Guide to Glorantha Group Read Week 15 - Maniria

[David Scott]

Maniria section discussion here!

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

 

https://basicroleplaying.org/topic/6844-guide-to-glorantha-group-read-week-15-maniria-pent/

https://basicroleplaying.org/topic/6845-guide-to-glorantha-group-read-week-15-maniria-deep-discussion/

https://basicroleplaying.org/topic/6824-guide-to-glorantha-group-read-week-15-corrections/

 

[metcalph]

p355 boxed text -  Varstari is being courted by the Lunar Empire.  This always seems a bit of a stretch to me.  I think it more likely that the Red Earth Alliance is responsible.

p358 - Handra is considerably well out in the bay of the Noshain that the first settlers must have been incredibly brave to dare the Closing to reach the site.

 

 

[Joerg]

4 hours ago, metcalph said:

p355 boxed text -  Varstari is being courted by the Lunar Empire.  This always seems a bit of a stretch to me.  I think it more likely that the Red Earth Alliance is responsible.

Personally, I blame the Tarshite court rather than the Lunar Empire or Tatius and his clients. All of Esrolia sees Greymane and his offspring as a plague of the gods, and IMO it takes outsiders unburdened by the history of the Lion King's Feast to hire Wenelian Orlanthi as mercenaries for campaigns in Esrolia, whether Tatius or his lieutenants on the Lunar side or Broyan on the rebel side.

4 hours ago, metcalph said:

p358 - Handra is considerably well out in the bay of the Noshain that the first settlers must have been incredibly brave to dare the Closing to reach the site.

The Closing swept over Maniria more than a century before the cataclysmic drowning of Slontos, giving the local fisherfolk a century of experience with the new additional threat to their trade.

To be a fisherman means to risk insane risks just to haul in a catch, especially if you have only bronze or iron age boats. If you look at the mortality rates of fisherfolk along the Atlantic coast up to last century, you'd be appalled. A fisherman who lived to age 35 before being lost at sea was considered lucky.

Friendship to the local Ludoch will have mitigated some of those dangers compared to the Atlantic coast, but other magical and mundane violence needs to be added to the risks faced by fisherfolk, too.

After the land "rolled over" in 1050, plenty of coastal fisherfolk held aflood by their boats or friendly merfolk lost their settlements, and had to move further inland to find a new place to settle. Seven solid islands in the now wide Noshain estuary are too good a place to ignore. I don't think they would have much worried about the Closing.

[jajagappa]

On 10/3/2017 at 5:33 AM, metcalph said:

Varstari is being courted by the Lunar Empire.  This always seems a bit of a stretch to me.  I think it more likely that the Red Earth Alliance is responsible.

Except that the Red Earth Alliance is notoriously hostile to Greymane and the western barbarians.  The timing smacks of intervention by the recent Lunar/Tarshite allies who convince Queen Hendira that 'there is always another way'.  Who knows what Varstari was promised.  All he got in the end was an enraged Harrek.

[jajagappa]

What did I find interesting in Maniria?

First, p.350 "Esrolian culture has heavily influenced Manirian society; most clans are matrilineal: women own the land, and chieftains must answer to a council of elder women."  Makes for a different style of Orlanthi society.  Is the Clan Ring replaced by the Council of Grandmothers?

Also, "temples to the Invisible God as well as to Orlanthi gods that are a curious mixture of Western and Esrolian architecture".  Definitely a place of mixed religious culture, not to mention architectural styles. 

"small units of heavy cavalry, recruited from the elite of the clans or from the Pralori elk people... Many had served as mercenaries for the Holy Country prior to Greymane’s invasion".  Interesting to see the distance from which the Esrolians recruited mercenaries, at least until Greymane cut off that source.  But it does suggest that you'll see a wide variety of mercenaries in Nochet, Rhigos, and likely the western Esrolian cities.

p.351 - Map of Second Age Slontos.  I remember Jeff commenting during the creation of the Guide that they'd had to go back to flesh this out before being able to finalize the Wenelian Islands.  It's inclusion is definitely useful and can provide a source for varied expeditions in search of plunder, lost artifacts, and knowledge.

"Herilia .... Its people were fishermen who clung to the worship of the sea gods and the Blue Moon."  Did remnant folk escape?  And if so, to where?  Just the local coastal areas?  The Rightarm Islands?  Or perhaps Nochet?  Might well be some old Blue Moon artifacts that end up in the last.

p.352 "The Zaranistangi offered human sacrifice to the Blue Moon every 16 days" - don't think this is something I was previously aware of.  Makes me wonder whether the Blue Moon goddess desires/demands regular human sacrifice or if this was just a Zaranistangi thing?

p.353 There are as many Ditali as Aggari, and more Solanthi than Sartarites.  It's a sizable population here.  And probably substantial enough to create pressure for the raiding that has predominated under Greymane.  What will happen in the Hero Wars?  With the demise of Greymane and primary sons, will they simply become mercenaries of the rival Esrolian factions of Samastina and the Demivierge?  Or will they squabble until overrun by the New Forest?

Plus there is Esrolian plunder out there.  Treasures that many important Esrolians want returned, and are willing to hire adventurers to go get.

p.354 I like this art piece - probably something with the brighter colors.  Obrana is particularly colorful, but even the Solanthi wears a yellow/golden cloak.    Who are these adventurers meeting with Obrana?  Pralori, Solanthi, and Auloring Riverwoman suggests some goal more towards the interior, perhaps even in Arstola Forest.

p.355 The New Fens - I still remember an old Different Worlds magazine, I believe, that first introduced us to the New Fens of Ralios, that Ken Rolston had done work on.  One of the first times I saw some reference to campaigning beyond Dragon Pass, Prax, and Balazar/Elder Wilds.  Probably helped inspire me to venture into Imther.

p.360 a reprint from Blood over Gold, but I've always liked this picture.  There's the hint at the giant tower that previously existed and now lost, as well as the Fire Demon at the top of the current tower.  Very reminiscent of Mont St. Michel too.

 

[davecake]

I remember that article about the New Fens too, and being intrigued but not really knowing what to do with it. 

[davecake]

Trachodon Marsh - what exactly is the relationship between trachodons and magisaurs? Are the they same? Or is just the biggest magisaurs? Why so many here?

[Joerg]

1 hour ago, davecake said:

Trachodon Marsh - what exactly is the relationship between trachodons and magisaurs? Are the they same? Or is just the biggest magisaurs? Why so many here?

There isn't really a need for two variants of bipedal failed dragonewts tossing spirit magic around.

Given the trachodon units in the Dragon Pass boardgame, I am inclined to say that they are the big stage of magisaurs, and that somehow the establishment of the Ryzel dragonewt city may have caused spiritual distress among the crested 'newts associated with that place, which then got complimented westward..

Do magisaurs reproduce? Dinosaurs do, so magisaurs probably do so as well. Maybe only the huge, dumb but most magical ones.

 

 

[Martin]

7 hours ago, jajagappa said:

Except that the Red Earth Alliance is notoriously hostile to Greymane and the western barbarians.  The timing smacks of intervention by the recent Lunar/Tarshite allies who convince Queen Hendira that 'there is always another way'.  Who knows what Varstari was promised.  All he got in the end was an enraged Harrek.

I concur thats its the Lunars (or Tarshites) directly that try and influence him,... so any postulations on who they sent an emissary to Greymane...I too wonder what he was promised...land? treasures, a (ritual) wife?

[Joerg]

2 hours ago, Martin said:

I concur thats its the Lunars (or Tarshites) directly that try and influence him,... so any postulations on who they sent an emissary to Greymane...I too wonder what he was promised...land? treasures, a (ritual) wife?

Treasures, concubines (Greymane wouldn't benefit much from a treaty wife the way Pelorian kings do), luxuries.

I would suggest that the Varstari emissaries are a Phargantite operation, without any Fazzurite involvement. Probably from the people who helped Moirades win the Feathered Horse Queen. Lunar and Earth magicians, artists and traders in the service of the royal court. Some of them may have become quite grizzled since their service in the Grazelands while others will be up and coming ambitious members of the Furthest Academy.

We don't really have names of Tarshite people beyond the direct families of Pharandros and Fazzur (and the clan that plotted Mularik's downfall), so I don't think that there are any canonical names we can put to these folk. For fun, a young Enjeem the Leopard might be among them, learning about Greymane's lion shape-shifting inherited from the Pendali.