Potato distribution, existance, and origin

[Ian_W]

On 12/5/2023 at 8:41 PM, Jeff said:

Potatoes (at least post Columbian Exchange) are a transformative staple - even more so than maize.

Darn right.

 

You need to transform worship of all the local Grain Goddesses to deal with this New Crop, for a start.

 

[Nick Brooke]

I’m not sure you grok what a grain goddess does. They don’t diversify, or rotate crops. They are their grain.

Introduce maize? Doesn’t affect the previous grain goddess’s worship at all, except that farmers will gradually or rapidly swap over to the Fifth Wane Wonder Crop and the new, wholly bloodless* Blood Rites of Hon-eel. But the quaint ceremonies at the antiquated grain goddess shrine will continue, for as long as people want to give her worship. It’s a bit like what happened to the Orlanth cult in Lunar Tarsh.

* Terms and conditions apply. The cult of Hon-eel did not write this disclaimer. Ask the corn priestesses if you want to know the secret of guaranteed bumper yields.

[Ian_W]

15 minutes ago, Nick Brooke said:

I’m not sure you grok what a grain goddess does. They don’t diversify, or rotate crops. They are their grain.

Introduce maize? Doesn’t affect the previous grain goddess’s worship at all, except that farmers will gradually or rapidly swap over to the Fifth Wane Wonder Crop and the new, wholly bloodless* Blood Rites of Hon-eel. But the quaint ceremonies at the antiquated grain goddess shrine will continue, for as long as people want to give her worship. It’s a bit like what happened to the Orlanth cult in Lunar Tarsh.

* Terms and conditions apply. The cult of Hon-eel did not write this disclaimer. Ask the corn priestesses if you want to know the secret of guaranteed bumper yields.

What you are describing is, in my view, the process of transforming worship.

The worship is going to move from the Old System based around the traditional crops to the New Way.

And as well as the security implications, and the tithing implications, there is also the potential conflict between the Seven Mothers cult wanting to concentrate on potatoes, and the perhaps better connected at Glamour Hon Eel cult wanting to concentrate on getting maize *solidly* established.

I'm not saying it's going to go to a Dart Competition, but it's got definite possibilities for friction.

[radmonger]

41 minutes ago, Nick Brooke said:

Introduce maize? Doesn’t affect the previous grain goddess’s worship at all, except that farmers will gradually or rapidly swap over to the Fifth Wane Wonder Crop and the new, wholly bloodless* Blood Rites of Hon-eel.

The predictable result of such a change is that there would only be say 25,000 tons of the pre-maize grain grown, when previously there were 250,000.

This literally and physically reduces that grain godess to a tenth of her size. The effect, if you get it to stick, is the same as diverting the water source of a river.

A gloranthan river will generally resist such a thing, and my do something resembling active planning to stop it. you can certainly expect floods at at inconvenient times. on the other side of the same coin, a cult politically objecting to it's planned obsolescence will be minded to run the 'lets have a flood now' heroquest.

In Sartar, the cult of Orlanth certainly vigorously opposed plans to tame the region's storms. Only the Red Earth faction of Ernaldan's was persuaded by the argument of how that would improve crop yields. If it were not for the threat of the lunar potato doing the same to their power base, perhaps that faction would have been larger...

[Darius West]

On 12/4/2023 at 1:03 AM, Nick Brooke said:

Greg Stafford, Sandy Petersen and Steve Perrin all demonstrably thought that Glorantha - and more specifically the Lunar Empire - had potatoes. They've been a feature of Glorantha since the earliest publications (see threads above: White Bear & Red Moon and Cults of Prax both featured Lunar potatoes). 

Jeff Richard thinks the Lunar Empire doesn't have potatoes, because nor did the Roman Empire, and we know that the two are identical in every way. (Or something like that.) So he's tried to retcon potatoes, with hilarious results.

Well, potatoes are one of the hundreds of cultivars we owe to the Incas.  

On the other hand, is there any way in which Glorantha is harmed by the inclusion of potatoes?  I can't think of one.  If they come from some far away place, then they were clearly introduced by the God Learners.  They are a realistic catch-all means to introduce anything anachronistic.

Why, just the other day I was wandering the streets of my suburb and considering the origins of all the plants in people's yards.  They came from every settled continent courtesy of our own God Learnerism.

[Ormi Phengaria]

On 12/5/2023 at 4:40 PM, g33k said:

Huh.  Given that potatoes -- in the New World -- did not spread and "ruin" (render productive) the harsher environs, the way you feared they would in "areas like northern Fronela or the uplands of Ralios," I remain a bit mystified.   🫤

Yes, this is worth noting for worldbuilders. It wasn't the bare presence of the potato itself which transformed the staple agriculture of the Old World, but the combination of the potato alongside centuries of ongoing socioeconomic transformation and technological development. That includes the economic feasibility of four-crop rotation, the metallurgy leading to new plow designs capable of moving deep ground necessary to protect the plant from light, being able to afford to plow a field more than twice a year, water infrastructure, and enclosure of wastes. And even despite all of that, producing all of that food is only sensible if there is a market for it, which was its own ongoing revolution and transformation. Higher caloric output doesn't just produce more babies on its own before it can establish itself as a pattern of production.

Edited December 10, 2023 by Ormi Phengaria

[Ormi Phengaria]

On the other hand, we might think "well, northern Ralios isn't the Andes, either." But the Andes at what point in time? It would be a mistake to think that the agriculture of the late pre-Columbian Andes wasn't in a similarly highly developed and organized condition. I think we can reasonably say that northern Ralios isn't like the Tawantinsuyu and that they aren't making chuño, but having slightly higher access to starchy root vegetables than general is probably fine. I think maybe there are llamas there too, actually...

[MOB]

On 12/7/2023 at 11:32 PM, Ian_W said:

What you are describing is, in my view, the process of transforming worship.

The worship is going to move from the Old System based around the traditional crops to the New Way.

And as well as the security implications, and the tithing implications, there is also the potential conflict between the Seven Mothers cult wanting to concentrate on potatoes, and the perhaps better connected at Glamour Hon Eel cult wanting to concentrate on getting maize *solidly* established.

I'm not saying it's going to go to a Dart Competition, but it's got definite possibilities for friction.

Related to what goes on in God Forgot:

Because the traditionally ordained agricultural practices of the Brithini are better suited to frigid Old Brithos than rain-sodden Heortland, the Bandori who come to God Forgot to work on the Talar's farms keep one field for show, and do things their own way on the rest. Just before harvest-time, they will surreptitiously "dress" the show field with the finest produce from the back fields, ready to show off to the Talar on his annual tour of the farms.

 

Edited December 10, 2023 by MOB

[David Scott]

7 hours ago, Ormi Phengaria said:

Yes, this is worth noting for worldbuilders.

For those wishing further understanding in this context, I recommend The Potato by Larry Zuckerman:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Potato-HB-Century-Vegetable-Changed/dp/0333750640/

It's a very helpful history.

 

[Nick Brooke]

Potatoes have made an early appearance in a book I’ve just started reading, James C Scott’s Against the Grain (he’s the author of Seeing Like a State, so I know it’ll be up my street) as a crop that resists state formation. The author suggests that as there’s no defined harvest season for tubers, it’s not nearly so easy for tax collectors to get their cut. Interesting stuff, which plays well with the revolutionary anti-Yelmic origins of the Lunar Way.

[scott-martin]

6 hours ago, Nick Brooke said:

a crop that resists state formation

Sounds like rhizome humor, which suggests that there is no unified record of the potato within time (no history) or in mythology (no story with any pronouns) . . . no ritual rhythm, no god or goddess, no spells that would appear on anyone's character sheet. Just a reservoir of calories reproducing in secret in the neglected corners of the field, a weed.

This is unspeakable in conventional Glorantha where every phenomenon has a soul that can be communicated with if you learn its narrative. The potato is as profane as it gets. No symbol, all noise. It might not be a distinct plant at all. Maybe there's a whole class of undifferentiated stuff down here that will never get a real name in any Gloranthan language. Just euphemisms and vagueness.

The mothers call that stuff "potato." It represents the scattered forces that could be integrated into a lunar element but haven't been yet. Raw matter. Trash. Trash has a vital ritual function for them because they are a missionary order tasked with integrating fragmented pre-lunar consciousness (trash) into the synergy of the new way. They mostly only eat trash once, in a conversion meal that awakens the previously fragmentary moon rune mind:

Before the mothers, no potato.
After the mothers, no potato.

The D5X are tasked with preparing it and managing its toxicity because that's exactly what D5X does. This is a factor in the Beat Pot Revolt and makes him more interesting as a radical theologian in his own right.

But the potato question is a little more complicated. First, as the primary "idiot plant" with no known soul or spirit, potatoes are more characteristic of the botany we have here on everyday planet earth where only hippies drone on about vegetable allies or devas or whatever. The planet with a potato is earth. The one with no potato is Glorantha. This is the difference. Sophisticated heroquesters can transit back and forth at will.

After potato, earth
Before potato, Glorantha

Second, wikipedia reminds me of the philosophical distinction between rhizomatic plant models and the arborescent system. We know the tree: all exemplars get mapped down to a single trunk called Aldrya. The potato grows differently with its head in the ground and its feet in the air. A rival vegetable logic, another green world.

This is central to the war on the Kresh.
 

Edited December 10, 2023 by scott-martin
why not

[jajagappa]

6 minutes ago, scott-martin said:

The potato grows differently with its head in the ground and its feet in the air. A rival vegetable logic, another green world.

...The mothers call that stuff "potato." It represents the scattered forces that could be integrated into a lunar element but haven't been yet. Raw matter. Trash.

Love it! 

[davecake]

IMG the potato is linked with the blue moon (as it has always been said to be). So it is known to the Veldang. Their sense of agriculture is somewhat undeveloped, as is that of the blue moon trolls. So while it has the potential to be transformative, it is not. 

Her followers took it to many places across the face of Glorantha in the Gods Age, including Mernita. 
But it was despised by Solar gods, and the nutritional values of this (outwardly poisonous!) plant are mostly obscure, and the knowledge that it is potentially a hugely transformative crop is one of the many secrets of Annilla that she refuses to share with the lovers of the Sun (including the Grain Goddesses, and thus almost everyone). 
it is comparatively less good as a crop for multiple reasons, but one of them is that the Blue Moon was able to bless it as ‘her’ crop, and this was part of the foundation of the Artmali Empire, but she lost that power with her downfall. And as an underground crop, the Bless Crops spells of solar deities do not work on it. 
 

[AndrewTBP]

Nice! I’m stealing that! 

[Joerg]

Black elves might have a love-hate relationship with these tubers - they love to infect them, and therefore hinder their regular harvest.

What rivalry is there between Mee Vorala and Annilla? Possibly enough that she went on to salt-resistant rice on Melib, although there too might be a fungal disease called yellow rice mycotoxicoses.

[Erol of Backford]

On 12/11/2023 at 6:14 AM, Joerg said:

Black elves might have a love-hate relationship with these tubers - they love to infect them, and therefore hinder their regular harvest.

Why would they infect them and what would the infection do to the potato, reduce growth or spoil them in some way? Wouldn't hindering growth be against the norms for an elf?

[Joerg]

3 minutes ago, Erol of Backford said:

Why would they infect them and what would the infection do to the potato, reduce growth or spoil them in some way? Wouldn't hindering growth be against the norms for an elf?

Funghi and molds often consume their host organisms, whether those hosts are alive or already dead. There are a few specimen who form a symbiotic relationship with their host organisms instead, like mycorhyzomes providing the root network of trees with water in exchange for sugary sap, but those are in the minority.

There are parasitic plants (mistletoes) or murderus plants (ficus) that prey on or kill their host organisms, too. In addition, there is a chemical warfare going on in forest soils, as well as the race for the most sunlight or ground water, resulting in plants genociding other plants. The Plant Kingdom is anything but peaceful.

Funghi are plants of Darkness, which means that consuming others or other stuff is part of their nature.

 

My intention remains to use the (funghal disease) potato blight (which depopulated Ireland during the great famine when coupled to genocidal decisions by the government) as the excuse why so few people successfully grow these tubers, with only moonglow (of either color) counteracting this fungal infection. As a result, we get sacred shrine gardens with assorted moonrock applications protecting the Lunar Tuber from that blight, providing the Goddess's body for Communion with the congregation in the shape of potato bread, doled out by the Teelo Norri cult/7M-subcult. That addresses Jeff's objection against the presence of another "superfood" when the Hon-eel cult successfully re-introduced maize (with its blood rites) as a nutritional game changer. Yes, the sacred Teelo Norri potato bread is highly nutritious. It also requires a comparatively scarce resource and may provide illumination and/or madness.

[Jeff]

You guys do whatever you want. But the author of the cookbook has confirmed that there are no potatoes in any of the recipes. And there are no references to potatoes in any of the Chaosium books in the last decade. So make of it what you will.

[Erol of Backford]

LOL, I personally don't like potatoes most of the time and could care less if they are in anyone's Glorantha.

Was just curious why Joerg thought Dark Elves would infect them... or any other root vegetables if they do. Starting to not like Dark Elves. They may have a chaos taint...

[davecake]

On 12/11/2023 at 3:37 PM, davecake said:

the knowledge that it is potentially a hugely transformative crop is one of the many secrets of Annilla that she refuses to share with the lovers of the Sun

To expand on these earlier observations:

• the followers of the Blue Moon know the secret of potatoes. To anyone who tries to discover the secret that they wish to discourage, they helpfully suggest it’s important to eat the leaves. 
• Once, apparently the empire distributed potato read through the Seven Mothers temples. Now, they distribute corn bread. Clearly, a policy changed, and in the time of Hon-Eel or after. 

  On 12/7/2023 at 8:10 PM, Nick Brooke said:

  I’m not sure you grok what a grain goddess does. They don’t diversify, or rotate crops. They are their grain.

  As Hon-Eel is the grain goddess of Maize, this change literally makes Hon-Eel greater. So we have a motive. The red goddess incarnate displaces the mysterious schemes of her blue former self. One of such complexities are the schemes of the highest Lunar theological conspiracies made. Or perhaps the blue moon has voluntarily withdrawn one of her gifts from Peloria now that it is no longer needed, and her sister has cooperated to allow it to happen.

• On 12/7/2023 at 10:22 PM, Darius West said:

  On the other hand, is there any way in which Glorantha is harmed by the inclusion of potatoes?  I can't think of one.  If they come from some far away place, then they were clearly introduced by the God Learners. 

  If they are indeed the sacred plant of the Blue Moon, the God Learners might have discovered them in Pamaltela, from the Veldang. I can imagine the God Learners displaying this wondrous discovery to a jaded Emperor of Earth and Sea to justify the God Learners Pamaltelan adventures. To imperial indifference - after all, has not the empire shown that grain goddesses can be interchanged as needed, thus rendering food supply from agriculture a solved problem? 

• On 1/13/2024 at 11:32 PM, Jeff said:

  And there are no references to potatoes in any of the Chaosium books in the last decade. So make of it what you will.

  A conspiracy so high level and secretive in its manipulations, it’s even got to Jeff. 

[Joerg]

4 hours ago, davecake said:

Once, apparently the empire distributed potato read through the Seven Mothers temples. Now, they distribute corn bread. Clearly, a policy changed, and in the time of Hon-Eel or after.

Corn is the major crop in the Eel-ariash lands (Oronin, formerly Doblian, Oraya, Tarsh), more so than rice (another Blue Moon adjacent crop, at least in Melib), and presumably more so than wheat and barley.

  

4 hours ago, davecake said:

On 12/7/2023 at 1:10 PM, Nick Brooke said:

I’m not sure you grok what a grain goddess does. They don’t diversify, or rotate crops. They are their grain.

As Hon-Eel is the grain goddess of Maize, this change literally makes Hon-Eel greater. So we have a motive. The red goddess incarnate displaces the mysterious schemes of her blue former self. One of such complexities are the schemes of the highest Lunar theological conspiracies made. Or perhaps the blue moon has voluntarily withdrawn one of her gifts from Peloria now that it is no longer needed, and her sister has cooperated to allow it to happen.

 

Does this have implications on the relationship between the Eel-ariash (and their side lines like the Lunar Tarshite royals) and the Blue Moon?

I don't think that any attempt to make the Lunar Empire a monolithical entity with one true doctrine and everybody happily following suit is going to work. Hon-eel is not one of the Mothers, who were based on Blue Moon Plateau-adjacent Rindliddi. How much influence could her cult or the political machinations of her descendents have exerted on the Seven Mothers cult?

What is the Carmanian stance on this (with Yolanela playing a key role in the local Teelo Norri cult)?

And did the Eel-ariash provide any of the masks between Takenegi reborn and Argenteus, or is Phargentes the Younger their one big bid?

[Ali the Helering]

I think that we are missing the krjalki element within this discussion.  Mr Potato Head or Solanum tuberosum pocharngum as the God Learners defined it. 🙃

[Brian Duguid]

On 1/13/2024 at 4:43 PM, Erol of Backford said:

Was just curious why Joerg thought Dark Elves would infect them... or any other root vegetables if they do. Starting to not like Dark Elves. They may have a chaos taint...

Black elves, please :-). As Joerg said, it's food. Fungi gotta eat, too.

[mfbrandi]

7 hours ago, davecake said:

As Hon-Eel is the grain goddess of Maize, this change literally makes Hon-Eel greater. So we have a motive. The red goddess incarnate displaces the mysterious schemes of her blue former self. One of such complexities are the schemes of the highest Lunar theological conspiracies made.

Conspiracy or chemistry? Interestingly — perhaps! — the “Lunar” crops of maize, potatoes, and rice (they are also fond of onions and berries, remember) have coloured forms which contain anthocyanins which “change from red in acids to blue in bases through a process called halochromism” (Wikipedia). More acid → more Sedenyic; even her enemies agree.

Red cabbages, blood oranges, blue tomatoes …

The White Moonies know that anthocyanins are “colourless in very alkaline solutions, where the pigment is completely reduced” (ibid). I sometimes wonder whether the white or 4th Age “invisible” moon is simply the sun — so-called “father” ousted, and the Goddess embodied in something which should be safe from those meddling Orlanthi. Although, the mad bastards just might do it again.

[Akhôrahil]

Assuming potatoes exist, you might be able to buy fish and chips from a street vendor in Pavis.

This seems like a strong argument to me.