Bits of Glorantha you ignore

[Baron Wulfraed]

23 minutes ago, Ali the Helering said:

All you can eat salad bar.  What's not to love?

Can  Aldryami regenerate lost limbs (naturally, not using the relevant healing spell)

Oh, the horror -- Aldryami captives kept for food, and captors casting a regrow spell on them after hacking off a limb for lunch...

 

[Sir_Godspeed]

1 hour ago, Baron Wulfraed said:

Oh, the horror -- Aldryami captives kept for food, and captors casting a regrow spell on them after hacking off a limb for lunch...

 

There's a comic book called Coda where someone does something similar, though not for eating, but to harvest their body parts of magic essense, indefinitely.

[Lordabdul]

On 10/29/2021 at 4:44 AM, Monty Lovering said:

So, IMG, being broo is a parasitical disease. [...] they do by capturing substitute hosts, which they then vomit the larvae into.

So far I've only had broos as "ugly beastmen creatures" in my games (plus one instance of "ugly beastman shaman who likes to collect the souls of your family"), so their mating habits haven't been mentioned. But this "broo as Alien" is pretty much what I had in mind from beginning. It's just as gross, without the gross (if that makes sense). Although frankly if you only read the RQG material, the text is vague enough that it could be considered canon-compatible.

 

On 10/29/2021 at 5:11 AM, Monty Lovering said:

But my first question to a guy wanting to play BG or Vinga would be, why?

I would ask that question for every character, whatever they pick. That's because Glorantha is a complicated setting, with atypical concepts like cults and with atypical cults on top of that. Choosing you cult affects your role in society, your magic, the way you replenish your magic, and so on. Some of it also greatly depends on how the GM runs things (e.g. it's a lot easier when you just hand-wave that everybody has replenished all their Rune Points between adventures), but you get what I mean. So I would ask that question to make sure that the player will be happy with the GM's version of Glorantha, and if the two don't match, do a bit of shared world-building to make it work.

Edited November 2, 2021 by lordabdul

[Rob Darvall]

On 10/29/2021 at 9:44 PM, Monty Lovering said:

Eh, well I have two teenage (15/16) girls in my player group.

Slightly younger than my two (17/18) now. Both were under 16 when we started. Both have BG characters, though the older now plays her's as secondary to her CA. 

Is there a pattern anyone can see (IE: is this more widespread) or mere coincidence?

[Alex]

11 hours ago, dumuzid said:

The best-tasting Man Rune beings of all are aldryami, of course

Really?!  You some sort of hippy-tippy vegan troll? 🙂

Though I guess technically Mostali are the trippy ones.  And humans are the go-to long-BLT option...

[Akhôrahil]

HeroQuest Voices (and Gods of Glorantha before that):

[Alex]

On 10/18/2021 at 9:34 AM, Darius West said:

Actually another pet peeve that I have with the present Glorantha canon is this whole idea that Morokanths aren't able to eat meat, i.e. are not carnivorous/omnivorous like humans. 

To unpack the various parts of that..

Humans are most definitely not carnivores.  We're monkeys that eat a bit more animal protein than the average such, for fun and evolutionary profit.  The normcore monkey or ape is a frugivore.  You'll survive a lot longer on a middling-grade vegetarian or even vegan diet than a vitamin-C-free one (which true carnivores, in either the taxonomic sense or in the purely dietary one, are merely delighted with, having a metabolic synthesis pathway for that instead).

I've not see any statement that Morokanth can't or don't eat meat.  As best as I recall (don't see any explicit statements in RQG, so this might be by word-of-forum, so I swear to nothing!), they're "plant-based"-leaning omnivores.  At a guess, principally rhizovores (root-diggers, not wildly unlike pigs, not to mention, eh, herd-longpig).  As opposed to tapirs, who're folivores (leaf-browsers).  So that's a significant difference right there, without making them predominant meat-dependent in the way that other (yappy-type human) Praxians are.

 

On 10/18/2021 at 9:34 AM, Darius West said:

Let's ignore the other logical problems with Waha's Covenant (such as what exactly was the competition, and why did Humans have to compete against so many different beasts when the beasts apparently didn't compete against each other, etc.)

I forget whose line it was about mythology being psychology mistaken for history, but taking it for a series of legal contracts seems even more off-base! 🙂  I imagine the in-world answers to such questions range from "it's a just-so story, son, get back to flensing that carcass", through "a bunch of other combos played, then they got et by chaos, so sad", to "Are you some sort of... God Learner or something?  Die Meldek, die".

 

On 10/18/2021 at 9:34 AM, Darius West said:

So... What happens if you cast Alter Creature on a morokanth...?

Well, RAW you get a herd-tapir.  If you want a variant take on that, how about that it bounces right off 'em, as they're the only creature to have won all the rounds of the Contest they entered into.  Immunity to do-overs!  (Well, relative immunity, as we were discussing on another thread, there's doubtless Sufficient Advanced Magic that'll flip the INT-status of any creature, not just the ones specific to this particular local custom.)

 

On 10/18/2021 at 9:34 AM, Darius West said:

Also the whole notion that morokanth can make herd men into something of economic value other than food and hides is pretty ridiculous.

It's clearcut current canon that other Praxians eat herdman-meat, so there's some economic value right there.  If you're at all squeamish, don't eat the Praxashire Hotpot.  Or to be cautious, even the Swenstown mystery-meat pies.  And herdman clearly have some value in the way that truffle-pigs do, or as with fishing using semi-domesticated otters and cormorants.  There's added value in helping with physical availability, not just the metabolic sort.

 

On 10/18/2021 at 9:34 AM, Darius West said:

If morokanth are herbivores, then the notion that they train herd men to bring them food is absurd, because there is plenty of grass for everyone, and the notion that these herbivorous morokanth are too lazy to lean down and graze is perverse.

If there were plenty of grass, it would hardly be a semi-desert, would it now?  And not all herdbeasts (nor Morokanth IMO) are graminivores.  High llamas also are folivores, for example, per RQG.  Part of the reason the different tribes are only intermittently at war with each other.  Roots are a low-accessibility, high-value food (especially in Prax), so labour is considerable factor if that's the bulk of what Morokanth as well as herdmen eat.  if you want to get fancy, they might eat different roots, however.  That Darkness rune on the one hand, and the Covenant magic on the other, might well mean them eating slightly different things.  Which would help with the self-pick strawberries problem, as would the traditional regular savage beating.

 

On 10/18/2021 at 9:34 AM, Darius West said:

It is also highly unlikely that Herd Men can be trained to manufacture items for trade.  Herd Men are likely to be less intelligent than chimps, so the chances that they could make items worth trading is unlikely, as we have never been able to train chimps to do so irl, though it might be remotely possible for very smart chimps to learn such skills.

AH-era RuneQuest had very specific rules for this, which would have made fresh-minted herdman fixed-INT geniuses.  (i.e. average 13, if we ignore any self-selection biases in getting into such a predicament.)  I forget if we ever got RQ3 stats for either usual herdmen or chimps, but my guess is that the former would be higher.  But in the Gloranthan Bestiary it mentions herdmen being able to fight in combat with "crude" weapons.  I'm not personally aware of any experiments in training prospective slave-chimps.  They can outperform humans on some cognitive-perception tasks, so it's not wildly improbable, if you could find exactly the right job.  Except for the ethical and practical issues, and that they're probably also automatable with AI.

I certainly don't see Prax as much of an industrial-exports industry, but tasks like assisting in the preparation of animal carcasses shouldn't be beyond herdmen.  And assisting with the "domestic drudgery" stuff is surely an economic benefit, seen in the round, as it frees the Mories to do higher-grade work.

 

On 10/18/2021 at 9:34 AM, Darius West said:

The simple fact is, that unless the morokanth eat their herd men, they cannot justify the effort of keeping them AND there is the whole issue that non-omnivorous/carnivorous morokanth make no sense within the lore, as Waha's Covenant is about who eats whom, as much as it is about who rides whom.

And kinda most of all about sentience, especially when you bear in mind what that rune magic used to be called...

 

On 10/18/2021 at 9:34 AM, Darius West said:

[...] they ride Prax beasts about as well as another Prax beast would, because, surprise, they are big ol' Prax beasts, just smaller than some of the others.

Another part of the great RQG chariot comeback!  They've come a long way since they were just the punchline in a Tales joke.  (I forget which ish, anyone have an exhaustive listing or index of the Rumours, or otherwise remember which it was?)  I'm not sure how practical using sledmen to pull 'em would be to pull them -- kinda slow, for one thing.  OTOH, great stamina!  Maybe more agile too, and certainly with more low cunning than other herdbeasts.  Which could work either for or against the Morokanth user...

[Alex]

1 hour ago, Akhôrahil said:

HeroQuest Voices (and Gods of Glorantha before that):

Of course, HQV is the classic "unreliable narrator" (and brilliant for it!) source.  So the spokesuz in this case may be not so much a supertaster gourmet, as a dangerously reckless mostaldoper. 😄

[Monty Lovering]

On 11/2/2021 at 5:27 AM, Rob Darvall said:

Slightly younger than my two (17/18) now. Both were under 16 when we started. Both have BG characters, though the older now plays her's as secondary to her CA. 

Is there a pattern anyone can see (IE: is this more widespread) or mere coincidence?

That's interesting. Maybe it speaks to some archetype? The Be Gory tonight was disappointed that the party did not decide to engage the beaked dragonewt and tailed priest in combat (from 5 eyes), and decided that standing to fight a manticore was a sensible course off actio (and got off lightly).

She really she play Vinga as she lives by 'violence is always an option'.

[Alex]

11 hours ago, Monty Lovering said:

She really she play Vinga as she lives by 'violence is always an option'.

For Orlanth/Vinga, some weight on the "an option".  It's not "violence, always!" or even "violence is the option".  (It's the option we have an actual proverb about, admittedly!)

The "Orlanthi saying" and "Ernaldan saying" aren't incompatible, or even opposites.  More like call-and-response of the same couplet.  The Orlanth-worshiper can be one arguing "but now is not the time for that option", and the Ernaldan the one saying "we're not taking that way today".

BG is more in the mindset of "violence is required, until conclusively proven otherwise!"

 

On 11/2/2021 at 4:27 AM, Rob Darvall said:

Slightly younger than my two (17/18) now. Both were under 16 when we started. Both have BG characters, though the older now plays her's as secondary to her CA. 

Is there a pattern anyone can see (IE: is this more widespread) or mere coincidence?

Dunno.  Sublimated (or otherwise!) militant radical feminism? 🙂  If they're in the same group, not exactly statistical independence there, of course.  "Waaaau, Axe Trance, now that's a good/cheesy/broken/fun spell!  I want one too!"  "BGs are so passé now, everybody has one.  I'm going vegetable rights and peeeeeace."

I've never sold a BG PC to anyone, personally.  In fact one player actively pushed back on it as an option, as being an unappealing crazy-extremist type, and felt that Earth cults should be much more of a light/dark balance, as embodied in each worshipper, rather than split out into mutually exclusive pairs.  (That kinda lurched from one extreme to the other in the HW and HQ eras, with RQ sitting someplace in the middle.  Let's split up Earth Rune magic 36 different ways.  No wait, not split up at all!)

[jajagappa]

4 minutes ago, Alex said:

and felt that Earth cults should be much more of a light/dark balance, as embodied in each worshipper, rather than split out into mutually exclusive pairs

Once you realize that Maran is just the other face of Ernalda, this resolves very readily... 🙂

[French Desperate WindChild]

1 hour ago, Alex said:

BG is more in the mindset of "violence is required, until conclusively proven otherwise!"

In another perspective, BG may be in a mindset of "do as anyone, until mother says me to go, then there is nothing to stop me and my rage, even mother" (no i m not remembering anything about Eurmal)

seems to me more complex, then more interesting, to see "extreme" people not extreme all the time but only when a trigger occur.

that doest mean a b-gor,(or stormbuller), is a nice person when she is "off" but just she has not to be a violent person in all situations. Some could be nice, other not.

something like Hulk (after all green = earth ? no ?)

[Alex]

3 hours ago, jajagappa said:

Once you realize that Maran is just the other face of Ernalda, this resolves very readily... 🙂

I think if that particular iteration of Da Roolz presented that take in mix-and-match (or cake and eat it!) terms, that player would have been entirely satisfied.

[AlHazred]

Look, you just have to put the Orlanthi slogans in the right order.

Ernalda: "There is always another way."

Orlanth: "Yes, violence is always an option!"

[Darius West]

On 11/2/2021 at 9:59 PM, Alex said:

To unpack the various parts of that..

Humans are most definitely not carnivores.  We're monkeys that eat a bit more animal protein than the average such, for fun and evolutionary profit.  The normcore monkey or ape is a frugivore.  You'll survive a lot longer on a middling-grade vegetarian or even vegan diet than a vitamin-C-free one (which true carnivores, in either the taxonomic sense or in the purely dietary one, are merely delighted with, having a metabolic synthesis pathway for that instead).

Humans are omnivores.  A human living in Prax however is someone who will eat a lot of meat by comparison with other Gloranthans, making them cultural mesocarnivores.

On 11/2/2021 at 9:59 PM, Alex said:

I've not see any statement that Morokanth can't or don't eat meat.  As best as I recall (don't see any explicit statements in RQG, so this might be by word-of-forum, so I swear to nothing!), they're "plant-based"-leaning omnivores.  At a guess, principally rhizovores (root-diggers, not wildly unlike pigs, not to mention, eh, herd-longpig).  As opposed to tapirs, who're folivores (leaf-browsers).  So that's a significant difference right there, without making them predominant meat-dependent in the way that other (yappy-type human) Praxians are.

It's apparently a "Greg sed" moment.  I believe there was some attempt to retcon the lore, which I oppose as it makes no sense.

On 11/2/2021 at 9:59 PM, Alex said:

I forget whose line it was about mythology being psychology mistaken for history, but taking it for a series of legal contracts seems even more off-base! 🙂  I imagine the in-world answers to such questions range from "it's a just-so story, son, get back to flensing that carcass", through "a bunch of other combos played, then they got et by chaos, so sad", to "Are you some sort of... God Learner or something?  Die Meldek, die".

Actually when young Praxians are learning the stories with their Shaman, they are encouraged to answer questions the stories raise.  If the kids ask a hard question, the correct answer is "I don't know. If you pray hard, perhaps the Gods will answer you?"

On 11/2/2021 at 9:59 PM, Alex said:

Well, RAW you get a herd-tapir.  If you want a variant take on that, how about that it bounces right off 'em, as they're the only creature to have won all the rounds of the Contest they entered into.  Immunity to do-overs!  (Well, relative immunity, as we were discussing on another thread, there's doubtless Sufficient Advanced Magic that'll flip the INT-status of any creature, not just the ones specific to this particular local custom.)

The Alter Creature spell is intimately involved in Waha's Covenant.  What is unstated is whether it affects Morokanth.  If a human can go from an intelligent omnivore to an unintelligent herbivore with the application of the spell, actually changing their dentition in the process, then the same should logically apply to morokanths.

On 11/2/2021 at 9:59 PM, Alex said:

It's clearcut current canon that other Praxians eat herdman-meat, so there's some economic value right there.  If you're at all squeamish, don't eat the Praxashire Hotpot.  Or to be cautious, even the Swenstown mystery-meat pies.  And herdman clearly have some value in the way that truffle-pigs do, or as with fishing using semi-domesticated otters and cormorants.  There's added value in helping with physical availability, not just the metabolic sort.

Yes, the morokanths are famous as restauranteurs throughout Prax.  Not eating Herd men themselves, they have perfected mock pork cuisine for the calorific benefit of everyone but themselves. 

The two examples you give of animals foraging for humans don't apply in Prax.  Cormorant fishing is dying out because net fishing is so much more effective i.e. humans stopped the practice when they developed better methods.  Cormorant fishing is now a tourist attraction more than a way of life.  As for truffle pigs, well, pigs have other calorific value and truffles are a luxury, not a diet staple.

The fact is, that using herd men to gather grass for Morokanths is not a sustainable calorie model using physical anthropology analysis based on tapirs and human physiology. Yes, a thinking human can gather food for a tapir, but really a tapir grazing can feed itself more effectively.  If you now model in the time spent training herd men to know poisonous plants from safe ones, and the time wasted in controlling and protecting a gathering herd of herd men, unless the morokanths eat the herd men too, they can't keep their calorie intake high enough, because they need to spend that time eating grass, not guarding herd men.

On 11/2/2021 at 9:59 PM, Alex said:

If there were plenty of grass, it would hardly be a semi-desert, would it now?  And not all herdbeasts (nor Morokanth IMO) are graminivores.  High llamas also are folivores, for example, per RQG.  Part of the reason the different tribes are only intermittently at war with each other.  Roots are a low-accessibility, high-value food (especially in Prax), so labour is considerable factor if that's the bulk of what Morokanth as well as herdmen eat.  if you want to get fancy, they might eat different roots, however.  That Darkness rune on the one hand, and the Covenant magic on the other, might well mean them eating slightly different things.  Which would help with the self-pick strawberries problem, as would the traditional regular savage beating.

There is an argument for the morokanths eating roots, sure, but then you have the issue of where they are stored, and how long they last, and why we never hear about morokanth storage structures for their gathered root foraging.  Clearly this doesn't happen, as all Praxians are nomadic.  The simple fact is, that nomadic societies work because "meat on the hoof" doesn't need refrigeration.  Herd men are depicted grazing in fields with morokanth guards, not carrying sacks and digging sticks.

On 11/2/2021 at 9:59 PM, Alex said:

AH-era RuneQuest had very specific rules for this, which would have made fresh-minted herdman fixed-INT geniuses.  (i.e. average 13, if we ignore any self-selection biases in getting into such a predicament.)  I forget if we ever got RQ3 stats for either usual herdmen or chimps, but my guess is that the former would be higher.  But in the Gloranthan Bestiary it mentions herdmen being able to fight in combat with "crude" weapons.  I'm not personally aware of any experiments in training prospective slave-chimps.  They can outperform humans on some cognitive-perception tasks, so it's not wildly improbable, if you could find exactly the right job.  Except for the ethical and practical issues, and that they're probably also automatable with AI.

Herd men and Chimps both had a fixed INT of 7 in RQ3.  I don't have a problem with herd men being trained to use weapons.  (Stories of chimps that were trained to throw machetes and fight using them by Idi Amin in the 1970s are an urban myth however.)  There is perhaps no reason why this couldn't take place logically, whatever the ethical quandries, but it doesn't seem to have happened... yet...

On 11/2/2021 at 9:59 PM, Alex said:

Another part of the great RQG chariot comeback!  They've come a long way since they were just the punchline in a Tales joke.  (I forget which ish, anyone have an exhaustive listing or index of the Rumours, or otherwise remember which it was?)  I'm not sure how practical using sledmen to pull 'em would be to pull them -- kinda slow, for one thing.  OTOH, great stamina!  Maybe more agile too, and certainly with more low cunning than other herdbeasts.  Which could work either for or against the Morokanth user...

Well that opens a fresh can of worms, where do Praxians get their timber.  No timber, no chariot. 

 

In my Glorantha, morokanth are ambush specialist infantry who create herdman litters to carry themselves about.  This is an affectation for the rich morokanths however.  Morokanths herd humans, and frankly other tribes are a lot less interested in raiding them unless they know that they can rescue their own captured tribe members who have been "Alter Creatured".  Praxians are not so squeamish that they won't eat herdmen, and some of them even enjoy the slightly taboo thrill of it, but they don't actively seek out herd men in raids most of the time. 

Instead the Morokanth economy is based on eating herd men, but also on slaving.  Morokanth are willing to handle ransoms, and generally broker the process in New Pavis with the Humakti.  Those who cannot provide a ransom get sold.  If they cannot be sold, or try to escape, they are turned into herd men.  Morokanths are very good at catching escapees due to their ambush specialty.  This means that they are supplied with calories by the meat of their herd like the Covenant of Waha suggests, and also provides them with an important role within Praxian society that provides them with a degree of neutrality from tribal conflicts that makes them viable as a society, and even capable of wealth and growth.  The herd man foraging model cannot do this.

[radmonger]

2 hours ago, Darius West said:

 

The fact is, that using herd men to gather grass for Morokanths is not a sustainable calorie model using physical anthropology analysis based on tapirs and human physiology.

I don't see how this can be true. Humans gathering food for other humans to eat is a sustainable calorie model; it's how any society that has less than 100% of people working in agriculture works. What changes if the 'other people' lack thumbs?

Humans can live in deserts that support no other large mammals by being smart, having language and culture, and using tools. One key to survival in a desert or semi-desert is to dig for water and edible roots:

https://survivial-training.wonderhowto.com/how-to/dig-for-water-desert-190196/

Which herd men can do, and Morokanth can't. But if Morokanth know _where_ to dig, and how to make a digging stick, and herd men don't, then you have the basis for mutual dependency. A human brain uses roughly 300 calories a day; a herd man brain presumably a small fraction of that.  So 10 herd men can support themselves and their morokanth, who is literally the brains of the operation, indefinitely. 

Throw in some limited ritual meat-eating to fit in with the rest of the survival covenant, and hope it doesn't give you _too_ bad indigestion.

Whereas if the herd men were a primary calorie source, they would be gone in a season. Living off a cattle herd only works because cattle grow to a weight of ~175 Kg in less than 2 years. 

[JonL]

On 11/2/2021 at 5:59 AM, Alex said:

I've not see any statement that Morokanth can't or don't eat meat.

They're stated to be vegetarians who don't eat any herd beasts, including their own on p38 of HQG. Pavis:GtA still described them as eating Herd Men, so the idea must have surfaced sometime in between 2012 and 2015.

[jajagappa]

11 minutes ago, JonL said:

They're stated to be vegetarians who don't eat any herd beasts

The current statement is in RQ Bestiary p.51: "The morokanth are primarily vegetarians but do eat herd-men as part of their religious practice"

[French Desperate WindChild]

maybe...

 

Waha's convenant is (in my understanding) who is the herder, who is the food

then Morokanths are the herder and herd (wo)men are the food

but what do "food" mean then ?

food could be ... meat

food could be ... milk

 

and in this case everything is fine :

Morokanth use herdwomen milk to drink, to eat cheese and things like that. They are vegetarian at the level "eat no meat"

 

the economy could be stable :

you kill all herdmen who are not stallions and too old / not enough efficient herdwomen

you sell the skin, the "desert meat", maybe hair and ... ivory... and other "luxury"

you consume the milk and maybe what your smarter "cows" can harvest for you (nuts, herb, ...)

 

of course to be viable the system needs a herd woman produces more milk than a "regular" woman, and there is no issue:

- maybe not exactly the same "body opportunities" (and alter creature alter everything even breast quality)

- centuries of breeding selection

 

[Lordabdul]

9 hours ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

food could be ... milk

If someone offers you herdman milk, politely decline and slowly back away....

But yeah in my Glorantha, Morokanths are just as omnivore as any other human tribe, give or take a few differences. Otherwise the whole Waha covenant doesn't make sense to me.

[Joerg]

6 hours ago, lordabdul said:

If someone offers you herdman milk, politely decline and slowly back away....

But yeah in my Glorantha, Morokanths are just as omnivore as any other human tribe, give or take a few differences. Otherwise the whole Waha covenant doesn't make sense to me.

Herdman cheese is even worse, as you know how the rennet to make that cheese is won.

This does open a can of worms for Praxian herd animals, though - has their lactation period been increased by the Covenant? All the domestic herd beasts used for dairy have been bred that way. Praxians use milk as part of their ritual diet (as in kumiss), and probably use it for normal meals, too.

 

The vegetarian Morokanth dilemma is hardly as big as anybody makes it out to be. Morokanth ritually consume meat as (part of) their diet. So do all other Praxians.

Eating has always been a communal ritual, surrounded by ritual activity. Communal eating even in our very secularized culture still has the blessing of the eaters at its beginning, although the thanksgving may have disappeared from such communal events.

Part of playing in Glorantha can (in my games: should) be to expose the players to the mind-set of the characters. Bringing ritual and magic into what are mundane activities for us. We have some of these codified in the rules, like Peaceful Cut. There are other such rites, for plowing, sowing, harvesting. And there are rites for eating and drinking, including the libation to the gods, ancestors, and/or spirits of the place. Skip over them, and you may have interesting interactions. Observe them. and other interesting interactions may arise, like a local spirit/minor deity or an avatar thereof actually appearing to accept the offering, and possibly addressing the eaters/revelers.

When it comes to Praxians, no matter the number of legs, they love fresh vegetables and fruit. They may have a lot less appreciation for processed grain (other than beer).

Prax - even the chaparral - is covered by grasses, and those grasses will have seeds. The herd beasts at least will enjoy those seeds, but I don't think that the humans can afford to ignore this source of starch and protein when it is available. Praxian diet can be fairly wholesome and rich when in a good place (e.g. occupying an oasis), but it regularly also has periods of migration through barely survivable land with a much reduced diet, when everything that is edible will be eaten, unless it's taboo. Is eating grass a taboo for the "winners" of the Covenant? Does that extend to grass seeds? (If so, beer made by sedentary folk may still be fine, as you don't "eat" but drink it.)

In this context, every meal has a ritual component, which may mean an opportunity or even obligation for the Morokanth to eat some meat. A bit like there are cultures which offer bread of some sort to every meal they prepare.

Do Morokanth crave the consumption of meat? Do human Praxians? And is it muscle meat they value mst, or organ meat like liver?

[soltakss]

22 hours ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

Waha's convenant is (in my understanding) who is the herder, who is the food

then Morokanths are the herder and herd (wo)men are the food

but what do "food" mean then ?

food could be ... meat

food could be ... milk

Yes, that is exactly how I see it.

Morokanth are the Eaters, not the Eaten. Herd Men were changed so they could survive by eating the plants of the Wastes, in the same way that other Herd Beasts were. Morokanth were not changed, as they were always omnivorous, in the same way that the other beasts and humans originally were, in Prax.

Waha's Covenant changed the losers, not the winners.

There is a banned image of a Morokanth and his prize herd cow, it is worth tracking down.

[Joerg]

 

27 minutes ago, soltakss said:

Waha's Covenant changed the losers, not the winners.

Sandy Petersen agrees with the concept, while coming to the diametrically opposed conclusion:

According to Sandy, it isn't that the animals lost the contest - the humans did. As a result, they got smart, and capable of understanding that the gruesome task of kiling and eating their four-legged kin for survival fell on them. The animals continue in a state of comparable bliss, stll able to thrive on the bounty of their ancestress. The sacrifice of the eaters made this possible.

 

It doesn't really take pictures about herdman dairy production to point out that herd men are spared all the conscious trouble about butchering their fellow beings.

And yes, the Morokanth cheated. The human ones.

 

This might mean that the Morokanth eating flesh and that going against their nature may be a stronger sacrifice for the Morokanth than for the humans of the other (major) tribes.

 

The one thing that clashes with this concept is that the Morokanth, out of all the major tribes of Prax, are the ones strongest in the element of Darkness, the devouring element. Darkness creatures are defined by their voracious appetite for just about everything. Including, or perhaps even especally, the meat of sentient creatures (which the herd beasts of Prax definitely are) and even sapient ones.

[Rick Meints]

7 hours ago, soltakss said:

There is a banned image of a Morokanth and his prize herd cow, it is worth tracking down.

No, it really isn't.

[Guest Vile Traveller]

9 hours ago, soltakss said:

There is a banned image of a Morokanth and his prize herd cow, it is worth tracking down.

IIRC that was the image that got Triff kicked off the Mongoose forum and prompted him to start up BRP Central. I wonder if a signed original exists anywhere? 😜