stupid glorantha questions thread

[ninthcouncil]

The trolls, however, are your most reliable allies if you are fighting something Really Bad from outside the traditionally accepted structure of Gloranthan reality - in particular, Chaos. They are Glorantha's licensed destroyers, fulfilling a similar role in the wider Gloranthan context to that of the Uroxi in Orlanthi culture. When there is nothing much that requires destroying, they are dangerous thugs on the margins of society. When your back is against the wall - and the wall is collapsing in on you - they are the ones you want fighting with you, because they never give up.

The Orlanthi would agree with this characterization - indeed, the Orlanthi have allied with the trolls on numerous occasions (at the Dawn, against Gbaji, against the God Learners, against the EWF). However, the Dara Happans and the Malkioni would not agree with this characterization. The Dara Happans view the trolls (digijelm) as being no different from broos. Same with most Malkioni.

Jeff

True enough; what I'm putting out is very much an RQ2/3 viewpoint, those iterations of Gloranthan gaming being predominantly focused on the Orlanthi and their struggles against what they regarded as Really Bad Things. MRQ seems to be being presented more from a Malkioni viewpoint, which produces different categories of RBT - hence the inclusion of Troll/Darkness entities in the same section of MoG's Heroquesting guidelines as Chaos. [EDIT - that's not meant to be a complaint, by the way. It's making me think about things a bit more, which is never a bad thing.]

[orlanthi bigot]Seshnelan Monotheists, Draconic Mystics, Dara Happan Sun Worshippers; they're all the same. When someone starts calling themselves an Empire, you know it's time to start sharpening your sword. Might be time to give the trolls a call, too. :evil: [/orlanthi bigot]

 

[Voriof]

Sigh. The last few posts remind me of Nick Brook's brilliantly sardonic "The Ten Things I Hate Most about Glorantha."

Jeff

 

[ninthcouncil]

Sigh. The last few posts remind me of Nick Brook's brilliantly sardonic "The Ten Things I Hate Most about Glorantha."

Jeff

For your own sanity, you should never, ever, go near Harn discussions. :shock:

 

[homerjsinnott]

The trolls, however, are your most reliable allies if you are fighting something Really Bad from outside the traditionally accepted structure of Gloranthan reality - in particular, Chaos. They are Glorantha's licensed destroyers, fulfilling a similar role in the wider Gloranthan context to that of the Uroxi in Orlanthi culture. When there is nothing much that requires destroying, they are dangerous thugs on the margins of society. When your back is against the wall - and the wall is collapsing in on you - they are the ones you want fighting with you, because they never give up.

They usually are the ones collapsing the wall! :lol: Oh yeh, look at ZZ, caused much more misery that he stopped he fought chaos cause he fought everyone. And he was one of the deities that didn't want the compromise (hence the disorder rune, one step away from chaos).

Trolls are like bullies who give you a kicking but then offer to get the other bullies who they set on you in the first place.
Hurray for trolls.

The anti chaos stuff of trolls is almost the only elder race stuff we have been told, but the Elf myths [and the Dwarfs'] and exploits against Chaos have never been explored at all [thanks to the Big G's troll bias]

What about the elves that stood with Genert and Yamsur? and the Evlves of Pamaltela?

All we have really heard is the trolls side.

 

[ninthcouncil]

All we have really heard is the trolls side.

That's because they killed and ate anyone who tried to tell a different version. :wink:

 

[Voriof]

Sigh. The last few posts remind me of Nick Brook's brilliantly sardonic "The Ten Things I Hate Most about Glorantha."

Jeff

For your own sanity, you should never, ever, go near Harn discussions. :shock:

Dude, I have to oversee old World of Darkness vs new World of Darkness Mage discussions...

...which is about as bad, possibly worse. :shock:

Which is shocking in and of itself as Harn has an amazing amount of bitterness and rivalry built into it due to long-festeriung disputes between the writer and the publisher. It drives my friend Rebecca Downey insane.

Jeff

 

[ninthcouncil]

Sigh. The last few posts remind me of Nick Brook's brilliantly sardonic "The Ten Things I Hate Most about Glorantha."

Jeff

For your own sanity, you should never, ever, go near Harn discussions. :shock:

Dude, I have to oversee old World of Darkness vs new World of Darkness Mage discussions...

...which is about as bad, possibly worse. :shock:

Which is shocking in and of itself as Harn has an amazing amount of bitterness and rivalry built into it due to long-festeriung disputes between the writer and the publisher. It drives my friend Rebecca Downey insane.

Jeff

I never got into WoD, so I've avoided such horrors. As for the world of the Harniacs (I'm not one, but they do generate some lovely maps), it sometimes seems to consist of about 25 people in the entire world, constantly on the verge of physical violence about potatoes. I'll stick with Glorantha, I think.

 

[Voriof]

I never got into WoD, so I've avoided such horrors. As for the world of the Harniacs (I'm not one, but they do generate some lovely maps), it sometimes seems to consist of about 25 people in the entire world, constantly on the verge of physical violence about potatoes. I'll stick with Glorantha, I think.

There's always Tekumel, you know. :lol:

Jeff

 

[ninthcouncil]

There's always Tekumel, you know. :lol:

Jeff

I sense a common theme here - games which have escaped from the god-like brains of lone geniuses (Greg Stafford / M A R Barker / Robin Crossby / Raven S McCrack .. er, that's enough) who are always trying to stuff them back in again. :lol:

It's probably a good thing H. P. Lovecraft is dead. :wink:

Night night!

 

[richaje]

No, the Crimson Bat is not active in the Second Age. However, Blaskarth the Cosmic Death (the cosmic annihilation god of Rinliddi - possible the same entity the Orlanthi call Kajabor) is active in the Second Age (and the First and the Great Darkness.

Where did you read this one ?

ILH-2. Under the Red Moon.

No. I read King of Sartar and liked it a lot. And it was fully compatible with RQ.
As for the other texts, have they been released or are they still Works in Progress ?
I wait impatiently for Harmast Saga too.

Actually King of Sartar is not fully compatible with RQ - or more precisely RQ was not fully compatible with KoS. A lot of RQ conventions are not present in any core background book on Glorantha - not the least being the entire "Lay Member-Initiate-Rune Priest-Rune Lord" system. For example, amongst the Orlanthi, nearly every adult is an Initiate (with very lay members being outside observers), nearly every adult participates in ceremonies dedicated to the other gods and goddesses of the Orlanthi religion, god-talkers are more prevalent than priests (and are often more magically powerful - so they are probably not acolytes) - and of course, no division of holy leaders between "rune priests" and "rune lords". And so on. This isn't to say that RQ is wrong to have these "gaming conventions" - but they are not inherent in the background.

All of the texts I referred to (except the yet unpublished collection of Orlanthi myths and history -which will include tons of EWF background - and Harmastsaga) have been released and are available.

Jeff

 

[weasel_fierce]

Thanks for the answers and oh dear. I didnt mean to spawn an argument. Though it seems its all in good nature

New question:


Loskalm. Are these guys dominantly Malkioni or something else ?

 

[soltakss]

On the atheists point, one of the key things about Glorantha is that the gods are real, and that there is irrefutable evidence of that. So not believing in them would be the same as not believing in bread, for example.

One's attitude to them can - of course - vary, including viewing them as nothing more than particularly powerful spirits.

And that's the thing.

The Brithini think of the so-called deities as merely powerful people, much like themselves, that chose poorly and have followed a misguided way. After all, a lot of the Brithini knew people like Malkion, Zzabur and the other founders of modern-day Malkionism and some of them even knew the others who became gods to other cultures. So, they don't think they are particularly special.

They also don't believe in the Invisible God or Creator, but that's not an apparent god and only speaks through Prophets, who the Brithini think of as just misguided men.

Mostali are another matter entirely. They see everything as being part of the Mostal Machine. How can you worship a cog or a gear or a piston? As far as they are concerned, deities are either malfunctioning parts of the machine or things that are tryiong to make the machine malfunction.

 

[Voriof]

Thanks for the answers and oh dear. I didnt mean to spawn an argument. Though it seems its all in good nature

Actually, the Britini admit the existence of the Invisible God. They just don't think it actually does anything. There's a fair bit on Malkioni philosophy and the 'devolution' of Malkion from Creator to Law to Man to Sacrifice in Revealed Mythologies. Interesting reading.

The Brithini are athiest in that they don't believe in other gods and barely believe in their own - they have a very mechanistic/materialist view of the world. Hard to fit the word athiest in really but I'm hard pressed to find a different word.

Loskalm. Are these guys dominantly Malkioni or something else ?

Malkioni with strong sense of upward moblity in their caste system. This is something that occurs amongst many Justreli but will be expunged as a bad thing by many post-Closing Malkioni cultures.

There's a lot of barbarian fringe but the place was settled by Malkioni in the Darkness and a previous brand of Malkioni were driven into the interior by the Justreli during the Return to Rightness crusade.

 

[richaje]

Actually, the Britini admit the existence of the Invisible God. They just don't think it actually does anything. There's a fair bit on Malkioni philosophy and the 'devolution' of Malkion from Creator to Law to Man to Sacrifice in Revealed Mythologies. Interesting reading.

The Brithini are athiest in that they don't believe in other gods and barely believe in their own - they have a very mechanistic/materialist view of the world. Hard to fit the word athiest in really but I'm hard pressed to find a different word.

Atheist literally means "godless". The Brithini are atheist in that they deny any sort of divine status to those True Beings that rebelled against the Law.

Malkioni with strong sense of upward moblity in their caste system. This is something that occurs amongst many Justreli but will be expunged as a bad thing by many post-Closing Malkioni cultures.

The Loskalmi are followers of the Irensavalist heresy and in their hearts they reject the Abiding Book. Corrupt Fronelan sorcerers were offended by the Return to Rightness and claim that Malkion was the evil demiurge of this corrupt world. They claim Irensaval or the Hidden Mover is separate from the world, preceding creation even of matter and energy and that Malkion is the evil and corrupt demiurge whose purpose is to keep people in the gross and bloated clutches of the material world.

 

[Adept]

Troll is the best race. As a troll, you can eat a lot, drink very potent beverages, make love, make children and abandon them to women.
You can spend all your time on self agrandising occupations like Trollball or war (or eating and drinking).
You are not bothered by cold, by darkness. You are of superior physical shape. Only the women are better than you, and they take care that you don't spend too much time at home eating and drinking when there is so much fun playing Trollball, making war, and eating dwarfs or elves.
I wanna be a troll.

Hey come on - it sucks to be a troll. You are doomed to a miserable existence in the Hurtplace, cursed by the Great Woe, constantly hungry, tormented by the Burning Sun, plagued by humans, threatened by dwarfs armed with Burning Iron, and constantly reminded of all the above by the vexing hordes of pathetic enlo who should be given a mercy killing - except you need for your communities to survive. It sucks to be a troll!

And if male, bossed about by your terrifying mother, mother-in-law, sister, granny...

A female does better, being of higher social class, but then one has to struggle against the trollkin curse, and try to keep the blockhead males from messing up too bad.

 

[Yoda300]

Malkioni with strong sense of upward moblity in their caste system. This is something that occurs amongst many Justreli but will be expunged as a bad thing by many post-Closing Malkioni cultures.

The Loskalmi are followers of the Irensavalist heresy and in their hearts they reject the Abiding Book. Corrupt Fronelan sorcerers were offended by the Return to Rightness and claim that Malkion was the evil demiurge of this corrupt world. They claim Irensaval or the Hidden Mover is separate from the world, preceding creation even of matter and energy and that Malkion is the evil and corrupt demiurge whose purpose is to keep people in the gross and bloated clutches of the material world.

OR Loskalm is cradle to Hrestoli Malkionism, wich promote social climbing based on merit (farmer then knight then soldier then lord). Having conquered it, the Jrusteli now hold the power positions and dismiss the old utopy as naive and ineffective. Some loskalmi resist tough (G:The Second Age, page 90).
Most malkioni sects disagree on :
- number of castes
- mobility between castes
- role of women
- use of Tap spell
- who is prophet, who is a saint, who is an usurper.

 

[richaje]

OR Loskalm is cradle to Hrestoli Malkionism, wich promote social climbing based on merit (farmer then knight then soldier then lord). Having conquered it, the Jrusteli now hold the power positions and dismiss the old utopy as naive and ineffective. Some loskalmi resist tough (G:The Second Age, page 90).
Most malkioni sects disagree on :
- number of castes
- mobility between castes
- role of women
- use of Tap spell
- who is prophet, who is a saint, who is an usurper.

This is true - however, from the perspective of the Malkioni True Church, the Loskalmi population are heretics - not so much because of their caste mobility but because they deny the Abiding Book and they reject Malkion as the Invisible God (they believe that Malkion was the Demiurge and not the One God). Their theology has some resemblance to real world Gnosticism.

 

[TRose]

In defense of Trolls. I know of no tribe of Trolls that has turned to chaos in mass the way the Hellwood elves have. And although Troll have zorak Zoran they also have Xiola Umbar and Argan Argar, whose worshippers can get along very well with Humans.
And the Mostali tend to ignore anything that does not directly effect them.After all the World machine is your friend and you should trust the world machine.

 

[Voriof]

You must mean Argar Argan, whose worshippers get along very well with trolls.

Jeff

 

[CharlieMonster]

Atheist literally means "godless". The Brithini are atheist in that they deny any sort of divine status to those True Beings that rebelled against the Law.

Time to slip into my historian anorak! :lol:
Describing Brithini as Atheists is kinda apt. It is only during the last century (pretty much between the Wars) that Atheism acquired it's modern meaning.

Many with non-conventional beliefs, Wydliffe, Calvin, Walter Raleigh, Martin Luther, Tom Kyd, King John & Kit Marlowe to name a few, were called Atheists by their contemporaries. None of these individuals actually refuted God's existence, they just didn't see why he would deal exclusively with a bunch of venal, elitist tosspots who had cornered the spiritual market so-to-speak.

Of course a disdain for organised religion in general, which being heretical was ergo "godless". Seeing as the church reflected and underpinned society and the status quo anyone who opposed it was considered truly repugnant to the vast majority of society.

The closest attitude to Atheism you're probably going to get in Glorantha is that of the Witches of Discworld: they know the gods exist, they just don't hold with believing in them as that just encourages them. Or possibly the attitude many norse seem to have had, where the gods aren't so much worshipped and blamed.