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Axe Hall


Erol of Backford

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1 minute ago, Malin said:

semi-heroquest to get epically laid and his group of friends who have all bet

Will add for sure. Maybe it's Argrath!

2 minutes ago, Malin said:

procession carrying the body and axe of a fallen famous Axe Maiden

This will take some effort to make it worthy for game entry, might be the toughest encounter to detail, maybe the PC's knew or were protagonists somehow, died at Runegate and PC's are somehow honor gurad?

2 minutes ago, Malin said:

lone axe embedded in an obsidian cliff

This has all sorts of potential... A fossilized piece of Law in a lava flow from ages past, maybe adamantium? Might be any adamantium weapon, the trouble is getting to it with Trolls and Axe Maidens all over the place... I love this one.

Several others will be added to the list. Good stuff!

 

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4 minutes ago, Erol of Backford said:

Might be any adamantium weapon,

a good idea, and if they learn what is in the obsidian before seeing it, it could better

fighting, suffering, sacrificing any runepool, breaking their weapons, seeing their friends deaths but finally winning. Then they (if several are still alive after this epiv fight) open the piece and see a huge and wonderful weapon in adamantium. So powerful that they could be like a god.

Spoiler

If they are able to wear a 3 long meters sword with an ENC of 150 😉

 

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3 hours ago, Malin said:

A group on a chaos heroquest to kick Babs ass gone wrong, who escaped out into reality at possibly the worst place for it to happen and is trying to get off the plateau before anybody realizes what they are.

I love this one. It does cry out for the players to be the Chaos heroquesters, of course. No fun otherwise.

3 hours ago, Malin said:

maybe the players have to divert to keep these hapless women alive and get there

Keep the PC count very small and have it play out like Picnic on Paradise? Add to the hapless women some beyond useless trophy husbands who cannot even find their own arses, never mind wipe them?

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NOTORIOUS VØID CULTIST

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On 11/12/2023 at 12:51 AM, Erol of Backford said:

never heard of Ms. Russ!

One of the truly great writers in my not-at-all-important opinion. I only heard of her because Moorcock dropped her name back when I was a teenager. Luckily for me most of her stuff came back into print in paperback in the 1980s thanks to the Women’s Press SF line. Sadly, mostly known in academia and by other writers — Michael Swanwick said she kept everyone else up to the mark — I sometimes fear.

Not a lot of it is directly applicable to Glorantha, of course. Alyx has some sword & sorcery. Extra(ordinary) People has Vikings. And Chaos Died is psychedelic and gets its title from a great quote from Arthur Waley’s translation of Zhuangzi:

  • The eye is a menace to clear sight, the ear is a menace to subtle hearing, the mind is a menace to wisdom, every organ of the senses is a menace to its own capacity … Fuss, the god of the Southern Ocean, and Fret, the god of the Northern Ocean, happened to meet once in the realm of Chaos, the god of the centre. Chaos treated them very handsomely and they discussed together what they could do to repay his kindness. They had noticed that, whereas everyone else had seven apertures, for sight, hearing, eating, breathing, and so on, Chaos had none. So they decided to make the experiment of boring holes in him. Every day they bored a hole, and on the seventh day, Chaos died.

I can see peace-loving Nysalor riddlers and White Moonies telling that story — possibly against the Empire, but doubtless they would find other uses for it, too.

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3 hours ago, mfbrandi said:

One of the truly great writers

I wonder if and how she may have met or influenced:

Robert Asprin, Poul Anderson, John Brunner, Andrew Offutt, C. J. Cherryh, Janet Morris, and Chris Morris... Ms. Russ.

Did these authors show up at the early Gen Con's and sign books, etc. the mystery of the early 80's gaming scene, staying up all night to finish an adventure just as the sun came up... being torn between going to a keg party or gaming... the hard choices of life. I looked at the cover of Thieves' World a good bit in those days.

Nothing to do with Axe Hall besides maybe there is a historian from Nochet who is looking to memorialize the life of the recent "Axe Mother" who is going to retire... sounds like Name of the Wind...

Who would best fit the picture of Axe Mother... atop the Shadow Plateau?

Who from the Nochet Library would be there to write her life's history? (since we are discussing authors...)

Had not seen this picture until today...

image.png.c43ad5efeedc1720632eb095dc6f19db.png image.png.e71540e4c1b37521a2158fe25e14c6d5.png

Edited by Erol of Backford
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On 11/14/2023 at 12:59 AM, Erol of Backford said:

I wonder if and how she may have met or influenced … Poul Anderson

Short answer: it is complicated.

Spoiler

Anderson was about ten years older than Russ, so likely she was not an influence on him but he reportedly called Picnic on Paradiseextraordinary.” But on the other hand:

  • Russ’s work was attacked as an exercise in angry man-hating
    by male SF writers like Poul Anderson and Philip K.Dick
    Noah Berlatsky

     
  • [T]he account of Philip K. Dick defending “Joanna's anger” to Poul Anderson is … bemusing.
    L. Timmel Duchamp

Russ used to write book reviews; my memory of reading them is that she thought PA was sometimes very, very good (Three Hearts and Three Lions, I guess) and could write rings around Anne McCaffery (more an attack on AM), but she wasn’t uncritical.

———————————————————————————————
The whole Anderson/Dick kerfuffle played out in Vertex magazine:

  • Russ: “The Image of Women in Science Fiction” (vol. 1, no. 6 — Feb. 1974)
  • Anderson: “Reply to a Lady” (vol 2, no. 2 — June 1974)
  • Dick: “An Open Letter from Philip K. Dick” (vol. 2, no. 4 — October 1974)
Edited by mfbrandi
added footnote with references
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NOTORIOUS VØID CULTIST

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38 minutes ago, mfbrandi said:

Russ’s work was attacked as an exercise in angry man-hating
by male SF writers like Poul Anderson and Philip K.Dick

So as normal when women are seen as uppity in a misogynistic society... if the writing is good and appeals to you it shouldn't matter who wrote it or what the review says...

Thank you for the information Mr. Brandi.

Still curious as to Amazons being good Axe Maidens... I bet there are female troll Babeester Gor members?

What about female Dwarves? Are there any, always a question and of course do they have beards?

Female Duck Babeester Gor members....

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11 hours ago, Erol of Backford said:

Still curious as to … good Axe Maidens

How about giant slarges? All female. Don’t mate. As reptiles, they might have an affinity for :20-element-earth:. Everybody loves a scaly 8' axe maiden, right? I have a feeling that Pamaltela might lack a Babeester Gor equivalent — if there was no winter/earth death, no birth of Babs from “dead” Ernalda–Faranar? — but they are individualistic and surely some would travel in search of exotic religious kicks.°

I guess I like the idea of a reptilian axe maiden as she would be no more “unfeminine” than a “normal” giant slarge, from a human POV.

Spoiler

Lesser slarges are the sexual forms, and resemble five-foot tall bipedal lizards, with a scaly greenish skin, claws and sharp teeth. They mate, and lay eggs which later hatch to release infant giant slarges. As adults, giant slarges are around eight feet in height but otherwise similar in appearance to their parents. Giant slarges are all parthenogenetic females, which lay eggs that give birth to the next generation of lesser slarges. — Well of Daliath: Elder Races of Pamaltela

———————————————————
° In contrast, Maran Gor–Famorde seems easy — and the dinosaur fetish will be BAU. Yes, I think slarges in these earth cults is unlikely to be canon, but that is OK.

NOTORIOUS VØID CULTIST

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  • 2 months later...
29 minutes ago, Erol of Backford said:

David Scott: Camels seem to exist only on the Shadow Plateau (Can't remember the source).

I wonder whether that comes from the Al-Hazara caravanserai in the City of Carse which had images of camels being loaded. The other source for the existence of camels in Glorantha is the Trickster story about Mother Mammal being surprised so badly that the child became the camel. I wonder whether the (originally northern Keshian) Al-Hazaras became Kitori in the Chaosium House Campaign adaptation of Carse - in my adaptation I made them Etyries-worshipping Sable Riders from Kostaddi, and unless a City of Karse supplement by Chaosium is going to provide similar detail, a lot of the Midkemia Press NPCs I involved in my adaptation are going to transmigrate to the new city layout without too much change.

Telling how it is excessive verbis

 

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36 minutes ago, Joerg said:

became Kitori in the Chaosium House

The Kitori certainly predate the use of Midkemia Press' Carse work.

44 minutes ago, Joerg said:

The other source for the existence of camels in Glorantha is the Trickster story about Mother Mammal being surprised so badly that the child became the camel.

That's the only reference I recall.

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42 minutes ago, Erol of Backford said:

For trolls it'd be beetles and other giant insects …
I am not liking camels on the Plateau so will leave that out

I am sure it was a scribal error. They meant camel spiders (which are neither camels nor spiders, but could certainly be giant “bugs”). There was a Mongoose era RQ write-up, but I haven’t seen it. They are desert creatures, but they like the shadows, hence their name. (No, not that name, the other one.) Your search for camels also inspired this woefully non-canonical farrago.

🎼 Run for the shadows in these golden years 🎶

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NOTORIOUS VØID CULTIST

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2 hours ago, mfbrandi said:

but could certainly be giant “bugs”

From Into the Troll Realms book p.26, there are a bunch of good giant insects and spiders,  lynx, wolf and everyone's favorite, the tarantula... poison POT 42!? I had to look a second time... also the preying mantis' on p.08 are no slouches either.

Bugs are best.

Signs & Portents 52 (2008) RuneQuest: Camel Spiders A one-page creature feature dedicated to the wailing arachnids of the desert.

So now I have another rabbit hole to run down... Signs & Portents and all the RQ stuff therein... good bad and non-canon.

Edited by Erol of Backford
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  • 2 months later...

Anyone have insight as to a potential relationship between Axe Hall and the Nochet Axe Temple? Do they send weekly caravans and or change guards monthly and is there a changing of the guard ceremony like at the B Palace?

Does each earth temple request guards from Axe Hall or do they recruit and train their own guards?

Who wants to be on guard duty when you could be out tearing up the town...

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