Prax and the thousand questions about the place.

[M Helsdon]

14 hours ago, jeffjerwin said:

A tentative comment: total calories may be important as well: Tusker lard is probably going to go further than ostrich meat (which, if like chicken, has about 2/3rds the calories), even more than weight would indicate. Pork and beef have a similar number of calories; mutton has more calories than either (250 versus 200 than beef for 3 oz. of meat).

True, but I'm wary of going into too much detail, as Gloranthans won't consider calories, vitamins and trace elements, all of which are important in the modern world.

From what I've been able to research most animals provide approximately 40-55% of their weight in edible meat, if butchered correctly; herd men and oxen are exceptions (humans aren't very good meat sources, and oxen have been bred domestically to increase yield).

One animal I missed out in the list was the rhino - living weight 3500-4500 lbs. edible meat probably about 45% because of the weight and thickness of the hide.

 

[JonL]

WRT Prax in particular, I would expect animals that are party to the Covenant in the prey/grazer role to provide more nutrition to Covenant parties in the hunter/herder role than would otherwise be the case, just as the Covenant grazers are better able to be sustained by the limited resources of the chaparral than foreign animals like horses.  

[David Scott]

I've moved the answer to a morokanth question by @MJ Sadique over here to avoid an off topic reply:

.....do they drink human's milk ? or another beast's one ?

The basics for Praxians is that you keep your own animals as a sign of wealth and live off those you've raided. If a raid goes well you likely have more animals than you can eat, so likely a small herd of animals not of your tribe exists within your clan. Marriage requirements are that you need other herd beasts to gift your mother-in-laws family, this not only proves your prowess, but provides the wedding feast. So most clans have at least a small number of other types of herd beasts. Invariably some were part of a milk herd and so will be milked.

Quote

All of the major tribes herd beasts produce milk and are milked. As is usual after calving, some cows are moved on to the milk herd (often within the main herd), while the others are returned to the main herd. Back in the main herd their udders reduce noticeably returning to their normal size. Milk herds are normally small and only noticeable when separated out during the rut. Different beast milks have different qualities, but all are either drunk, fermented or made into some form of cheese.

So in their ceremonies, morokanth eat or drink herd-man milk products and other herd's when available.

[David Scott]

I've moved the reply to @BWP about morokanth over here to avoid an off topic reply:

Quote

Or, they're the same devious carnivores that they always were, because that's considerably more interesting.

I have to disagree. Once i was told that morokanth were vegetarians, I immediately started to look at the implications of this. Jeff said they'd eat meat 1 or 2 times a week which fitted in with normal meat consumption for the Bronze Age, meat wasn't eaten every day, Praxian nomads are obviously different. This gave a good opportunity to diversify the five great tribes of Prax as up to then they all function the same - raid eat meat raid. It was quite refreshing to look at a tribe which wouldn't follow this normal pattern, but still functioned within the same pattern as the other nomads. The idea of the morokanth cheating to beat the humans and be like everyone else, was easily replaced to be the morokanth cheated not to be like everyone else. And they clearly never cheated as they have the same Waha / Eiritha structure as other tribes - The Covenant was individually done for each tribe, with each having a slightly different version of it depending on their herd. The drawing lots was Waha holding two pieces of string in his fist. Separately each tribe drew a string and the short string lost, becoming the herder. The herders now had the responsibility for the now animals. The idea that the morokanth must still raid for meat for the herd-men is good twist and sets the scene for the other tribes problems with herd-men and outsiders perceptions. 

As before it makes no difference if you make the morokanth like the other tribes, it's easy to make them so. Future products such as the RuneQuest Bestiary will have them primarily as vegetarians.

more info here:

so in the diversification of the Great tribes, we have

• The bison are the standard to compare the other tribes against.
• The morokanth retain their vegetarianism.
• The sables don't have Storm Bull as the Father of their Founders.
• The impalas are the most numerous by far (roughly twice as many as any other tribe).
• The high llamas have an elemental connection much stronger than the other tribes'.

Edited August 3, 2018 by David Scott

[scott-martin]

45 minutes ago, David Scott said:

The Covenant was individually done for each tribe,

Was this all done at the same "time" or do some (undoubtedly obscure and fragmentary) accounts suggest that there might have been (for example) Seven or Four Great Tribes at one point in history, with the current canonical system only emerging at a particular moment? It's worth it for me at least contemplating a history where Sable and Moro were introduced to the Bull Tribes within Time, possibly displacing one or more others that were on the way out anyway.

[David Scott]

18 minutes ago, scott-martin said:

Was this all done at the same "time" or do some (undoubtedly obscure and fragmentary) accounts suggest that there might have been (for example) Seven or Four Great Tribes at one point in history, with the current canonical system only emerging at a particular moment? It's worth it for me at least contemplating a history where Sable and Moro were introduced to the Bull Tribes within Time, possibly displacing one or more others that were on the way out anyway.

It's worth looking at the populations at the Dawn, these were the "tribes" in Sacred Ground (see map in the Guide):

Tribe/families/septs

Bison 500/20/2 (Ancestral grazing present in Prax)

High Llama 500/20/5 (Ancestral grazing present in Prax)

Sable 500/20/ 7 Phratries (Ancestral grazing present in Prax)

Morokanth 500/20/4 (Ancestral grazing present in Prax)

Impala 500/20/3 ((Ancestral grazing lost, but move on to the Paps Grazing)

Bolo 175/7/0

Ostrich 175/7/0

Rhino 75/3/0 (nearly die out in 1st Age)

Nose Horn 25/1/0 (die out in 1st Age)

Plains Elk 25/1/0 (die out in 1st Age)

Long Nose 25/1/0 (die out in 1st Age)

As you can see, all the Great Tribes were present. Great in that they have the largest populations. The populations being only clan sized.

 

[scott-martin]

11 minutes ago, David Scott said:

 all the Great Tribes were present

Thank you! And all followed the Covenant in some form we would recognize today, I take it.

[David Scott]

55 minutes ago, scott-martin said:

And all followed the Covenant in some form we would recognize today, I take it

Sort of. Populations were very small, likewise herds. Most were living off their own herds. Raiding wasn't fully established. Almost immediately the Great herds moved out to their respective grazings, Bolo and ostrich headed out to the wastes. The others remained in the safety of the paps. The first chaos attacks occurred almost immediately from the marsh, storm bulls moved off to the block. Populations grew slowly by the time the First council arrived in 35, the Great tribes had only grown (net) by 50-60 individuals. I don't think raiding really became established until about 200 with each tribe's population nearing 1000, around this period, most will have formed 2 clans. Under the influence of the First Council, the Lightbringers were as important as Waha and Eiritha. It wasn't until the tribes began to move out beyond the Storm influence that Waha became fully established. The unicorn tribe also formed after 35, when the Council brought Yelorna with them.

Edited August 2, 2018 by David Scott

[David Scott]

With the separation into 2 clans, the High Khan/ tribal leader started to appear and so the Tasks of Waha started to become more important.

[BWP]

7 hours ago, David Scott said:

I've moved the reply to @BWP about morokanth over here to avoid an off topic reply:

I have to disagree.

I'm not sure what the point of your post was.  I was indicating my disagreement with this new "accepted wisdom".  I neither needed nor wanted a change here.  Of course you're free to disagree with my disagreement, but I wasn't talking about your Glorantha, was I?

Everything you wrote here just reinforces my opinion that the whole "morokanths are vegetarian" concept is incredibly dull.  I don't want my Glorantha to be a dull place.

[soltakss]

11 hours ago, BWP said:

Everything you wrote here just reinforces my opinion that the whole "morokanths are vegetarian" concept is incredibly dull.  I don't want my Glorantha to be a dull place.

I agree, it makes no sense in terms of the Survival Covenant, so is one of the things about the new revised Glorantha that I happily ignore.

[JonL]

I don't think the Morokanth need to be vegetarian in order to stand out among the tribes. Being sapient giant tapirs who herd homo non-sapiens is plenty distinct without a What A Twist! inversion of what it means to have won or lost Waha's contest.

Put me in the creepy awesome herd-man eating Morokanth camp, where getting to have conciousness be the norm is winning rather than having to keep herds being losing.

Edited August 4, 2018 by JonL

[David Scott]

11 hours ago, JonL said:

I don't think the Morokanth need to be vegetarian in order to stand out among the tribes.

It wasn't my decision to make them vegetarian, I'm just welcoming it to diversify the tribes.

[Darius West]

On 2/3/2016 at 6:27 AM, Harrek said:

Hello everyone,

I been stalking this forum for a long time but now I have a question to make on my own. First, a short introduction to my question. My game group has been playing in and around Pavis for many years. The campaign is quite heroic nowadays, and we have played at least 100 sessions (including about 10 heroquests) so far. One of the PC's is a hero of Valind. Yes, a hero of Valind in Pavis/Prax. The character was a novice level PC in the previous campaign set in Dorastor, and started a new life in Pavis as a refugee.

Though the advice is now 2 years out of date, the logical place for your Valind Worshipper to go imo is Winter Ruin in the Dead Place, which was a prison for the forces of Winter during the Gods' War.

[Harrek]

Better later than never☺️ He has visited the place of course, but he spends more time in Pavis. He has a small temple and a group of followers in the Nine Good Giant Mountains, where he goes to worship Valind. The campaign is still going on. 

[Joerg]

Herd Man diet and its implications again.

While gorillas are an example of apes on a purely vegan diet (resorting to coprophagy to gain enough Vitamin D etc.), their diet consists of rather soft, watery plants that are unavailable in the Chaparral. Herd men are omnivores who might gain as much nourishment out of green grass as you and me might gain out of salad or raw spinach leaves. They supplement their diet with meat - from raided herd beasts slaughtered for them by their Morokanth masters, from grubs, and - depending on the ecology of Prax and the Wastes - from insects like termites (if they exist, and if they don't, they need to be introduced by a hero) and their grubs. Probably frogs, too, and pond snails when near one of the marshes.

If a herd man eats a frog, does she perform an instinctive form of Peaceful Bite? What about natural, non-chaotic predators like hyenas killing an Eirithan herd beast?

Hunting appears to be contributing to the Praxian diet of meats besides raiding other tribes' herds. I don't think there are any unclaimed tribal herd beasts in Prax, but there were wild (smaller) zebras when Joraz Khyrem created his war zebras. What other unclaimed herd beasts are there?

Near Pent, there might be herds of onagers that might stray south of the Snow Line. If mules aren't horses and can be slaughtered by orthodox Praxians (happened in Biturian's travelogue), then onagers don't fall under the horse eating taboo, either.

Other antelopes or miocene herd beasts like Moropus or Elasmotherium might be candidates.

 

And a random thought - we know that extinct herd beasts can be brought back from the Godtime. Argrath brings back the Aurochs. So, what about the lost herd beasts of Prax - Plains Elk (extinct since 297), Long Noses (extinct since 230), Nose Horns (extinct since 440). Probably others that didn't make it through the Greater Darkness.

Now, if you wanted to re-introduce these beasts into the Covenant as independent tribes, what would you have to do? Their founders, protectresses and ancestors should still hang around somewhere around the Paps, unlike those of tribes who didn't make it through the Greater Darkness. As soon as you have the beasts back, you might be able to adopt awakened herd men into their tribe. Leave the awakening to some awakened herd beasts of their kind. Breed them with slaves taken from the oasis folk, offspring of slave women grow up to become regular tribe members.

[scott-martin]

2 hours ago, Joerg said:

Herd men are omnivores

I wonder if their masters feed them on a ghastly slurry rumored to contain "herd meat" and even the flesh of fallen tribal hostages. "Two-Feather Bob never came back from that raid but we found finger bones in the herd droppings that season." It sounds a little easy but restores the evidence behind the Tapir Tribe's bad reputation. They still survive on endemic "cannibalism," just not personally . . . the herds are the ones with a taste for bipedal fare.

For all I know a Glorantha where this applies would have hidden structural parallels between herd culture and spontaneous outbreaks of ogrism.

EDIT also this program of "new riders for renewed herds" is astounding. Although I suspect the Moro would complain bitterly to have their "mounts" taken away . . . what is a Praxian without a steed? Practically an animal again.

Edited April 10, 2019 by scott-martin

[David Scott]

17 hours ago, Joerg said:

While gorillas are an example of apes on a purely vegan diet (resorting to coprophagy to gain enough Vitamin D etc.), their diet consists of rather soft, watery plants that are unavailable in the Chaparral.

With real world herbivores, I suspect none are truly herbivorous as plant material contains a multitude of smaller lifeforms - insects, worms, other invertebrates. Gorillas are no different are aren't classified as vegans anywhere I've read. Only one subspecies appears to not deliberately seek out invertebrates to eat. Here's simple breakdown https://seaworld.org/animals/all-about/gorilla/diet/. As for coprophagia, it's common across herbivores, not just gorillas.

17 hours ago, Joerg said:

Herd men are omnivores who might gain as much nourishment out of green grass as you and me might gain out of salad or raw spinach leaves. They supplement their diet with meat - from raided herd beasts slaughtered for them by their Morokanth masters, from grubs, and - depending on the ecology of Prax and the Wastes - from insects like termites (if they exist, and if they don't, they need to be introduced by a hero) and their grubs. Probably frogs, too, and pond snails when near one of the marshes.

Herdmen can survive on a vegetarian (with some invertebrates) diet, but don't thrive. Thrive means, shiny hair, normal fertility, generally healthy. They will eat all of the items you mention, as they are likely encounter them when harvesting food for the morokanth. They eat some of what they harvest, but when fed meat they need less veg. This a function of the Covenant. 

17 hours ago, Joerg said:

If a herd man eats a frog, does she perform an instinctive form of Peaceful Bite? What about natural, non-chaotic predators like hyenas killing an Eirithan herd beast?

No, in real world animism this is part of the natural circle of life, only intelligent creatures must do it. Intelligence separates from the cycle. 

17 hours ago, Joerg said:

Hunting appears to be contributing to the Praxian diet of meats besides raiding other tribes' herds. I don't think there are any unclaimed tribal herd beasts in Prax, but there were wild (smaller) zebras when Joraz Khyrem created his war zebras. What other unclaimed herd beasts are there?

There are some wild herds that are released by the goddess herself. These are generally unclaimed as they are sacred. They diminish by predators or are taken to the Paps.   .

17 hours ago, Joerg said:

And a random thought - we know that extinct herd beasts can be brought back from the Godtime. Argrath brings back the Aurochs. So, what about the lost herd beasts of Prax - Plains Elk (extinct since 297), Long Noses (extinct since 230), Nose Horns (extinct since 440). Probably others that didn't make it through the Greater Darkness.

There were 21 animal types -  so a wide choice.

17 hours ago, Joerg said:

Now, if you wanted to re-introduce these beasts into the Covenant as independent tribes, what would you have to do? Their founders, protectresses and ancestors should still hang around somewhere around the Paps, unlike those of tribes who didn't make it through the Greater Darkness. As soon as you have the beasts back, you might be able to adopt awakened herd men into their tribe. Leave the awakening to some awakened herd beasts of their kind. Breed them with slaves taken from the oasis folk, offspring of slave women grow up to become regular tribe members.

1. Get some breeding animals - a trip to the god time.

2. For Khans - prove you are the founder. For the beasts that still have priestess positions at the Paps, go back to the god time mate with the priestess (the Protectress) hopefully she will give birth to either a herd beast or a human or both as in the case of the zebra priestess. Repeat a few times. There's your core tribe and animals. 

3. For those without a priestess at the paps return to the god time and find the Protectress. then as above.

4. For women, become a priestess of Eiritha, return to the gods age and mate with the founder, give birth the the appropriate animal proving you are the protectress.

5. Or other variations on the above. Basically you need a founder, protectress, some people, some herd and a connection to Eiritha and Waha, and find those who are, or can take on the role.

[Joerg]

5 minutes ago, David Scott said:

Herdmen can survive on a vegetarian (with some invertebrates) diet, but don't thrive. Thrive means, shiny hair, normal fertility, generally healthy. They will eat all of the items you mention, as they are likely encounter them when harvesting food for the morokanth. They eat some of what they harvest, but when fed meat they need less veg. This a function of the Covenant. 

So there are termites or some equivalent in the Chaparral?

5 minutes ago, David Scott said:

No, in real world animism this is part of the natural circle of life, only intelligent creatures must do it. Intelligence separates from the cycle. 

So, while everything the animist encounters is people rather than a materialist's resource, these people don't have to be intelligent? Looks like a version of eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

5 minutes ago, David Scott said:

There are some wild herds that are released by the goddess herself. These are generally unclaimed as they are sacred. They diminish by predators or are taken to the Paps.

What happens to them at the Paps? Is the Sacred Ground populated by such unclaimed herds?

Hmm. If one would find an unclaimed herdman herd, my proposal for getting adoptees for a new tribe might be easier.

5 minutes ago, David Scott said:

There were 21 animal types -  so a wide choice.

1. Get some breeding animals - a trip to the god time.

2. For Khans - prove you are the founder. For the beasts that still have priestess positions at the Paps, go back to the god time mate with the priestess (the Protectress) hopefully she will give birth to either a herd beast or a human or both as in the case of the zebra priestess. Repeat a few times. There's your core tribe and animals. 

3. For those without a priestess at the paps return to the god time and find the Protectress. then as above.

4. For women, become a priestess of Eiritha, return to the gods age and mate with the founder, give birth the the appropriate animal proving you are the protectress.

5. Or other variations on the above. Basically you need a founder, protectress, some people, some herd and a connection to Eiritha and Waha, and find those who are, or can take on the role.

So no attempt to contact the lost ancestors of those tribes?

[Byll]

With the amount of captive taking in Praxian pre-history its not unlikely that a (diluted) blood descendant of each lost tribe exists somewhere. If Europeans have 3% Neanderthal 'heritage' there might be living praxians who could (if they had the power and knowledge) summon an ancestor in a lost tribe. I suppose a big obstacle is giving them a reason to want to do so (having been brought up all there lives in their existing tribe).

[Sir_Godspeed]

1 hour ago, David Scott said:

No, in real world animism this is part of the natural circle of life, only intelligent creatures must do it. Intelligence separates from the cycle. 

 

1 hour ago, Joerg said:

So, while everything the animist encounters is people rather than a materialist's resource, these people don't have to be intelligent? Looks like a version of eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

EDIT: I went a bit too long here, pardon the indulgence.

In terms of literature on Amazonian animism, at least - the widespread fear of cannibalism is tied into this. If everything in nature is sapient and related, then everything you eat is essentially an act of cannibalism. This is why certain entities like Game/Animal Mothers are sacrificed to before or after hunts, or why the specific animal's spirit is appeased after it is killed (presumably an idea not entirely unlike the Peaceful Cut, albeit with the killing-appeasing switched around, as the Praxians are pastoralists rather than hunter-gatherers).

The implication is that, yes, everything is intelligent - but it's not the same kind of intelligence. To parahprase a text: jaguars have villages, but their villages are invisible to human senses because human senses are not jaguar senses - and so forth. There is a rich tradition of Amazonian storytelling where people have to conduct seemingly bizarre and nonsensical actions in order to "realign" their senses with the realities of an otherworld. For example, a man who falls in love with a woman who belongs to the underwater people tells him that he must walk backwards on the path, and make the morning-call of a bird in the middle of the night in order to be able to breathe underwater so that he can visit her there. Amusement aside, the purpose of these stories is partially to show how different "person"-beings coexist without normally coming into contact as "inter-personal" relations, but as prey and hunter, or what have you.

This also means, however, that animals, plants, spirits have their own version of shamans - who are able to change bodies and take on the sensory perspective of another lifeform, and engage in making deals with other beings. For a human, this can for example be to turn into a jaguar to parlay with the jaguars so that they won't attack the village, or steal prey, or it can be to enter the deer village to try and make a deal for a certain number of them to willingly give up their flesh, in return for propitiatory sacrifices. But a village may also have a scary story of a strange man arriving in a village, wearing strange spots on his skin, and eating only meat, while requesting that the tribe avoid a certain part of the woods. When he leaves, people see that he only left paw prints, not foot prints: so he was obviously the Jaguar's "shaman" (or a were-jaguar, although they may sometimes be considered the same thing, it varies hugely between groups). It sounds a bit bizarre, but those are the examples I've seen written about.

Anyway, to cut a long story short - it is entirely possible that in the Praxian worldview, the animal members of the Covenant of Waha* are seen as naturally conducting a Peaceful Cut (or bite) when eating flesh.

Moreover, this might be something your average Praxian takes for granted, or has never really thought about at all. Animals do what they do, and it doesn't really require lots of concern. You might get laughed at or given strange looks if you brought it up to them. A shaman would perhaps consider it more carefully, though, or even be surprised that you have insight into secret/privileged lore. It's like going up to a medieval Christian farmer and asking him what happens to an animal after death. Who cares, you know? Ask the priest - the farmer is busy. So you go asking the priest, and he gets upset because your question might be taken for implying heathenry or heresy, or he may explain to you how souls were doled out during the creation of the world, or whatever.

(*It's my understanding that it is the membership in the Covenant that dictates whether someone is a relevant partner to the Peaceful Cut, whether as cutter or cut. If bugs aren't a part of the Covenant, a question over whether they need to the Peaceful Cut is rendered moot. I could be wrong, of course. It might apply to every living animal. Since Votanki also use it(?) it might be universal for the animist groups in Glorantha.)

Edited April 11, 2019 by Sir_Godspeed

[svensson]

RHINOS FOR THE WIN!

[In homage to the memory of Grettir Sharpwind's beloved mount, Windbreak]

Edited April 11, 2019 by svensson

[svensson]

The Prax Book needs three things:

1. An explanation of clan politics post Liberation of Prax.

2. What happened to Raus.

3. Writeups on the Basmoli Berzerkers, the Men-And-A-Half, the Ostrich Riders, and Rhino Riders

That's it. Everything else is padding the term paper.

[This presumes that Pavis and the Rubble get their own book]

Edited April 11, 2019 by svensson

[Jeff]

8 minutes ago, svensson said:

The Prax Book needs three things:

1. An explanation of clan politics post Liberation of Prax.

2. What happened to Raus.

3. Writeups on the Basmoli Berzerkers, the Men-And-A-Half, the Ostrich Riders, and Rhino Riders

That's it. Everything else is padding the term paper.

[This presumes that Pavis and the Rubble get their own book]

Lol.

1. Yep. And the existence of an intertribal organization fiercely loyal to its hero-leader is a huge change.

2. He's dead.

3. Basmol is in the gods and goddesses book. The men and a half are in the bestiary. Ostrich and rhino riders need to be added.

 

[svensson]

9 minutes ago, Jeff said:

Lol.

1. Yep. And the existence of an intertribal organization fiercely loyal to its hero-leader is a huge change.

2. He's dead.

3. Basmol is in the gods and goddesses book. The men and a half are in the bestiary. Ostrich and rhino riders need to be added.

 

1. And the tensions within that organization... You can't put disparate groups like the Pol Joni, Zebra Riders, and Bison People into one group following a Hero-Khan and not have several pissing contests just under the surface.

2. I didn't know he died. Still, the story must be interesting. He wasn't a bad boss in the RQ2 game I played in.

3. The deity and the tribe are two different things. The Berzerkers have enough of a presence on the Plains to hold their own with the Minor Tribes, so there must be something to them. I haven't gotten the Bestiary yet, to I'll take your word for it on the Agimori [extra points for character generation info ]. And yes, more info on the Minor Tribes would be VERY helpful. Not everyone wants to ride with the Big 5 Tribes, man!