Human worshipping Aldrya

[Manu]

From the (old) cult write up, a non Aldryami can worship Aldrya.

What are the draw backs? Does he receive a elf bow? Can he do all what aldryami do?

[PhilHibbs]

11 minutes ago, Manu said:

Does he receive a elf bow?

I think that is "No, with a but". The headline is that only Aldryami can use Elf Bows, and if any non-Aldryami even touches one, it withers and dies. However, there are always exceptions, there are always ways to break the normal rules.

[Manu]

1 minute ago, PhilHibbs said:

I think that is "No, with a but". The headline is that only Aldryami can use Elf Bows, and if any non-Aldryami even touches one, it withers and dies. However, there are always exceptions, there are always ways to break the normal rules.

Maybe he has to make a quest to find the seed (a HeroQuest???), plant de seed, take care of the plant, harvest the bow himself

[PhilHibbs]

14 minutes ago, Manu said:

Maybe he has to make a quest to find the seed (a HeroQuest???), plant de seed, take care of the plant, harvest the bow himself

There might be a prerequisite that involves cutting your tie to the Beast Rune and acquiring a relationship to Plant instead. Or in addition to, maybe a 3-way man/beast/plant split that all add up to 100. Gain 2 in one, lose 1 in the other two. You'd need a Plant Rune rating to cast most Aldrya magic, for a start. (that's going to be a challenge to my spreadsheet...)

Edited November 7, 2018 by PhilHibbs

[Manu]

3 minutes ago, PhilHibbs said:

There might be a prerequisite that involves cutting your tie to the Beast Rune and acquiring a relationship to Plant instead. Or in addition to, maybe a 3-way man/beast/plant split that all add up to 100. Gain 2 in one, lose 1 in the other two. You'd need a Plant Rune rating to cast most Aldrya magic, for a start. (that's going to be a challenge to my spreadsheet...)

I like the idea of 'cutting the link with the Beast rune'

But then, what could be the behaviour of the plant rune?

Beast is : To be strong with the Beast Rune is to be bestial, savage, feral, wild, and untamed. Such adventurers are uncomfortable in cultivated lands, preferring the wilderness
Plant  could be : Patient, emotionless, wild, unforgiving. And also quite unconfortable in underground area

 

But I have no idea how to 'play' the cutting the link with a rune? Maybe as you suggested, opeing the trio Man-Beast-Plant, then increasing the plant and rune in order to put the beast to 0

[PhilHibbs]

Maybe the human worship relationship to Aldrya should go through another cult, like Argan Argar for human darkness worship.

[Joerg]

Children of the Forest level worship is open to any species, and the most devout humans might rise to initiate level. Perhaps they need to be blessed like Neb Nmochek, the elf-friend quoted in the Guide. Perhaps they need to undergo the Elamlite Limber rite of regrowing a limb, but specifying aldryami limbs, until they only have elf parts that can touch an elf blowgun.

[Manu]

38 minutes ago, PhilHibbs said:

Maybe the human worship relationship to Aldrya should go through another cult, like Argan Argar for human darkness worship.

Is there any 'forest' cult for the humans? I thought that Aldrya with its strong connection to Earth would be human friendly

[jeffjerwin]

17 minutes ago, Manu said:

Is there any 'forest' cult for the humans? I thought that Aldrya with its strong connection to Earth would be human friendly

Dryads (viz. Tarndisi among the Colymar) probably lead human worshippers for grove-based worship, but she is probably assisted by Ernaldans with a lay membership in Aldrya (Ernalda is Aldrya's mother, according to Heortlings). Aldrya's main focus among humans is for forage and for the cutting of dead wood: berry-pickers, charcoal burners and woodcutters... and learning the Elf Greeting so Aldryami don't attack.

Edited November 7, 2018 by jeffjerwin

[Manu]

1 minute ago, jeffjerwin said:

Dryads (viz. Tarndisi among the Colymar) probably lead human worshippers for grove-based worship, but she is probably assisted by Ernaldans with a lay membership in Aldrya (Ernalda is Aldrya's mother, according to Heortlings). Aldrya's main focus among humans is for forage and for the cutting of dead wood: berry-pickers, charcoal burners and woodcutters... and learning the Elf Greeting so Aldyami don't attack.

My player want to be a wood specialist in order to select the best wood for building boats. With all the respect to the Forest and Aldryami needed. Aldrya seems to be the perfect choice...

[jeffjerwin]

Just now, Manu said:

My player want to be a wood specialist in order to select the best wood for building boats. With all the respect to the Forest and Aldryami needed. Aldrya seems to be the perfect choice...

Orstan the Carpenter is the boatbuilding god, but a lay membership in Aldrya also makes sense. (http://glorantha.wikia.com/wiki/Orstan_the_Carpenter)

[MJ Sadique]

3 hours ago, Manu said:

My player want to be a wood specialist in order to select the best wood for building boats. With all the respect to the Forest and Aldryami needed. Aldrya seems to be the perfect choice...

Why not Saint Hasterax ? he is very good to select wood and slicing them .... 😂

[styopa]

I think one striking characteristic that would mark the departure from beast and adoption of the plant rune would be the removal of sentimentality.

Plants care nothing for their young, ever.  They create thousands, perhaps millions, and spread them into the world, caring nothing for the consequences.  The closest might be serotinism, when the plant holds seeds within itself to express them only when the environment is more favorable. 

It doesn't mean willful infanticide: everyone still wants to spread their genes successfully, after all.

For my players, while elves can experience joy and happiness, the removal of personal affection and a lack of deference for baby things makes them plenty alien and creepy.

[Atgxtg]

7 hours ago, styopa said:

Plants care nothing for their young, ever. 

Well...is there any evidence that plants care for anything? In the RL plants don't show any signs of intelligence, either. I'm not sure either means anything as far as Glorthana goes.

i think the human relationship with Aldryra isn't one of abandoning their connection to the Beast rune and denying their humanity, but instead represents the relationship between plant and animal (and/or man). 

 

[PhilHibbs]

4 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

In the RL plants don't show any signs of intelligence, either.

Of course they do! They are aware of the time of day and the seasons, they co-ordinate their activities across multiple years (masting), and you can't walk through a wild forest without feeling their hostility. It's obvious!

I love the idea of Aldryami having zero sentimentality over individual offspring.

[g33k]

18 hours ago, styopa said:

Plants care nothing for their young, ever.  They create thousands, perhaps millions, and spread them into the world, caring nothing for the consequences.

This could be argued, actually; at least in part and in some cases.  There are some places where plants clearly create a sub-environment of their very own, favorable to their progeny and unfavorable to competing species.

The most striking that I have personally met is the Coast Redwood (Sequoia sempervirens).  Deep redwood forests are notably different from other forests I've been in, and there are few if any other kinds of trees there.

Still... that is perhaps the exceptional case.  I think your basic notion -- elven dispassion toward their young, as individuals -- is an excellent one!

[Atgxtg]

6 hours ago, PhilHibbs said:

Of course they do! They are aware of the time of day and the seasons, they co-ordinate their activities across multiple years (masting),

Hardly. That's like saying that a knee is "aware" of a mammer that strike it and causes the leg to kick.

6 hours ago, PhilHibbs said:

and you can't walk through a wild forest without feeling their hostility.

You feel that the trees are out to get you? Did you have an incident with a Krynoid, eat a big salad, or something? 

 

6 hours ago, PhilHibbs said:

 

It's obvious!

I love the idea of Aldryami having zero sentimentality over individual offspring.

I don't. Do we really want Vulcans on Glorantha?

Besides, it's not strategically sound, unless Aldyami have lots of offspring. Nor does it match up with elves as protectors of the forest or with the idea of plants having a group mind. 

 

And, if true, does that mean plants 'don't care" about being chopped down or burned up? After all they don't take any action  against those things IRL either. 

[PhilHibbs]

35 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

Do we really want Vulcans on Glorantha?

I don't think anyone is saying that we do.

36 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

Besides, it's not strategically sound, unless Aldyami have lots of offspring. Nor does it match up with elves as protectors of the forest or with the idea of plants having a group mind. 

First point is fair, but I think it absolutely matches up perfectly with the latter. The individual is secondary to the health of the whole. Oh, I see what you mean about the Vulcan thing now. Still, it doesn't bother me that there is some other fictional species that has one line in a movie. I'm not going to abandon a good idea just because of that.

[g33k]

35 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

I don't. Do we really want Vulcans on Glorantha?

Dispassionate about individual offspring isn't Vulcan-style logic, though.  As I understand it, Vulcans are very involved and interested om their offspring (though not displaying human-style "passion" about it).

38 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

Besides, it's not strategically sound, unless Aldyami have lots of offspring.

Most plants are, in RW biological terms, very strongly r-selected.  They produce offspring in the hundreds, or thousands; over the lifespan of a long-lived tree, possibly into the millions of viable seeds.

[Atgxtg]

59 minutes ago, g33k said:

Dispassionate about individual offspring isn't Vulcan-style logic, though.  As I understand it, Vulcans are very involved and interested om their offspring (though not displaying human-style "passion" about it).

Depends on when in Trek you pull yuor Vulcan from. When first introduced they had emotions (see Spock in "The Cage"). Then, once Spock was combined with the "Number One" character Vulcans didn't have emotions. Latter, as the series progressed Spock had them, but suppressed them, and this made him from other Vulcans Eventually it turned into all Vulcans having emotions but suppressing them and denying it. 

 

59 minutes ago, g33k said:

Most plants are, in RW biological terms, very strongly r-selected.  They produce offspring in the hundreds, or thousands; over the lifespan of a long-lived tree, possibly into the millions of viable seeds.

Yes, but is this the case with Elves and other Aldyrami? It has major ramifications. Can the elves grow a massive army over a couple of seasons? 

 

1 hour ago, PhilHibbs said:

 

First point is fair, but I think it absolutely matches up perfectly with the latter. The individual is secondary to the health of the whole. Oh, I see what you mean about the Vulcan thing now. Still, it doesn't bother me that there is some other fictional species that has one line in a movie. I'm not going to abandon a good idea just because of that.

We're not talking about a fictional species that has had one line in a movie, but a fiction species that has appeared in hundreds of hours of television and film, and  is a core part of the Star Trek franchise. And which also have a fairly strong resemblance to the typical FRPG "elf". 

[PhilHibbs]

26 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

It has major ramifications. Can the elves grow a massive army over a couple of seasons? 

A couple of seasons? Is Aldryami growth that fast? No, it takes 20 years to reach maturity. They have magic to grow trees quickly, and they are planning on using that to reforest large areas of Genertela in the Hero Wars, but I don't know that it can be used on Aldryami offspring.

In any case, the Bestiary says that they rear individual offspring in much the same way that humans do, so although I love the idea, it's unlikely to be true. Maybe part of the reforestation plan involves large scale Aldryami reproduction as well as trees, using special magic, but probably not.

Quote

We're not talking about a fictional species that has had one line in a movie, but a fiction species that has appeared in hundreds of hours of television and film, and  is a core part of the Star Trek franchise. And which also have a fairly strong resemblance to the typical FRPG "elf". 

And I still don't care, the only thing that made me think of a correlation between the two was that one line "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few". The similarity of that one attitude, which as far as I am aware is a single line from a movie, is entirely superficial and for very different reasons.

Edited November 9, 2018 by PhilHibbs

[Joerg]

 

21 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

Yes, but is this the case with Elves and other Aldyrami? It has major ramifications. Can the elves grow a massive army over a couple of seasons? 

Yes - they have stockpiled elf nuts for quite a while, and are ready to plant them along with the Reforestation. The elf nuts respond to the accelerated growth magic just like the trees do.

In order to raise a massive elf army, you need to raise a massive forest. Elves don't work without a forest to support them. When you destroy that forest, they get unhinged, even if they find a surrogate forest (like the Rist survivors adopted Hellwood).

They could raise armies of rootless elves, but unlike the reduced concern over the welfare of an individual (that will be mercifully culled from the crop when it shows bad deviations) they do value the seeds of their bodies too much to separate them from their common over-self.

 

21 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

We're not talking about a fictional species that has had one line in a movie, but a fiction species that has appeared in hundreds of hours of television and film, and  is a core part of the Star Trek franchise. And which also have a fairly strong resemblance to the typical FRPG "elf". 

Luckily these "elves" (or better "entlings") don't resemble humans with pointed ears very much. They probably do have green blood and copper in it, but unlike in the pointy-eared humanoids from the planet Vulcan it shows in their skin coloration. Not to mention their completely different eyes, their foliation rather than hair or feathers, and their pre-mobile stage as a nut growing into a sessile humanoid before getting up and around.

[Atgxtg]

1 minute ago, PhilHibbs said:

A couple of seasons? Is Aldryami growth that fast? No, it takes 20 years to reach maturity. They have magic to grow trees quickly, and they are planning on using that to reforest large areas of Genertela in the Hero Wars, but I don't know that it can be used on Aldryami offspring.

Interesting if they could through. 

 

1 minute ago, PhilHibbs said:

In any case, the Bestiary says that they rear individual offspring in much the same way that humans do, so although I love the idea, it's unlikely to be true.

Yes, it's an interesting idea, but the question is if it fits or not.

1 minute ago, PhilHibbs said:

And I still don't care, the only thing that made me think of a correlation between the two was that one line "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few". The similarity of that one attitude is entirely superficial and for very different reasons.

I don't agree. I think once you go down that path with Aldraymi, you will wind up with very similar species. Once you take caring/emotion from the elves then their thought processes are very likely to become dominated by rational though- unless you assume that instinct and "pre-programming" play a huge part in their attitudes and responses.

[PhilHibbs]

3 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

I think once you go down that path with Aldraymi, you will wind up with very similar species. Once you take caring/emotion from the elves then their thought processes are very likely to become dominated by rational though- unless you assume that instinct and "pre-programming" play a huge part in their attitudes and responses.

They care and have emotions, just very different ones to humans. Dragonewts are the ones with no emotion, or at least that's what they aspire to, and no-one says they are like Vulcans.

[Atgxtg]

23 minutes ago, Joerg said:

 

Yes - they have stockpiled elf nuts for quite a while, and are ready to plant them along with the Reforestation. The elf nuts respond to the accelerated growth magic just like the trees do.

In order to raise a massive elf army, you need to raise a massive forest. Elves don't work without a forest to support them. When you destroy that forest, they get unhinged, even if they find a surrogate forest (like the Rist survivors adopted Hellwood).

They could raise armies of rootless elves, but unlike the reduced concern over the welfare of an individual (that will be mercifully culled from the crop when it shows bad deviations) they do value the seeds of their bodies too much to separate them from their common over-self.

Interesting. So basically they could grow a huge army, go on the offensive, and then reforest newly won lands, but won't or can't bring themselves to do it. That's a very interesting insignt into their psyche.

 

Quote

 

Luckily these "elves" (or better "entlings") don't resemble humans with pointed ears very much. They probably do have green blood and copper in it, but unlike in the pointy-eared humanoids from the planet Vulcan it shows in their skin coloration. Not to mention their completely different eyes, their foliation rather than hair or feathers, and their pre-mobile stage as a nut growing into a sessile humanoid before getting up and around.

lol! It was supposed to show in Vulcan skin coloration. They did add color to Nimoy's makeup, but the differences are somewhat washed out in many scenes. I always like the suggestion someone had years ago of elves looking like the Trees of Chem from Doctor Who. Defiantly not your To(l)k(i)en Elf. 

Edited November 9, 2018 by Atgxtg