Prince of Sartar. Comic

[David Scott]

2 hours ago, M Helsdon said:

My memory was faulty: Episodes for the Gamemaster, page 39: These particular ladders may have been brought to assault Pavis, but never used, or perhaps they were purchased by the Lunars from the Pavis dwarves.

Thanks okay, I was just wondering if I'd missed something. However there is some merit in the idea, especially when combined with a lunar army quartermaster scenario - a M*A*S*H style comedy of errors (Series 2 episodes 12 "The Incubator" & 17 "For Want of a Boot")

[g33k]

45 minutes ago, David Scott said:

... a lunar army quartermaster scenario - a M*A*S*H style comedy of errors ...

OMG ...  this is brilliant ...

I am already chortling with glee.

Please... somebody  *DO*  *THIS*  !!!!

@Ian Cooper @Jeff @anybody !

[Steve]

Chop Them Up!

http://www.princeofsartar.com/comic/104-chop-them-up/

 

[soltakss]

I like the high-tech lookouts, one standing on a coil of rope to peer over the side and the other peering through a knothole.

[Mankcam]

I love the guy pointing. It's a bit like that Stormtrooper's classic line in Star Wars A New Hope: " Look sir, Droids!" 

Edited August 28, 2017 by Mankcam

[Steve]

I'm assuming that the rope holding up those ladders is magically protected, and there's no point in trying to hack through it. I guess someone tried and proved that it's useless to do so.

[Roko Joko]

Or maybe that's what he means by chop them up.

[David Scott]

It's a direct quote from the "script" on page 39:

Quote

 

"Chop them up!" The ends of the ladders are stout metal. They have Shield 4 and Glue 8 on them, and have 55 hit points which must be destroyed to detach the grappling hooks. Characters climbing the bulwark to get at the cables themselves will find they have 40 hit points each.

"Lookouts, report! " Designated characters (player' characters or not) will now look over the side and sce hoplites of the Marble Phalanx running in single file up the dwarf assault ladders to the attack. As the observers watch, they will see every hoplite's spear simultaneously burst into flame. When they reach the top, the infantry will use spear and shield from the first rank, and the man behind will use 2H spear. Both have Fireblade. They will try to force their way forward to make room for others. 

 

 

[Steve]

http://www.princeofsartar.com/comic/105-reaching-the-top/

 

 

[Steve]

http://www.princeofsartar.com/comic/106-too-many/

 

[Runeblogger]

So why were the dragonewts interested in raiding the Cradle. And more importantly: why is their blood purple? 😆

[kaydet]

@Runeblogger The Lunar Empire has a pretty well-documented history of using Dragonewt mercenaries. I remember reading of their presence at the siege of Boldhome and Whitewall, but I'm sure that there are other instances. The question that intrigues me is instead what the Lunars offered that the Dragonewts could possibly want. Perhaps, as you suggest, there is something in the cradle that they've been promised? That seems a little materialistic for the Dragonewts, though.

The purple blood is also established in the lore: see the story of Minaryth Purple. I'm honestly not sure if there's a "why" other than the circular answer of "that's the color of dragonewt blood".

[Jenx]

34 minutes ago, Runeblogger said:

So why were the dragonewts interested in raiding the Cradle. And more importantly: why is their blood purple? 😆

Dragonewts don't care for your ideas on what color blood should be!

[Martin]

 

10 hours ago, kaydet said:

@Runeblogger The Lunar Empire has a pretty well-documented history of using Dragonewt mercenaries. I remember reading of their presence at the siege of Boldhome and Whitewall...

 

Do you have the sources of these 2 instances?

[metcalph]

2 hours ago, Martin said:

 

Do you have the sources of these 2 instances?

Quote

Dragonewts, hired at some inhuman cost, finally stormed over the wall and entered the
city [of Boldhome - PHM] in force. They profaned the Temple of Sartar and fired the royal palace. The spirits of
the temple were driven out, the magical power stolen or polluted, and the Flame of Sartar
quenched, battered, and cursed by superior magic. Although it occasionally sputtered on for
years afterwards, the fire of the land was effectively dead.

King of Sartar p118

The Whitewall reference is actually to nearby Karse.

Quote

An assault failed, and they laid siege
to Karse. After some weeks, a segment of the army escaped by ship, leaving only the locals to
defend. The next day an assault by dragonewts slew most of the defenders, but spared most
of the inhabitants. The city was not sacked.

King of Sartar p122

 

[Martin]

so...no direct  indication the dragonewts were at whitewall then but i gyuess we can speculate that fazzur used them there or at least wanted to?

[Yelm's Light]

20 hours ago, kaydet said:

The question that intrigues me is instead what the Lunars offered that the Dragonewts could possibly want. Perhaps, as you suggest, there is something in the cradle that they've been promised? That seems a little materialistic for the Dragonewts, though.

Perhaps some form of magical 'tech' that the humans somehow don't know about and that the Dragonewts want to keep out of their hands, or simply to learn it themselves?  Or even to protect the Giant baby?  I can't think of any particular enmity between the Dragonewts and Giants, or friendship with the Lunars.

That doesn't really address why they'd be involved in unconnected actions, either, unless one extrapolates that it was all eventually oriented toward assaulting the Cradle.

Edited September 11, 2017 by Yelm's Light

[kaydet]

6 hours ago, Martin said:

so...no direct  indication the dragonewts were at whitewall then but i gyuess we can speculate that fazzur used them there or at least wanted to?

Yeah, I just remembered wrong and failed to fact-check myself. Thanks to @metcalph for setting me straight.

[g33k]

7 hours ago, Yelm's Light said:

 I can't think of any particular enmity between the Dragonewts and Giants, or friendship with the Lunars.

Well, the Lunars are well-attested as hiring dragonnewts sometimes at least; and at least some dragonnewts as hiring-out as mercenaries.  This doesn't have to fit into any monolithc "this is how dragonewts are" Unified Draconic Theory.

And IIRC isn't there some myth that says there were primordial dragon-figures and giant-figures who had some sort of conflict back in the very-very-early universe?

 

Edited September 11, 2017 by g33k

[jajagappa]

4 hours ago, Yelm's Light said:

particular enmity between the Dragonewts and Giants

There was a Gods Age war between the Dragons and the Giants.  It's noted in the Glorantha Sourcebook under the Genert entry p.33: "This was during the Golden Age, conmythory to the
Green Age and possibly with the Dragons’ Age as well, if Genert is indeed the father, or maker, of the Giants who fought the Dragons in the early stirrings of protomyth."

I feel like it is mentioned somewhere else, too, but can't find reference.

[Yelm's Light]

That doesn't really get at their motivation, though.  Maybe the Giants stole some draconic magick?  (Unlikely to apply to Gods Age myth, but vaguely possible.)

[g33k]

4 minutes ago, Yelm's Light said:

That doesn't really get at their motivation, though.  Maybe the Giants stole some draconic magick?  (Unlikely to apply to Gods Age myth, but vaguely possible.)

I don't see that a feud/antipathy with roots in the gods'time needs any more-current motivation.  It's still happening in some monomythical sense...  And when we're talking a Cradle & Lunar Armies & ZolaFel's redemption... that sense would seem to be very much in-play!

And if you don't like that answer, there's always the idea of some Dragonewts who gone off-path for their final ascent to dragon-hood, but are still plenty powerful enough to be valuable allies for the Lunars, who might offer all manner of inducements for a task the Dragonewts have no particular feeling for, one way or the other.

[kaydet]

There's also the Petersen interpretation of Dragonewts: the ones still around are the cowards, cheats, and thieves; the good ones became dragons and are no longer in the Middle World.

[Joerg]

7 hours ago, jajagappa said:

There was a Gods Age war between the Dragons and the Giants.  It's noted in the Glorantha Sourcebook under the Genert entry p.33: "This was during the Golden Age, conmythory to the
Green Age and possibly with the Dragons’ Age as well, if Genert is indeed the father, or maker, of the Giants who fought the Dragons in the early stirrings of protomyth."

I feel like it is mentioned somewhere else, too, but can't find reference.

The Annilla myth in Troll Gods has the giant side of the story.

Basically, it is the mythical plate tectonics of Glorantha, and a backdoor to sneak in deep time for geological processes into the limited "prehistory" of Glorantha that suffers from the same "too little time for all of this" syndrome as literalist King James' bible exegesis believers have with geological time frames and the age of dinosaurs.

The presence of individual giant mountains in the Rockwoods doesn't fit into the God Learner monomyth that has the Rockwoods as the result of Larnste the Earth King who seeded the mountains, and Kero Fin. Fortunately, having multiple myths for a single feature isn't really a problem, nor is the omission of a feature in the God Learner maps a proof that there were no such mountains there in the Godtime. But then, the giants may have been a lot less sedentary than today.

 

[Yelm's Light]

3 hours ago, kaydet said:

There's also the Petersen interpretation of Dragonewts: the ones still around are the cowards, cheats, and thieves; the good ones became dragons and are no longer in the Middle World.

I don't buy a couple of things that that implies:  first, that there aren't or have never been any new births in the Dragon's Eye, and second, that every Dragonewt who falls short of spiritual balance is a coward, cheat, or thief.

 

Eh, the first is possible, I guess...it's been a while since there were any true dragons around (roughly 500 years), so far as outsiders know, aside from a couple of devourings.

Edited September 12, 2017 by Yelm's Light