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High Llama


mallion

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12 minutes ago, mallion said:

Hello sirs,

High Llama of Prax plain is asumed to be a camelopard which now extinct on earth. Is it still true it's scientific (God Learnic) name   in RQ3? And what "high" means? (tall or supreme or holy?)

It is "high" because it is so tall...

unless you ride one, in which case it's obviously the most-holy and supreme (in addition to being tall)

unless you ride a rival Praxian beast, in which case it's because High Llama riders are high from Hazia if they could possibly think such a thing...

 

Aepycamelus OR Alticamelus would be the "scientific" name.

 

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7 minutes ago, Joerg said:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aepycamelus

basically, all the name promises - a llama-like humpless camelid with long legs and neck, making it really tall. Not related to giraffes.

Actually, the camelids and giraffes are moderately-closely-related, both "Artiodactyla;" but they are relatively-distantly-related within that group.

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9 hours ago, g33k said:

Actually, the camelids and giraffes are moderately-closely-related, both "Artiodactyla;" but they are relatively-distantly-related within that group.

That makes them (in our world) about as related to one another as they are to whales and dolphins.

If there are giraffe-like critters in Glorantha, I'd expect them in Errinoru's jungle (like the okapi), and not in Genert's Garden. (And much less in Genert's Wastes...) If Hsunchen critters, they'd be descended from Mother Ungulate. (Whale or dolphin Hsunchen - if there have ever been such - would be in a different branch of the Hykimi systematic, possibly Fralar's.)

The High Llamas of Ralios (after whom the pass to Fronela was named) were Hykimi creatures, and not directly related to the Eirithan beasts ridden in Prax and the Wastes. (Though probably somewhat compatible if there ever was a meeting. After all, humans from different origins are compatible, too.)

 

I wonder how these beast goddesses diversify their offspring. Cults of Prax and Nomad Gods suggests that elemental influences (through the fathers?) could influence the beasts. Now could someone please explain to me how high llamas are connected to the element of water?

Telling how it is excessive verbis

 

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1 hour ago, Joerg said:

The High Llamas of Ralios (after whom the pass to Fronela was named) were Hykimi creatures, and not directly related to the Eirithan beasts ridden in Prax and the Wastes. (Though probably somewhat compatible if there ever was a meeting. After all, humans from different origins are compatible, too.)

You seem to have misread the text regarding the High Llama Pass. The Llama people mentioned on page 225 of the Guide aren't High Llama people, they are Llama hsunchen (not High Llama hsunchen). The High bit of High Llama Pass refers to the Pass, not the people. Like Wyrms High Pass, or Kartolin Pass, which is referred to as a high pass as is Nanguan Pass. They're not connected to the Praxians as they are completely different animals.

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1 hour ago, Joerg said:

Now could someone please explain to me how high llamas are connected to the element of water?

I don't think there is really much to explain. Clearly when the beast rune was made, there was some kind of elemental involvement and so the High Llamas came into being. They aren't humped in my mind as their natural water connection allows them the luxury of built in water control. It does of course have more to do with the way Greg created the tribes for Nomad Gods, one for each element. The same elemental question can be asked of the other tribes too. So in reality that's just the way it is.

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1 hour ago, David Scott said:

You seem to have misread the text regarding the High Llama Pass. The Llama people mentioned on page 225 of the Guide aren't High Llama people, they are Llama hsunchen (not High Llama hsunchen). 

It seems I am not alone in this:

http://glorantha.wikia.com/wiki/High_Llama_Hsunchen

I recall a Myth of the Month on Green Age Ralios which had High Llama walk across a low-lying hill range in the north, establishing the future pass.

(The statement that Gonn Orta's assault on Nida opened the pass doesn't mean that it was non-existent before, only that the Mostali had made sure that humans from either side would have no contact. That's what they had raised the Nidan Mountains for.)

1 hour ago, David Scott said:

The High bit of High Llama Pass refers to the Pass, not the people. Like Wyrms High Pass, or Kartolin Pass, which is referred to as a high pass as is Nanguan Pass. They're not connected to the Praxians as they are completely different animals.

It is strange that the llama people are mentioned in the Fronela chapter and referred to as "hairy tribe" on the Ralian side.

The hsunchen folk are said to be extinct, but that doesn't mean that there aren't Orlanthi folk with a (high or ordinary) llama totem living in the region.

 

1 hour ago, David Scott said:

I don't think there is really much to explain. Clearly when the beast rune was made, there was some kind of elemental involvement and so the High Llamas came into being.

Their long legs and necks make them the last beasts to drown?

Correct me if I am wrong, but all of the Praxian herd beasts, whether ridden or not, originated in the lush lands of Genert's Garden and/or on the flanks of the Spike. (There may have been an overlap. The three rings of Aldryami forest obviously weren't that closed in the Storm Age, when the Storm Tribe inhabited Dini, the Uz queendom lay in what would have been the Vronkali belt, and Storm Bull and his children had a savannah to roam through.) Plenty of water would have been available, and plenty of herd beasts way closer associated with water than the high llamas. Hippos, for instance. Even tapirs are way closer to a watery environment than any camels ever have been.

1 hour ago, David Scott said:

They aren't humped in my mind as their natural water connection allows them the luxury of built in water control. It does of course have more to do with the way Greg created the tribes for Nomad Gods, one for each element.

Sure - Greg created five great tribes to roam the chaparral, and a number of minor ones. In the context of a chaparral, the high llama ability to control water makes sense. In the context of a lush Genert's Garden, or a fertile savannah of Prax with Redwood and lesser trees abundant, their connection to water is rather far-fetched.

1 hour ago, David Scott said:

The same elemental question can be asked of the other tribes too. So in reality that's just the way it is.

The bison charge thunders at you. The Sable horns form a lunar sickle (predicting the arrival of a slow-moving, cyclical stellar body by about 1500 years). The impala lightweights are already a stretch, except for their archery, and the morokanth/herdman enigma remains shrouded in darkness now that the moros are happy vegetarians with only occasional ritual feeding on their herd men, accompanied by digestive problems.

Telling how it is excessive verbis

 

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1 hour ago, Joerg said:

I recall a Myth of the Month on Green Age Ralios which had High Llama walk across a low-lying hill range in the north, establishing the future pass.

I've had a good look through my website copies and can't find any reference to this. Can you remember anymore?

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1 hour ago, David Scott said:

I've had a good look through my website copies and can't find any reference to this. Can you remember anymore?

I failed my Google-fu roll, which may mean that this story wasn't indexed, or fell out of the index. If I remember correctly, it had information on Galin and/or Ehilm, on Flamal and on Hrelar Amali.

The story left an impression because it had some Hykimi information which shed quite different light on the situation in Ralios than I would have extrapolated. I am certain that I had a discussion about Galanini and Enerali before that - the digest results that somewhat fit these search criteria date to 1998, which precedes glorantha.com, but may have been the preceding discussion, so maybe before 2004.

I don't quite remember the title of the high llama deity, but it may have been "Lord High Llama". The entire story may have been ten to twenty lines.

Edited by Joerg

Telling how it is excessive verbis

 

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2 hours ago, Joerg said:

I don't quite remember the title of the high llama deity, but it may have been "Lord High Llama". The entire story may have been ten to twenty lines.

Greg's archive has a file called Green Age Ralios, a 1500 or so word commentary about a visit to the Green Age

Quote

I imagined this might be a mountain later, and I ran my foot along the side of it and tore up the grass. At that moment a man walked past us, upon the cut I had made. “What was that?” I asked. “Lord Llama,” said My Dear, as the stranger walked past. “He is intent upon a mission, I see.

The doc has two references to Lord Llama with no mention of "High".

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1 minute ago, David Scott said:

Greg's archive has a file called Green Age Ralios, a 1500 or so word commentary about a visit to the Green Age

The doc has two references to Lord Llama with no mention of "High".

Ok. That's the text I sought, and I am fairly sure that it was public at one time -might have been one of the GTA initiate texts instead.

In that case, the high was inserted by my memory through too much exposure to the ruins of Genert's Garden and the association with High Llama Pass. Duplication of similar animals isn't exactly new - we get alynxes and lynxes, mammoths and mastodons (which, for some weird reason, are better adapted to the Ice Age than their ancestors ever were), etc.

We know that there is (or used to be) a (singly or doubly) humped camel somewhere in Glorantha because of the Ratslaff story replacing the "horse designed by committee" quip, but nobody can tell me where to find them. Not in Pent, not in the southern wastes, not in Peloria, not in the Veldt... maybe native to Jrustela? Northern Ralios? The Llama Folk of Ralios would be an Orlanthi hill-tribe nowadays, I would guess.

What kind of llamas? The standard domesticated model, the alpaca, the vicuna, or the guanaco? And are these beasts found elsewhere?

Telling how it is excessive verbis

 

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5 hours ago, Joerg said:

Ok. That's the text I sought, and I am fairly sure that it was public at one time -might have been one of the GTA initiate texts instead.

In that case, the high was inserted by my memory through too much exposure to the ruins of Genert's Garden and the association with High Llama Pass...

n.b. that text *MAY* have beeen printed publically... and if so, it *MAY* have had the epithet "High" applied in that case.

(maybe)

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14 hours ago, Joerg said:

We know that there is (or used to be) a (singly or doubly) humped camel somewhere in Glorantha because of the Ratslaff story replacing the "horse designed by committee" quip, but nobody can tell me where to find them. Not in Pent, not in the southern wastes, not in Peloria, not in the Veldt... maybe native to Jrustela? Northern Ralios? 

I think the camels would be Bactrian and so could be placed in the cooler climes, like the Kingdom of Ignorance (where things are strange enough as it is that camels will go unmentioned).  They could be used by the Ignorants to spook the Pentan raiders (Claudius did something similar when he invaded Britain).

 

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12 hours ago, metcalph said:

I think the camels would be Bactrian and so could be placed in the cooler climes, like the Kingdom of Ignorance (where things are strange enough as it is that camels will go unmentioned).  They could be used by the Ignorants to spook the Pentan raiders (Claudius did something similar when he invaded Britain).

 

Polyaenus claims that Claudius used a single war elephant to astonish the Britons.

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15 hours ago, Joerg said:

We know that there is (or used to be) a (singly or doubly) humped camel somewhere in Glorantha because of the Ratslaff story replacing the "horse designed by committee" quip, but nobody can tell me where to find them.

Shadow Plateau - Dragon Pass Gazetteer page 48.

 

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4 minutes ago, David Scott said:

Shadow Plateau - Dragon Pass Gazetteer page 48.

That's just a rumor, and IMO an unsubstantiated one.  The Shadow Plateau is only a third the size of the Hungry Plateau, and would have to be shared with ravenous trollkin and never-quite-satiated dark trolls. And they would have to have survived the fight between Belintar and the leaden serpent.

Overall, I am not sure that that entry is very trustworthy. The "all topsoil has been eaten" picture of DP:LoT has been revised for the Guide entry, with rather lush vegetation, but I don't really see enough room even for an independent tribe (as per Prax).

Telling how it is excessive verbis

 

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On 9/22/2017 at 5:07 PM, mallion said:

Hello sirs,

High Llama of Prax plain is asumed to be... now extinct on earth...

Actually, after all the above... I wanted to go back and correct this point.

The various Praxian riding-beasts are in fact explicitly *NOT* the same species as their (extant OR extinct) Earthly counterparts...    https://basicroleplaying.org/topic/5830-praxian-tribal-beasts-are-not-terrestrial-animals-a-bison-diversion/

 

 

 

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7 hours ago, Joerg said:

That's just a rumor, and IMO an unsubstantiated one.  The Shadow Plateau is only a third the size of the Hungry Plateau, and would have to be shared with ravenous trollkin and never-quite-satiated dark trolls. And they would have to have survived the fight between Belintar and the leaden serpent.

Overall, I am not sure that that entry is very trustworthy. The "all topsoil has been eaten" picture of DP:LoT has been revised for the Guide entry, with rather lush vegetation, but I don't really see enough room even for an independent tribe (as per Prax).

Rather than dismissing it completely, I see this entry as a great adventure hook. It doesn't have to be a large tribe, maybe just a single or a few families. Perhaps they are like a small hidden green, drifting in and out of this time and back into the golden age or were originally associated with the palace. Perhaps they have natural protective magic given the source of their beast and the trollkin don't touch them. Perhaps Belintar put them there after he found them on one of his quests. Lots of scope for using this in a rich fantasy world.

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26 minutes ago, Mark Mohrfield said:

But please tell me that the Kangaroo tribe mentioned in Tales of the Reaching Moon #1 is canonical.

Only if there is one called Skippy..

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2 hours ago, Mark Mohrfield said:

But please tell me that the Kangaroo tribe mentioned in Tales of the Reaching Moon #1 is canonical.

As virtually no one has Tales 1, i'm going to let you the viewer decide yourself:

59c828be74a65_ScreenShot2017-09-24at22_49_19.png.65a29e637baea608aa9ca50d79d39baf.png

©1989 Jim Turner and is used without permission. If you know Jim then let him know he's still famous.

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3 hours ago, David Scott said:

Rather than dismissing it completely, I see this entry as a great adventure hook. It doesn't have to be a large tribe, maybe just a single or a few families. Perhaps they are like a small hidden green, drifting in and out of this time and back into the golden age or were originally associated with the palace. Perhaps they have natural protective magic given the source of their beast and the trollkin don't touch them. Perhaps Belintar put them there after he found them on one of his quests. Lots of scope for using this in a rich fantasy world.

I am all for a camel tribe, but I am extremely dubious whether the Shadow Plateau is the place to look for it. Do you have any idea who wrote that entry? DP:LoD was a compilation of entries from numerous authors. Some of the stuff was written by Greg, but quite a few entries were collected from other authors.

A hidden green is a good idea, and should be placed among the other hidden greens turned into solid Wastes so far. 

There are too many "perhaps X, perhaps Y" in your attempt to give this rumor substance for my taste.

Why not have a "bring the camel back" quest rather than "Belintar did it already"? There should be a good reason to do so, but prophecies of returning beasts from a Godtime aren't that rare, and a mark of a great king. Even Moirades brought some songbird back.

Telling how it is excessive verbis

 

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