Pol-Joni, Guide To Glorantha

[g33k]

On 1/19/2016 at 7:06 PM, metcalph said:

... I assume one of their initiation rites is for a Praxian to slaughter their own steed and eat it without Peaceful Cut as a sign of their commitment to their new tribe.  

I had understood the Pol Joni had forced their way into the Covenant.  They actually give reverence to the Most Revered Elder, &c.

I'm pretty sure that insisting on not using the Peaceful Cut wouldn't pass muster with the MRE.

[Joerg]

13 hours ago, Darius West said:

What is the primary breed of horses the Pol Joni ride ?  I would imagine that they would all like to own Darons, and most prime warriors of the Pol Joni will, but others will mainly make do with Galanas?

Some few (near-) Goldeneyes from the Grazer clans that joined Derek, lots of Sered and a lot fewer Galana breeds otherwise. 

Derek was a companion of Yanasdros, King of Tarsh and most of Dragon Pass, and Yanasdros helped Derek raid the Opili Nation of Pentans (that's where he got the magical bull to sire the Pol Joni cattle herds adapted to the Chaparral) in recognition for Derek's aid in getting Yanasdros his Goldeneye steed.

I doubt that any Pol Joni own Darons, or that Darons would be able to thrive away from oats and other agriculture-based fodder.

 

When Dorasar set off to found New Pavis, he recruited Olgkarth's zebra folk from among the Pol Joni. The original war zebra breed of Joraz Khyrem would have been Pentan sered or hyal breeds brought by the Pure Horse Folk.

[metcalph]

8 minutes ago, g33k said:

I had understood the Pol Joni had forced their way into the Covenant.  They actually give reverence to the Most Revered Elder, &c.

I'm pretty sure that insisting on not using the Peaceful Cut wouldn't pass muster with the MRE.

Please do not quote ancient messages to pick holes in them.  It is annoying.

[g33k]

1 hour ago, metcalph said:

Please do not quote ancient messages to pick holes in them.  It is annoying.

Apologies.

It was previously re-up'ed by someone else, so it showed on 1st page of the forum, and I didn't look at the whole history (and specifically the post I replied to).

[David Scott]

22 hours ago, Darius West said:

What is the primary breed of horses the Pol Joni ride ?

Considering their historical makeup and location, they likely ride Pol-Joi horses, which are a mixture of galana and seredae (and likely a few other mixed in for good measure, including zebra). The occasional stripes of the seredae are commonplace and likely one of the reasons that zebras have been tolerated. They probably breed true, but don't do well out of their normal range as they've some water tolerance and can likely eat slightly tougher plants. Sartarites won't ride them as they look a bit too stripey, Zebra tribe as they aren't stripey enough:-) 

 

[David Scott]

Here's the updated Appendix C (1613) for RQG (1625) for the Pol-Joni with the original for comparison:

[Joerg]

14 minutes ago, David Scott said:

Considering their historical makeup and location, they likely ride Pol-Joi horses, which are a mixture of galana and seredae (and likely a few other mixed in for good measure, including zebra).

The cavalry zebra crossbreeds are officially infertile. There will be zebra folk riding with the Pol Joni, though, as breeding cavalry zebras is a lot easier among their horse herds than it is elsewhere in Prax, with the possible exception of Zebra Fort and the pens in Zebraside. There, the brood mares might be camouflaged with stripes, possibly from selective branding. See the earlier thread on Bronze Age branding of livestock...

 

Quote

The occasional stripes of the seredae are commonplace and likely one of the reasons that zebras have been tolerated. They probably breed true, but don't do well out of their normal range as they've some water tolerance and can likely eat slightly tougher plants. Sartarites won't ride them as they look a bit too stripey, Zebra tribe as they aren't stripey enough:-) 

That makes the camouflage I suggested above somewhat easier.

Given Harmast's zebras and Vasana's bison, I don't think that Sartarites would be picky about the coloration of their horses or sable antelopes.

Edited March 22, 2020 by Joerg

[Tindalos]

1 hour ago, Joerg said:

The cavalry zebra crossbreeds are officially infertile.

What's the reference for this? The nearest I can find is the RuneQuest: Bestiary which mentions the opposite on page 157 (although it does say they aren't interfertile with horses, but are with wild zebras)

Edited March 22, 2020 by Tindalos
annoying typo

[Joerg]

Disclaimer: I have always been fascinated by the Zebra Tribe of Pavis. Joraz Khyrem is one of my personal heroes in Glorantha, along with Jorganos, Heort, Hendrik, Sartar, Sarotar and Tarkalor. And in the 1997 freeform People of Pavis I got to play Cyrilius Harmonius, the Daughter of Pavis stationed at Zebra Fort and spokesman for the zebra breeders in the cult (and a mason).

Quote

What's the reference for this? The nearest I can find is the RuneQuest: Bestiary which mentions the opposite on page 147 (although it does say they aren't interfertile with horses, but are with wild zebras)

Weird, my pdf has the game stats on p.156 of the bestiary. Note that p.157 gives more info, though.

 

First mention ever of the zebra riders was in Nomad Gods (where they appear as the Pavis Survivors), but little detail is given about their mounts.

The RQ2 rules mention the zebra (RQ Classic p.93), but don't discern between cavalry zebras and war zebras yet, either:

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The zebras used by the people of Pavis are in all ways like the horses described above.

Likewise, there is an astonishing number of zebra-riding rune levels in Runemasters, including a troll priestess of Kyger Litor (! Borderlands & Beyond, p.290-291) and a dark troll priest of Zorak Zoran, and last not least a "Female  Dryad,  Old  Pavis  rich  noble  with  light cavalry  experience.  Age  28." (p.296) but no data on whether they ride war zebras or cavalry zebras. (At closer inspection, this mention of allied spirits in zebras appears to be a cut and paste error in Runemasters, as every rune priest appears to have one. Even funnier is "Rohir Oaklimb, Elf Human, A Sartar peasant." But still, it is amusing.)

Starting with Pavis and Big Rubble, p.61-62, repeated verbatim in Pavis: Gateway to Adventure, p.42-43, but only truncated the boxed text in the RQG Bestiary, p.157, missing this bit:

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However,  breeders  of  the  war  zebras  often supplemented  their  stock  by  controlled  breeding with  normal  horses. The  result  was  a  creature  not unlike  a  horse  in  general  statistics,  or  resembling a  zebra,  but  with  greater  endurance,  and  less sprinting  speed. Like  mules,  these  cavalry  zebras were  sterile.  They  were  used  by  regular  cavalry troopers  against  the  ever  skirmishing  nomads. War zebras  were  ever  difficult  to  train  and  skittish, though  once  trained,  they  were  as  fearsome  in  war as  a  true  war-horse.  The  hybrid  sterile  cavalry zebras  were  much  easier  to  train,  though  perhaps less  mighty  in  battle.

Anaxial's Roster only mentions the War Zebras ("Kyremings") and wild zebras. 

The RQG rules mention the striped equines a few times: Harmast's zebras in RQG (p.88) are described as "riding zebras", evading the classification. "Stats are not needed." Riding a zebra is the same skill as riding a horse, and the price tables know zebras in four categories: Meat (15L), Riding (70L), Cavalry (140L) and War (210L), without going into details whether the first two categories can breed or not, and whether the cavalry zebra is an infertile crossbreed or a semi-trained fertile war zebra. The meat zebra is a bit of a mystery here - probably a beast captured by other Praxian tribes in raids and no longer fit for riding or carrying burdens.

 

Edited March 22, 2020 by Joerg

[Tindalos]

41 minutes ago, Joerg said:

Weird, my pdf has the game stats on p.156 of the bestiary. Note that p.157 gives more info, though.

Whoops, I meant 157, my mistake.

[metcalph]

2 hours ago, Tindalos said:

What's the reference for this? The nearest I can find is the RuneQuest: Bestiary which mentions the opposite on page 157 (although it does say they aren't interfertile with horses, but are with wild zebras)

Either Pavis: Threshold to Danger or Pavis: Gateway to Adventure has the details in the section about Dorasar. 

[soltakss]

12 hours ago, Joerg said:

Likewise, there is an astonishing number of zebra-riding rune levels in Runemasters, including a troll priestess of Kyger Litor (! Borderlands & Beyond, p.290-291) and a dark troll priest of Zorak Zoran, and last not least a "Female  Dryad,  Old  Pavis  rich  noble  with  light cavalry  experience.  Age  28." (p.296) but no data on whether they ride war zebras or cavalry zebras. (At closer inspection, this mention of allied spirits in zebras appears to be a cut and paste error in Runemasters, as every rune priest appears to have one. Even funnier is "Rohir Oaklimb, Elf Human, A Sartar peasant." But still, it is amusing.)

I think that is a consequence of the pretty poor backgrounds in RQ2. Basically, you could be in the Infantry or Cavalry and that was almost all the choices you got. So, Trolls in the cavalry meant riding horses until Trollpack came out, then it meant riding Insects or Spiders, which are much cooler.

 

[Darius West]

On 3/22/2020 at 8:29 PM, g33k said:

I had understood the Pol Joni had forced their way into the Covenant.  They actually give reverence to the Most Revered Elder, &c.

I'm pretty sure that insisting on not using the Peaceful Cut wouldn't pass muster with the MRE.

I know you mean Most Revered Elder, but I keep seeing Meals Ready to Eat.

[g33k]

10 hours ago, Darius West said:

... I keep seeing Meals Ready to Eat.

who is currently Engajia Chewer of Flesh ...

[Geoff R Evil]

I see indications that some pol Joni are in Waha according to @David Scott and others.  I get the Eiritha connection, they have been accepted in the Paps.  But I find nothing anywhere that shows horse riders have been accepted by Waha into the covenant.  To me this is a gap and an unresolved issue.

So in my Glorantha, and maybe it should be considered more widely, you cannot join Waha while being a horse rider - after all where is your founder spirit and is it affiliated with the covenant?  It would seem to me that the Pol Joni have an as yet unresolved HQ to do to get horses accepted into the covenant if they wanted to to be fully accepted in Prax.  However the Pol Joni do not live symbiotically as per the covenant with their horses, they raise cattle for food, they do not, except in times of crisis, eat their horses, they may like the mongols use their horses blood at times to sustain themselves on long rides though.  So there is some changes that need to occur or some accommodation by Waha before the Pol Joni can become part of the Praxian covenant.

Also the Pol Joni are strongly Orlanthi by tradition - how does that align with Waha if they submit to the covenant? and in the covenant HQ, don't the horses get a vote?  all sorts of risks and opportunities for the future of Prax.

[radmonger]

At a guess, the Pol Joni have waha shamans, but not khans. Those shamans are very much marginalized weirdos, barely part of the mainstream trial culture. They probably follow personal geases, like _ride no horse_, or _eat only horsemeat_. They may or may not have ambitions for their personal magical practices to become the primary tribal religion, with their taboos becoming cultural rules. 

However it is one thing for a few magical specialists to follow some rules; after all Orlanthi healers are pacifists. For the whole tribe to follow those rules would be ecologically and economically impossible. And changing that would require doing the impossible;  a heroquest. There would be little support for this by the mainstream Pol Joni. It would change their way of life, as a horse that was a member of the Waha covenant would be a rather different animal than one that wasn't.

Also, failure risks the tribe literally becoming hippogryph fodder. So if they push those ambitions too aggressively, they are likely get outlawed or exiled.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Przewalski's_horse