Curvature of Glorantha

[David Scott]

2 hours ago, Akhôrahil said:

Is Kero Fin 30 km high? I thought it was only 10 km?

GtG page 186:

Quote

Kero Fin: This incredible peak towers 7.5 miles into the air and is visible from hundreds of miles around. It appears like a needle rising upward, out of sight into the Sky.

7.5 miles = 12100 metres

On 6/18/2019 at 11:56 AM, Joerg said:

About the visibility of Kero Fin, I don't think that is much of stretch. What we see in the picture is probably just the upper half. This is similar to seeing the Alps from Munich, which have only 2.5 km height advantage at most, whereas Kero Fin has a 29 km height advantage to this perspective (we can barely see the top of the Shadow Plateau, which is about 1km above sea level).

Kero Fin is about 30 hexes from the view point in the picture (AAA). 30 x 5 miles is 150 miles.

[AndreJarosch]

We all agree that there is no photographie in Glorantha, right?

So what we have here is a PAINTING, made by someone has highlightet the features he wanted to. 

[Bill the barbarian]

3 hours ago, Akhôrahil said:

Is Kero Fin 30 km high? I thought it was only 10 km?

From Guide To Glorantha V2 page 658

Utterly dominating the background is Mount Kero Fin, the huge 8-mile-high needle of a mountain, its upper reaches surrounded by clouds and the home of the gods.

8 mikes is about 13 km.

 

Edited June 25, 2019 by Bill the barbarian

[Joerg]

4 hours ago, David Scott said:

GtG page 186:

7.5 miles = 12100 metres

is about 30,000 feet. Genertela Box clearly stated 30 km, which is 30,000 meters, but then metric and imperial measures have been confused now and then.

Measuring the height of Kero Fin is an exercise in futility - its peak reaches into the Middle Air, where vertical distances become subjective anyway. The peak should be higher than the Toling clouds for Yinkin to have been available to sire those.

 

[Julian Lord]

14 hours ago, David Scott said:

Kero Fin is about 30 hexes from the view point in the picture (AAA). 30 x 5 miles is 150 miles.

I've always been really annoyed with the Gloranthan game world distances being so small -- particularly as a hiker with a serious respect for the RW ones.

I am a LOT slower now than I used to be, but once I walked 115 kilometres in 2 days, which would be a significant stretch on the Glorantha map, but far shorter in RW terms ; I'm genuinely puzzled that Sartar is not much larger than a very local collection of villages is in RW, as the narrative scale appears to be in contradiction to the geographic one.

I generally rule that map distances in Glorantha are double what the map scale seems to indicate.

[albinoboo]

1 hour ago, Julian Lord said:

I've always been really annoyed with the Gloranthan game world distances being so small -- particularly as a hiker with a serious respect for the RW ones.

I am a LOT slower now than I used to be, but once I walked 115 kilometres in 2 days, which would be a significant stretch on the Glorantha map, but far shorter in RW terms ; I'm genuinely puzzled that Sartar is not much larger than a very local collection of villages is in RW, as the narrative scale appears to be in contradiction to the geographic one.

I generally rule that map distances in Glorantha are double what the map scale seems to indicate.

If you look at the early Anglo Saxon kingdoms they were 100 miles  across, the Italian city states weren't any bigger. The bronze age kingdoms of Syria were small, similarly the Bronze age kingdoms of Greece. You are used to walking in todays world with paved roads and easy navigation. Sartar is a much less tamed landscape, that requires the traveller to go off road to get to places. The big reason why Alfred the Great drove off the Vikings was because he established across Wessex fortified towns 25 miles or so apart. Saxon armies could march and have a secure source of food every night whereas the Vikings did not. This made the armies of Wessex more mobile than their Vikings opponents. Supporting 5 or 6 people walking 100 miles is relatively easy, supporting an army is much more difficult. 

[Akhôrahil]

3 hours ago, Julian Lord said:

I've always been really annoyed with the Gloranthan game world distances being so small -- particularly as a hiker with a serious respect for the RW ones.

I am a LOT slower now than I used to be, but once I walked 115 kilometres in 2 days, which would be a significant stretch on the Glorantha map, but far shorter in RW terms ; I'm genuinely puzzled that Sartar is not much larger than a very local collection of villages is in RW, as the narrative scale appears to be in contradiction to the geographic one.

I generally rule that map distances in Glorantha are double what the map scale seems to indicate.

I'm with you on the size. When you look at Genertela, with its wide array of different cultures, its steppes, its Fantasy China, its sprawling Lunar Empire, its West, and so on, you imagine that it's the size of Eurasia. Then you realize that it's the size of the U.S., that the Lunar Empire is the size of France rather than of the Persian Empire, that Kralorela is the size of California rather than of China, that the steppes of Pent aren't actually very large, that Sartar is tiny, and so on, and suddenly it looks like a miniature of an Earth setting. This also means that the already really disparate cultures are absolutely packed into a smaller geographic area.

Edited June 26, 2019 by Akhôrahil

[Sir_Godspeed]

I did have a chuckle when I found out that Kralorela is the size of Sweden, but honestly, I think it's a fairly decent tradeoff to make places reachable for PCs.

[Bill the barbarian]

16 minutes ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

I did have a chuckle when I found out that Kralorela is the size of Sweden, but honestly, I think it's a fairly decent tradeoff to make places reachable for PCs.

Thanks, I was having planet envy, but I feel much better.
The Fact that i  could walk Glorantha had been a negative until you pointed that little tidbit out, Sir_Godspeed. Having walked as much as I have (mostly for pleasure but for a good third of my life as a commuter) I have come to appreciate a life pedestrian and being able to share that (hopefully in as Tolkienesgue a fashion as I can) with the PCs can be a true joy. With the great artwork found in RQ G  to help fire my imagination, I am hoping for a few great walks in the near future through Sartar's green and pleasant lands.

Amazing what one thought can bring to a game!

Cheers

Edited June 26, 2019 by Bill the barbarian

[g33k]

1 hour ago, Bill the barbarian said:

... I am hoping for a few great walks in the near future through Sartar's green and pleasant lands.

and winding up the day where everyone in the party can get a broo?

Sounds like a fun day, you sadist.

 

[Lordabdul]

Yeah I also was surprised, at first, about how small distances in Glorantha are. It wasn't so much about tribes and nations being small since, as previously pointed out, a lot of Bronze Age factions were pretty small too (it bothered me a bit but not so much)... for me, the problem was more about the fact that you could have such varied ecosystems so close to each other -- like the (at best) Mediterranean environment of Sartar right across the mountains from an African desert like Prax [1]. I guess it can all be waved away (again!) with some Gloranthan magic/god/whatever explanation. And it's not totally implausible anyway (we have some desert region in the middle of British Columbia after all!). I think when it comes down to it, a game world should be gameable first anyway, so I agree with @Sir_Godspeed that it's a good tradeoff.

These small distances is what prompted me to look at the curvature of Glorantha in the OP, actually. Since Glorantha turns out to be pretty small, I proved that you can get away with quite a lot of curve while still staying in the "bulgy cube" zone (i.e. "flat world" or not doesn't matter much with small distances). It would have to be much bigger before it would even look like a chunk of a sphere.

 

[1] I think that old-school RQ gamers, especially RQ3 people, have a more "native americans" view of Praxian tribes? But it seems to me like Prax was more designed as African-like. I'm curious about what official word there is on this.

Edited June 26, 2019 by lordabdul

[Bill the barbarian]

27 minutes ago, g33k said:

and winding up the day where everyone in the party can get a broo?

 

BOOM!

yer desssspicable!

[Sir_Godspeed]

25 minutes ago, lordabdul said:

[1] I think that old-school RQ gamers, especially RQ3 people, have a more "native americans" view of Praxian tribes? But it seems to me like Prax was more designed as African-like. I'm curious about what official word there is on this.

Being a newer convert to Glorantha, my mind was pretty infused with North-African and Middle Eastern ideas when reading about Prax, but after a while on this forum, that vision has been thoroughly beaten out of me. Terms like "chapparal", the presence of cacti, etc. makes it pretty clear that the place imagined has pretty much always been based on South-Western(?) United States and/or Northern Mexico (I assume the latter, not that it matters, since they share the same bioregion).

Now, granted, Prax is a lot of things from many different places across the world, but that's the basic gist of it, as far as I can tell.

(New?) Pavis itself has been shown with both influences of Sumerian and Mezoamerican influences (which kinda makes sense, since stepped pyramids are common to both, I guess, though the feathered headdress featured in... Pavis: Gateway to Adventure? ... seems a lot more mezoamerican than anything else.)

Sun County seems vaguely inspired by some kind of Macedonian colony in Ptolemaic Egypt or something, just going off the visuals I've seen. Which, again, kind of makes sense.

EDIT: Anyway, before this delves into another debate/ocasion for pontificating about the minutiae of Prax and Pavis, I will get back to the main point: climate and geography in Glorantha is squished, yes, but there are also pretty clear reasons mythologically for why it's like this, and the setting texts do make a conscious effort to reduce the naturalistic thinking in readers' minds, and increase the mythologically narrative thinking. The Wastelands are parched not because of physics, but because Genert died there. Apply as fits to other areas. May include ludicrous examples like impossibly steep mountains (Kero Fin) or rivers that float upwards (Whatsitsface), or bioregions that really should not exist (I'm looking at you, Winterwood, and your weird glacier-bordering, birch-absent pine forests).

Edited June 26, 2019 by Sir_Godspeed

[Bill the barbarian]

Sounds like you got a handle on things. These have been my interpretation for decades. Now, I am not saying we are correct, but I do agree with you. Throw in a hint of Eau d' Gygax & Arneson for that 80's "wash and wear fresh from the dungeon armour look" and you have the Rubble and my complete Prax view.

Now awaiting paradigm shift as My Prax Begins to Vary (MPBtV™)...

39 minutes ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

EDIT: Anyway, before this delves into another debate/ocasion for pontificating about the minutiae of Prax and Pavis,

Oh sure, now I read this after all that pontificating...

[Bill the barbarian]

1 hour ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

EDIT: Anyway, before this delves into another debate/ocasion for pontificating about the minutiae of Prax and Pavis, I will get back to the main point: climate and geography in Glorantha is squished, yes, but there are also pretty clear reasons mythologically for why it's like this, and the setting texts do make a conscious effort to reduce the naturalistic thinking in readers' minds, and increase the mythologically narrative thinking. The Wastelands are parched not because of physics, but because Genert died there. Apply as fits to other areas. May include ludicrous examples like impossibly steep mountains (Kero Fin) or rivers that float upwards (Whatsitsface), or bioregions that really should not exist (I'm looking at you, Winterwood, and your weird glacier-bordering, birch-absent pine forests).

While I was in comic mode above, in my last quoting of you, I forgot to mention the reason for the  like button I tapped. The above is quite brilliant and a point a lot of people of recent have missed, how ridiculously (i'm looking at you Druluz!) magical the place is.

Thank you for that!

[g33k]

15 minutes ago, lordabdul said:

[1] I think that old-school RQ gamers, especially RQ3 people, have a more "native americans" view of Praxian tribes? But it seems to me like Prax was more designed as African-like. I'm curious about what official word there is on this.

I describe the Praxian Tribes as a melange of

• Native American plains-tribes (after the advent of the horse) - n.b. "Braves" as a term for warriors
• Mongol steppe-tribes - n.b. "Khan" as a ruler
• Bedouin camel&horse desert tribes
• African herding tribes

With none of those really "the" dominant/primary influence; but also bits of post-apocalyptic survivalism, and some Other Weird Shit, because Glorantha.

Plus the Sables obviously have their own extra Moon-thing going on, and the Morokanth ... they have Herd-Men, fer Waha's sake! and that looks like the "biggest thing" (from the non-Praxian POV) .... like I said:  Other Weird Shit.

I believe this to be, roughly, "canonical" for whatever that is worth and whatever it means.  I look forward to (the eventual release of) the new PraxPak, and expect to adjust, at least some, at that time.

 

For some reason (this is just me... and My Glorantha Varies!) I think of the Impala tribe as a bit more Native-American-ish X Mongol-ish; the Great Tribes broadly as being a bit more Bedouin-ish; the Minor Tribes (struggling more and thus) a bit more post-apocalyptic survival-ish (and/or having their own odd backgrounds, like Yelornan unicorn & Old-Pavis Zebra); Morokanth prefer to be more Oasis-and-Zola-Fel (because water & tapirs); tribes of the biggest creatures (bison, rhino) tend more to the stoic & inscrutable tropes; some times one influence will be situationally prominent (e.g. I model lone/few scouts on Native American models, for most tribes); and so forth...

I still play the older, more-carnivorous Morokanth (vs the new, nerfed, eunuch'ed, vegetarian ones).

I'm (strongly) considering a wildly-divergent Bolo-Lizard tribe:  each family or clan has one (or occasionally more) of the larger thunderlizard types.  These form a nucleus where young children, elders, and other less-strong members can ride at need; they carry tents and other gear; occasionally a tent will even remain pitched, howdah-style, as the family moves from place to place.  Like the Morokanth, they prefer to travel directly from one more-watery location to another (for their thunderlizards), but the braves on their bolo-lizards travel as freely as any other tribe.

 

[g33k]

2 hours ago, lordabdul said:

[1] I think that old-school RQ gamers, especially RQ3 people, have a more "native americans" view of Praxian tribes? But it seems to me like Prax was more designed as African-like. I'm curious about what official word there is on this.

On the landscape front, the "Wastes" split roughly in half, just to the east of the Valley of Cradles.

The western part is Prax, mostly American-Southwest-ish.  Sagebrush, tumbleweeds, chapparal, desert.  A bit less hospitable, though... most of the water is too alkaline (or otherwise contaminated) to drink.  Most of the plants have either insufficient nutrition, or extra compounds that are dangerous to eat (or both).    Occasional oases, lush and luxurious.  Occasional stretches of uninhabitable badland.  Only herbivores of the Survival Covenant can eat safely (although the sentient Covenent-members can (if willing) usually find enough forage for small numbers of other beasts); even a species "known" to be healthy fodder from elsewhere, cannot be relied upon in Prax.

The eastern part is... worse.  More hostile.  Mostly badlands.  Drinkable water is MUCH rarer.  Edible forage -- even for the Covenanted -- is harder to find.  Mongolian desert X Sahara, plus hostile mythscape making the land less-able to support you.  Stormbull is here often... usually expressing his fury & rage.

 

[g33k]

2 hours ago, Bill the barbarian said:

BOOM!

yer desssspicable!

One word for you, Bill.  Just one.  I want you to imagine...

 

 

brooduck

 

[Bill the barbarian]

11 minutes ago, g33k said:

brooduck

'kay, gets dice, attempts sanity roll, shakes...

 

Arghhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!

[Joerg]

8 hours ago, g33k said:

On the landscape front, the "Wastes" split roughly in half, just to the east of the Valley of Cradles.

That western "half" is actually just a small fraction of the vast Wastes beyond. Prax fits completely into the same area as Dragon Pass. The Elder Wilds extend twice as much east of Prax, and are only a fraction of the distance to the Shan Shan mountains.

The remains of Genert's Palace (now surrounded by Chaos swamps) are near the halfway mark. The Tunneled Hills are in the eastern half.

Prax itself has more extreme places than much of the Wastes - the Copper Sands are probably the most hostile to life in the Wastes, but the Dead Place is a sore on the Earth which is unparalleled, and in the Spirit Plane this is a gaping void. On the other hand, the Sacred Ground is a remainder of Godtime fertility, although minus the Redwood savannah features.

 

 

[Julian Lord]

15 hours ago, Joerg said:

the vast Wastes beyond

Vast ?

Probably about similar in area to Germany.

[Sir_Godspeed]

5 hours ago, Julian Lord said:

Vast ?

Probably about similar in area to Germany.

I was thinking something similar to Texas, which is a fair deal bigger, but not so vastly bigger as to detract from your point: yes, the Wastes are not the Eurasian Steppe or the Sahara Desert.

However, it's not TOO far off from something like the Kalahari or maybe even a majority of the Gobi, and those are plenty big enough to be death traps for the untrained, and will probably take a very long time to cross with riding animals or on foot, on account of the lack of proper roads, refueling stations, etc.

[Brootse]

On 6/26/2019 at 8:40 PM, Sir_Godspeed said:

Sun County seems vaguely inspired by some kind of Macedonian colony in Ptolemaic Egypt or something, just going off the visuals I've seen. Which, again, kind of makes sense.

Iirc the elevator speech for the Sun County was "Sparta in Wild West."

[MOB]

On 6/26/2019 at 2:36 PM, Julian Lord said:

I generally rule that map distances in Glorantha are double what the map scale seems to indicate.

I am convinced that despite RQ officially using the metric system, when devising stuff Greg et al being Americans still thought in miles, and this is reflected in some of scales and distances being off. A quick and easy solution is to simply assume the Glorantha "key mile" km does not in fact equal 1000 meters but instead equals a mile (1600 meters). 

[Akhôrahil]

3 hours ago, MOB said:

I am convinced that despite RQ officially using the metric system, when devising stuff Greg et al being Americans still thought in miles, and this is reflected in some of scales and distances being off. A quick and easy solution is to simply assume the Glorantha "key mile" km does not in fact equal 1000 meters but instead equals a mile (1600 meters). 

But now, you have to do things about populations as well, as otherwise population density becomes weird. And that means you have to do something about city sizes unless you want the urbanization level to change dramatically. And so on and so on - it never ends!