Bits of Glorantha you ignore

[Joerg]

9 hours ago, Alex said:

The 'kralori' one is admittedly a tad unconformable, given that on the one hand the Gloranthan East has been critiqued as heavy-handed orientalism, and on the other, it's equating a polity and a "race".  As if we might end up playing the 'CJK' game (KVV?) to physically identify different nations by their features alone.

Vithelan (rather than Kralori, who are a mix of many different phenotypes, too) covers quite a few different human appearances. There seems to be a pigment creating skin coloration in shades of amber, a predominance of black hair, and possibly some features of physiognomy. Some people of Vithelan descent have epicanthic folds.

If you need to take North- and East-Asian appearance into this, you had better add the entire spectrum of native American appearance. Or perhaps restrict comparison of Vithelan appearance to that of the Americans.

 

Then there are the melting pot effects. Teshnos in particular has seen immigration from the Tada-shi (classed as Wareran), the Zaranistangi (classed as Veldang), possibly Thinobutan "Agimori" via Teleos, and Celestial and Hsunchen resembling the Vithelan type.

 

9 hours ago, Alex said:

'Wareran' is a more muddled case, and maybe seems more benign as a result.  It covers quite a variety of appearances, especially now that the Rokari are Brithini-colour-coded.  (I suspect they're faking that with makeup, mind you.  Such wannabes!)

Wareran covers the appearances of people from India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, and the Mediterranean in appearance, with rare outliers resembling aspects of northern Europeans (either pale skin or pale hair, usually not in combination) and pigmentations other than different amounts of eu-melanin and pheo-melanin, and hemoglobin shining through little pigmented skin.

 

9 hours ago, Alex said:

All the 'races' also straddle multiple different origin myths (again, especially the Wareans).  There's the Malkioni one, the Yelmic one, and the Orlanthi one, and the Hsunchen one, which itself extends across all the outward appearances.  So arg7uably they're not really 'categories; at all, just broad ranges of appearance.

It is a bit weird. There should be four or five major Golden Age races (or "flavors of the Man Rune") - one for each camp of the Mountain People shown in the God Learner maps, but for some weird reason the people descended from the Northern Camp (Dara Happans), the Western Camp (Vadeli, Luatha, Brithini) and the slopes of the Spike (Dureving Downland Migration, Storm Bull's sons descending into Genert's Garden, other Storm pastoralists descending from the mountains in the late Golden Age) are clumped together as Wareran. The Eastern Camp produced the Vithelan phenotype, the southern camp the Agimori phenotype.

We have three phenotypes that have corresponding Hsunchen (Vithelan) / Hykimi (Wareran) / Fiwan (Agimori). Unless the Dinosaur Hsunchen of Slon correspond to a Western Camp phenotype not observed anywhere else, making the Hykimi of the Great Forest a Northern Camp phenotype.

The Thinobutan peoples who we are told that they are Agimori have a phenotype of their own, coming in a number of medium dark to dark shades according to their creation myth with Soli as their maker, using four different types of clay to create the eight ancestors (one male and female pair each who then procreate undergoing all permutations). They don't appear to imitate the Southern Camp people, and might be closer to a southern/eastern Spike phenotype. The Teleos people (once you look past their bright pigmentations) are described as Agimori just as the Thinobutans are, and I suspect they are Thinobutan Agimori.

 

Then we come to the Storm Age human races, which introduce a number of Sea-descended humans. (Strictly speaking, "Wareran" indicates a descent from Triolina, and hence Daliath and Framanthe, too...)

The Veldang peoples trace their ancestry to Lorian (a Manthi Sea God) and Veldara, the moon child of Entekos/Dendara and Yelm-in-Hell, or to female Mastakos aka Emilla in case of the Zaranistangi and possibly Tolat as the male twin of Veldara. Mastakos' place in the Sea Tribe ancestry is a bit unclear, but probably comes in the Manthi ancestry (Daliath and Sramak), too.

The Helerites / Helerings are descended from female Heler, a child of Daliath of Framanthe, but not necessarily from her sister Triolina, as they came into the world after Heler being forcefully separated from the Seas (whether by the Keets or Umath remains unknown). They don't appear to have keet ancestry, which suggests a Umathi (slopes of Spike phenotype) ancestry.

The Banthites appear in the Neliomi Sea, apparently unrelated to the Triolini (Heler=Triolina) descendants of the Wartain tribe, which makes me speculate that they may have been humans descended from Framanthe and Sramak. They don't last long, and they don't appear to have left descendants behind.

 

The Warerans of Triolini and Storm ancestry are a topic upon themselves.

[Darius West]

20 hours ago, Alex said:

  I don't see where "they're strict vegetarian and simply can't and don't eat meat" is coming from as a proposition, other than as one to be knocked right back down.

Well then you missed the whole late edition of Egajia Chewer of Flesh.  This was the retrofitting by Greg, where Egajia was such an anomaly among the vegetarian morokanths that she actually took upon herself to eat meat for the sake of her cult obligations, despite being an obligate herbivore.  

20 hours ago, Alex said:

I'm not seeing much (if anything) of a training issue, though I'd stop short of having herd-peeps able to fend for themselves right out of the womb, as ruminant neonates do.  So they learn to dig and forage in much the same way as chimps or hunter-gatherer children do, for my money.  Alter Creature is mostly just a reconfig of their existing cognitive faculties.  (Maybe helped to an extent by it apparently only working on Praxians, however that's defined.)

1/ Animals don't naturally surrender their food, and take a long time to train to meaningfully forage.

2/ The energy required to train and guard the herd men will never see a meaningful return on the calories invested in doing so.  It's unavoidably an energy death spiral for a nomadic culture to try to live this way.

2/ Storage of gathered plant matter also represents a smaller but significant tactical and logistical problem for the morokanths, which is far less manageable than meat on the hoof.

4/ If the morokanths eat herdmen, suddenly the energy equations go in their favor again.

20 hours ago, Alex said:

*taps microphone*  Is this thing on?  Old canon is that Morokanth ate (lots and lots) of herdmen.  New canon is that they're ritually obliged to eat herdmen.  Where are we getting "can't eat" from, and why do we keep circling back to it?  As a side note, digestively and metabolically speaking pretty much any animal can eat meat.  As the BSE scandal and youtube videos serve to illustrate (horrifically or hilariously, depending on which side one is inclined to sympathise with).

*taps microphone*  Don't be rude now.  As above, read all about Egajia Chewer of Flesh and the retrofit.

20 hours ago, Alex said:

I think that's a pretty reasonable comparison, in the scheme of things.  Clearly the mental transformation is more permanent and deeper, and there may be some degree of physical transformation too.  (Note to self, actually get the new Bestiary at some point.)

It's a bad comparison because Zombies are basically brain damaged homo-sapiens who are kept drugged with scopolamine.  People have recovered from that, but none of them was ever actually reduced to chimp level intelligence, they were drugged to be suggestible.  Its very different.

20 hours ago, Alex said:

The turning humans into grass-eaters certainly seems like a lot magical heavy-lifting to me to, as I've mentioned.  Though I suppose there are models other than the "cattle" one, some of would be be their own category of body-horror.  It also skips right past the "different beast with different ecological niches" aspect, which seems needless.  And it definitely (unless Glorantha has an entirely different biomass pyramid, Always An Option!) needs more 'head' of slave/cattle.  The combination for me certainly seems to stretch plausibility and even story-logic, as either we have lots of heavily physically transformed humanoids competing for the same resource as other major tribes, or lots subsisting on a 'niche' resource.  But justifiable as "possible", sure.

On the contrary, the inference from Praxian mythology was that all humans prior to Waha's Covenant were herbivores.  The Covenant makes humans AND morokanths carnivores, and intelligent.  As for body horror, yes, that was what the whole Gods-at-War-destroyed-Genert's Garden was all about; chaos and horror, and the awful choices that had to be made so that survival was possible.  Remember the whole reason for the Covenant?  Waha needed to find food when there wasn't any, so he decided that if some of the creatures ate the others, but the eaten were made unintelligent so the trauma would be reduced, and the eaters were obliged to protect the eaten as part of the deal.  So why then would either humans OR morokanths have any trouble eating meat?  It makes no sense given the lore.

[Karlak One-eye]

Is this worth moving to a Morokanth thread? It certainly doesn’t seem to be ignored!

[svensson]

Ducks. I ignore ducks.

Oh, they're there. Duck Point is a place. It never gets described, and I never entertain a Duck character in my game.

See, I have a problem with 'cute'. I utterly loathe the sickly-sweet, trite, Mary Sue, asinine Hello Kitty fans that insist on having a 'ratling' [i.e. a gnome, halfling, hobbit, or any permutation of the trope] come into a serious game and try their 'I'm immune to fear' Pollyanna bullshit. And when someone insists on it, I turn my diabolical mind towards finding creative and entertaining [entertaining to me, anyway] ways for them to meet their fitting demise.

AFAIC, the only reason why DnD gnomes and halflings and RQ ducks carry spears is so their betters won't have to go looking for a spit to roast them on.

But other than that, I'm a fan of just about everything else Gloranthan. Even the Lunars. After all, somebody has to be the bad guy.

Edited November 12, 2021 by svensson

[PhilHibbs]

1 hour ago, svensson said:

See, I have a problem with 'cute'. I utterly loathe the sickly-sweet, trite, Mary Sue, asinine Hello Kitty fans that insist on having a 'ratling' [i.e. a gnome, halfling, hobbit, or any permutation of the trope] come into a serious game and try their 'I'm immune to fear' Pollyanna bullshit.

That's why I love ducks - they are such an inversion of that trope! Everyone despises them, and they're total assholes. One probably causes the other but it's impossible to figure out which.

[Ali the Helering]

1 hour ago, svensson said:

But other than that, I'm a fan of just about everything else Gloranthan. Even the Lunars. After all, somebody has to be the bad guy.

They're the bad guys?  Noooooo......

[svensson]

2 hours ago, Ali the Helering said:

They're the bad guys?  Noooooo......

Yes, they're the bad guys. Or, as I like to think of them, 'a reliable source of cash and minor magic items'....

And the best part? The only disease you'll catch from them is Illumination! 😂😁

[John Biles]

I basically ignored the recent retconning of the west, though if we get a west book with a full development of it, I might change that.

 

[Ian Absentia]

On 11/12/2021 at 4:12 AM, svensson said:

See, I have a problem with 'cute'.

This I do not doubt.

You must open your mind to ducks as PCs.  And, as long as the barn door is open, midget slashers, too.  Small needn't be cute.

!i!

[Akhôrahil]

My Glorantha has no horizon. It doesn't particularly matter - lines of sight, your ability to see small things and the general haze at distance restrict vision anyway. Maybe in an oceans campaign.

A small prize to pay to avoid "bendy light".

Edited November 14, 2021 by Akhôrahil

[JonL]

On 11/14/2021 at 2:37 PM, Akhôrahil said:

My Glorantha has no horizon. It doesn't particularly matter - lines of sight, your ability to see small things and the general haze at distance restrict vision anyway. Maybe in an oceans campaign.

A small prize to pay to avoid "bendy light".

Bendy light is totally unnecessary. I recall a thread here a couple years back where we actually dug into haze and the resolving power of our eyes to work out the practical limits of visibility. It's not ridiculous. 

[svensson]

As I understand canon, Glorantha doesn't have a horizon at all. Atmospheric haze and lack of visual acuity prevents anyone from standing on Defender's Shore and seeing Pamaltela.

[Akhôrahil]

20 minutes ago, JonL said:

Bendy light is totally unnecessary. I recall a thread here a couple years back where we actually dug into haze and the resolving power of our eyes to work out the practical limits of visibility. It's not ridiculous. 

A friend of mine did the science for when Legolas looks out across the plains of Rohan and gets a lot of details at a very long distance, and concluded that if this is to work scientifically, his eyeballs must be the size of oranges to resolve it properly, and even then it's only possible in ideal atmospheric conditions. 

[Alex]

9 minutes ago, svensson said:

As I understand canon, Glorantha doesn't have a horizon at all. Atmospheric haze and lack of visual acuity prevents anyone from standing on Defender's Shore and seeing Pamaltela.

I don't think there's any "canonical" -- or even post-canonical -- statement anywhere that it does or it doesn't.  Hence the well-known "deuterocanonical" MOB theory as to why it does, the alternative "bezelled top" idea someone else once floated, and the perhaps most common position that it doesn't, obvs, because flat.  So this might turn into another "it might be in yours but it's not in mine!" subthread, which is probably better in a post by itself, rather than twisting in and out of this one.  IMO, your forum will vary, etc.

[Joerg]

In  a Glorantha without bending light and a conventional horizon:

9 minutes ago, svensson said:

Atmospheric haze and lack of visual acuity prevents anyone from standing on Defender's Shore and seeing Pamaltela.

Also towering Doom Currents rising out of the sea surface before winding their way into the walls of the Maelstrom.

Lack of visual acuity needs to take Farsee into account, which can ramp up quite the magnification.

[AlHazred]

4 hours ago, Akhôrahil said:

A friend of mine did the science for when Legolas looks out across the plains of Rohan and gets a lot of details at a very long distance, and concluded that if this is to work scientifically, his eyeballs must be the size of oranges to resolve it properly, and even then it's only possible in ideal atmospheric conditions. 

Please don't give Hollywood any more license to Anime-ify the Lord of the Rings any more that it already is!

[JonL]

10 hours ago, Akhôrahil said:

A friend of mine did the science for when Legolas looks out across the plains of Rohan and gets a lot of details at a very long distance, and concluded that if this is to work scientifically, his eyeballs must be the size of oranges to resolve it properly, and even then it's only possible in ideal atmospheric conditions. 

Of course, you could just as easily hold eyeball-size constant and work out the very impressive refractive index and transmissance of Elf corneae and lenses, along with the size and spacing of their optic nerves. 😉 

Here're the posts about haze, visibility distance, and naked-eye resolving power:

 

 

 

[Alex]

3 minutes ago, JonL said:

Of course, you could just as easily hold eyeball-size constant and work out the very impressive refractive index and transmissance of Elf corneae and lenses, along with the size and spacing of their optic nerves. 😉 

it's that 4D6 INT, you see!  Massive photo-interferometric cognitive post-processing.

[dumuzid]

After over a year of play the Tarshite sorcerer in my group is almost able to Enhance INT his way to cognitive parity with the party's yelmalio elf

Edited November 17, 2021 by dumuzid

[littlewitchmaus]

not that i outright ignore, but i do change names and aesthetics that are too clearly tied to existing earth cultures (the jack o'bear, for example, is simply called a 'demon bear' and it's head is pumpkin like with eyes that appear to be in flames and the walktopus is referred to as 'the priest of the barren shoal' [a reference to the origin i created for it for my campaign that neatly does away with pun being so reliant on greek {and let's not forget that the plural would be 'walktopodes' and not 'walktopi,' anyway} and folks in my campaign tend to refer to minotaurs as 'aurochs.'])

[Alex]

35 minutes ago, littlewitchmaus said:

{and let's not forget that the plural would be 'walktopodes' and not 'walktopi,' anyway} and folks in my campaign tend to refer to minotaurs as 'aurochs.'])

The Bradford Observer line that "a man would as soon think of swallowing one of the animals thus described as pronounce such a word at a respectable tea-table" seems especially plangent in this context. 🙂

[PhilHibbs]

16 hours ago, littlewitchmaus said:

{and let's not forget that the plural would be 'walktopodes' and not 'walktopi,' anyway}

The dish, however, is called "walktopie".

[Ladygolem]

My variation on broo is mostly inspired by Warhammer's "legally distinct" versions of them - the Gor or "Beastmen". In that setting they're more the result of a sort of chaotic cattle plague that turns beasts to men and vice versa. Chaos tainted groundwater, a furious ancestor's curse or the meddling of a evil-minded warlock may lead to one's fattened herds to rise upon two legs and turn against their owners! I think it ties into their theme of filth and disease, as well as the mythological trend of plagues as divine punishment; it also makes for some more interesting adventure hooks as well.

 

PS. Forgot to mention, it also explains why most broo look like domestic animals - goats, sheep, cattle etc.

Edited November 26, 2021 by Ladygolem

[Alex]

4 minutes ago, Ladygolem said:

My variation on broo is mostly inspired by Warhammer's "legally distinct" versions of them - the Gor or "Beastmen". In that setting they're more the result of a sort of chaotic cattle plague that turns beasts to men and vice versa.

I'm only vaguely familiar with the WH(FRP) setting, but that's kinda hilarious.  Sounds like to avoid being stung for "borrowing" a particular idea from Glorantha, they took about three different ones, and smooshed them together!  Broos, Beastmen (OK, that one is pretty generic -- Greek myth is definitely out of copyright!) and the Survival Covenant!

[Joerg]

On 10/14/2021 at 6:02 PM, AlHazred said:

I'm glad you brought up slings 3 years ago. I have hard maths here to demonstrate why the sling is, both objectively and subjectively, better than the longbow on a tactical and strategic level. Anyway, it begins with Newton's Third Law...

[EDIT: Hmmm... It appears the forum software had a problem with my post, which exceeded 10,000 words. No problem, I'll turn it into a pdf and put a link in here once I have it up on a peer-reviewed site! I wouldn't want anyone to miss the devastating Glorantha puns I put into the 3rd Appendix!]

Any success putting it up anywhere?