Monty Python Pestilence - Exodus Plagues

[Erol of Backford]

So of course another rabbit hole...

When posting the Monty Python pestilence GIF I saw other links.

Looking for ideas as to a mini campaign against broos and plagues...

Not sure how to integrate yet, just posting as an idea.

Almost all of these immediately bring Gloranthian themed items to mind. Nothing to do with religion and or current issues, no offense intended and so apologies in advance if taken in any non Gloranthian context, meaning or inference:

The 10 plagues in the book of Exodus

01 Blood
The waters were turned to blood – the fish in the river died and the Egyptians couldn’t drink the foul water. (Maybe it's like the River of the Damned in Balazar and festering Island?)

02 Frogs
Frogs swarmed forth, covering every inch of land and entering houses and bedrooms. (Chaos toads, Cliff Toads, Broo toads like in River of Cradles?)

03 Lice
All over Egypt, bugs crawled forth from the dust to cover the land. (Bugs from Trolls but it's a Broo Troll controlling Giant Lice?)

04 Wild animals
Hordes of wild animals destroyed everything in their path. (If its Prax no issue with this but possibly they are chaos infected heard animals, some are Broo spawn riding Chaos Herd Beast?)

05 Pestilence
A fatal pestilence killed most of the domestic animals of the Egyptians. (Any chaos disease, take your pick or even several of them, planted by Broo or an Ogre whom infiltrated a clan or heard?)

06 Boils
The Pharaoh, his servants, the Egyptians and even their animals developed painful boils all over their bodies. (As above but maybe something like Chaos maggots under the skin?)

07 Fiery hail
Hail struck down all the crops in the fields and shattered every tree. (Not sure if Chaos could summon Oakfed or another Praxian Fire Spirit?)

08 Locusts
The locusts covered the face of the land and swallowed up every crop and all the fruits of the trees. (Similar to 03 above but they fly? Maybe Chaos Pigmy Broo ride them with infested javelins?)

09 Darkness
A thick darkness over the land of Egypt, so total that the Egyptians had to feel their way around. (Could be the Chaos Broo Troll from 03 above or some Dark Light from Thanatari, a shrine or something...)

10 Death of the first-born
All firstborn Egyptian sons (and firstborn cattle) died. Israelites marked lamb's blood above their door and were passed over. (Some well known, liked Sundomer or Pavisian child is taken and they are sacrificed and made into some sort of undead, maybe the Vampire of the Crypt decides to have a lover or protege and the PC's must go resolve the issue...?

The order could be changed up and the scenarios could all be better linked...

Any thoughts as to how to better integrate into a Pavis, Sundome or Praxian champaign?

 

[mfbrandi]

13 hours ago, Erol of Backford said:

03 Lice

SIZ 4 soul waste ticks harvested — or escaped — from the Bat?

13 hours ago, Erol of Backford said:

02 Frogs

I don’t know why, but I am imagining the place overrun by very small, very polite newtlings. Hordes of the things. Maybe some tribble-like reproduction gone haywire. They mean no harm, and they look up at you with big innocent eyes, but they are everywhere — how are they to be fed? And they are people, so you cannot just exterminate them like rats. Probably a terrible idea.

13 hours ago, Erol of Backford said:

06 Boils … Chaos maggots under the skin?

Of course, maggots are great for cleaning wounds. Maybe some eccentric Arroin healers — or “Arroin healers,” to taste — suggest Chaos maggots as the cure for the festering condition plaguing the land. They are 100% right — if your diseased flesh has been eaten by Chaos, that is as sterile as a wound gets — but the cure has a non-zero chance of leaving a Chaos taint (because you have benefited from Chaos). Do you lose your leg to super-gangrene, or do you roll the dice for a Chaos taint? If the healers save the day, will there be a whole load of reflective survivors making illumination rolls in the near future? What kind of Chaos flies do the well-fed maggots become? Will Erica McAlister start a Chaos fly cult? (It is supposed to be clandestine, but she is so enthusiastic, she cannot help but attempt to recruit random strangers.)

Edited November 23, 2023 by mfbrandi
punctuation & verb agreement

[jajagappa]

3 hours ago, Erol of Backford said:

Any thoughts as to how to better integrate into a Pavis, Sundome or Praxian champaign?

Obviously a response to some action by the Lunar Governor of Pavis, perhaps even the Marriage of Pavis to the Red Goddess.

[g33k]

8 hours ago, Erol of Backford said:

...

Almost all of these immediately bring Gloranthian themed items to mind. Nothing to do with religion and or current issues, no offense intended and so apologies in advance if taken in any non Gloranthian context, meaning or inference:

...

The order could be changed up and the scenarios could all be better linked...

Any thoughts as to how to better integrate into a Pavis, Sundome or Praxian champaign?

Honestly, I'd change:

the total number of plagues

the nature(s) of many/most of the individual plagues (e.g. not "frogs" but rats; not "hail" but a severe Storm Bull windstorm; etc)

I would *entirely* dissociate the Gloranthan list of events from the Bible.
Because the potential to give offense is just huge... and frankly, pointless.
So easy to not.

[mfbrandi]

2 hours ago, g33k said:

I would *entirely* dissociate the Gloranthan list of events from the Bible.
Because the potential to give offense is just huge … and frankly, pointless.

On the one hand, one wouldn’t want to give offence, but on the other:

• there is surely a long tradition of using bible stories in “popular entertainment”
• I don’t think Erol would have suggested it if his table would be offended
• at some point the players may realise that their characters are in a version of the plagues of Egypt story

This last counts in favour of:

1. lightly disguising the plagues
2. keeping the number
3. keeping the sequence

When the penny drops, the players will form an idea of the stakes and — one hopes — take action to prevent the death of the firstborn. Of course, the death of the firstborn might be touchy for non-religious reasons, but it could be nerfed in case the players don’t prevent it (whether that should be telegraphed is a matter of judgement — Erol will likely know his players well enough).

Isn’t the 10 plagues story about as “safe” as Noah’s ark? Glorantha has that (as well as stuff that I wouldn’t have done).

[Nick Brooke]

13 hours ago, mfbrandi said:

i don’t know why, but I am imagining the place overrun by very small, very polite newtlings. Hordes of the things. Maybe some tribble-like reproduction gone haywire. They mean no harm, and they look up at you with big innocent eyes, but they are everywhere — how are they to be fed? And they are people, so you cannot just exterminate them like rats. Probably a terrible idea.

I can guess why. (Unintended consequence of success in Black Spear, Act IV.)

[g33k]

6 hours ago, mfbrandi said:

there is surely a long tradition of using bible stories in “popular entertainment”

Very true!  But much of it is pretty explicitly as "edutainment" teaching-stories, the sort of thing where you're gently introducing younglings to the story, or teaching the same moral outside the "Bible" context for audiences who will hear it differently in different contexts; etc...

Not all of it, of course.  But there's a lot of the "popular" stuff that's just thinly-disguised religion, which doesn't seem apt to lump in with the genuinely secular stuff.  Even things that religiously-offend many believers (lookin' at you, Last Temptation of Christ) are still produced with a fundamentally-religious perspective.
 

6 hours ago, mfbrandi said:

I don’t think Erol would have suggested it if his table would be offended

Every table & GM is different, of course!  You are probably right.

 

6 hours ago, mfbrandi said:

...

• at some point the players may realise that their characters are in a version of the plagues of Egypt story

This last counts in favour of:

1. lightly disguising the plagues
2. keeping the number
3. keeping the sequence

...

As you say, it likely depends very-much on the OP's table.  Even if people aren't severely offended, there's all sorts of opportunities for people to have... feelings... about Biblical stories coming into their Glorantha (sociologically, there's a serious amount of Ancient-World in common, of course; but for many, that's not the "best" approach toi this content!).

From my own gaming-experience:  I don't know enough about every person I've ever gamed with to know if any of them were religious-enough to be offende; but I do know that I've had one or two ardent-enough atheists for whom any whiff of explicitly-Biblical content was offensive... unless it was explicitly-designed to be blasphemous & offensive to the believers!  (Lord save us from 20something edgelords!  🤣  )
 

6 hours ago, mfbrandi said:

... Of course, the death of the firstborn might be touchy for non-religious reasons, but it could be nerfed in case ...

Isn’t the 10 plagues story about as “safe” as Noah’s ark?

I don't think you can have that both ways, actually.
Anything that's  "touchy for non-religious reasons"  is probably not "safe," no...

And yes, this element is indeed "touchy!"

Edited November 23, 2023 by g33k
"just" a typo... but oh, what a lusty typo it was!!!

[mfbrandi]

1 hour ago, g33k said:

I don't think you can have that both ways, actually.

About as safe. There were a lot of innocent people killed in the flood, too, right? (And one feels for guilty people, too.)

1 hour ago, g33k said:

one or two ardent-enough atheists for whom

Well, I am old enough to remember when being an atheist child (in the UK) was a frustrating experience. If one could present an alternative religion as an excuse, one might grudgingly be let off being a Christian, but otherwise one was expected at least to pretend.° It could make one angry, cynical, and prone to overreaction. I have mellowed somewhat with age. (And I guess the young atheist’s experience varies over time and space. I don’t know what it is like for kids today.)

————————————————————
° For example, in the 1970s, I was briefly a cub scout (family connections made it a convenient place to put me, though I was clearly unsuitable) and whilst being coached on making a promise to do my duty to god and the queen, I mentioned that I didn’t believe in the one and felt no allegiance to the other. The Akela (cub-scout leader) advised me to lie. He was a devout Christian — despite being called ‘Brian’ if we’re to stick to the Monty Python theme — and not a bad guy, but he clearly had no idea what else to say.

[Cassius]

The source of the plagues must be the death of a (holy) parrot.

[Nick Brooke]

I think that ship has sailed.  

[SDLeary]

2 hours ago, Cassius said:

The source of the plagues must be the death of a (holy) parrot.

Being Glorantha, shouldn't that be a duck? 😉

SDLeary

[EricW]

The first age Gbaji priests cured plagues they themselves spread, to promote worship of Gbaji, so I could easily imagine Lunars trying the same trick. 

Of course they would need to obtain lots of divination block magic to hide the plot from suspicious lightbringers.

Call it the “red pestilence”. Only the light of the moon can cure it, unless some courageous PCs undergo a dangerous heroquest and confront Lunar conspirators on the heroplane, to unravel the mystery of why the healing magic has failed.

Edited November 23, 2023 by EricW

[Nozbat]

4 hours ago, Cassius said:

The source of the plagues must be the death of a (holy) parrot.

It wasn't dead...it was only resting...

See... a heresy already ... bring on the plagues and smite those unbelievers

[Ian A. Thomson]

On 11/23/2023 at 5:48 PM, g33k said:

I would *entirely* dissociate the Gloranthan list of events from the Bible.
Because the potential to give offense is just huge... and frankly, pointless.
So easy to not.

Use the classic ideas as inspiration, reorder and reinvent them. Make there be only seven. Suddenly all ass is covered :)

Love the newtlings idea. They don't have to be small. Just regular newtlings, suddenly hundreds of them. Hungry, helpless, friendly, looking for work... (One really big newtling: "Gizza Job, Go on! Gizza Job!")

Water isn't blood, it's oil, or its full of gorp, or slime, or stagnant...

Edited November 29, 2023 by Ian A. Thomson

[g33k]

46 minutes ago, Ian A. Thomson said:

Use the classic ideas as inspiration, reorder and reinvent them. Make there be only seven. Suddenly all ass is covered 🙂

Love the newtlings idea. They don't have to be small. Just regular newtlings, suddenly hundreds of them. Hungry, helpless, friendly, looking for work... (One really big newtling: "Gizza Job, Go on! Gizza Job!")

Water isn't blood, it's oil, or its full of gorp, or slime, or stagnant...

This, yes.

All of this!

[mfbrandi]

4 hours ago, Ian A. Thomson said:

One really big newtling: "Gizza Job, Go on! Gizza Job!"

A scouse newtling with a moustache?

[Nozbat]

9 hours ago, Ian A. Thomson said:

(One really big newtling: "Gizza Job, Go on! Gizza Job!")

ahhh... yes...the Yosser Hughes of Newtlings

[Ian_W]

On 11/23/2023 at 9:08 AM, Erol of Backford said:

04 Wild animals
Hordes of wild animals destroyed everything in their path. (If its Prax no issue with this but possibly they are chaos infected heard animals, some are Broo spawn riding Chaos Herd Beast?)

My inner Storm Bull just said 'That means there is no grazing, and there will be open war on the Plains within a season as the Tribes fight for access to what remains'.

[Darius West]

On 11/23/2023 at 5:48 PM, g33k said:

the nature(s) of many/most of the individual plagues (e.g. not "frogs" but rats; not "hail" but a severe Storm Bull windstorm; etc)

Hmm... Remember how Valind seizes the Air Rune when Orlanth dies?   Sounds a bit "dogs and cats living together in sin" doesn't it?  All a bit apocalyptic....?  Why not hail in Prax?  Everything else is upside down...