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Glorantha Quickstart: Bronze Age / Not really Bronze Age


MOB

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I realize that there is a hardcore group of anthropowankers and ancient history fans among the people who write quite a lot of the Glorantha material. For me, this is part of what makes discussion of this imaginative world so interesting. Ever so often someone with expert knowledge peeps up and injects this into the meme pool from which we pull up our ideas about Glorantha. And I would like to think that even the most tedious nitpicking session may inspire occasional good ideas for distinctly typical Gloranthan scenarios or characters.

 

7 hours ago, kaydet said:

I can't tell you how many times I have tried to introduce people to Glorantha, only to be told "Yeah, I've heard of that. It seemed like a cool setting, but I couldn't stand the people who play it."

Where did that happen to you?

Tribalism can be strength when it comes to fighting extinction, but it may become a weakness when trying to expand.

 

2 hours ago, soltakss said:

I prefer Heroic Age to Viking/Saxon/Celt/Mycenean as all the cultures were broadly similar - Privileged warrior elite, drinking halls, clan based, tribes of deities.

While I never got the feeling that Vikings had a different notion of property than we do, I never had the feeling that to them clan mattered much. Some of the most dramatic sagas are about warfare inside the family - not just royals, but even not-so-wealthy farmers like in Gisli Saga.

 

2 hours ago, soltakss said:

As to which Bronze Age, well, all of them mashed together.

I would have added Hollywood examples if I could think about them when I asked the question.

 

The anachronisms in 10,000 BC are jarring when seen in a historical context for the New World, and neither the originality of the story nor the quality of its fight scenes stand out in a good way, but I think that flick might be a good intro how much of Glorantha works. The technologies seen in that flick are within Gloranthan abilities, often below them. 

Atlantis movies rarely find the sweet spot for Glorantha, all too often they drift into science fantasy.

14 minutes ago, Steve said:

Stonehenge was mainly a Neolithic creation, with only the very start of the Bronze Age being a time of construction there. The main Bronze Age stuff activity at Stonehenge were the barrows built nearby. Sure, there were some rearrangements of the stones during the Bronze Age, but the main "building" was Neolithic.

Sure. This is part of what I wanted to bring across - a Neolithic culture with sophisticated religious architecture and limited but proven access to bronze during the building phase of the capped ring is part of that "Bronze Age" definition.

The British tin played an important role in the bronze industry on the continent and was used in the mediterranean area, too. The people who produced and traded it and the agricultural settlements in their wider backyard were part of the Bronze Age, regardless of their material culture.

Stonehenge remained a ritual site well into the Roman era, and has been used as such in Christian times, even if you ignore neo-pagans using that site. Like with the Nebra disk, the original usage changed.

Oetzi the ice mummy narrowly missed inclusion in Bronze Age types. 

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Telling how it is excessive verbis

 

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One thing to consider is that there's a broad commonality to European cultures over a very wide spread of history. The equivalents are subject to debate, but there's a correspondence between Saxon tribal organization and Mycenaean, despite many centuries and differences in material culture:

Mycenaean

Saxon

Wanax

King

Lawagetas

Thane

Heqetai

Housecarl

Quasileus

Sheriff

Doeros, doera

Cottars/serfs

Admittedly there's limited information about the exact roles in Mycenaean society, but there's a clear military aristocracy with several levels.

Now, I'm not suggesting that we start using Mycenaean titles in Glorantha, but it does highlight that using terminology many people will be familiar with, gives an insight to how a society is structured as a basic template.

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 8/12/2017 at 7:41 AM, MOB said:

So what do you find satisfying Bronze Age about Glorantha?

What bits of Gloratha aren't? Does it matter?

Echoing @kaydet, I think the best way for us (and hopefully for new Gloranthaphiles) to think of the "Bronze Age setting" phrase as a shorthand for the distinctive things that separate Glorantha from more pseudo-medieval and pseudo-Tolkienesque fantasy settings.

For me, this evokes an ancient Mediterranean or Middle Eastern setting, rather than a northern European setting. It makes it easier for me to imagine the adobe slums of Pavis and the arid plains of Prax, and it makes it easier for me to imagine the distinctive religious and magical landscape of Glorantha.

And while there may be many aspects of Glorantha that aren't Bronze Age, it doesn't really matter much to me. I guess that "Bronze Age" label puts me in a mindset where I'm ready for a certain kind of adventure and setting, so it doesn't matter if parts of Glorantha don't match that image.

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5 hours ago, Garwalf said:

Echoing @kaydet, I think the best way for us (and hopefully for new Gloranthaphiles) to think of the "Bronze Age setting" phrase as a shorthand for the distinctive things that separate Glorantha from more pseudo-medieval and pseudo-Tolkienesque fantasy settings.

For me, this evokes an ancient Mediterranean or Middle Eastern setting, rather than a northern European setting. It makes it easier for me to imagine the adobe slums of Pavis and the arid plains of Prax, and it makes it easier for me to imagine the distinctive religious and magical landscape of Glorantha.

And while there may be many aspects of Glorantha that aren't Bronze Age, it doesn't really matter much to me. I guess that "Bronze Age" label puts me in a mindset where I'm ready for a certain kind of adventure and setting, so it doesn't matter if parts of Glorantha don't match that image.

This is my approach as well. "Bronze Age" is a shorthand for bronze tools and weapons, some stone tools remaining, scratch plows, sheep, a world filled with gods and spirits, some literacy and scribes, priest-kings, etc. Is it exactly our Bronze Age? Of course not - but I find it the most useful approximation and it helps to strongly separate it from other fantasy settings.

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On 29/08/2017 at 3:40 AM, Garwalf said:

For me, this evokes an ancient Mediterranean or Middle Eastern setting, rather than a northern European setting. It makes it easier for me to imagine the adobe slums of Pavis and the arid plains of Prax, and it makes it easier for me to imagine the distinctive religious and magical landscape of Glorantha.

When describing New Pavis to my players, I always told them to watch Monty Python's 'The life of Brian'. That was how I always imagined it, anyway.

Edited by Brian McReynolds
Spelling mistake! (Failed Lankhor Mhy Literacy Examination!)
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