In Our Glorantha We Have

[Dr. Devici]

On 3/2/2023 at 12:37 PM, Erol of Backford said:

Does anyone play it that Humakt is a woman? There are a bunch of Humakti that are women who are quite famous in Glorantha... I suppose any "god" could take whatever form they wished?

Stereotypical Humakti traits do seem feminine coded from the storm perspective, even if it is meant as an inversion of the air rune.

[John Biles]

3 hours ago, Eff said:

Why not, apart from it being inconvenient for the argument? 

Living things have a body and a sol.  Spirits have no bodies.  They don't eat food and they don't reproduce in the way that living things do.  Physical beings can't even interact with spirits in a physical way, only by magic and spirit combat.  Things like Heal, classic life magic, doesn't work on them.

 

[Shiningbrow]

20 hours ago, mfbrandi said:

This leaves the question of intelligence: did the herds have their wits stolen by the humans/Waha, or did the Morokanth manage their miracle of escapology without “human-level” intelligence, gaining it in the process? How? Did they have help? From Trickster?

Now, that is a cool myth!!!

[Joerg]

17 hours ago, Eff said:

Are spirits not alive? 

Spirits are entities generating life force (magic). Depending on your Glorantha, they can be limited to the Spirit Plane, which is a huge realm including a "three-dimensional skin" that matches the Gloranthan Surface World (including the soil/bedrockj/waves beneath and the air above), or a whole lot of them can be manifest in the material world as properties of the material world.

Corporeal things have spirits. Like e.g. trees, rocks, waves, geographic features, weather features, people. The question how you view your Glorantha is to decide whether the spirits have or are these things.

Things may have a temporary existence only. This form of non-permanent reality is called "illusion", some of which can be generated by people using rune magic or sorcery. (And in a way sorcery spells are a non-permanent reality, too, constructs of the sorcerer's magic that have tangible reality.) Other non-permanent reality is called "manifestation", such as the effects of the "Visibility" ability that a wide range of spirits who are able to pierce the veil possess.

15 hours ago, John Biles said:

Not in the same way as corporeal things.  

True. Most corporeal things have undergone a series of Green Age revelations that force them to eat, sleep, have sex to procreate, and ultimately die. Not just plants, animals and people, but also rocks, soil, winds, waves...

15 hours ago, Eff said:

Why not, apart from it being inconvenient for the argument? 

The archetypes of these things underwent mythical changes in Godtime. When I said "Green Age revelations", I don't mean exactly the age of the world when the dry land was mainly covered by plants, although that period of Godtime is home to a vast majority of irreversible changes to these archetypes.

One of the last "Green Age revelations" was Grandfather Mortal accepting the power of capital D Death (as opposed to the temporary state of death that was common in the Golden Age, where/when your harvested root plant or your slain prey could be sung back within a single transition period (e.g. night, sleep period, date change, turn of the Sun Empress, you name it). 

13 hours ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

Some reasons I propose

they cannot die (or they already died)

The spirits of deciduous trees have died (gone hibernating in the halls of Ty Kora Tek) multiple times. That's small d dead, not capital D Dead, mostly.

13 hours ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

their main home is not the mundane world and the mundane world is the world of living beings

Again, this is difficult for hibernating entities, including Brown Elves.

13 hours ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

that’s the rules (topic about the enchantment and bound spirits)

The rules of which game, though? While RuneQuest is the main vehicle for Glorantha again, other games have defined the reality of Glorantha in their terms, too. Starting with White Bear and Red Moon and Nomad Gods which have their own definitions of spirits, and for a significant time including HeroQuest which had spirit-housing talismans which were no enchantments but temporary homes for spirits volunteering to experience the Mundane World, created by animists who somehow helped provide these anchoring devices, possibly paying a virtual fee never specified in those rules.

 

13 hours ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

that doesn’t mean they can’t communicate , move, act, feel, think.

But without a body they are different from living

Then what about elementals? They are spirits, but have bodies.

 

11 hours ago, John Biles said:

Living things have a body and a sol.  Spirits have no bodies.  They don't eat food and they don't reproduce in the way that living things do.  Physical beings can't even interact with spirits in a physical way, only by magic and spirit combat.  Things like Heal, classic life magic, doesn't work on them.

Your neighborhood dryad might disagree. 

Edited March 4, 2023 by Joerg
Bolding to refer to the OP

[mfbrandi]

On 3/1/2023 at 10:17 PM, Erol of Backford said:

I like the [Your Dumbest Theory] thread but am interested in what GMs do to make their Glorantha suit them that may not be canon.

That was Erol’s premise for this thread. Grossly unsubtle emphasis mine.

I am interested in ways of looking at Glorantha that enable us to extend our sympathies beyond woad-covered humans with sharp swords and bad attitudes — and that might involve changing things or going against entrenched player attitudes, but sometimes it is just a matter of squinting at things differently. I am not the only one, but I won’t speak for any others: that would be rude.

If someone’s reply — and I caricature — is along the lines of “it is canon (or indeed RQG rules-as-written) that they are not like us and that anything not like us must be smashed (and may be smashed without a stain on our collective conscience)” that seems to me not to the point. Ditto “that is just not how it is (and you are forbidden to change it)”.

Now someone’s proposed change may not suit you — that is fine: say so and why if you want. You may see why someone’s proposed change might not suit even them and in a spirit of helpfulness explain why. And if someone’s proposed change is to work around an awkward bit of canon, you might even get to say the magic phrase “that’s not canon” (or propose a different workaround or perspective to make the apparent problem go away) and be helpful at the same time.

I am going to get down off my soap box, now. It doesn’t suit me, and the dizzying altitude and dry air was making my nose bleed.

 

————————————————————————————————————————
PS: That is not to say that the discussion of what is alive in Glorantha isn’t interesting.

[French Desperate WindChild]

 

4 hours ago, Joerg said:

Corporeal things have spirits.

yes I agree, but if you consider [ any rock has a spirit then any rock is alive] ... i would ask what is not alive ?

if everything except void is alive, what is the sense of life ? we then need another word to describe the time between birth (in all types) and death.

 

4 hours ago, Joerg said:

The spirits of deciduous trees have died (gone hibernating in the halls of Ty Kora Tek) multiple times. That's small d dead, not capital D Dead, mostly.

yes and my view is the trees are dead during the hibernation and alive during the rest of the time, not that their spirits are alive, their spirits are, sometimes in hells, sometimes in mundane world, depending on the "season" but they are, they exist.

 

 

4 hours ago, Joerg said:

The rules of which game, though

i agree, that is for the most recent version. but in some games, Elmal was different from Yelmalio and blablabla 🙂 . I concentrate my attention on the last version when nothing indicates a question in a specific game.

 

4 hours ago, Joerg said:

Then what about elementals? They are spirits, but have bodies.

is it a body, like my body, or is it just raw material from the place where is summoned (or any other mechanism ) the elemental spirit ?

I mean, if you call me, i come, with my body - the same than yesterday, well with more wrinkless-, if you know the name of an elemental, you can invoke it anywhere, it comes, takes what it can to get its physical form, does its job and go back to the spiritual world. Then what happen to its "body" ? I imagine it keeps or not (depending on the element) the last "attitude" of the elemental but becoming, again, just raw material.  So, for me it is not exactly a body, but a substitute

if you destroy its "body", the spirit is still a spirit, no change for it

if you destroy my body, I will die, big change for me. (well I have no proof, never tried, but it seems to me 🙂 )

 

but i think the source of our difference is :

4 hours ago, Joerg said:

Spirits are entities generating life force (magic).

I don't know if this point is your personal interpretation or some reference, but as I praise your knowledge (no joke) I will follow you

is a generator the same than what it generates

to be sure not using words i may misunderstand, i will use very basic words (no offense)

motor A uses wind strength to generate electricity.

motor B uses ocean strength to generate electricity.

should we conclude than electricity = wind, wind = water, motor = electricity ? In my opinion, no. Differents sources for an effect. But source, transformer and effects are not the same

so yes spirits can be seens as "motor" to generate life, but they need some "source" and they generate effect, they are not the effect

 

in another way, we know that the spirit stays one week near "its" dead body before going to the hells. So I conclude that if there is still a spirit when the living person is now dead (so no more living ?) it means that spirit is different than life

And what can we say about dead able to use magic in dead places, are they alive ? (then back to my first conclusion, if spirit = life and everything = spirit, what is not alive ?)

 

of course all depends on what means death, life, magic, etc... of course, our glorantha may vary

 

[Joerg]

59 minutes ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

yes I agree, but if you consider [ any rock has a spirit then any rock is alive] ... i would ask what is not alive ?

Stone (the brother of Mostal, the Rock of all rocks) was killed, and you will find that rocks have much reduced spirit nowadays. More often than not, the spirit may be not about its material body, but about a collective entity (like a place) they belong to.

 

I can see a definition that life requires a metabolism, an intake of fuel and "oxidizer" and exhalation and (possibly) giving off waste, or an intake of energy and nutrients with an exhalation and possibly generating waste. Does this have anything to do with generating magic? Is this different from an elemental occupying a portion of its element and regenerating magic points?

 

59 minutes ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

if everything except void is alive, what is the sense of life ? we then need another word to describe the time between birth (in all types) and death.

Part of the events leading to the Dawn was heroes like King Heort separating the Living from the Dead, and e.g. Vogarth Strongman trapping the dead of Esrolia in Koravaka/Necropolis. Now these dead were ambulant and would exact force, and they might even have consumed food, if only out of being used to that. (Note that on the Esrolian day of the dead, offerings of food are integral to dealing with their annual visit.)

Beside birth of all types, you might have to consider different types or expressions of death, both of minor and capital D death.

 

59 minutes ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

yes and my view is the trees are dead during the hibernation and alive during the rest of the time, not that their spirits are alive, their spirits are, sometimes in hells, sometimes in mundane world, depending on the "season" but they are, they exist.

"She is not dead but sleeping" - a state so like to Death that it fooled Nontraya and his host of the dead, and yet reversible. One of those intermediate states.

 

59 minutes ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

is it a body, like my body, or is it just raw material from the place where is summoned (or any other mechanism ) the elemental spirit ?

How many of your body's atoms are the same as in your body of 25 years ago? An elemental may have a somewhat faster exchange of body matter.

 

59 minutes ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

I mean, if you call me, i come, with my body - the same than yesterday, well with more wrinkless-, if you know the name of an elemental, you can invoke it anywhere, it comes, takes what it can to get its physical form, does its job and go back to the spiritual world. Then what happen to its "body" ? I imagine it keeps or not (depending on the element) the last "attitude" of the elemental but becoming, again, just raw material. 

Yeah, the elemental might just take the spirit of its body mass with it when it returns to wherever it came from. Spirits within spirits, within spirits...

 

59 minutes ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

So, for me it is not exactly a body, but a substitute

if you destroy its "body", the spirit is still a spirit, no change for it

Much like a dragonewt possessing an intact egg.

59 minutes ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

if you destroy my body, I will die, big change for me. (well I have no proof, never tried, but it seems to me 🙂 )

If someone performs a Lightbringer's Quest with you as the reward, you will get a new body matching your sense of self. You'll become what Xeotam calls a Kaelith.

 

 

 

59 minutes ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

[electricity example snipped for objections against the "physics"] Differents sources for an effect. But source, transformer and effects are not the same

Acrually, the Source of all energies uses entities possessing a quality that RuneQuest identifies as POW to imbue its magicsl energy onto Creation.

POW generation is generally an autotroph process, with only some aberrations like sorcerers' Tapping or vampires' blood drain operating in a heterotroph function. Unless your Glorantha has an ecosystem of spirit entities feeding on other spirit entities. Bunny spirits taking energy from carrot spirits, and in return providing energy to wolf spirits.

 

59 minutes ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

so yes spirits can be seens as "motor" to generate life, but they need some "source" and they generate effect, they are not the effect

The same goes for living beings, according to most schools of Gloranthan metaphysics (as in Revealed Mythologies). The Ultimate or Source emits energies through runic channels that are accumulated by Life Force, which then can be expended, ultimately dissipating into the Void.

 

59 minutes ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

in another way, we know that the spirit stays one week near "its" dead body before going to the hells. So I conclude that if there is still a spirit when the living person is now dead (so no more living ?) it means that spirit is different than life

The body no longer has the spirit, and the spirit no longer possesses the body. It only haunts it. Does the spirit regenerate MP if its MP had been depleted at the time of death? Apparently yes.

 

59 minutes ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

And what can we say about dead able to use magic in dead places, are they alive ? (then back to my first conclusion, if spirit = life and everything = spirit, what is not alive ?)

Things lacking (any trace of) POW, things that have (been forced to) consume(d) their life force. Undead for instance. Things tapped to oblivion.

Sometimes a shape may have a spirit if the material (e.g. metal) is largely devoid of it.

Made things like mostali creations (Jolanti, Nilmergs/Gremlins, Gobblers) may count as living for some degrees of living.

Dead crystals of the Gods are not alive by definition.

 

59 minutes ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

of course all depends on what means death, life, magic, etc... of course, our glorantha may vary

Which is sort of the point of this thread.

 

IMG spirits have ecologies of their own. Maybe not every single instance of a thing will have a spirit on its own, but regardless whether there are individual spirits or not, there will be collective spirits of such matter. I like the vision of Prax (and Genert's wastes) providing a spirit vegetation that the Eirithan herds feed upon alongside some less nutritious plant matter.

[Eff]

21 hours ago, John Biles said:

Living things have a body and a sol.  Spirits have no bodies.  They don't eat food and they don't reproduce in the way that living things do.  Physical beings can't even interact with spirits in a physical way, only by magic and spirit combat.  Things like Heal, classic life magic, doesn't work on them.

 

So there's this word "animism", derived from Latin anima, which refers to the quality of being alive, or of breathing. It is typically used to refer to a set of religious beliefs that assign qualities of life and animation to inanimate or even incorporeal, abstract entities, along with qualities of personhood to those entities and to animate beings that are not human. This word is also applied to "spirits" and the religious practices around said beings in Glorantha. So it's a little strange to argue that animism means precisely the opposite of its common definition here- that it means interacting with entities that are not alive, not truly animate.

But that's a metatextual observation. Within the illusive realm of treating Glorantha as a concrete thing, it is worth pointing out that gods don't have "a body and a soul", they have multiple bodies and none. Some gods are even spirits explicitly, like Kolat. And gods very much can die, and the whole Lightbringers Quest revolves around this fact. And maybe you can die without being alive, but it seems like a difficult ontological position! So that's why I question the idea that spirits are clearly not alive, because if they aren't alive, we are faced with some interesting problems.

[mfbrandi]

14 minutes ago, Joerg said:

IMG spirits have ecologies of their own.

I think that is the way to go (for many Gloranthas).

What are gods? They are just spirits with ideas above their station. But we know that gods are sometimes alive, don’t we? So it seems reasonable to say that spirits are alive … until you kill them!

But what of death? From here and elsewhere, here are several ideas in play, and they can all play happily together (I am trying to include some practical content):

1. Capital “D” Death, the real deal — you have been thrown into the memory hole that is Kajabor [acceptance?];
2. Lowercase death — you are in Hell [depression?];
3. Bureaucratic death — if you are not in Hell, some or all parts of you are supposed to be: I have the paperwork [bargaining?];
4. Trial separation — you seem to have been disassembled: take action soon, or there are forms to be filled [denial & anger?].

Someone might start at grade 4 death and ascend through the more serious forms, perhaps hoping to be recycled into life some time after “achieving” grade 2 death. Or you might get thrown straight into a more serious form of death.

Spoiler

A rambling aside, even by my standards:

From grade 1 death no return? Traditionally, yes, but perhaps some Lunar mystics dispute this: the Red Goddess met the Void, was extinguished, and yet returned. Turns out the big K has a hole at either end. That is why the chaos taint will never wash off — she could hide it, but she chooses not to — that is why she is scary.

This “taint” may hang around anything that is found either side of one of the periodic re-makings of the world, but the more I thought about it and about loops, the more I thought that the whiff of Chaos is found on everything. Some own it. Some cannot smell it on themselves (Urox). Some are in denial. Some have been driven around the bend by the realization (ZZ).

I began to wonder whether Yelmalio was a special case. Others are destroyed utterly and return. But the cold Light of Truth is always there. Even when nothing is. But never knows Nothing. Perhaps he is as mad as his boyfriend.

[pachristian]

On 3/1/2023 at 7:06 PM, g33k said:

IMG, different cultures consider Vinga to be:

• Orlanth's daughter
• Orlanth's sister
• Orlanth's feminine other-self
• Orlanth's boon adventuring-companion

All of them are "right" and can Heroquest to demonstrate their "rightness."

 

I do the same thing. Different clans have different versions of Vinga. However, in many of them she also represents women in non-traditional rolls. One of my players is a follower of Vinga-Orstan - Vinga as the goddess of carpenters and woodworkers.

[pachristian]

While I'm on that thought, one other deviation I have is that the Gold Wheel Dancers were the gender-reversed aspects of Yelm and the solar pantheon. Worship was suppressed in the first age and never recovered. However, the ruined temples are out there, waiting for some unlucky players to come along and have to tell Dara Hrappa that they've been wrong for the last thousand years...

[soltakss]

On 3/3/2023 at 11:01 PM, hipsterinspace said:

I mean, if we’re going to the core of the fertility/life rune, Uleria is always there when something is born, always.

And often when something is first created, before being born.

On 3/3/2023 at 7:42 PM, Eff said:

On 3/3/2023 at 7:35 PM, John Biles said:

Micro-organisms don't exist to cause disease; disease comes from spirits, which is a different rune.

 

Are spirits not alive? 

In my Glorantha, Mallia is the Mother of Disease, quite literally. Disease Spirits are born from her as her children. They are as alive as things like Elementals.

 

On 3/3/2023 at 11:01 PM, hipsterinspace said:

The issue with Mallia is that she does not destroy to create, she creates to destroy. Her disease spirits proliferate by sapping the life force of mortals and turning them into one if they succumb.

She creates to create. Her disease spirits exist to create new disease spirits and spread themselves far and wide. The fact that this also kills people is a tiny aside.

 

[g33k]

16 hours ago, pachristian said:

While I'm on that thought, one other deviation I have is that the Gold Wheel Dancers were the gender-reversed aspects of Yelm and the solar pantheon. Worship was suppressed in the first age and never recovered. However, the ruined temples are out there, waiting for some unlucky players to come along and have to tell Dara Hrappa that they've been wrong for the last thousand years...

Ooooooo !
Man, I *like* this.  I like this a LOT.
(n.b. Genert as the dead&dismembered principle of male-fertility (in Genertela) serves as a nice parallel)

I'll need to mull a bit, but I expect to  yoink  it.

[Erol of Backford]

On 3/4/2023 at 7:00 PM, mfbrandi said:

Perhaps he is as mad as his boyfriend.

I thought Elmal/Yelmelio pleaded with Orlanth for a wife and was given one that was not beautiful (for him) but could cook well? I suppose the gods could make themselves appear as they wished so why wouldn't they all not be beautiful in their own mind's eye. Furthering that couldn't Elmal have his wife appear as he wished if only to him and his wife the same?

What was his wife's name? 

5 hours ago, g33k said:

While I'm on that thought, one other deviation I have is that the Gold Wheel Dancers were the gender-reversed aspects of Yelm and the solar pantheon. Worship was suppressed in the first age and never recovered. However, the ruined temples are out there, waiting for some unlucky players to come along and have to tell Dara Hrappa that they've been wrong for the last thousand years...

Adding to the Sun Wheel Ruin Thread... thanks for the thoughts.

Edited March 6, 2023 by Erol of Backford

[John Biles]

2 hours ago, Erol of Backford said:

I thought Elmal/Yelmelio pleaded with Orlanth for a wife and was given one that was not beautiful (for him) but could cook well? I suppose the gods could make themselves appear as they wished so why wouldn't they all not be beautiful in their own mind's eye. Furthering that couldn't Elmal have his wife appear as he wished if only to him and his wife the same?

What was his wife's name? 

Elmal married Redalda, Goddess of Horses, in the Foreigner's Wedding.

However, he and Heler also have a rivalry over the hand of Esrola, who they both want.

 

[mfbrandi]

10 hours ago, Erol of Backford said:

one that was not beautiful (for him) but could cook well? … What was his wife's name? 

Zorak Zoran. Yelmalio cannot cook — no fire powers — but Uncle ZZ doesn’t have that problem and is quite the whizz in the kitchen.

10 hours ago, Erol of Backford said:

I suppose the gods could make themselves appear as they wished so why wouldn't they all not be beautiful in their own mind's eye.

Surely, ZZ — from his own POV — is always ugly from his burn scars. He can hide them from us, but not from himself.

[Karlak One-eye]

On 3/2/2023 at 11:05 PM, g33k said:

In my Glorantha, the Bolo-Lizard tribe is extremely variant from canon.

IMG, baby brontosauruses are bipedal and almost indistinguishable from BL's, becoming fully-quadrupedal as they grow.  Bolo clans move with Bronto herds.  They actually set up camps on the backs of the thunder-lizards, rigging family-sized pannier "huts," platforms, and howdah's.  Ropes, rope-ladders, and nets are all used to climb about the Bronto as they ride.  Lookouts climb brontos' necks to perch atop the heads.  They train young riders on the backs of the baby brontos, graduating to BL's as they approach adulthood.  The intermixing of BL's & riders with young bronto's & trainees means it can be really tough for outsiders to figure out the number of warriors.

Before he can become a Khan, a BL brave must make a pilgrimage to Shaker Temple, and gain the blessing of the High Priestess there.  Maran Gor priestesses are -- if not common -- far from unknown among the BL Tribe.  The cult (and its rune magic) is otherwise incredibly rare in Prax.

Bolo Lizards themselves have two color-schemes; one, a dappled/mottled hide that can be almost indistinguishable from the rocky outcroppings scattered across Prax & the Wastes (if they curl up so as to hide or distort a few characteristic BL shapes, they're really, REALLY hard to tell from a rock).  The other is a sandy/pebbled hide that looks much like the bare dunes, also hard to spot as anything but a wind-carved drift of sand.  BL riders make cloaks &c from BL hides, and benefit similarly.  More than one unwary "pursuer" has wandered haplessly into the very center of a BL ambush set up in "open" ground.  They are the premier ambushers of Prax (barring the Morokanth's advantages at night, and on the rare occasions there's water to hide in).
 

This is brilliant. Thanks for sharing. I may well steal it 😄. 

[Erol of Backford]

On 3/2/2023 at 5:05 PM, g33k said:

Bolo-Lizard

How fast do you have them moving, sprint versus extended trot?

Also in Sandheart https://www.drivethrurpg.com/browse.php?keywords=sandheart there is a chariot driven by lizards, we didn't game this but the whole series (I have all four in nice hard cover - thank you) is on our list after River of Cradles is run through.

Curious how charriots would be in Prax or anywhere for that matter that wasn't a slat flat...

[Erol of Backford]

On 3/2/2023 at 5:05 PM, g33k said:

BL riders make cloaks &c from BL hides, and benefit similarly.  More than one unwary "pursuer" has wandered haplessly into the very center of a BL ambush set up in "open" ground.  They are the premier ambushers of Prax (barring the Morokanth's advantages at night, and on the rare occasions there's water to hide in).

This is great stuff g33k, we'll pirate as well.

[g33k]

2 hours ago, Erol of Backford said:

...

Curious how charriots would be in Prax or anywhere for that matter that wasn't a slat flat...

I've seen some pretty convincing arguments that period-accurate chariots wouldn't fare well in Prax... not that there's none, but that they'd have to be rare, and limited.

I set those aside -- Rule of Cool, or Chaosium's own "MGF" -- of course there are chariots in Prax!!!

Crunchy-simulationist me overcomes those "convincing arguments" by applying some handwavium, as follows:

First, there's a whole "Chariot" rules-section, including art.  So chariots are there in the core rulebook (including Sable-drawn chariots... maybe Lunar, but I'm going with Prax (or at least "also Prax")).

Second, there's a Chariot-using god (or spirit) in Prax, going all the way back to Nomad Gods -- Ronance rides a chariot:  https://wellofdaliath.chaosium.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/EARTH_RONANCE.png  ...  In a myth-forward world like Glorantha, we're done.

Third -- because crunchy-simulationist me can be an anal-retentive PITA sometimes, and isn't "done" -- there's the herdman-drawn racing-chariot of the Morokanth chief, in the Borderlands campaign.

Fourth, we can invent some light/springy materials for chariots -- a relatively common bush in Prax, wholly-invented for this purpose -- and make chariots more wicker(ish) and less wood-slat, flexing vs the battering they'd get in the rough Praxian terrain.

Fifth, we can have them be disposable, rather than durable; something like shields.  A tribe in my Prax will usually have various pieces of wickerwork in various states of completion, and a constant stream of new chariots as the old ones break down and get discarded.  More disposable, I guess I should say:  RW-historic chariots weren't exactly durable!

Finally:  magic.  There aren't any chariot-specific spells in the RBoM, but IMG they exist; and they paper over whatever remaining gaps my anal-retentive crunchy-simulationist PITA self tries to point out.

(n.b. for my vision of the Bolo Lizard tribe, chariots are of minimal use.  Heavy transport happens via bronto, and it's just not as easy to hide a whole chariot when you want to escape or ambush or what-have-you... )

Edited March 7, 2023 by g33k
fixed RBoM ref.

[Bill the barbarian]

On 3/2/2023 at 4:05 PM, g33k said:

brontosauruses

What's a brontosaur... mistuh g33k, huh, what's a brontosaur?

[Erol of Backford]

On 3/4/2023 at 2:16 AM, Joerg said:

Then what about elementals? They are spirits, but have bodies.

Only when summoned? Then they possess elements like a spirit would be bound in an object or to a place no?

[Erol of Backford]

On 3/2/2023 at 5:05 PM, g33k said:

baby brontosauruses are bipedal and almost indistinguishable from BL's, becoming fully-quadrupedal as they grow.  Bolo clans move with Bronto herds.

Are there lavender fields in Prax? Almost like a Darkwalk Spell, blend-in is total... honestly I do like the cloak idea and the encampments on the large creatures, kind of like Peterson's Campaign with the giant wagons in Pamelta?

 

Edited March 7, 2023 by Erol of Backford

[Yēlm-ašarēd]

I generally cleave closely to established canon, even with things I don't really like (such as ducks), but my Glorantha varies in some notable ways. Notable enough that it would've been a text wall to post it all here, so I'll just post some of my brief ideas and expand from there if anyone's interested in them:

 

When referring to the Red Emperor or the Red Goddess, it is right and proper to turn in the direction of the Red Moon and bow if you can see it.

Dara Happan nobles that act unlike Yelm too often or for too long accrue spiritual impurities that they must purify through a ritual bath. They likewise accrue these impurities when they associate too much with barbarians, their inferiors, and impure tradesmen like actors, prostitutes, miners, and so on.

Dara Happan nobles have five names, while peasants have three. Nobles also try to time their births to be on the holy days of Yelm, the Red Goddess, or another household patron god. Peasants don't often have the luxury for this sort of planning, but some of them try to do it anyway.

Pelorian nobles, generals, and kings have victory stelae built whenever they defeat an enemy. This usually emphasizes the importance of the gods in winning this battle, the absolute victory gained, and the moral and spiritual supremacy of the victors. Ashurbanipal's victory inscriptions are a good starting point for what I think a Pelorian stele would read like.

Alkothi Demon-men are descended, at least in part, from demons. These marriages happened so long ago that they have lost their powers and are simply men with great size and physical strength. Heroquests can restore some of them to the power of their distant ancestors.

Many Genertelan cultures practice reciprocal gift-giving. Orlanthi exchange arm rings, Dara Happans jewelry, Esrolians necklaces, so on and so forth. A gift must be matched with a gift of equivalent or similar value; a bejeweled spear worth 150 L must be met with a gift of around 150 L. If your gift is worth more than the one you received, it's perceived as lording your wealth over the first gift-giver; if it's worth much less, you'll be seen as greedy, poor, or insulting. It's considered in poor taste to give these gifts without advance warning, and they're given during certain feasts, meetings, ceremonies and holy days.

Lunars practice an equivalent to Saturnalia where gifts worth not more than a few coins are exchanged, people drink alcohol in profuse amounts, and all social status is temporarily forgotten for a single day. Nobles mingle with commoners and everyone's worries disappear.

Many war cults in Genertela bring out special idols of their gods and place them on chariots pulled by horses, sable antelopes, bison, or other animals to bring good fortune to the battlefield.

People leave out offerings to local spirits to appease them. Usually this is leftover food, but more affluent or prosperous households prepare meals for these spirits.

Bad luck can be warded off using hand gestures.

In Kralorela, you must turn and bow toward the direction of the Emperor's palace when you speak of him. You must also avoid speaking his name and use titles such as 'His Majesty the Emperor', 'the Reigning Emperor', and 'Emperor of the Earth', among others.

Kralorelan messengers sent by the Emperor speak with his authority, and all assembled before him must perform proskynesis as he reads the Emperor's message. In a military setting, you only need to kneel and bow your head. The messenger must always position himself so that those who hear him must bow toward the Emperor's palace.

Orlanthi hate the practice of proskynesis and decry it as Yelmic tyranny. Orlanthi displays of submission are less ostentatious and demeaning.

Orlanthi play games analogous to Brennball and other sports; these have rules that vary from place to place and are rarely formalized. Pelorians have formal ball games, while Pelorian nobles prefer board games similar to the Royal Game of Ur, Senet, Hounds and Jackals, and others.

There is a board game called 'Ram and Sun' that is similar to hnefatafl. It's played in Orlanthi societies and is a particular favorite of Lhankor Mhy scholars.

[Erol of Backford]

45 minutes ago, Yēlm-ašarēd said:

In Kralorela, you must turn and bow toward the direction of the Emperor's palace when you speak of him. You must also avoid speaking his name and use titles such as 'His Majesty the Emperor', 'the Reigning Emperor', and 'Emperor of the Earth', among others.

I like this as it would have any PC's from Kralorela speaking in some foreign tongue and arousing suspicions as to that PC's motives... mumbling under their breath, insulting those near them indirectly, the typical xenophobia which the Orlanthi and especially the Yelmelians would surely cry foul if anyone suggested they were so...