Guide to Glorantha Group Read Week 13 - Silver Shadow

[David Scott]

Silver Shadow section discussion here!

Don't forget Colin Driver's epic maps and the artwork.

https://basicroleplaying.org/topic/6783-guide-to-glorantha-group-read-week-13-lunar-empire/

https://basicroleplaying.org/topic/6784-guide-to-glorantha-group-read-week-13-deep-discussion/

https://basicroleplaying.org/topic/6745-guide-to-glorantha-group-read-week-13-errors/

[metcalph]

p318 - Hero Wars begins.  It's occured to me that we still don't have a name for the Not-the-Red-Emperor.

[Joerg]

 

I am more concerned with the definition of Carmania when I read that Carmania proclaims its independence - does it include the Oronin satrapy, or at least the western parts thereof?

I take it that the Charg eruption didn't meet much of imperial troop resistance, basically making it as devastating as Greymane's great raids, or worse if some of those bull people managed to take some of the keeps or cities in the south.

Aiming for the aid of the Arrolian territories indicates that the new Shah of Carmania still is a Lunar shah. I wonder whether it is Spol or Jhor which leads the new Carmania (or maybe the Eel-Ariash of the Oronin heartland satrapy, also liberating significant parts of Doblian?). Worion will have suffered most from the Charg outbreak, and the satrap of Bindle has shown to be a defensive player rather than an expansionist.

WIll the new Carmania invoke the Lion Shahs or will it use the Bull Shahs in order to gain the support of Charg?

[jajagappa]

16 hours ago, metcalph said:

p318 - Hero Wars begins.  It's occured to me that we still don't have a name for the Not-the-Red-Emperor.

There is a name for the Not-the-Red-Emperor. But when it may be revealed is another question. ;-)

[davecake]

The Plain of Jars - this is Erkonus (or the earthly equivalent of the celestial Erkonus), I'm pretty sure - it's associated with the Dara Happan Dry People, who grow Barley and Millet and whatever the hell Beezil is. Probably the people who are the ancestors of the Lodrili, later subjugated by the Tripolis/Wet People, a story we only get metaphorically. 

Its probably associated with both the Dry grain goddesses, and the jar goddesses (who stored the grain). 

An important question is whether this is the same as Ersorianen, and thus the place where humanity was created. 

[Joerg]

5 hours ago, davecake said:

The Plain of Jars - this is Erkonus (or the earthly equivalent of the celestial Erkonus), I'm pretty sure - it's associated with the Dara Happan Dry People, who grow Barley and Millet and whatever the hell Beezil is. Probably the people who are the ancestors of the Lodrili, later subjugated by the Tripolis/Wet People, a story we only get metaphorically. 

The Dara Happan irrigation works are derived from Mohenjar and the Ten Workers, sons and daughters of Lodril. They may inherit from Suvarian wetland farming (including Biselenslib in Henjarl).

We don't really have an idea how the landscape was in Murharzarm's pre-Flood Dara Happa. We know that Murharzarm commanded Oslira to take to the river bed and the canals dug overseen by Mohenjar, and that possibly copied  from Orlanth's victory over Sshorga. IMO Murharzarm's empire was primarily a rice-growing one. Might be a fun place for artwork - a wide land of paddies and canals, with downy howda'ed gazzam carrying or pulling loads or barges between the ziggurat-crowned cities, each with their own minor son (aka planet) hovering above. Ratite riding birds contributing to the traffic on the dams.

Later on, oxen (rather than water buffalos) do the plowing and pulling.

Turos is the Pelandan god of farming, but his cult's presence in Dara Happa is cryptically told in Entekosiad p.74, with a conflict about Darleep. It looks like a dry-farming earth walker god called Lodril was already in place, and incorporated into the realm by Jenarong.

It isn't clear whether Lodril is a rice farmer, or rather the Ten Sons and Servants. Do the rice farmers ever rebel, or was this restricted to the dry farming rurals?

Pelorian dry farmers rely on irrigation just as much as the rice farmers, but they flood their fields only shortly, allowing the precious water reserves to seep into the soil. Only they adopt maize, Hon-eel's new cereal. Only they face elf reforestation.

However, the dry farmers had long been under the rule of the horse warlords, whether Jenarong emperors or independent groups. The rice distribution map shows that rice is a fairly recent crop in Pelanda, and the Bisos story sounds pretty much like dry farming introduced by him to the liberated victims of YarGan. 

The northern Silver Shadow definitely was part of Naveria, ancient cultural land, with a long tradition of at least horticulture. No idea who introduced plowing, and using which draft beasts.

On the other hand, we get the Plow Line on the rice-growing map, which probably denotes the traditional usage of Barntar and Lod plows.

 

[davecake]

I agree that Murharzarms empire was primarily a rice-growing one, based along the river, but I don't think that old Naveria relied on irrigation. Barley and millet are both fairly drought tolerant, and can survive only on the rains of Entekos. And the Wet/Dry distinction is quite clear on GROY pg 51. Also, notably associated with Jenarong. 

This may also be a story about the different Lodril/Turos cults (one of the big differences between the two is the Turos is a god of Power, but Lodril is subservient to Yelm).