Huh... is the Syphon a key trade route?

[g33k]

The Syphon river flows backwards -- "up"river (whatever that means in this context).
That would seem to make the river an extraordinarily-valuable route for commerce to the interior of Heortland.

Or is it too problematic, with Chaos/etc genuinely hosted there?  Or am I missing something else preventing such use?

Also -- is it a saltwater river, as it flows up from the sea?  Or is this a magic-Glorantha-thing, where the salt / brack / fresh regions are similar to other rivers (and earthly logic is shown the door)?

[Joerg]

The Syphon also was home to one of the fish roads, and that should still be connected to the Nochet terminus at the Golod temple.

The Syphon retains the Godtime form of a river - it should not be a flat, listless basin of moving water, but a tendril of water with an outer current pushing uphill, and interior currents that may reach back toward the Heart of the Seas. IMG the Godtime rivers used this interior current to carry off energies and sediments towards the Seas, thereby allowing regular sedimentation effects despite "flowing uphill".

Navigating on such a bulge of water might be tricky, as you have to take care to remain on the back of the tendril.

Yes, IMG it is brackish saltwater - all rivers were (at least running uphill), although they would collect the rains dropped by Heler and reunite them with the seas.

Chaos at the head of the river is the reason why the Syphon retains its direction, continuing to sear away at the Chaos there.

[jajagappa]

16 hours ago, g33k said:

The Syphon river flows backwards -- "up"river (whatever that means in this context).
That would seem to make the river an extraordinarily-valuable route for commerce to the interior of Heortland.

Or is it too problematic, with Chaos/etc genuinely hosted there?  Or am I missing something else preventing such use?

Also -- is it a saltwater river, as it flows up from the sea?  Or is this a magic-Glorantha-thing, where the salt / brack / fresh regions are similar to other rivers (and earthly logic is shown the door)?

As the trade centers are Karse and Lylket/Durengard, we can reasonably conclude there are reasons that the Syphon and consequently Backford are not viable for commerce/trade, despite the Fish Road. 

(And yes it is absolutely saltwater through the Stone Woods, and its salt content helps keep Chaos in check - e.g. gorp don't like high salt concentrations. The folk of Backford take advantage of the saltwater to capture water at high tide/current and then let it dry to get the salt for trade, so there is decidedly trade from Backford.)

My general conclusions as to why the Syphon doesn't work for trade:

• dangerous rocks and eddies at the "headwaters" (i.e. where it branches from the Mirrorsea) that largely prevent passage of large draft ships/boats
• a very weird "downstream" current that "rolls" downstream and creates a constant up-and-down motion for boats traveling towards Backford
• a very strong "downstream" current that makes going "upstream" or back to the Mirrorsea nearly impossible except via the Fish Road
• the Fish Road itself is passable and varies between being above water when the tide is out and below water when the tidal bore pushes inland - it does allow breathing of air/water due to its magic but its width may be quite constrained and is very turbulent around the sides
• the Fish Road is designed to reach the Heel Lake in the Footprint for magical rituals, and of course the Syphon plunges there down into the Underworld - you need to time it right so the current is slowing by Backford so you're not carried past and into the Stone Wood or the Footprint itself
• while most Chaos creatures are stopped by the magic of the Stone Wood, there are creatures that swim up from the Underworld, pass Heel Lake and then continue "upstream" into Heortland. These include various devilfish and demons that aren't chaotic per se, but still dangerous.

 

 

[mfbrandi]

19 hours ago, jajagappa said:

gorp don’t like high salt concentrations

Because of osmosis? We have marine amoebae, and surely a shoggoth laughs in the face of salt. It would be a pity if we didn’t have saltwater gorp, too. Of course, if people believe there are none … 😉

[Joerg]

54 minutes ago, mfbrandi said:

Because of osmosis? We have marine amoebae, and surely a shoggoth laughs in the face of salt. It would be a pity if we didn’t have saltwater gorp, too. Of course, if people believe there are none … 😉

IMG Gorp don't contain any water or other recognizable element. They are made up of completely corroded (as well as corrosive) Chaos plasma. Like those bits that fall off Cwim or its mini clones when killed/severed.

Gorp don't contain acid in the regular sense of something sour that will etch certain materials. Gorp "acid" will dissolve anything solid (for given values of solid, like e.g. human skin) but is ineffective against volatile substances like water, air, moonglow or darkness. But this is countered by the brine of the Baths of Nelat that will sear away all impurities - and Gorp substance is an impurity.

Edited March 8 by Joerg
brackets for clarification

[AndrewTBP]

Many years ago on a RuneQuest mailing list I pointed out that gorp are much like Chaos elementals rather than living creatures. 

[Erol of Backford]

For my Glorantha, the Syphon runs smooth to Backford and at that location the river has had its banks engineered with dwarvish cooperation and Capratis funding to flow through a mill spillway and a narrow deep channel for larger and slightly deeper vessels. Grain is milled and now, the lumber trade is thriving, cut at Backford. The newly established Backford Syphon River Department has been developing river improvements since 1600. These goods along with salt and dried fish find their way down to the Syphon in shallow draft barges that easily transverse the Bay.

The Syphon agrees with the increased use and resulting worship.

The upstream current in the river is not so swift at the surface from the Bay to Backford, in fact it nearly balances the westerly winds from the Stomwwalk Mts. and the gravitational pull on the craft to be pulled downstream - downhill to the Bay. With a sail its no problem to get to the Bay due to the winds in the river valley blowing westward which can be quite strong at the water level

A few tow paths are being constructed with large wooden locks at key points along the uphill rapids so vessels may avoid them. The Sypohn surface elevation does not tend to fluctuate much seasonally due to reduced runoff in Fire Season as the Bay constantly supplies it with adequate flow whereas in times of draught or late Fire Season the other Heartland river's end up having vessels being often hung up on rock and sandbars, this doesn't happen up to Backford on the Syphon. Again constant flow from the Bay.

Even though Backford draws less deep draft vessels it's still a major trade hub up and down the Herotland Plateau north to south via the roadways. Smithstone and Jansholm to the north and Durengard and Mt. Passant to the south keeps a constant flow of trade and pilgrims.

I have an influx of Elmali as formal relations between the Sartar Sundome and the nobility of Backford have also increased a more formal military post.

The mining of the copper from Stormwalk's torn off head has also increased smelting form there and a few other mines nearby.

Oddities from Stonewood all draw additional trade and travel now that the riffraff has been cleaned up and put to work.

YGWV allows anything to work the way you wish.

Edited March 9 by Erol of Backford

[Akhôrahil]

How does it work when a river flows uphill, in Glorantha?

For the regular flow, the logic is obvious - rain falls, runs downwards, collects into a river, flows out to sea, rises as clouds, and so on.

But when a river flows uphill, then you end up with a lot of water further up. But then what happens to it? Does it find some other place to flow back? Get absorbed into the ground? Something has to happen with all that water deposited further up on land!

Edited March 10 by Akhôrahil

[jajagappa]

5 hours ago, Akhôrahil said:

But when a river flows uphill, then you end up with a lot of water further up. But then what happens to it?

Well, there's only one that still flows uphill, and there's an easy answer to that. There's a hole to the Underworld in Heel Lake in the middle of the Footprint! 

In what I've written on the Footprint, there the water of the Syphon "falls" up and over the rim of the lake and then swirls around in a gyre (washing away some of the Chaos in the process) and then funnels into a great drop all the way to Hell and back to the Styx (returns to the first source of the waters). Sometimes Hell creatures manage to swim up the great falls and into Heel Lake, then follow the Syphon to its headwaters to spawn. These hell-sourced devil and demonfish are not necessarily chaotic, but they are dangerous - and probably getting more so since the demise of Belintar to keep them in check. (One of the reasons the Fish Road went to Heel Lake was so that the God-king could perform rituals to the most ancient of Sea Gods there.) 

Edited March 10 by jajagappa

[Joerg]

15 hours ago, Akhôrahil said:

How does it work when a river flows uphill, in Glorantha?

For the regular flow, the logic is obvious - rain falls, runs downwards, collects into a river, flows out to sea, rises as clouds, and so on.

But when a river flows uphill, then you end up with a lot of water further up. But then what happens to it? Does it find some other place to flow back? Get absorbed into the ground? Something has to happen with all that water deposited further up on land!

The Godtime rivers were tendrils of Sea sent onto the dry to collect nutrients and energies for their parent bodies of water, which means that while they crept uphill (and had an uphill flow) they would have to send back whatever they collected through the tendril back to the seas. Think of them as living entities rather than as mere strips of water.

The river bodies would be made up of various internal currents, those on the surfaces moving uphill, those in the interior flowing back.

An anatomy like that would also allow "normal" sedimentation of digested debris in the lower parts of the river.

And any lost waters from Heler would be scooped up and re-united with the seas that way.

Edited March 11 by Joerg
Forgot about collecting precipitation.