What's Happening in Fronela after 1621?

[Gallowglass]

13 minutes ago, scott-martin said:

Of course SGHV, usual disclaimers apply.

Does that mean “Sandy’s Glorantha Has Varied?”

[Akhôrahil]

On 11/26/2019 at 2:45 AM, scott-martin said:

Sandy spent a fair amount of time up there and was impressed with the notion that KOW is a kind of "controlled" wildfire where the entire community resource is on the expanding periphery as the army. Everything else is burned out to sustain that growth. The interior is apparently a weird but evocative Waste Land environment.

I agree with this - the Kingdom of War isn't sustainable long-term, and can only function through conquest and plunder, but where it expands, it makes more of itself. It's like a social cancer.

(A literary comparison might be the Pannion Domin in Steve Erikson's Memories of Ice (the third of the Malazan books). It's an insane expansionist empire, sustaining itself purely through conquest, slavery, looting and cannibalism. As a reader, I went "this doesn't seem sustainable", and was gratified when later on it turned out that no, it's not, and that's the point.)

[Akhôrahil]

This probably also means that it's powerful but fragile - if any power manages to check and contain it, it will all come tumbling down like a house of cards.

[Sir_Godspeed]

34 minutes ago, Akhôrahil said:

(A literary comparison might be the Pannion Domin in Steve Erikson's Memories of Ice (the third of the Malazan books). It's an insane expansionist empire, sustaining itself purely through conquest, slavery, looting and cannibalism. As a reader, I went "this doesn't seem sustainable", and was gratified when later on it turned out that no, it's not, and that's the point.)

Apparently the Late Imperial Rome also had a bit of a looting-sickness to make up for an unsustainable expenditure. Once expansionism became impossible, there was a slow, gradual decay and loss of tax base. Although I understand that this is only one among several intepretations, it's at least more historically grounded than the usual "the Romans because decadent and they fell to moral decay" that's quite popular in pop-history. 

 

[Akhôrahil]

2 minutes ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

Apparently the Late Imperial Rome also had a bit of a looting-sickness to make up for an unsustainable expenditure. Once expansionism became impossible, there was a slow, gradual decay and loss of tax base. 

In the case of Rome, this is usually about slaves. Once the borders were stable, Rome could no longer go and grab entire peoples as slaves.

You can probably say the same thing about the Third Reich and the Soviet Union - once checked, the internal contradictions meant collapse was just a matter of time. They couldn't exist without constant expansion.

[scott-martin]

8 minutes ago, Akhôrahil said:

You can probably say the same thing about the Third Reich and the Soviet Union - once checked, the internal contradictions meant collapse was just a matter of time. They couldn't exist without constant expansion.

"A lot of ruin in an empire." Parallels and contrasts between KOW and the red empire seem useful to draw out, with the lunar way's increasingly magically expensive rush to the sea often considered a symptom of its unsustainable madness. When the moon falls, what's left behind? I guess we find out.

[Akhôrahil]

22 minutes ago, scott-martin said:

"A lot of ruin in an empire." Parallels and contrasts between KOW and the red empire seem useful to draw out, with the lunar way's increasingly magically expensive rush to the sea often considered a symptom of its unsustainable madness.

The whole Corflu thing is just weird - it should be obvious to anyone that this isn't a credible trade route! (Using it as a naval base worked better, it has to be said.)

By the way, do we know if the KoW has been taken down yet by the time the Lunars march into Fronela? Because otherwise, that's a heavyweight fight.

Edited December 4, 2019 by Akhôrahil

[Jeff]

1 hour ago, Akhôrahil said:

I agree with this - the Kingdom of War isn't sustainable long-term, and can only function through conquest and plunder, but where it expands, it makes more of itself. It's like a social cancer.

(A literary comparison might be the Pannion Domin in Steve Erikson's Memories of Ice (the third of the Malazan books). It's an insane expansionist empire, sustaining itself purely through conquest, slavery, looting and cannibalism. As a reader, I went "this doesn't seem sustainable", and was gratified when later on it turned out that no, it's not, and that's the point.)

Yes. Like a cancer, or like a brush fire that expands by burning all it encounters, leaving nothing behind. 

[Sir_Godspeed]

13 minutes ago, Jeff said:

Yes. Like a cancer, or like a brush fire that expands by burning all it encounters, leaving nothing behind. 

Makes you wonder whether this is incidental or intentional on the part of Lord Death on a Horse.

[Akhôrahil]

1 minute ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

Makes you wonder whether this is incidental or intentional on the part of Lord Death on a Horse.

[Akhôrahil]

Also, is it just me who can't help thinking of Lord Death on a Horse as looking exactly like Frazetta's "Death Dealer" (heraldry excluded, perhaps)?

[Sir_Godspeed]

6 minutes ago, Akhôrahil said:

Also, is it just me who can't help thinking of Lord Death on a Horse as looking exactly like Frazetta's "Death Dealer" (heraldry excluded, perhaps)?

No, I think that's close to my mental image as well. 

Speaking of that, there are some images inspired by that I thought of. The old Rackham Confrontation miniatures line had a fantasy "evil Celts" faction called Drunes. They're not exactly close to the historically grounded image of Glorantha (by which I mean they are pulpy as all hell), but they do capture the viciousness in a cool way:

[Akhôrahil]

7 minutes ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

Speaking of that, there are some images inspired by that I thought of. The old Rackham Confrontation miniatures line had a fantasy "evil Celts" faction called Drunes. They're not exactly close to the historically grounded image of Glorantha (by which I mean they are pulpy as all hell), but they do capture the viciousness in a cool way:

Several of these make for passable Broo, as well.

[David Scott]

43 minutes ago, Akhôrahil said:

Also, is it just me who can't help thinking of Lord Death on a Horse as looking exactly like Frazetta's "Death Dealer" (heraldry excluded, perhaps)?

We have a picture and description of him on page 220 of the Guide

Quote

His armor is made up of countless small plates and his helmet has a death’s head faceplate. He carries a long wavy sword. From atop his pale horse, Lord Death surveys the carnage committed in his name. An avid headhunter, he has the heads of several local potentates and priests draped around the neck of his pale horse.

 

[sufiazafran]

On 11/25/2019 at 4:22 AM, Gallowglass said:

Just today actually, I was reading through an article in Tradetalk #15 on Zoria, meant to be used in Hero Wars. There might be some good inspiration there, or material to use. Also, the Swedish edition of RQG will use Fronela as it's default setting, but I don't know any details beyond that (and I can't read Swedish). 

Thanks, That is actually the material I used to write Zoria, I just took the names, places, people, key words, etc. and added some details to adapt it to RQ.

 

On 11/25/2019 at 4:22 AM, Gallowglass said:

 The more I looked into Fronelan events of the Hero Wars, the more unclear it became how the Kingdom of War would continue to be involved. We know that Loskalm conquers or otherwise "oppresses" the Arrolian cities, prompting an invasion from Carmania, and later the Lunar Empire. I don't have my books with me so I can't check the dates for these events, but I believe they happen in the 1630's through early 1640's. There's pretty much no mention of the KoW doing anything in the Hero Wars period after it invades Junora and Loskalm. To me it almost seems like Loskalm drives them back to the Black Forest and contains them, or maybe even conquers them by the 1630's. How long do you think your campaign will last through the timeline? Will you use or ignore these future invasions?

I want to adapt my campaign to the official material and the campaign setting starts in 1621 T.S. So I intend to use these future invasions as hooks so the players decide where to go at the end of the campaign. Let's see, the idea is that each proposed path of the setting (eastern, western and northern) has three scenarios with three adventures each, so after each scenario I will write a few hooks for possible adventures, and the players decide if they continue with the campaign or go in a different way (some of the ideas I have are an expedition into Charg to see if the ban is still active, go to Jonatela as envoys from Riverjoin to convince king Congern to join their side, follow the god of the silver feet after Lord death is dead and go with the troll refugees of the black forest to a secret meeting place to reunite with their cousins from Valind's glacier). I hope that with this structure, players and GMs will have the possibility to replay the campaign several times, choosing different paths, like following Meriatan into an invasion of the Arrolian cities. 

 

On 11/25/2019 at 4:22 AM, Gallowglass said:

The Hsunchen and Orlanthi of Fronela also don't seem to be opposed to the KoW in any big way. The Guide says that both of these regions send mercenaries to join the Warlords. If anything, they seem to hate Loskalm more than the Kingdom. Rather than the KoW dragging the entire region into conflict, it may just be a thing between them and Loskalm, and it may also be resolved pretty quickly in the grand scheme of things. By 1630 even? We don't know, there's a lot of missing information. Honestly it sounds like your ideas about making the Kingdom of War a bigger threat to everyone is more interesting than the current Hero Wars framework anyway. 

Yes I wasn't sure about that, so what I did is that the orlanthi kingdoms and arrolian cities (except for Riverjoin) don't really take any action against the KoW and the hsunchen (except for the noyaling) are to busy with hibernation and surviving. So the scenario around the KoW at the beggining of the campaign is more or less like this:

1. king Congern of Jonatela still has to decide if he will take the chance to conquer Karstall instead of fighting against the KoW.

2. the different tribes of hsunchen are not organized and some of their members (specially among the sabadari, but also rathori, lotari, kloisari and rinkoni) are joining the KoW. Other tribes of hsunchen either live too far away into Rathorela and may not even know about the conflict or, like the uncoling or the hogari, have the option to get far away from the KoW and avoid conflict.

 The idea is that these groups can choose any side on the battle, so it dependes on the players (and de GM, of course) if they will join the KoW, Loskalm, Riverjoin, stay neutral, etc.

On 11/25/2019 at 4:22 AM, Gallowglass said:

Fronela is still one of my favorite parts of Glorantha, just for the diversity, weirdness, and great story hooks. I've now written campaign outlines taking place in Oranor, Sog City, Rathorela, and Loskalm.

Yes, I really like it too and I am a little obsessed with making more sense of malkionism. I mean, right now there is not much usable material since the old material was scrapped, so I've been avoiding anything that treats westerners as medieval europeans and I would really like to write some myths about Malkion and Zzabur, to give malkionism more context. For the moment I have one about the ascension of Zzabur and why he made the closing, and I also would like to write one about how Warera takes Malkion to the west and gives him, maybe to mostal, maybe to Acos? to teach him the western ways, since I just read in The Book of Heortling Mythology about this. 

I would like to ask you, How do you represent the western cultures? I mean, how do you describe the Losklami? do you make them more greek, or more bactrian, maybe more vedic indian?, how do yo differentiate the four castes? because I take the impression that they are almost like four different cultures inside one bigger frame-culture. And how do you play the blending of different cultures along the JAnube river? Do you play the Orlanthi as Dragon Pass orlanthi?

On 11/25/2019 at 4:22 AM, Gallowglass said:

Good luck with your campaign, and keep us posted about what happens! Also, I'd love to see some of the material you've written, hopefully you can get it published.

Thank you, I really appreciate your feedback. I would like to send you what I've written, but i'm afraid it's written in Spanish, so it's no good.

Edited December 9, 2019 by sufiazafran

[M Helsdon]

On 4/30/2019 at 6:21 AM, davecake said:

Quite how the Kingdom of Loskalm defeats the Kingdom of War is a good question. 

By becoming the kingdom of war...

[metcalph]

1 hour ago, M Helsdon said:

By becoming the kingdom of war...

The future of Loskalm has depicted in the Guide {TakenEgi Stelae, Black Dragon Mountain Pictographs and Sir Ethilrist) looks quite different than becoming the Kingdom of War. 

[Gallowglass]

6 hours ago, sufiazafran said:

Yes, I really like it too and I am a little obsessed with making more sense of malkionism. I mean, right now there is not much usable material since the old material was scrapped, so I've been avoiding anything that treats westerners as medieval europeans and I would really like to write some myths about Malkion and Zzabur, to give malkionism more context. For the moment I have one about the ascension of Zzabur and why he made the closing, and I also would like to write one about how Warera takes Malkion to the west and gives him, maybe to mostal, maybe to Acos? to teach him the western ways, since I just read in The Book of Heortling Mythology about this. 

 

I agree, it can be difficult to get a handle on. Malkioni still feel a little unplayable to me for this reason, and because they're often not portrayed sympathetically to more traditional theists and animists. The existing rule systems don't always provide great options for playing Malkioni characters either, although HQG would probably work fine. And maybe RQ3, I'm not actually too familiar with it as a rule system. My favorite Gloranthan rule set is RQG, but the setting focus for that is kind of narrow right now. 

6 hours ago, sufiazafran said:

Yes, I really like it too and I am a little obsessed with making more sense of malkionism. I mean, right now there is not much usable material since the old material was scrapped, so I've been avoiding anything that treats westerners as medieval europeans and I would really like to write some myths about Malkion and Zzabur, to give malkionism more context. For the moment I have one about the ascension of Zzabur and why he made the closing, and I also would like to write one about how Warera takes Malkion to the west and gives him, maybe to mostal, maybe to Acos? to teach him the western ways, since I just read in The Book of Heortling Mythology about this. 

 

The only campaign I've run in Glorantha takes place in Sartar. But with every culture in the setting, it always seems to be "one part (this ancient people), one part (this other ancient people), one part (a whole lot of weirdness). Here is how I think about the varied cultures of Fronela-

• Loskalm - They feel the most Greek of all the Western peoples, but because of their cold environment, I actually imagine their architecture to look like a weird mix of Mauryan India, and medieval Russia. Stupas and onion domes, with timber forts and log houses in more rural country. Their art would look comparatively very Greek, with lots of sculpture that idealizes the human form. I get the sense that everyone in Loskalm favors simple and utilitarian styles of dress that underplay their caste (which is defined very differently than in Seshnela). Still, you would probably see wizards wearing tall hats and robes, warriors decked out in full armor and weapons, and farmers wearing simple tunics with cloaks. The nobles probably display some austere combination of all three, rather than flaunt their wealth and status like their southern cousins do. 
• For the people of the Janube, again I imagine the home culture (Pelorian), but visually they would be better adapted for the colder environment. More heavily (and perhaps elaborately) dressed, and their architecture might have more timber and sloped roofs compared to the mud-brick dwellings and stepped pyramids of Peloria. Zoria seems like an outlier here. It was founded by an Ulerian priestess who may have come from the east, but the people who lived in area previously were probably a mix of Noyalings, Orlanthi, Arrolians, and other such folk. They seem like more of a melting pot, drawing in all sorts with their many "attractions." 
• The Orlanthi in Fronela intermingled with the Tawari Hsunchen in ancient times, and I imagine there are still many traces of that heritage in their dress, architecture, and art, not to mention their culture and religion. I haven't quite decided what this means yet, other than a lot of bull symbolism. I googled "bronze age Ukraine" and came up with some interesting visuals, particularly of the Cucuteni-Trypillia Culture. This site in particular has some great images, although it's mostly unintelligible in English. 

[davecake]

I think Loskalm avoids becoming the new Kingdom of War in large part by becoming the new God Learners. Like the God Learners, it works well - for a while. And after the direct threat of the KoW is gone, Loskalm is very ripe for internal conflict. 

 

[davecake]

I'm shying away from a campaign there for the moment because the rules don't currently support it well, and I think we need a lot of work there before they will do so. That aside though, -

1 hour ago, Gallowglass said:

Loskalm - They feel the most Greek of all the Western peoples, but because of their cold environment, I actually imagine their architecture to look like a weird mix of Mauryan India, and medieval Russia. 

I agree with the Greek intellectually etc. Diving into Plato and neo-Platonism, a very idealistic and intellectually open culture, etc. Not necessarily historical Greeks, but as Greek philosophers imagined they could be. I don't go with the Russian onion domes etc, but a very Greek style of art. Timber forts and log houses definitely. They are obsessed with cleanliness and health, and I think a lot of cedar wood saunas and public spaces (some indoors too) for exercise. 

1 hour ago, Gallowglass said:

I get the sense that everyone in Loskalm favors simple and utilitarian styles of dress that underplay their caste (which is defined very differently than in Seshnela).

Yes. 

1 hour ago, Gallowglass said:

Still, you would probably see wizards wearing tall hats and robes, warriors decked out in full armor and weapons, and farmers wearing simple tunics with cloaks.

For formal and ceremonial occasions maybe. Day to day they avoid what is unnecessary. A warrior might wear a sword, but wear armour only when needed, a wizard actually doesn't need much of anything (their magic doesn't require them to be tall, unlike Rokari Zzaburi). 

[Sir_Godspeed]

I might be remembering this incorrectly, but aren't Russian onion domes actually depicted in the Guide? Sog City definitely has it in brass, but I wonder if there's other examples of it outside Akem too. 

As for Neo-Platonism - Well, yeah, I mean, that's why we have runes. They're Plato's ideals with another coat of paint, basically. And Loskalm seem fairly clearly based on Plato's Republic, minus the fake lottery thing.

[Jeff]

I've been experimenting quite a bit with the West and with Malkionism, and I find it works just fine.

However, the Malkioni don't deal with the world of magic and mythology in the same way that other Gloranthans do. They try to understand how things fit together, and then work to exploit that to their benefit.

In most Malkioni societies, it is the zzaburi (or whatever their equivalent is) that handle sorcery. They serve as the "priests" for the Invisible God, for the Ascended Masters (where worshiped), and for some other entities. They hand out the magical blessings for the nobles, soldiers, and workers, while at the same time do not engage in any of those tasks. Only among the Loskalmi do the zzaburi have practical familiarity with the other castes. Think of them as Neo-Platonic Brahmins, with a near monopoly over sorcery and you are on the right path. 

Ancestor worship is big deal among the nobility. Illustrious ancestors are worshiped, and are a source of magic. These ancestor cults often have a zzaburi who performs the rites, but needs to have the nobles present and involved (since in most cases, they are the ones with the blood connection). Think something like Daka Fal, where folk are worshiping the state founder (Jonat Big Bear, Gerlant Flamesword, Talor the Laughing Warrior, etc.). The Rokari dislike this try to restrict this, but given that some of this is by their own protectors and guardians, exceptions are made.

In some places, we have totem worship, where Animal Gods are still worshiped for their magic. The zzaburi are not involved. Even among the Rokari, this is tolerated (but confined to the Soldier caste). This is mostly spirit magic and some Rune magic.

Among the Workers, there are lots of little cults, minor spirits, you name it. Most of this is just spirit magic.

And then there is practical God Learning - sending folk into the Hero World, boosted by as much sorcery as possible, to take magic to be used by Men. The Rokari are very reluctant to do this, the New Hrestoli do it all the damn time.

 

[Sir_Godspeed]

The relatively small presence of actual sorcery in Malkioni sorcery is something people here have talked about before, so I'm getting a bit used to it, but does feel a bit anticlimactic when the main major human sorcerous culture in Glorantha is like 90% theistic or animistic in terms of actual magic (not just worldview). 

Then again, perhaps it's fitting that the culture with a Brahmin analogue is similarly misrepresented much like the Varna system of RW India. Ask the religious orthodox scholars and you get a religiously orthodox answer. "Uh, yeah, we have four castes that don't intermix and the priests are at the top, deffo"/"Uh, yeah, we totally practice only sorcery and none of that pagan stuff, yuppers."

[Jeff]

6 minutes ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

The relatively small presence of actual sorcery in Malkioni sorcery is something people here have talked about before, so I'm getting a bit used to it, but does feel a bit anticlimactic when the main major human sorcerous culture in Glorantha is like 90% theistic or animistic in terms of actual magic (not just worldview). 

Then again, perhaps it's fitting that the culture with a Brahmin analogue is similarly misrepresented much like the Varna system of RW India. Ask the religious orthodox scholars and you get a religiously orthodox answer. "Uh, yeah, we have four castes that don't intermix and the priests are at the top, deffo"/"Uh, yeah, we totally practice only sorcery and none of that pagan stuff, yuppers."

Like studying the Vedas, learning sorcery is intensive, costly, and can only be done by experts. And imagine that - Malkionism has determined that the only rational way to organise human society is into castes, so that the smallest caste is able to study and practice sorcery. Amazing how that works!

The zzaburi don't tend to tolerate cults that provide alternative ways of social organization - but letting a group of loyal soldiers worship Lion Man or a bunch of workers worship Master Stone Man is not usually seen as a problem. Worship of aristocratic ancestors is probably better than Ascended Masters, but that is still more harmless than the great gods.

And of course everyone worships the Invisible God. Workers, soldiers, nobles, and wizards - everyone worships the Creator.

[Gallowglass]

7 hours ago, Jeff said:

Ancestor worship is big deal among the nobility. Illustrious ancestors are worshiped, and are a source of magic. These ancestor cults often have a zzaburi who performs the rites, but needs to have the nobles present and involved (since in most cases, they are the ones with the blood connection). Think something like Daka Fal, where folk are worshiping the state founder (Jonat Big Bear, Gerlant Flamesword, Talor the Laughing Warrior, etc.). The Rokari dislike this try to restrict this, but given that some of this is by their own protectors and guardians, exceptions are made.

 

I still have a hard time getting a handle on the Loskalmi and their magic. Is it only those who have achieved the level of Wizard who actually use sorcery? My reading of the GtG was that Men-of-All are trained in both combat and sorcery from the beginning (late teens, early 20's), and those who excel in it become proper wizards. Do they instead get Rune magic from these ancestor or Ascended Master cults? That would solve a lot of my game balance problems when I try to run a Loskalm campaign. 

 

7 hours ago, Jeff said:

And then there is practical God Learning - sending folk into the Hero World, boosted by as much sorcery as possible, to take magic to be used by Men. The Rokari are very reluctant to do this, the New Hrestoli do it all the damn time.

 

I've wondered about this a lot too. Why is this okay for the New Hrestoli, and not for the Rokari? Also, can Malkioni visit their own mythic past? Like taking a trip to Danmalastan, or taking part in the Kachisti's Speaking Tour?