Are there any volcanoes in Pent or Prax ?

[Agentorange]

What it says on the tin really. But also not just volcanoes per se , but also fumeroles, hot springs, geysers, tarpits, dormant volcanoes....

[David Scott]

Than-Ulbar and the Valley of Pinnacles in the Wastesare an old volcanoes (you can see the crater rim in the AAA or Guide maps). There are no other I know of specifically (I did work on this section of the Guide). Just add them where you need.

[jajagappa]

34 minutes ago, Agentorange said:

What it says on the tin really. But also not just volcanoes per se , but also fumeroles, hot springs, geysers, tarpits, dormant volcanoes....

I suspect you'd find some fumaroles, hot springs, or geysers as you get close to the Hell Crack. 

[metcalph]

1 hour ago, Agentorange said:

What it says on the tin really. But also not just volcanoes per se , but also fumeroles, hot springs, geysers, tarpits, dormant volcanoes....

In Pent is the Hot Lake, a large inland sea, which probably is caused by volcanic activity.  But geological activity in Pent is more like lands of the dead bubbling up from the Underworld (like Senbar) than vulcanism.

[Nick Brooke]

Moonbroth is a dormant volcano. Very, very dormant. Honest!

[Agentorange]

Here's the thing - where does the heat come from ?   On earth it's molten lava, magma whatever  drill straight down and you hit molten rock and the earths superheated core. Go straight down in Glorantha and ytou hit the underworld, hell etc. Which since Yelm is no longer down there is presumably as cold as it ever was. so where does all the volcanic acivity come from then ?

 

[Richard S.]

4 minutes ago, Agentorange said:

Here's the thing - where does the heat come from ?   On earth it's molten lava, magma whatever  drill straight down and you hit molten rock and the earths superheated core. Go straight down in Glorantha and ytou hit the underworld, hell etc. Which since Yelm is no longer down there is presumably as cold as it ever was. so where does all the volcanic acivity come from then ?

Lodril is the volcano god, who brought fire from the sky to under the earth. Neither Yelm nor the underworld have anything to do with it.

[Agentorange]

1 hour ago, Richard S. said:

Lodril is the volcano god, who brought fire from the sky to under the earth. Neither Yelm nor the underworld have anything to do with it.

Sorry, yes Lodril -  what can i say it's late I'm tired. But my question still stands though.

[metcalph]

2 hours ago, Agentorange said:

Here's the thing - where does the heat come from ?   On earth it's molten lava, magma whatever  drill straight down and you hit molten rock and the earths superheated core. Go straight down in Glorantha and ytou hit the underworld, hell etc. Which since Yelm is no longer down there is presumably as cold as it ever was. so where does all the volcanic acivity come from then ?

 

Lodril lies between the surface world and the underworld (some apocryphal material has called this Earth world) and volcanic regions are places where he hasn't burned himself out. 

[jajagappa]

3 hours ago, Agentorange said:

Here's the thing - where does the heat come from ?

Chained or entombed demons. Children of Lodril. Dwarf furnaces. Dream dragons (or unknown True Dragons). Buried stars/star captains that fell when Night conquered the Sky.

[Tindalos]

Another potential source of "Lodrilism" could be the Eiritha Hills themselves. In times of great danger, the goddess' rest may be fitful, and the hills rumble as she stirs. She also provides the highly fertile mud that nourishes the land.

Spoiler

And if you look at the Ginmuz Mountains, they show a similar directional pattern to the Nine Good Giants, Indigo Mountains, and possibly even the Roundlake Mountains, potential volcanic hotspots that cause new volcanic mountains to rise as the continents drift as mentioned in the guide.

 

[Agentorange]

On 3/28/2023 at 12:23 AM, metcalph said:

Lodril lies between the surface world and the underworld (some apocryphal material has called this Earth world) and volcanic regions are places where he hasn't burned himself out. 

i could go for that.

this is i think an example of importing real physics into Glorantha because itd be cool ( well, as cool as really hot things get i guess ) - volcano gods ! spears shooting lava ! without really working through the implications of why those things work in the real world, and won't work in a square lozenge which is hollow underneath and then having to retrofit the mythology to make it work. But I like Metcalphs explanation and that's how my glorantha is going work.

[Richard S.]

Why would they have considered how they work in the real world? Our own physics have never applied to anything in Glorantha, it just happens to have similar phenomena, though they occur for entirely different reasons.

[Agentorange]

1 hour ago, Richard S. said:

Why would they have considered how they work in the real world? Our own physics have never applied to anything in Glorantha, it just happens to have similar phenomena, though they occur for entirely different reasons.

Our own physics apply all the time:  if people fall off stuff they fall downwards and if they fall a long way they squish - there's rules for it. If people stay underwater they drown it's in the rules, the seas are salty, fire is hot and burns, snow is cold, gravity works people don't just float off into the air. Skills such as Treat Disease are a clear holdover from bacterial/viral models of infection - you can't "treat" a spirit. Rivers run downhill ( mostly ) if you go into the hot  desert/wastes you dehydrate and die of thirst - there's rules for it

see what I mean ?

[Kloster]

13 hours ago, Agentorange said:

Our own physics apply all the time:  if people fall off stuff they fall downwards and if they fall a long way they squish - there's rules for it. If people stay underwater they drown it's in the rules, the seas are salty, fire is hot and burns, snow is cold, gravity works people don't just float off into the air. Skills such as Treat Disease are a clear holdover from bacterial/viral models of infection - you can't "treat" a spirit. Rivers run downhill ( mostly ) if you go into the hot  desert/wastes you dehydrate and die of thirst - there's rules for it

see what I mean ?

Yes, the reasons behind (the rationale) is different, but most of the world physics are identical.

[mfbrandi]

19 hours ago, Richard S. said:

Our own physics have never applied to anything in Glorantha

17 hours ago, Agentorange said:

Our own physics apply all the time

I love this.

However, given that an RPG has a “thicker” world than a wargame or chess — where the game rules practically exhaust the world — I would cast my vote for real-world physics (RWP) applying as much as possible. Where there is not some bit of game machinery which contradicts RWP — in which case lean into the game mechanics — let real-world reasoning apply. Isn’t that better for player agency than citing bits of “lore” without easily calculated implications?

That said, I also have a soft spot for “whatever the table can be convinced of before the dice are rolled, that is how it is (but it might be different next time, if someone talks us round).” Some might want to reserve that kind of thing for heroquests and similar psychonautics. YGWV.

[Richard S.]

I think two different definitions of "physics" are being discussed here. Effects of physics like falling, drowning, pressure, etc. all exist in Glorantha, I'm not trying to deny that; what I meant was that the reasoning behind those effects is different. Gravity, for example, isn't an effect of masses pulling at each other, but instead the Earth trying to pull everything to itself out of love/greed/hunger/insertreasonhere (we haven't gotten a single universal gravity myth, but there was a local one in HQ1 to that effect). Volcanoes, likewise, are the direct result of a god's actions instead of merely the result of preexisting magma being pressurized until it erupts (of course the Malkioni explanation might sound something like the latter, though still more "magical").

[soltakss]

1 hour ago, mfbrandi said:

21 hours ago, Richard S. said:

Our own physics have never applied to anything in Glorantha

19 hours ago, Agentorange said:

Our own physics apply all the time

I love this.

So do I.

In my Glorantha, real world physics still apply but not for the same reason as the real world. They just work. So everything works just like it does here. There is no need to look further, or to investigate why, because they just do.

Other realities may vary, of course.

 

[Darius West]

On 3/28/2023 at 3:22 AM, David Scott said:

Than-Ulbar and the Valley of Pinnacles in the Wastesare an old volcanoes (you can see the crater rim in the AAA or Guide maps). There are no other I know of specifically (I did work on this section of the Guide). Just add them where you need.

Don't tell me the old volcano was decapitated somehow? I mean clearly the dome was removed... 😅

[Rodney Dangerduck]

On 3/30/2023 at 9:12 AM, Richard S. said:

Gravity, for example, isn't an effect of masses pulling at each other, but instead the Earth trying to pull everything to itself out of love/greed/hunger/insertreasonhere (we haven't gotten a single universal gravity myth, but there was a local one in HQ1 to that effect).

Given that the Earth Rune is not noted as being greedy or hungry (that's Darkness), nor is there any gravity myth at all (at least, that I've heard of in 40+ years, tell me more of it if there is one, citing a source!) it's clear to me that the whole "No Physics in Glorantha" argument is baseless hogswallop.  Don't think I've ever used that word - feels good!

[mfbrandi]

5 hours ago, Rodney Dangerduck said:

Given that the Earth Rune is not noted as being greedy or hungry (that's Darkness), nor is there any gravity myth at all … it's clear to me that the whole "No Physics in Glorantha" argument is baseless

Quote

Ah, but the Underworld is dark and the land of the dead. Below the Earth’s sickly green surface, Death and Darkness are ever pulling us down to our ultimate fate; if it weren’t for the decay brought by Mallia and Mee Vorala, the dead would in time sink whole into the ground, but as it is, the humans bury them before they are touched by corruption or our teeth — thence Swems conveys them piecemeal to the hungrier mouths below. Even the swift, the Light gone from its eyes, is plucked from the Air by Death and falls down, as everything must. That, my little enlo — my delicious snackling — is the tale of gravity, for Death is a weighty matter indeed. Tomorrow, I shall tell you of how the womb is a grave, a tale our people know better than any other. — Auntie Umbar’s Bedtime Stories

That said, of course Glorantha has physics, chemistry, and all the other subject matter of the natural sciences. That won’t stop the Gloranthans telling stories, nor should it. But when their stories usurp the place of science, we get game designers Godlearnerism, and Arachne whispers to me that even the gods — grumpily trapped in their 148-page splatbooks storybooks — think that that is taking myth too literally.

[Jeff]

On 3/27/2023 at 2:25 PM, Agentorange said:

Here's the thing - where does the heat come from ?   On earth it's molten lava, magma whatever  drill straight down and you hit molten rock and the earths superheated core. Go straight down in Glorantha and ytou hit the underworld, hell etc. Which since Yelm is no longer down there is presumably as cold as it ever was. so where does all the volcanic acivity come from then ?

 

The heat comes from Lodril, the Fire Within the Earth. Where Lodril is present, there will be heat within the Earth. When Lodril is summoned, he comes in a great explosion of heat and fiery rock.

Although most material phenomena in Glorantha appear similar to our world - things fall towards the Earth, we need to breathe air to live, if you smelt tin and copper you get bronze, etc. - they don't have the same reasons as on our world. And in many cases, trying to apply our physics to understand Glorantha is just a mistake. The world IS flat, the sky IS a dome, the Red Moon just hovers in place, etc. 

Might as well ask what is the physics that apply to when I fly in a dream.

[g33k]

On 3/30/2023 at 8:59 AM, mfbrandi said:

... let real-world reasoning apply. Isn’t that better for player agency than citing bits of “lore” without easily calculated implications?

Equally so -- in fact, I will assert it's more-often so -- you may discover that importing "Real-World Physics" into Your Glorantha has its own not-easily-calculated implications.

The thing about RWP, for me, is its cohesive wholeness -- each part isn't a separate "part" but a seamless bit of a whole.  Carve it out and insert it into Glorantha, and you risk ending up with a Frankencosmology of ill-matched pieces.

As always, YGWV

Rather than make an on-the-spot call, I find it often find it works better to say something like, "you've heard different theories from different sages..." or "that's not a bit of lore you know" or etc.  Then -- if it's important -- I can research it and/or spend time considering whether some known bit of Gloranthan cosmology actually covers the issue.

[Lordabdul]

On 3/27/2023 at 1:25 PM, Agentorange said:

Here's the thing - where does the heat come from ?   On earth it's molten lava, magma whatever  drill straight down and you hit molten rock and the earths superheated core. Go straight down in Glorantha and ytou hit the underworld, hell etc. Which since Yelm is no longer down there is presumably as cold as it ever was. so where does all the volcanic acivity come from then ?

Yelm is down there half the time, I think. That's one of the reasons why the trolls didn't bother going back under after the Dawn: wherever they go, it will be sunny and warm half the time. Orlanth and Yelm completely ruined things for them, and they lost their home.

Anyway, as Jeff says, the heat comes from Lodril, or whatever "underground heat" deity or spirit you want in whatever region of the world you're playing in. Generally speaking, I consider that most things behave in appearance just like they do in our world (otherwise it would be super impractical to play in Glorantha), but I try to make up some vaguely mythical or spiritual shit up whenever I need an explanation (and only then). For instance, I don't know... something random, why do our nails grow all the time? I don't know... errr.... (looks around in panic)... probably some Eurmali trick? When Yelm created the first anthropomorphic beings, he gave them smooth hands to build his nice golden ziggurats, but Eurmal brought forth some sort of contagion that made everybody get nails that scratched every surface and made Yelm's buildings look like shit. Eurmal laughed his ass off, and Yelm tried to get rid of the "nail disease" but it was too late, it was spreading too fast. Now we all have growing nails.

In turn, finding some bullshit explanation like this brings gaming ideas. For instance, rivers flow down to the sea because they help Magasta plug the Chaotic hole left in the middle of Glorantha, and not because of, like, gravity or whatever. That gives the obvious idea that maybe some river naiads don't care about it, and flow upwards. Which is super cool. And now, in the same spirit, maybe I'll have Solar-worshipping people who occasionally give birth to a child with no nails or something. Or some sort of Yelmite ritual scarification that involves pulling out one's nails. Eeuugh.

Edited April 3, 2023 by Lordabdul

[Agentorange]

12 hours ago, Jeff said:

The heat comes from Lodril, the Fire Within the Earth. Where Lodril is present, there will be heat within the Earth. When Lodril is summoned, he comes in a great explosion of heat and fiery rock.

Sounds like a plan to me. Out of curiousity does that work the other way up ? . So if i was in the underworld and magically flew up to the top , or the roof( the bottom of the surface world as it were ..) would I be able to summon Lodril from the other side. if that makes sense.

 

12 hours ago, Jeff said:

Might as well ask what is the physics that apply to when I fly in a dream.

The answer is of course is that a dream is just a dream and so it doesn't matter. Glorantha is of course real and so it does matter 😆