Munchkin Learners

[radmonger]

It's not a really simple work of middle sea empire apologia; it was favorably reviewed in the Jonstown guardian.

it's main thesis is that the caste-bound nature of Jrusteli society meant that the Talars running things never talked to the Zzaburi studying things. For example, the common picture of the great Hashemite King switch is that the god learners intentionally placed a Sunni ruler in charge of a Shia people out of curiosity to see what would happen.

_Ghosts of Empire_ makes heavy use of shamanistic research to support the claim that those making the decision were simply unaware of that distinction.

 

[Erol of Backford]

12 hours ago, mfbrandi said:

Do we get a book report?

It'll take me a year or so as I read several books at a time, mental condition I guess, can't focus... want to equate Lunars to British of the 1750-1850 period but will have to read the book and a few more like it before it could be thought out. Same as saying Romans were like Lunars. Might be fun to discuss at length... much more reading needed before any attempt is made!

HMS Victory for the win?

[mfbrandi]

11 hours ago, radmonger said:

it was favorably reviewed in the Jonstown guardian

For those who are interested:

• Tristram Hunt’s Observer review
• Linda Colley’s Guardian review

This amused me:

• So, with relentless obsession, Kwarteng charts the class and schooling of the great men of empire. Lord Curzon, we are told, finished Eton as captain of the Oppidans, “the senior boy in the school who was not one of the seventy King’s Scholars (who were from less distinguished social backgrounds but were generally academically more able)”.
  — Tristram Hunt

(Kwarteng was himself an Eton King’s Scholar, but that is not to say his self-serving observation is incorrect.)

Public school idiots let off the leash does look like a playable vision of empire.

[radmonger]

Relevant:

https://www.berfrois.com/2021/09/groundnut-scheming/

Albert Walter, who had directed meteorology in East Africa since the 1920s, had been appointed as an advisor to the scheme and warned the other technical advisers of the low rainfall levels. Despite boasts that the scheme was uniquely guided by scientific and technical expertise, Walter was eventually dismissed from his role, with his deep frustration at his advice going unheeded 

...

Of course, if the climate is unsuitable for the desired crops, then to a sufficiently powerful empire, that becomes the climate's problem:

 

But the experiments carried on under the aegis of the local colonial government and its meteorologists. “Balloon bombs” (photographic film canisters tethered to weather balloons) and a repurposed Royal Navy flare gun were used to target individual clouds when the burners proved imprecise. Some success was claimed in measured rainfall, but not enough to resuscitate hopes of mechanized agriculture in the area.

Rare video footage of a sympathetic god learner:

 

 

 

[Erol of Backford]

11 hours ago, mfbrandi said:

(who were from less distinguished social backgrounds but were generally academically more able)

...but not permitted to govern but only assist with administration? Sounds like a somewhat snooty social class structure in play? Dart wars anyone?

11 hours ago, radmonger said:

Of course, if the climate is unsuitable for the desired crops, then to a sufficiently powerful empire, that becomes the climate's problem:

Read Prisoners of Geography last year, was interesting, it more or less calls out Russia looking for a fresh water port, seems like the Lunars no? The Giants trying to secure a river way for their children? Something like China wishing to secure water flow from the mountains?

Broken tribes are not a threat as united ones are... curious why the  Lunars didn't let the Sartarite tribes continue to fight one another at least those away from the trade routes?

I didn't check but looks a bit like Donald Southerland in the video... historical, geopolitical rabbit holes one and all.

Maybe that was the God Learner's Secret? Modify Gloranthian spirituality so they were worshipped ove the gods, similar to the untr rich nowadays, they become to thing that it is by their own nature their divine right?

I am not knowledgeable about the Western Gloranthian history and so would ask, were there attempts to through out the rigid immobile class system at times? it seems like Loskam doesn't follow this IIRC but the other wizards in Glorantha in the West seem to be the Billionaires of the  modern world?

I think this is somewhat incoherent rabble but will post anyway...

Thank you for the links, might rethink getting Ghosts of Empire and get the Romney book!?

Edited October 25, 2023 by Erol of Backford

[John Biles]

3 hours ago, Erol of Backford said:

Broken tribes are not a threat as united ones are... curious why the  Lunars didn't let the Sartarite tribes continue to fight one another at least those away from the trade routes?

 

I am not knowledgeable about the Western Gloranthian history and so would ask, were there attempts to through out the rigid immobile class system at times? it seems like Loskam doesn't follow this IIRC but the other wizards in Glorantha in the West seem to be the Billionaires of the  modern world?

Because one of the great strengths of the Lunar Empire is that they generally don't allow any part of the empire to be in a constant state of anarchy.

Throw out the class system and you lose access to the magical benefits of your strain of Malkionism.

 

[mfbrandi]

13 hours ago, Erol of Backford said:

Thank you for the links, might rethink getting Ghosts of Empire

Don’t let me put you off. Trust your own judgement. It is not as if I have even read the thing! I am sure he has his axes to grind, but don’t we all?

I seem to remember hearing a biographical sketch of old KK — before his infamous budget — and IIRC correctly, people who met him were impressed by his intelligence. But if you come to think you are always the smartest guy in the room, things may not end well. 😉

[Erol of Backford]

23 hours ago, John Biles said:

Throw out the class system and you lose access to the magical benefits of your strain of Malkionism.

Eat the wizards! Why not let the masses learn sorcery?

[John Biles]

38 minutes ago, Erol of Backford said:

Eat the wizards! Why not let the masses learn sorcery?

Originally, the answer was 'because they will break caste, lose their immortality, and swiftly die'

Today, it's more on the lines with 'Learniing magic is very hard and the rest of society will butcher you first and many of you will cause disasters because you are trying to do experiments with nuclear reactors when you never finished high school.'

 

[Erol of Backford]

On 10/26/2023 at 8:00 PM, John Biles said:

when you never finished high school

The tragedy of modern times is lack of education for the masses. How many Gloranthians have a read/write skill about 50%?

When I look at the RQ3 income table a typical lessor crafter and landed peasants make about 4 Lunars a day or 1440 an earth year... 

When I look at the cost to stay in the Bouncing Buffalo room and board for a day would be between 5-8 Lunars...

What is the standard of living for the majority of Gloranthians? Likely 2 lunares a day?

You'd think there would be more uprisings in Glorantha where quality of life has a huge differential?

[Joerg]

1 hour ago, Erol of Backford said:

The tragedy of modern times is lack of education for the masses. How many Gloranthians have a read/write skill about 50%?

Only few lay members of Lhankor Mhy will reach that level of literacy, although some cults like Argan Argar have a surprisingly high literacy requirement for their initiates. In Loskalm, the Guardians will start literacy training if they did not already bring this in from their previous life-paths, providing an unusually broad distribution of literacy.

Most initiates of LM, Buserian, Irrippi Ontor, all Zzabur caste members and most Talar caste members as well as all Man-of-All candidates in Malkioni society and a fairly high number of Eastern citizens will have good levels of literacy and possibly literature.

 

1 hour ago, Erol of Backford said:

When I look at the RQ3 income table a typical lessor crafter and landed peasants make about 4 Lunars a day or 1440 an earth year... 

When I look at the cost to stay in the Bouncing Buffalo room and board for a day would be between 5-8 Lunars...

For such considerations, I would advise you to use rather the Weapons&Equipment Guide prices than the Alternate Earth silver pennies used by RQ3. I pretty much doubt that a lessor crafter earns the equivalent of a milk cow in a week when we have a free farmer household's disposable annual income set at 80 Lunars a year.

But then, the RQG rules seem to have the explicit goal to bankrupt the player characters to bring them into financial indenture, much like the US college loan system.

 

1 hour ago, Erol of Backford said:

What is the standard of living for the majority of Gloranthians? Likely 2 lunares a day?

80 Lunars a year for a free household (a community of 8-12 people), with a lot of day-to-day expenses like housing or basic food covered by the clan as basic stipend bought with your taxes and your communal work.

 

1 hour ago, Erol of Backford said:

You'd think there would be more uprisings in Glorantha where quality of life has a huge differential?

That's somewhat contrary to the Bronze Age mindset where equipping your community leaders with luxuries also increases the status of their lowliest followers by participation in their ostentation.

A mindset not alien to e.g. football fans delighting in the high contractual pay for their favorite players even if they have to struggle to afford a ticket for their home club.

[Erol of Backford]

48 minutes ago, Joerg said:

Only few lay members of Lhankor Mhy will reach that level of literacy

So what % of sartarites are able to write and of them on average at what skill level?

50 minutes ago, Joerg said:

I pretty much doubt that a lessor crafter earns the equivalent of a milk cow in a week when we have a free farmer household's disposable annual income set at 80 Lunars a year.

In RQ3 the rural cow is 200 lunars and in the city 500 and so puts in in a better light.

51 minutes ago, Joerg said:

A mindset not alien to e.g. football fans delighting in the high contractual pay for their favorite players even if they have to struggle to afford a ticket for their home club.

Yes, same for a large number of Americans for pro sports. When a can of beer at a baseball game is over $10 a sporting event can add up to be quite costly. Buy a jersey, the tickets and a few drinks and some food... $$$.

 

[mfbrandi]

1 hour ago, Joerg said:

But then, the RQG rules seem to have the explicit goal to bankrupt the player characters to bring them into financial indenture, much like the US college loan system.

It is the Traveller/Trophy Gold call to adventure.

[jajagappa]

3 hours ago, Erol of Backford said:

When I look at the RQ3 income table a typical lessor crafter and landed peasants make about 4 Lunars a day or 1440 an earth year... 

When I look at the cost to stay in the Bouncing Buffalo room and board for a day would be between 5-8 Lunars...

For RQ prices you have to be very careful which edition you're dealing with. 

It's easiest to work with RQG + the Weapons & Equipment book as those incomes and prices are in line. In RQG terms, a free crafter earns 60-80L per year. Typical cost per day at an inn for a shared room is 2L, for a private room is 5L. And a full midday meal is 6C. Of course, most people don't live at inns, but as part of their community, and grants for the right to live in a particular building will be made by the clan chief or temple priestess with the expectation that the tenant will likely maintain it.

The RQ2 prices, as with the Bouncing Buffalo, may not be too far off those of RQG for basics. (But get really gross scaling for treasure and plunder.)

RQ3 will be another thing entirely and you'll need to recalculate anything in RQ2 books.

 

[John Biles]

5 hours ago, Erol of Backford said:

You'd think there would be more uprisings in Glorantha where quality of life has a huge differential?

The sum of oppression + apparent weakness of  a regime has to hit hit a certain level before people revolt.  England basically had a single Peasant revolt on a large scale in its history and that required *the Back Plague* to set the stage.

And even that was put down by the King lying to them.

Rebellions within the ruling class are a lot more likely.

A third factor is that a society with a lot of inequality can survive if most of the population feels it is possible you can rise to the top by your own strength. 

 

[Erol of Backford]

1 hour ago, John Biles said:

A third factor is that a society with a lot of inequality can survive if most of the population feels it is possible you can rise to the top by your own strength. 

I suppose this will work in any Gloranthian society where education and questioning of authority is lacking...

 

[John Biles]

48 minutes ago, Erol of Backford said:

I suppose this will work in any Gloranthian society where education and questioning of authority is lacking...

 

This is why Orlanthi society is not marked by uprisings of slaves and stickpickers.

 

[Erol of Backford]

14 hours ago, John Biles said:

This is why Orlanthi society is not marked by uprisings of slaves and stick pickers.

I suppose you could draw a parallel to this thought, rather than uprisings you'd have raids conducted between the nomadic Praxians and the Orlanthi barbarians both against their own culture and more broadly against the others?

Civilized areas, I would venture to guess wouldn't raid nearly as much at their interiors if at all, whereas they would suffer more from uprisings. As you move further out from the civilized core you increase chances of raiders...

Seems simple enough for someone like me with a basic thought pattern.

[John Biles]

38 minutes ago, Erol of Backford said:

I suppose you could draw a parallel to this thought, rather than uprisings you'd have raids conducted between the nomadic Praxians and the Orlanthi barbarians both against their own culture and more broadly against the others?

Civilized areas, I would venture to guess wouldn't raid nearly as much at their interiors if at all, whereas they would suffer more from uprisings. As you move further out from the civilized core you increase chances of raiders...

Seems simple enough for someone like me with a basic thought pattern.

The Praxians also tend to have less wealth inequality, save between slaves and everyone else.

It's hard for a nomad to really get rich.

[Erol of Backford]

3 hours ago, John Biles said:

It's hard for a nomad to really get rich.

I have 10 goats they have 600...

Everyone likes goats.

Edited October 30, 2023 by Erol of Backford

[Shiningbrow]

On 10/31/2023 at 4:16 AM, John Biles said:

The Praxians also tend to have less wealth inequality, save between slaves and everyone else.

It's hard for a nomad to really get rich.

Except that wealth generally equals ornamentation taken from raids (as well as the increased herds). So, it's harder to distribute when it's merely a few objects you're wearing or carrying around in your tent (rather than actual cash).

[Shiningbrow]

On 10/30/2023 at 5:17 AM, Erol of Backford said:

So what % of sartarites are able to write and of them on average at what skill level?

Very few, and generally very low (except for those specialised - scribes!)

According to the RQG, the only occupations that give R/W are Merchants, Nobles, Philosophers, Priests, and Scribes. Of those, only the Scribe gets it at higher than 10%. Granted, the rules are for PCs, not the general community...

However, I'd guestimate that less than 5% can read (or have a need to), and of that, the majority can do so only rudimentarily (maybe to our grade 5 or 6 level - they know all the letters, and know a lot of basic words ... but style and grammar are lacking, as well as higher end vocabulary (however, that's going to be limited by their Speak skill (in alphabetic scripts, you can know words without having the correct spelling of them... in pictographic/ideogramatic languages, you can't). Most of the occupations mentioned don't really need a high level... Merchants only need to know the names of their goods (and buyers/sellers). but you could just code those. Nobles may well have a scribe. Satarite priests can do without anyway! (that's why you have lots of pretty pictures around!) So, that leaves only the Philosophers and Scribes - the latter being by definition quite literate! (and, in Sartar, almost by definition a Lhankor Mhy, and thus a generally good level of literacy... in earlier RQ, there was a minimum percentage to be initiated into the cult!)

Thus, 5% of the population may have 10-15% R/W Own... in most clans, there's only going to be only one (maybe 2) scribes, a few merchants who have learned to read (but not many), and a couple of nobles (again, it's not really necessary for their occupation - if you have a scribe handy!)

[Shiningbrow]

Apologies for re-raising this topic (which should probably be in its own thread), but ...

On 10/9/2023 at 12:34 PM, Nell said:

SBs are violently intolerant bullies, but they aren't genocidally racist or attempting to uphold a racial hierarchy. 

Actually, yes, by definition they actually are! Any race that has Chaotic taints is supposed to be wipe off the lozenge at some point! Some are just biding their time. All broo, scorpionmen, walktapi, ogres, etc etc should be killed (and burnt).

Stormbull, as it's been presented for decades, is the one cult that has the eradication (genocide) of a whole slew of intelligent creatures as it's reason for existing! (I'm about to start a thread on this... Is there any version of Stormbull worship that doesn't have killing Chaos as central to its existence?? Such as going back before Chaos entered the world..??)

On the idea of evil in RQ - weren't the Red Vadeli invented purely as a way to have an unambiguous enemy that one could slaughter without any hints of guilt or remorse? A race that was totally, 100% intrinsically evil? (although, that does beg the question - what about Tusk Riders?)

 

On 10/6/2023 at 11:43 PM, Richard S. said:

they must leap up

So, what happens if they don't actually leap? What if it's more of a slow rise? Do they get Spirits of Reprisal attack them? Should they have automatic access to Orlanth's Leap spell, and be required to cast it when they hear of Chaos?

 

On 10/6/2023 at 11:43 PM, Richard S. said:

shout for their god,

How loud does this shout need to be? Enough to give every hungover Stormbully a migraine?

 

Back to the regular programming, I do agree that the role of AS may not be a simple moral imperative - that she did things because it was 'right'. And, I do think that the whole view of Glorantha has been taken to be one of a more 'Lawful' vision - and in that light, think of how enemies have been portrayed throughout history. Why is Nysalor/Gbaji 'Chaotic' and must be destroyed? Well, largely because - as history tells us - they deserve to be... but, the winners write the history! Maybe AS has some very self-serving plan that she's managed to have eventuate...??? Maybe she is part of the Chaos plan, and is playing a long game?? Or, she's neither! After all, she's managed to bind up Chaos AND a stack of gods who can't intervene... sounds like she's manipulated a lot of powers into a lose-lose situation there.

And, thus, maybe it was Arachne Solara who pushed down the GLs when they got too powerful, because it was destroying her plan... DON'T CROSS THE STREAMS!!! (although, I prefer the idea that it was Glorantha herself....).

[Erol of Backford]

 

12 hours ago, Shiningbrow said:

Actually, yes, by definition they actually are! Any race that has Chaotic taints is supposed to be wipe off the lozenge at some point! Some are just biding their time. All broo, scorpionmen, walktapi, ogres, etc etc should be killed (and burnt).

I like the idea the Storm Bulls should be illuminated and so can be more selective in the destruction of chaos.

Seems to me if the Storm Bulls could find chaos and then locate the source and eliminate it the more good would become of it.

[mfbrandi]

11 hours ago, Erol of Backford said:

I like the idea the Storm Bulls should be illuminated

“There is no difference between Chaos and Cosmos? Now, I have to kill everyone. I love my job!”