Fate of the ship if all Dormal initiates on it die

[Brootse]

16 minutes ago, Darius West said:

https://glorantha.fandom.com/wiki/Closing

that's a wiki anyone can edit

[soltakss]

19 minutes ago, Darius West said:

https://glorantha.fandom.com/wiki/Closing

"An curse unleashed by Zzabur to destroy the Middle Sea Empire at the end of the Imperial Age.

The effect of the Closing was to prevent all travel across open oceans.

Any ship going out of the sight of land would be lost to unknown forces: including the sea monsters, weather and Triolini.

The Boat Planet also disappeared.

The Closing was circumvented by Dormal in 1580 ST.

It is broken entirely by the Boat Planet Reappearance in 1624 ST."

 

Nowhere does that say that all ships sink when out of sight of land - "lost to unknown forces" does not mean "sink".

[Richard S.]

20 minutes ago, Darius West said:

https://glorantha.fandom.com/wiki/Closing

"The effect of the Closing was to prevent all travel across open oceans. Any ship going out of the sight of land would be lost to unknown forces: including the sea monsters, weather and Triolini." 

Once again, it doesn't say it immediately sinks. Sure, "lost" can be interpreted that way, but it also can mean it just doesn't return to land. It also doesn't say it happens immediately, unlike your claim. And in any case, the cradle technically was lost too by going down Magasta's whirlpool, it never returned to land.

[Darius West]

I can't remember where I read that "your ship sinks if you lose sight of land" rule, but in the process of trying to find the source, but in the process of trying to find it I did discover the following tidbit:

Pages 27-28 of "The Middle Sea Empire" apparently in 996 a Jrusteli ship managed to sail from Jrustela to Nolos despite the Closing, arriving battered and broken but effectively intact. So apparently it was possible to beat the Closing even during its height, which is interesting.

Page 137 of the Guide to Glorantha also suggests the Closing can be as mild as merely making a ship turn around and return to shore.  It seems like a retcon to me.

If you happen to be looking for the information about Glorantha's "horizon", it is on page 36 of Strangers in Prax.

However... Page 31 of Gods of Glorantha (RQ3) offers the following regarding the Open Seas Spell...

"If the spell fails, then the instant the ship leaves sight of land, the Closing reaffirms itself and brings catastrophe to the vessel".  I know I have read more of the same elsewhere too.

Apparently that "catastrophe" is that the ship will gently turn around and return you to shore... This does rather undercut the significance of Dormal's achievements , doesn't it?

[scott-martin]

1 hour ago, Darius West said:

Pages 27-28 of "The Middle Sea Empire" apparently in 996 a Jrusteli ship managed to sail from Jrustela to Nolos despite the Closing, arriving battered and broken but effectively intact. So apparently it was possible to beat the Closing even during its height, which is interesting.

They still had a concentration of badass magicians on the island then. Maybe not enough to completely defy the blue man and his people, but enough to skirt his curse just that once.

Which raises the hypothesis that the effect mutated over time under the weight of generations of relentless and increasingly desperate magical countermeasures. The rump God Learners had a century between the tsunami and their doom to throw everything they had at it. While they clearly failed to roll it back entirely, their combined work might well have fragmented the effect, inviting new catastrophes in some times and places while softening others. 

Either way, the initial phases seemed surprisingly gentle, sending boats back from Brithos or all the way back to the docks depending on their orientation to the "closing wave" or "wall." Maybe you get smashed only if you take too aggressive a tack against what would then amount to a true doom current . . . when your propulsion magic is too strong to fight the standing repulsion, the timbers pop.

Our sense of whether the Closing has changed over the publishing history is probably closely connected. A casual search indicates an ambiguous reference in Griffin Mountain . . . while "the oceans were cursed" the only real impact described is "all surface traffic was swept away." Spirits of the Sea in WF 8 is the only previous extended reference I've found so far and focuses on what happened to surviving waertag enclaves. 

I wonder how much Closing Lore comes from contacts with beached waertagites and how reliable it is. I don't even know for sure how we have such clarity on exactly when Jrustela ruptured.

[jajagappa]

1 hour ago, Darius West said:

Page 137 of the Guide to Glorantha also suggests the Closing can be as mild as merely making a ship turn around and return to shore.  It seems like a retcon to me.

It pretty much maps to the effects noted in the Missing Lands p.101 which was published in 1998, but likely written a decade earlier, so don't think there's any retcon there.

[Joerg]

2 hours ago, Darius West said:

Page 137 of the Guide to Glorantha also suggests the Closing can be as mild as merely making a ship turn around and return to shore.  It seems like a retcon to me.

Take a look at Men of the Sea p.19, Dormal's Third Voyage that never was - the Apollo Thirteen of Dormal's journeys. Of Dormal's fleet, several ships were pulled under the water by a kraken, and other ships experienced their drinking water fouling, leading to their miserable death of thirst. But evidently Dormal and a core of his crew made it back to their home ports, with or without their battered vessels, and took off for a fourth voyage, the one that went on to search for Lost Brithos, bringing the Thaw to Loskalm, and sending Dormal off to the Edge of the World.

If say one in three vessels is just returned to the shore at each attempt, with the other two thirds lost, few ships remain after a series of failed expeditions.

2 hours ago, Darius West said:

However... Page 31 of Gods of Glorantha (RQ3) offers the following regarding the Open Seas Spell...

"If the spell fails, then the instant the ship leaves sight of land, the Closing reaffirms itself and brings catastrophe to the vessel".  I know I have read more of the same elsewhere too.

Apparently that "catastrophe" is that the ship will gently turn around and return you to shore... This does rather undercut the significance of Dormal's achievements , doesn't it?

You're mis-stating that sentence, again. Catastrophe can leave the ship intact and the crew dead and/or horribly mutated/mutilated, boarded by merfolk and monsters, the ship smashed ashore but at least part of the crew able to crawl to the shore, can swallow entire ships, pull them down into the Maelstrom, or send a ship back to the shore without major damage.

Ships that did successfully open the Seas still may be lost to such causes, too. Opening the Seas just gives the ship a good chance to arrive at its destination, but no guarantees.

[soltakss]

15 hours ago, Darius West said:

Apparently that "catastrophe" is that the ship will gently turn around and return you to shore... This does rather undercut the significance of Dormal's achievements , doesn't it?

Not really, as Dormal allows a ship to cross the sea, not just to sail. Ships have always sailed during the Closing, they can port-hop along the coast, but this is dangerous as they could still be hit by the Closing of they venture too far or are blown away from shore by a strong wind. Ships have sailed in bays without being affected by the Closing.

What Dormal does is to provide a ritual to allow any ship the ability to cross the seas without being affected by the Closing. It also removed some of the fear that people had of the Seas.

[Darius West]

On 2/17/2019 at 10:01 PM, soltakss said:

What Dormal does is to provide a ritual to allow any ship the ability to cross the seas without being affected by the Closing. 

Except that the God Learners were able to brute force defeat the Closing, just not perpetually.  The Cradle certainly crossed a lot of sea without any ill effect too.  I don't think going down Magasta's whirlpool qualifies as a catastrophe somehow; more like one in a long line of steps on the baby giant's education.  Or was the whole Cradle adventure ultimately in vain and they just let the baby die?  If not, where's the catastrophe?

[Sir_Godspeed]

I'm not sure if it's right to just think of this in terms of "the Cradle worked because it had so much power" - it's perhaps more pertinent to say that the KIND of power that the Cradle has is what made it able travel the seas.

Giant magic is, perhaps, of such a nature that the Closing didn't affect it. The Cradle voyage as a "ritual" or "heroquest" in itself cannot be denied by any curse or sorcerous spell because it is woven too deep into the fabric of Glorantha.

One could argue that this seems counterintuitive to the seemingly mundane means with which it can be stopped in Zola Fel, but personally I think it fits quite nicely.

Just a thought.

Edited February 19, 2019 by Sir_Godspeed

[jajagappa]

7 hours ago, Darius West said:

The Cradle certainly crossed a lot of sea without any ill effect too.

We have no idea what the Cradle encountered after it left Corflu other than Argrath kept Harrek from plundering it, and joined Harrek instead. 

Perhaps a Dormal initiate was picked up in Corflu, or Argrath convinced a Wolf Pirate Dormal initiate to aid the ship, or Pinchining was able to invoke magic to pass through the sea, or giant magic countered the effect, or being destined already for Magasta's Pool and the Underworld the Cradle was pulled directly there by the forces of the Closing and the Doom Currents. 

Lots of possibilities, but we simply don't know what happened next.

[Joerg]

2 hours ago, jajagappa said:

We have no idea what the Cradle encountered after it left Corflu other than Argrath kept Harrek from plundering it, and joined Harrek instead. 

Do I misremember that Argrath was within a hair's breadth of being dead after convincing Harrek?

2 hours ago, jajagappa said:

Perhaps a Dormal initiate was picked up in Corflu,

That's the only way the cult of Dormal would have been able to aid the ship.

2 hours ago, jajagappa said:

or Argrath convinced a Wolf Pirate Dormal initiate to aid the ship,

That would not have helped any more, since the Cradle was already away from land.

2 hours ago, jajagappa said:

or Pinchining was able to invoke magic to pass through the sea, or giant magic countered the effect, or being destined already for Magasta's Pool and the Underworld the Cradle was pulled directly there by the forces of the Closing and the Doom Currents. 

My best guess is that the Cradle magic made it part of the Zola Fel contribution to the Maelstrom, which may have signalled to other "effects" or guardians of the Closing that this vessel was taken care of. As a means to send ships across the seas, that would have been a lousy method, but one that might have been attempted a couple of time - there is a bunch of survivors of various vessels on that island inside the Maelstrom.

 

 

[Brootse]

Harrek killed Argrath, but he came instantly back and Harrek though it to be a good joke.

[Joerg]

2 hours ago, Brootse said:

Harrek killed Argrath, but he came instantly back and Harrek though it to be a good joke.

"Let's try that again."

"And again."

"You know, I am really enjoying this..."

[Akhôrahil]

7 hours ago, Joerg said:

My best guess is that the Cradle magic made it part of the Zola Fel contribution to the Maelstrom, which may have signalled to other "effects" or guardians of the Closing that this vessel was taken care of. As a means to send ships across the seas, that would have been a lousy method, but one that might have been attempted a couple of time - there is a bunch of survivors of various vessels on that island inside the Maelstrom.

I would imagine that the giants, being magically powerful and not idiots, have a way to take care of the Closing for their limited purpose. The Cradle is loaded to the gills with magics.

"Hey Closing, hold off until this thing goes down the drain" should be doable.

[Richard S.]

Technically if it goes down the whirlpool it fulfills the requirement of "never returns to shore". Maybe the giants didn't quite have to negate the closing, just tell it "we want our ship to be destroyed in this particular way".

[soltakss]

On 2/19/2019 at 6:13 PM, Darius West said:

Except that the God Learners were able to brute force defeat the Closing, just not perpetually.

Sure. Nobody is saying that Dormal's Way is the only Way.

Some God Learners crossed the oceans using brute force. The Pharaoh swam across the sea. Indlas Somer rode the waves on his board.

What Dormal did was to make it repeatable and easier, basically by bargaining with all the Terrors that police the Closing and gaining their agreement to a Get out of Jail Free Card.

 

On 2/19/2019 at 6:13 PM, Darius West said:

The Cradle certainly crossed a lot of sea without any ill effect too. 

Maybe, maybe not. 

On 2/19/2019 at 6:13 PM, Darius West said:

I don't think going down Magasta's whirlpool qualifies as a catastrophe somehow; more like one in a long line of steps on the baby giant's education.  Or was the whole Cradle adventure ultimately in vain and they just let the baby die?  If not, where's the catastrophe?

For most, being sucked down into Magasta's Whirlpool is a catastrophe, but for a Giant Baby it isn't really a problem. 

Sometimes, a curse isn't a curse and sometimes it is. If you want to get sucked down Magasta's Pool then crossing the Oceans without the Open Seas spell might work. However, you might also hit the Endless Seas, the Warring Waterspouts, Kraken, Wolf Pirates or the many other Agents of the Closing. It's a bit of a lottery.

Personally, I think the Giants get around the Closing by putting a Doom on the Cradle that it is going to get sucked into Magasta's Pool and so none of the other Agents of the Closing bother it.

[Joerg]

9 hours ago, soltakss said:

Personally, I think the Giants get around the Closing by putting a Doom on the Cradle that it is going to get sucked into Magasta's Pool and so none of the other Agents of the Closing bother it.

I am not exactly certain that the Giants know or care about the Closing. Gonn Orta's daughter is the only giant cradle that encountered the Closing. The stream of cradles stopped well before the Closing reached Prax.

IMO the Cradle is bound to the waters of the Zola Fel river, and doesn't really have a choice to maneuver anywhere but where is waters join the Maelstrom.

[Darius West]

On 2/23/2019 at 5:06 AM, soltakss said:

Maybe, maybe not. 

No, it's really not equivocal.  It is a very long way from the coast of Prax to Magasta's Whirlpool.  As to known ill effects, the only listed problem from King of Sartar was that they were boarded by Wolf Pirates, but they weren't even plundered.  I am not certain that the Wolf Pirates really qualify as agents of the Closing either. Given that they travel on ships, they sort of can't be.

On 2/23/2019 at 5:06 AM, soltakss said:

Personally, I think the Giants get around the Closing by putting a Doom on the Cradle that it is going to get sucked into Magasta's Pool and so none of the other Agents of the Closing bother it.

Sure, but is there any evidence to suggest that this Doom laying on the Cradle was done within the literature?  I have certainly looked for it, and can find no hint.  On the other hand we know that Zola Fel had a long standing obligation to convey and protect giant babies to the underworld for their growth and education.  Now rivers have long standing relations with the rest of the water tribe, perhaps an pre-Time treaty was invoked?  Again, no real evidence, and I have likely been Gregged on my recollections that Zola Fel was made to look bad by failing to live up to their side of the bargain with the Giants, and Argrath used that as leverage on the cult after the Drinking the Giant's Cauldron HQ.

On 2/23/2019 at 5:06 AM, soltakss said:

What Dormal did was to make it repeatable and easier, basically by bargaining with all the Terrors that police the Closing and gaining their agreement to a Get out of Jail Free Card.

I have been reading HQ: Men of the Sea, and the RQ Companion (which are the 2 best Dormal sources I am aware of) and there is nothing to suggest that this is how it works.  For a start, Dormal didn't create the ritual, that was done by Hunlarni the Wise who had been monitoring the Closing closely and noted that like a tide that it ebbed and flowed.  The Opening Ritual generally suggests that a ship would set out just when the low tide is at its lowest and beginning to turn. There was no discussion of making a treaty with the sea deities in the relevant sections of the document, quite the reverse, this was a sorcerous trick for circumventing the threat of the Closing (a "hacking" style work-around to beat the system).  Hunlarni's work only employed a magical boat and the opening ritual.

[jajagappa]

1 hour ago, Darius West said:

I have certainly looked for it, and can find no hint. 

As the Cradle passes out of knowledge after the encounter with Harrek, this is not surprising. I think it is just an Unknown. 

1 hour ago, Darius West said:

On the other hand we know that Zola Fel had a long standing obligation to convey and protect giant babies to the underworld for their growth and education.

Clearly the river waters were unaffected by the Closing - they continue to flow to Magasta's Whirlpool and to the Underworld.  It may well be that the Cradle is effectively "enfolded" within the waters of Zola Fel and considered part of them so that nothing further inhibits its passage.  Still an Unknown.

[Darius West]

1 minute ago, jajagappa said:

 It may well be that the Cradle is effectively "enfolded" within the waters of Zola Fel and considered part of them so that nothing further inhibits its passage.  Still an Unknown.

If all it took to beat the Closing was to use fresh water river undines to "enfold" one's vessel, I think the God Learners might have noticed.  Still, it is an idea which has a number of merits.  It also begs the question of when the water of a river becomes the water of an ocean.

[jajagappa]

44 minutes ago, Darius West said:

If all it took to beat the Closing was to use fresh water river undines to "enfold" one's vessel, I think the God Learners might have noticed.

Agree. But perhaps the River Gods did not want to share such knowledge to those who brought fire to water.

[Joerg]

3 hours ago, Darius West said:

No, it's really not equivocal.  It is a very long way from the coast of Prax to Magasta's Whirlpool. 

Sure. The encounter with Harrek's fleet happened just as the mainland fell out of sight - which takes a little longer with the cliffs of the Praxian Plateau remaining above the angular resolution, never mind landmarks like the Block.

3 hours ago, Darius West said:

As to known ill effects, the only listed problem from King of Sartar was that they were boarded by Wolf Pirates, but they weren't even plundered.  I am not certain that the Wolf Pirates really qualify as agents of the Closing either. Given that they travel on ships, they sort of can't be.

The Wolf Pirates are definitely part of the Opening rather than the Closing, and one that is much regretted by many a coastal population. They even become the spearhead of the Cult of Dormal in the conflict with the Waertagi. Probably without too much involvement of King Harrek of Banamba.

 

3 hours ago, Darius West said:

Sure, but is there any evidence to suggest that this Doom laying on the Cradle was done within the literature?  I have certainly looked for it, and can find no hint. 

Our details for the construction of the Cradle are nil. A re-use of the Boathouse ruins has been assumed, and Redwood magical lumber certainly played a role, but that's as far as I dare speculate. Covert dwarf support for Gonn Orta might be possible if one or more of the Greatway leaders see this as an opportunity to pull one over the Nidan Decamony and their ridiculous definitions of orthodoxy.

Gonn Orta being wise about the Closing and its details might be behind his curious selection of certain individuals for inspection among the visitors of his pass castle. But then, he might have been waiting for someone to bring the Cauldron.

 

3 hours ago, Darius West said:

I have been reading HQ: Men of the Sea, and the RQ Companion (which are the 2 best Dormal sources I am aware of) and there is nothing to suggest that this is how it works.  For a start, Dormal didn't create the ritual, that was done by Hunlarni the Wise who had been monitoring the Closing closely and noted that like a tide that it ebbed and flowed. 

Like a tide, but not like the Annilla tide.

3 hours ago, Darius West said:

The Opening Ritual generally suggests that a ship would set out just when the low tide is at its lowest and beginning to turn. 

There is no such moment in the Gloranthan tidal cycle. The tidal effects are best described by a sawtooth curve, with a continuous rise of the water levels and then a sudden drop to the lowest, only very slightly smoothed out. How high the water rises might be related to how slowly the moon passed in this cycle (which isn't very regular - on average, you have two tidal cycles in a week, but theoretically you could have seven).

 

3 hours ago, Darius West said:

There was no discussion of making a treaty with the sea deities in the relevant sections of the document, quite the reverse, this was a sorcerous trick for circumventing the threat of the Closing (a "hacking" style work-around to beat the system).  Hunlarni's work only employed a magical boat and the opening ritual.

The original mosaic studied by Hunlarni might have documented a Giant Cradle, though, or a design derived from one. There is no evidence for this idea, though.

[soltakss]

4 hours ago, Darius West said:

I have been reading HQ: Men of the Sea, and the RQ Companion (which are the 2 best Dormal sources I am aware of) and there is nothing to suggest that this is how it works.  For a start, Dormal didn't create the ritual, that was done by Hunlarni the Wise who had been monitoring the Closing closely and noted that like a tide that it ebbed and flowed.  The Opening Ritual generally suggests that a ship would set out just when the low tide is at its lowest and beginning to turn. There was no discussion of making a treaty with the sea deities in the relevant sections of the document, quite the reverse, this was a sorcerous trick for circumventing the threat of the Closing (a "hacking" style work-around to beat the system).  Hunlarni's work only employed a magical boat and the opening ritual.

Have a look at Strangers in Prax. There is a location where the Monsters of the Closing could go to in safety, outside the bargains that Dormal made with the Agents of the Closing. From memory, the Spotted Shark goes there and the PCs can try and kill it, as they are not Dormali.