought about it but I see the post-moon Glorantha less different. Some Rune Magic (but maybe not all) stops working but sorcery will be there as long as there are runes. And spirit magic will work as long as there are spirits.

But IF (a huge IF) the Great Compromise falls things becomes different. The Compromise is about time and things like birth, death and rebirth. An end of the Compromise could thru Glorantha back to the Gods age. But that is the opposite of "magic no longer working".

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I see some future reflections were drawn out of Invisible Orlanth into its own thread while I was busy.

I like to have future arcs but little detail, to allow players to be the protagonists. That is one of the reasons why I am not comfortable in Dragon Pass 1603-1627, as it is tightly scripted. Though it is great for PC previous history.

There is still, if we trust King of Sartar, quite some years from the clash of kingdoms / Empires of the 1630s to the magical armageddons (and a full LBQ to bring back Sheng is a weapon of mass destruction) of the 1640s. That is also when I expect the floods, the Kralorelan collapse and the monster empire. 

What comes after the moon either falls or rises higher and turns white will probably be never explained beyond the cryptic details in KoS. At the current rythm I doubt we will get to see beyond Phargentes kicking Argrath's ass so hard he goes the full LBQ route. 

 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Soccercalle said:

I haven't really thought about it but I see the post-moon Glorantha less different. Some Rune Magic (but maybe not all) stops working but sorcery will be there as long as there are runes. And spirit magic will work as long as there are spirits.

But IF (a huge IF) the Great Compromise falls things becomes different. The Compromise is about time and things like birth, death and rebirth. An end of the Compromise could thru Glorantha back to the Gods age. But that is the opposite of "magic no longer working".

All the gods are gone? So rune magic is gone?

Quote - King of Sartar

 

... And then Argrath told them what to do. The gods were as one, and they wrapped the evil invader with the great net, and each of them held it strong and pulled upon it.

Argrath was never bound to the old ways, but was still subject to them. This was when his Trickster betrayed him. For in that moment that the great council all pulled upon the net, then they were all caught up by it, wrapped together like a bag of squirrels in a string sack.

Wakboth reached for it, and with terrifying bites and gnashings, consumed them all. And while it was doing that, Argrath seized the moment, and with the Lightbringers Sword he 

pierced the demon, and revealed its emptiness for what it was. He said, “We must accept our portion of Life, and slay all who would murder us.”3

And he killed the serpent which had wrapped itself about him and wounded him. And then with the Unbreakable Sword he cut the corpse into pieces, and found only dead things inside. He gave parts of the body away to his allies as gifts.

So Argrath then, and Spider Spirit, and the other few which had survived, blessed the world, and sent the good things which they had found out from their center and as gifts to the world of the living. And since that time, that world has been our world.

And he said “There is only one secret now, and that is what we have done. The world will remain as it is now, without interference from any god or goddess. Now it is a free world, of humankind, for humankind, and ruled by humankind.” ...

 

It is possible some magic would still work. 

Edited by EricW
Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, JRE said:

I like to have future arcs but little detail, to allow players to be the protagonists.

Weren’t we back in pre-history — before Moon Design was a twinkle in anyone’s eye, so we couldn’t hold the present regime to it — (if my memory can be trusted over so many decades) promised ‘blank lands’ that would never be filled in? A temporal version of that would be cool, and easier to implement. The Fourth Age as a temporal ‘blank land’ seems appropriate. And if it is a ‘thinned’ time, it would probably make commercial sense, too: lots of people want big colourful things whacking each other; Chaosium has a dark ages game in Pendragon.

2 hours ago, JRE said:

What comes after the moon either falls or rises higher and turns white will probably be never explained beyond the cryptic details in KoS. At the current rhythm I doubt we will get to see beyond Phargentes kicking Argrath's ass

And there is always the option of rewinding. I bet people would go for a God Learner — remember your mantra: Mongoose does not exist Mongoose does not exist … — or Nysalor campaign.

NOTORIOUS VØID CULTIST

Link to comment
Share on other sites

52 minutes ago, mfbrandi said:

Weren’t we back in pre-history — before Moon Design was a twinkle in anyone’s eye, so we couldn’t hold the present regime to it — (if my memory can be trusted over so many decades) promised ‘blank lands’ that would never be filled in?

1988, RQ3, the Glorantha/Genertela "orange box" set. Weirdly, Balazar was one such blank land.

  • Like 1
  • Thanks 1

--

The Voralans presents Glorantha's magical mushroom humanoids, the black elves. "Absolutely phenomenal" - Austin C. "Seriously weird-ass shit" - John D. "A great piece of work" - Leon K. The Electrum best-selling The Children of Hykim documents Glorantha's shape-changing totemic animal people, the Hsunchen. "Magisterial ... highly recommended" - Nick Brooke. "Lovingly detailed and scholarly, and fun to read" - John H. "Absolutely wonderful!" - Morgan C.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, JRE said:

I see some future reflections were drawn out of Invisible Orlanth into its own thread while I was busy.

I like to have future arcs but little detail, to allow players to be the protagonists. That is one of the reasons why I am not comfortable in Dragon Pass 1603-1627, as it is tightly scripted. Though it is great for PC previous history.

There is still, if we trust King of Sartar, quite some years from the clash of kingdoms / Empires of the 1630s to the magical armageddons (and a full LBQ to bring back Sheng is a weapon of mass destruction) of the 1640s. That is also when I expect the floods, the Kralorelan collapse and the monster empire. 

What comes after the moon either falls or rises higher and turns white will probably be never explained beyond the cryptic details in KoS. At the current rythm I doubt we will get to see beyond Phargentes kicking Argrath's ass so hard he goes the full LBQ route. 

 

We know the major events of the Hero Wars, and have in fact known the contours of it since BEFORE RuneQuest ever came out. We have known since about 1976 that Argrath becomes Prince relatively early in the Hero Wars, regains the Far Point as part of Sartar, is allied with Harrek, Gunda, Jaldon, and the Praxians, and fights several campaigns against the Red Emperor over Dragon Pass, where he leads the Sartarites to go toe to toe against the best armies the Lunar Empire can muster. We also know that the Hero Wars involves periods where Argrath dominates Dragon Pass and periods where the Lunar Empire is able to sack Boldhome, etc. All of that was set in place long before RuneQuest was written.

The game to look at here is Pendragon. We know the basic arc of Arthur's life - pulls out the sword, becomes the Boy King, creates his Round Table and era of tournaments and romances, and eventually it all falls apart and ends in a glorious battle where pretty much everyone dies. We that arc before we even open the rule book.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

54 minutes ago, Brian Duguid said:

1988, RQ3, the Glorantha/Genertela "orange box" set.

Thanks, Brian, I didn’t know it was mentioned as late as that. But it certainly appears earlier: the idea is laid out in WF #11 (1981), but some of the examples are of the why would you bother sort — “a riverford” [presumably, a river ford], “a Ralios river manor” — though “a horse nomad nation” is intriguing. I mean, one Ralios river manor is going to be much like another, no?

NOTORIOUS VØID CULTIST

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, mfbrandi said:

Thanks, Brian, I didn’t know it was mentioned as late as that. But it certainly appears earlier: the idea is laid out in WF #11 (1981), but some of the examples are of the why would you bother sort — “a riverford” [presumably, a river ford], “a Ralios river manor” — though “a horse nomad nation” is intriguing. I mean, one Ralios river manor is going to be much like another, no?

I suspect the intent was to tell people "there are places and people that you just have to make up the details for" and unfortunately this was not a good way to communicate that idea, in the end. 

  • Like 1

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

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, Brian Duguid said:

1988, RQ3, the Glorantha/Genertela "orange box" set. Weirdly, Balazar was one such blank land.

Yep there it is,Genertela Book page 42... Balazar: Blank!

Forgot about that entirely... (or erased the horror of it from my mind, more likely). The forward in Griffin Island explained it by removing Griffin Mountain from canon and putting into the more generic setting Jaquays and Kraft originally planned for it...

Edited by Bill the barbarian

... remember, with a TARDIS, one is never late for breakfast!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

11 hours ago, EricW said:

In our world cast iron becomes steel by using oxygen to draw out some of the carbon, by melting the iron, then working the hot iron to squash out all the impurities.

The ancient Chinese actually used such a method, but their technology was kind of unique until the industrial age. Iron producers elsewhere in the Old World smelted iron without melting it, then wringing the impure iron at temperatures which allowed some increased ductility, exposing it to further atmospheric contact drawing the excess carbon out.

 

11 hours ago, EricW said:

The pure wrought iron can then be gently recarbonised back to steel by melting the iron mixed with charcoal, though there are many variations on this process.

Much of the r-carbonization is caused by exposure to carbon monoxide, which is then dissociated into carbon dioxide and carbon bound to iron (cementite, Fe3C), or "dissolved" in the iron lattice for lower grades of carbon admixture.

 

11 hours ago, EricW said:

Some superior steels were created when molybdenum chromium or whatever we’re added - the ingredients of modern stainless or high strength steels. Ancient chromium steel must have seemed like magic, bright and shiny after all else rusts away.

I fear you may be expecting too much from a low chromium admixture. While probably slightly less prone to corrode, these materials do take on corrosion. Especially when exposed to sweat or human tissue.

 

  • Like 1

Telling how it is excessive verbis

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 minutes ago, Joerg said:

 

I fear you may be expecting too much from a low chromium admixture. While probably slightly less prone to corrode, these materials do take on corrosion. Especially when exposed to sweat or human tissue.

 

The  Iron Pillar of Delhi is probably the most interesting example of corrosion resistance from iron produced in antiquity, as due to the high phosphorus content of the finished product and its weather exposure it appears to have formed a natural iron phosphate coating on its surface. It's doubtful this was intentional, but it may be possible that the wood used for the smelting was chosen for its phosphorus content somehow, which in Gloranthan terms suggests the possibility of fuels used in forging and smelting passing properties on to the finished product. 

  • Like 2

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

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...