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Bendigeidfran posted:I see a lot of Late Antique Eastern Rome in them myself. The Lunars are an awkward successor state to a handful of previous states and empires (granted you can argue they're The Entire Concept Of Empire), which they have to simultaneously embrace the legacy of and assert their own superiority over through the framework of mystical religion. Their position is perpetually precarious despite a leg-up on centralization over everyone else nearby, and even then they're much more of a diverse fabric of subject and allied peoples than anything governed from a secure core. And the tax demons? Not out of place in either situation. Hell yeah, thanks for this. My (very outsider) understanding was that the move to rice came during the Jin, resulting mostly from the fall of Chag'an and the move south. W/r/t Lunars, I've generally thought of them as also being a commentary on liberal imperialism. The notion that a brutal, violent empire is somehow more acceptable because it's less pushy about changing local cultures. The whole 'rainbow capitalism' kind of critique. As to why they're using "phalanx" I'd always taken it as more poetic/stylistic than anything else, an emphasis on the Lunars as having regimented, disciplined, and above all civilized heavy infantry. "Phalanx" afaik can be used for basically any dense heavy infantry. FMguru posted:I always thought a lot of Lunar Magic was built around making disparate parts and culture work together smoothly and harmoniously, especially when it came to military units. A typical Lunar expeditionary force would have a phalanx, a bunch of not-Mongol cavalry, some impala-riding scouts, a bunch of professional slingers, a coven of magicians that can call rocks down from the sky, a flight of wyvern riders, and on and on - and Lunar doctrine and Yanafal Tarnils magic knits it all together into a single, flexible, cohesive unit. Their magic is built around finding strength in diversity, and it presents a big problem to their opponents, who mostly fight their traditional enemies in their traditional ways. This is a big part of the Lunar "secret sauce" that keeps their empire running and growing. This slaps as a theory, mind going off on it a bit more?
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Jun 3, 2020 21:33
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Tulip posted:W/r/t Lunars, I've generally thought of them as also being a commentary on liberal imperialism. The notion that a brutal, violent empire is somehow more acceptable because it's less pushy about changing local cultures. The whole 'rainbow capitalism' kind of critique. You bring up a good point here. I feel like the Lunars can def. be read as a critique of seeking "false authenticity", particularly in the context of New Age beliefs and a sort of touristy sampler-platter fascination with Asian, Native American, and other "genuine" cultures and religions. Where the God Learners/imperialist archaeologists tried to stuff all those icky foreign beliefs into rational Invisible God-approved boxes, the Lunars ravenously incorporate them into their own, but in a way that's only possible through subjection under Lunar wealth, norms, and power. They mistake brutal conquest for open-minded enlightenment. Now even in those terms you could also compare the Lunar Project to anything from the "Hindu-ization" of indigenous Indian religions, to the subjection of Shinto deities under the umbrella of Buddhism in medieval Japan. I'm just going off the last Big Threat to Glorantha being a trend Greg Stafford was personally mad at because they trampled on the topics he held near and dear to his heart  FMguru posted:I always thought a lot of Lunar Magic was built around making disparate parts and culture work together smoothly and harmoniously, especially when it came to military units. Oh, I agree 100% there. Hence the comparison to Eastern Rome, and its hodgepodge of Avar- and Turkic-style horse archers, Sassanid-style cataphracts, hired Norman knights, mercenary Cretan archers and Rhodian slingers, infantry drawn from who knows where, etc. Ultimately I think any use of "phalanx" as a term for a unit strikes me as too close to the real-world equivalent. A bit like how Malkioni "knights" got too close to being imports from Pendragon at times, so things were changed and that became not so. Bendigeidfran fucked around with this message at 02:21 on Jun 4, 2020 |
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Jun 4, 2020 01:26
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Bendigeidfran posted:You bring up a good point here. I feel like the Lunars can def. be read as a critique of seeking "false authenticity", particularly in the context of New Age beliefs and a sort of touristy sampler-platter fascination with Asian, Native American, and other "genuine" cultures and religions. Where the God Learners/imperialist archaeologists tried to stuff all those icky foreign beliefs into rational Invisible God-approved boxes, the Lunars ravenously incorporate them into their own, but in a way that's only possible through subjection under Lunar wealth, norms, and power. They mistake brutal conquest for open-minded enlightenment. I doubt Greg intended it to be read that way considering the existence of Kralorela but I love this idea and it's now part of my Glorantha. Honestly, I feel Kralorela being ruled by an immortal dragon emperor was one of the first mistakes with that area. It ends up removing one of the most interesting and gameable parts of Chinese History (And really, of any emperor ruled government) by having the emperor be immortal and inhuman instead of being a dude who the PC's can possibly kill and have replaced with someone of their choosing/themselves. IMHO, If I ever ran anything set there I would have a campaign based around the idea that the Dragon Empire is actually dying/leaving Glorantha/going away, and the PCs need to do something about it, because the government is covering it up. Or have it that the Dragon Emperor mostly only focuses on the spiritual aspects of the kingdom, and leaves the political aspects entirely up to their political advisers...or the Political Advisers don't loving know what the hell they are talking about whenever they ask the Dragon about anything unrelated to mysticism.
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Jun 5, 2020 00:49
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Tulip posted:This slaps as a theory, mind going off on it a bit more? 1) "We Are All Us" - the Lunars are somehow able to take a sprawling empire of vastly disparate cultures and make it work, not just harmoniously, but in a way that makes things greater than the sum of its parts (as in my military example above). This is hard to pull off IRL, and even harder to manage in Glorantha, where the metaphysics make it really hard for different cultures to cooperate in any lasting way - and every time they do, it requires some enormous magical heavy lifting (see what Sartar had to do to get a handful of tribes - of the same culture! - to organize into a Kingdom or what Pavis had to go through to make his dream of a multi-cultural crossroads city work, not to mention to sort of Godplane-shaking magics that the EWF and God Learners and Nysalor Project needed to employ). So there must be something in the Lunar magical understanding of things that makes this work for them, which is strongly hinted at by their most basic slogan ("W.A.A.U."). There's also a dark side - historically, this kind of stunt almost always damages the compromise and provokes a massive magical backlash (again: EWF, Nysalor, God Learners, etc) and given what we know about the future history of the Lunar Empire, that's going to happen to them, too. 2) The Lunar philosophy is built around contradictions. It's all about freedom but maintains a giant army that has no problem invading, occupying, and suppressing neighboring territories. It's a liberal meritocracy that also maintains giant slave plantations. It brings peace and elevated standards of living to millions of people but also has a giant soul-devouring monster bat flying around putting down dissent. You're free to follow your own enlightenment and discover your own truths but you need to be extra careful how you express those newly discovered truths. It's well-ordered but has fuckin' chaos monsters wandering around freely. The Emperor is a shining beacon of order and probity, and also a legendary degenerate. And on and on and on. And the thing is, the contradictions are the entire point of the Lunar Way - they exist, not as hypocrisies or dialectics to be resolved, but as things to understand and internalize, like Zen koans. They don't deny, or explain away, or "lesser evil" the nasty parts of the Lunar Empire away (the way modern governments do) - they embrace them, argue that they are a necessary part of the Balance that Sedenya brings, that she will use to heal the whole world, and if you studied and meditated more, you'd understand that too. If you go to a Lunar temple and say "Hey! You say that you're for freedom and liberation, but the Bat flew into my village and ate a bunch of people who had committed no crime, because the Bat priest said it was 'hungry' and 'needed to feed' and it was just our ill luck that we were the first concentration of people it spotted, so how is that 'freedom', huh?", the priestesses will smile and say you have taken the first step on the road to true understanding. So if you're using Lunars in your game, you don't have to do a deep dive into the (maddeningly difficult) source material on the philosophy and religion - just put a lot of nonsensical contradictions in there, and if your players point out the contradictions, say "ah, but that's the Lunar Way!". In a way, the Lunars are pedant-proof - every contradiction or inconsistency that someone can point to can be handwaved away, saying "yes, it's meant to be that way" and "trust me, it all makes sense on a deeper mythological level". As for Argrath: I'm no expert Argrathologist, but one of his defining characteristics seems to be his willingness to do anything, literally anything, to take down the Lunar Empire and the Red Moon. Which means he's willing to break any and all of his society's taboos if that's what it takes (very much like his namesake Arkat). So it seems to me that if you accept point 1) above, then it makes sense that Argrath has to figure out a way to neutralize or overcome that big magical advantage that the Lunars have, and since the source materials make a big deal out of the SMU and the weird collection of disparate magical traditions it employs (and how scandalized lots of people were that he was doing this), then the SMU was his way of fighting against the Lunar WAAU advantage.
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Jun 5, 2020 02:10
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That's an awesome analysis, and it fits my idea of the Lunar Empire being colonialists who want social justice but refuse to abandon their imperialistic mindset very well (In contrast, the Olranthi are generally baby boomers who believe they are progressive enough because they give women freedom and sometimes don't allow slaves-but are too stubborn to realize toxic masculinity is bad for them and everyone).FMguru posted:This is hard to pull off IRL, and even harder to manage in Glorantha, where the metaphysics make it really hard for different cultures to cooperate in any lasting way - and every time they do, it requires some enormous magical heavy lifting (see what Sartar had to do to get a handful of tribes - of the same culture! - to organize into a Kingdom or what Pavis had to go through to make his dream of a multi-cultural crossroads city work Stuff like that makes me wonder if the "happy ending" to Glorantha really would be to completely separate mortal's ties to the gods, as viewed in King Of Sartar. It feels like bigotry is actively supported by the laws of the universe in this setting. And IMHO that's something anyone playing a "good guy" should try to fix. Also, Jeff did a Livestream thing recently due to the lack of Krakencon during these awful times. The main takeaway I got from it, is further confirmation that there's non-Orianthi stuff on the way...that's buried under piles and piles of Orlanth stuff, including a new RQ Sartar Sourcebook (uggggggh). Like, focusing on the parts that are already heavily covered first can work, but it gets ridiculous when you notice the literally tagline of the game, "Roleplaying In Glorantha' is straight-up a gigantic overstatement (It only covers Dragon Pass), and that the RQ6 version of it was going to cover areas outside of Dragon Pass in the rulebook (Mainly, including actual rules for sorcery and lunar magic). Like, would it have killed them to include a bonus appendix for characters outside of Dragon Pass or something? I like the Orlanthi but this is tiresome. Not to mention it isn't even the entire culture of the Orlanthi...just the ones in or near Dragon Pass, so it's always the same xenophobic variant of that culture that makes the Orlanth come off as all being exactly the same. And that's not how you want to introduce people to a setting in this day and age. Also briefly touched on the upcoming Great Pendragon Campaignish Argrath campaign and how Kallyr's failed Lightbringer's Quest will be a big part of it and the fact she dies right after failing it. If you ask me, it's just another example of the author's complete failure to free Glorantha from its long-standing sexist streak. Because Kallyr failing means she MUST die. If an important dude fails at a thing...they survive to learn from their mistake and then go on to do something else to show they've learned from it. But if an important LADY fails at a thing...they DIE because the writers are baby boomers. (Unless they are a villain or "creepy", then they'll succeed at that because gender equality is evil/creepy.) Okay, Boomers. I'm just going to pretend Kallyr survived and ends up rebelling against Argrath when he goes power-mad. Oh, wait, pretend? It's Glorantha. Canon is whatever the hell I want. Frankly, it's beginning to feel less like "Your Glorantha May Vary" and more that "Your Glorantha SHOULD Vary Because The Canon Is Full Of Sexist Garbage."
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Jun 5, 2020 05:39
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While we're considering expansions on Glorantha that aren't The Orlanthi Again, I really want more focus on the Elder Races. Especially the Uz, who I love to death. A lot of the most fascinating and best-told parts of their story date to like, 1982 and the original Trollpak, back when a lot of the source material was in-universe documents and tales. Fun things like the Trollkin Air-Force or the Eight Sacred Ancestors (Vaneekara in particular, their Vinga+Eurmal equivalent who once threw a Chaos Monster so far away it passed out of memory) should be brought back into focus imo. And Cragspider too! A Firewitch who's been kicking rear end since White Bear and Red Moon deserves emphasis. Like, the distinction between her status as beloved culture hero to the Uz and unstoppable demon to non-Uz gets at the core of a ton of Gloranthan themes. Even her being half-spider is not monstrous or a crude symbol of a manipulative nature, but a sacred connection to Arachne Solara herself. Now I'm not saying we need to explore her "backstory" or inner monologues or anything, she should remain an implacable ancient power imo, just one whose actions echo properly across the cosmos. As for the others, the Mostali and especially the Dragonewts are fascinating concepts when you get down to them. I'd even grant that as beings whose worldviews are fundamentally alien to humans, there's a limit to what we can know about their society, history, and goals. And that's the thing: lean into the mystery, the disturbing lack of apparent reason to their actions. Write accounts from Lhankor Mhy longbeards or doomed God Learners who arrogantly tried to analyze them and failed miserably, tricksters whose own oddness allows them brief insight into their ways, warriors and kings who inflexibly interpret them through social norms of favor, obligation, and friendship because they know nothing else. That Ducks need to come back in their full wounded-pride Carl Barks glory goes without saying, and as my final wish for the list, the Aldryami need attention from someone who's really into plants. Real-life biology is always vastly more interesting than most fiction's attempts to project values onto it (see: the execrable notion of a "hive mind"), and I figure a proper botanist has all kinds of wild information they can weave in.
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Jun 5, 2020 18:40
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The site I used for glorantha lore died a few years ago (RIP), but included a bunch of Stafford replying to fanmail, and when he got some questions about Mostali he opened his answer with roughly "GOD I hate dwarfs I do not want to think about them any more, anyway here's like 5 pages." Also strong agreement about Ducks. Everything I've encountered with Ducks has rapidly gone "Oh that's weird and whacky. And also incredibly resonant and cool?" A cool thing to think about with Aldryami: IRL, lignin is the really hard part of trees, and much of what gives them their physical character. Even more than being physically tough, lignin is very, very chemically durable, and only a handful of processes can cause it to rot, the vast majority of which are fungal. In the carboniferous period, it wasn't until very late that these processes even existed, which is why coal is generally from that period. This period of dominance, when a dead tree could stay dead for thousands of years without rotting, I think has some potential mytho-utility.
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Jun 5, 2020 19:07
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what’s execrable about the concept of the hive mind in popular fiction?
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Jun 5, 2020 20:23
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a fatguy baldspot posted:what’s execrable about the concept of the hive mind in popular fiction? I think it's too often a one-note stock characterization of a non-human society, in the same way that "warrior species" or "life-forms in peaceful harmony with nature" are at best questionable ways to frame a community. In the same way that idk the historical Sarmatians can't be boiled down to people who lived only to fight and conquer, social and eusocial insects have a lot more going on than idealized collective behavior/obedience. With honey-bees, say, the arbitrary selection of the queen contrasted with the heated "arguments" and "votes" that worker honey-bees have over nectar selection and hive splitting is cool and interesting stuff to mine for fiction. It's a notable contrast to bumble-bees, where multiple queens attack each other and the workers to remain the most reproductive, or social hymenopterans where all members are equally reproductive but they've evolved to share and defend nests out of convenience. The degree to which "caste" (soldier, reproductive, worker, etc.) is fluid within eusocial insect societies can be taken as commentary on our use of the term "caste" for it! At the end of the day, I personally associate the term "hive mind" with the shallow and lazily imagined end of insect-inspired fictional societies. But if someone wanted to describe their work that does effectively incorporate stuff like the above as a "hive mind", I'd be all for it.
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Jun 5, 2020 23:57
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Yeah, it's mostly annoying in that eusociality is very cool and "hive mind" is, in all but one instance I can think of1, much much more boring that the reality of how hives operate. 1Hivers from Sword of the Stars, but don't hold me to that I haven't touched it in years
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Jun 6, 2020 00:13
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For what it's worth the Trolls will probably be the first non-Orianthi culture to get fleshed out books considering their popularity. IIRC there's been a 3 volume guidebook for them that's been in production for years. And my problem with the elves is that all of them are trees. Really? Not even any fungi or algae elves? Cause those are both a part of my Glorantha.
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Jun 6, 2020 00:43
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TheNamedSavior posted:For what it's worth the Trolls will probably be the first non-Orianthi culture to get fleshed out books considering their popularity. IIRC there's been a 3 volume guidebook for them that's been in production for years. And my problem with the elves is that all of them are trees. Really? Not even any fungi or algae elves? Cause those are both a part of my Glorantha. i might have read wrong but isnt there both of those things? im pretty sure fungal elves are in at least
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Jun 6, 2020 01:33
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There are! Black elves are fungal, blue eleves are algael.
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Jun 6, 2020 02:01
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I think the black elves technically aren't elves, but also for 99% of purposes yes the black elves are fungal elves.
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Jun 6, 2020 02:40
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There are???? Why the hell aren't they a lot more prominent? They're sleeping on the one thing that takes the elves from "mostly boring" to "drat THESE GUYS ARE COOL!" Does anyone know of any sources that go into a lot more detail about 'em? Doesn't need to be canon as long as it's well written and fits the themes and mood of Glorantha.
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Jun 6, 2020 02:40
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Well, because blue elves are mostly an undersea thing for merfolk to deal with, and black elves are mostly an underground thing for Uz to deal with. (They actually are supposed to have fairly descent relationship, surprisingly.) While the kelp based blue elves and fern based red elves of pamaltela don't claim descent from Aldrya they do at least still claim descent from Flamal, the black elves don't even have that.
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Jun 6, 2020 02:47
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reignonyourparade posted:(They actually are supposed to have fairly descent relationship, surprisingly.) Honestly? Checks out. Fungi are nuts.
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Jun 6, 2020 03:20
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Tulip posted:The site I used for glorantha lore died a few years ago (RIP), but included a bunch of Stafford replying to fanmail, and when he got some questions about Mostali he opened his answer with roughly "GOD I hate dwarfs I do not want to think about them any more, anyway here's like 5 pages." Ducks should be the sort of thing that, if encountered briefly, evoke laughter and ridicule. But if you work or fight alongside them and observe them and get to know them, they are fierce and generous and honorable and brilliant. That’s frankly how encountering all the races should go for new players. Assumptions, followed by a slow realization.
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Jun 6, 2020 05:35
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Narsham posted:Ducks should be the sort of thing that, if encountered briefly, evoke laughter and ridicule. But if you work or fight alongside them and observe them and get to know them, they are fierce and generous and honorable and brilliant. Playing KODP and then reading about glorantha after only makes the 'ignorant' orlanthi lens everything is viewed through even more genius.
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Jun 6, 2020 09:36
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I'm now imaging this dialogue: But between someone yelling at an elf.
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Jun 6, 2020 13:14
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Proud Rat Mom posted:Playing KODP and then reading about glorantha after only makes the 'ignorant' orlanthi lens everything is viewed through even more genius. One thing I loved in Six Ages is when you first encounter Orlanthi and just how loving obnoxious it is to deal with them as a non-Orlanthi group.
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Jun 6, 2020 13:45
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Gorelab posted:One thing I loved in Six Ages is when you first encounter Orlanthi and just how loving obnoxious it is to deal with them as a non-Orlanthi group. I liked the hints that the Orlanthi are just like, ludicrously wealthy compared to Riders and Wheels. Like "our spies snuck into their camp, and they were using BRONZE for everything! Even tools that anybody could use!" It's great that it highlights like, oh poo poo, I've really been working with stone age tech this whole time, huh.
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Jun 6, 2020 17:17
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Josef bugman posted:For starters just make it so that Godyuna is a dragon, but it hasn't always been "draconic" run. This is a more recent development as a reaction against the God learner invaders, who saw a lot of the dragon motifs and then used in the pre invasion empire and justified themselves based on descent from them. I really should've asked this earlier but can you elaborate on this? How was it different, despite being ran by a dragon emperor from the start, did the Dragon just start to gain greater control over the government after merely being a spiritual leader?
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Jun 7, 2020 01:04
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TheNamedSavior posted:I really should've asked this earlier but can you elaborate on this? How was it different, despite being ran by a dragon emperor from the start, did the Dragon just start to gain greater control over the government after merely being a spiritual leader? Well this is purely based around how I would develop it. The fact is Dragons have been used as metaphors for the emperor/ imperial line since before the dawn. The mysticism of prior imperial lines easily attaching themselves to the most iconic creatures of Mystic power in Glorantha. But before the invasion of the God learners you have the traditional human rulers simply competing with each other. The various different areas have all thrown up rulers of certain sorts, with different sections rising and falling dependent. It's still human run. The idea of the Exarchs are that they are powerful mystics but they are also not the people really in charge. It's the ones at the level underneath who interpret them that hold a lot of the real administrative power in the empire. The emperor is similar (or can be) their rule is based on Mystic as well as Theistic and Animist rituals, combined with them having a big old army to push in the face of whoever disagrees. Then the God Learners show up. Like good cultural imperialists they see the dragon motifs, the ways in which the kralorelan people venerate dragons and the rhetoric surrounding the (again, perfectly human) emperors. So they do what every good Cultural Imperialist does. Take something they "know" and find the evidence to match. They start taking over and pushing themselves as the "true draconic heirs to your ancient Mystic truths" horseshit. Destroying armies with fire, transforming themselves into dragons etc. Then Godyuna shows up, as a reaction to their usage of draconic mysticism and goes "no, you are false" they lose and we end up in the current situation. Godyuna is "in charge" but in actuality a large number of imperial subjects have been arguing with each other about everything especially after Sheng Seleris came and instituted some reforms alongside murdering an entire province. At least that is how I would like to run things.
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Jun 7, 2020 11:21
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Josef bugman posted:Then Godyuna shows up, as a reaction to their usage of draconic mysticism and goes "no, you are false" they lose and we end up in the current situation. Godyuna is "in charge" but in actuality a large number of imperial subjects have been arguing with each other about everything especially after Sheng Seleris came and instituted some reforms alongside murdering an entire province. On a different, non-Kralorela topic, but still related to how Glorantha But, If you ask me, The Uz either got past or just avoided this all together. The Trolls don't have gender pronouns in their language and are all non-binary. Sex and Gender are different things (as in real life) and Troll's sexual organs depend on what type of troll they are (In fact all Trollkin are sexless lmao). Some trolls do have gender identities but it's entirely up to them to decide that, not society. ...Does anyone else have any ideas?
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Jun 10, 2020 05:34
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TheNamedSavior posted:This is super cool. Actually some of these (like the idea of the subjects arguing with each other while Godyuna is just like "nothing is real lmao") are ideas I've thought of myself. It's all relatively simple but I think it can be relatively effective! I really need to do a proper deep dive on the "before the dawn/time" aspect of Kralorela to do a rewrite/ spread some difficulty about what is "true" or not because what sort of good mystic would believe otherwise. And thank you!
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Jun 10, 2020 09:59
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Idly clicking around on the wiki and discovered the existence of Gwalynkus the Good, 1/4 dryad, 1/4 Mostali, married and had a kid with a sentient wheel. Pavis, (the guy that is) you're way less impressive than I though uh were.
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Jun 15, 2020 05:17
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reignonyourparade posted:married and had a kid with a sentient wheel. He caught the Doubting Wheel in a net...of love.
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Jun 15, 2020 08:55
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reignonyourparade posted:Idly clicking around on the wiki and discovered the existence of Gwalynkus the Good, 1/4 dryad, 1/4 Mostali, married and had a kid with a sentient wheel. Heroquests, not even once
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Jun 15, 2020 13:43
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TheNamedSavior posted:On a different, non-Kralorela topic, but still related to how Glorantha I don't know much other than Heortling/Dragon Pass culture, but I've always imagined their conception of gender to coincide with their deities; for example, an Ernaldan is a gender, as is an Eurmali. In a line-up of naked, tattoo-less people, they might assume that you're an Orlanthi or Ernaldi (and they'd probably be right 80% of the time), but I figure once you're dressed up and tattooed, it'd be relatively clear. I reckon the Gods probably invented gender during the Green Age when they were figuring out/making up the differences between things. I do like the gender stuff though, it makes me think of exotic cultures and mysticism and the power that comes with being male/female, like the power of the women's hut for example. Maybe that's an unpopular take though. I thought trolls were terribly matriarchal, to the point that most non-uz have never seen a female troll because they're off trying to become immortal in the underworld. I'm sure I read that somewhere.
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Jun 15, 2020 15:31
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Chatrapati posted:I thought trolls were terribly matriarchal, to the point that most non-uz have never seen a female troll because they're off trying to become immortal in the underworld. I'm sure I read that somewhere. You may be thinking of the Mistress Race trolls (or Uzuz), immortal trolls who lived in the blessed time before the Permanent Harm (or Yelm) descended into the Underworld, and give birth to no trollkin. They're rarely seen and are quite powerful, but they're a very tiny minority of the troll population. There's also some suggestions that they're not exclusively female. Trolls are matriarchal, but def. not to such an extreme extent. Male trolls are able to earn prestige as warriors, traders, insect breeders, craftsmen, shamans, etc., and while orthodox paragons of male behavior like Karrg and Boztakang are framed as sons of Kyger Litor, they are appreciated as excelling in their respective fields. There are comparable female warrior traditions like Vaneekara's, female shamanic traditions like Jakaboom's, and so on that are not positioned as better or worse than the male ones. Uz are also quite permissive when it comes to relationships; as far I can tell they tend towards poly-androus and short-term ones, but male trolls are also allowed to have multiple partners without much issue. It's just not a big deal for them in general. I do forget how relationships among trollkin work or if they even happen, so if someone else knows please chime in. Anyways It's mostly positions of political power where you see the largest gap; troll politics is mostly discussed as a competition between mothers, sisters, and daughters. King Ezkankekko is a notable exception to this, which I'd attribute to his being the son of Argan Argar. As both Argan Argar and Zorak Zoran (note the name similarity!) are male deities "adopted" into the Kyger-an pantheon, they are outlets for activities normally taboo in troll society. EDIT: found a neat tree of darkness deities 
Bendigeidfran fucked around with this message at 21:16 on Jun 15, 2020 |
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Jun 15, 2020 21:09
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Whoa, this is amazing. Where is Argan Argar? There by a different name?
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Jun 16, 2020 04:06
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a fatguy baldspot posted:Whoa, this is amazing. Where is Argan Argar? There by a different name? It's not a complete list at all. Xentha's not on there either, and it would be hard to place him without his mother.
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Jun 16, 2020 04:29
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a fatguy baldspot posted:Whoa, this is amazing. Where is Argan Argar? There by a different name? Argan Argar is the son of Xentha. Where does Xentha come from? Not really made clear. Some places seem to suggest that the Uz aren't really sure where she comes from themselves. The assumption would be that the night goddess in SOME way relates to the darkness gods but it's also not impossible that she's got some other weirder origin. (In the course of googling I came across a theory that Argan Argar is actually the son of Yelm and Xentha, with a corollary that this means that the Argan Argar vs Lodril fight wasn't actually the source of Argan Argar being able to command Lodril, but rather Argan Argar already had that and the fight was the process of convincing Lodril of that fact. Fun if I'm not sure I'm really convinced by it, though it does serve to explain where Argan Argar gets the Mastery rune from.) reignonyourparade fucked around with this message at 04:38 on Jun 16, 2020 |
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Jun 16, 2020 04:34
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Chatrapati posted:I don't know much other than Heortling/Dragon Pass culture, but I've always imagined their conception of gender to coincide with their deities; for example, an Ernaldan is a gender, as is an Eurmali. In a line-up of naked, tattoo-less people, they might assume that you're an Orlanthi or Ernaldi (and they'd probably be right 80% of the time), but I figure once you're dressed up and tattooed, it'd be relatively clear. One should bear in mind this is mostly meant as a reaction by me to the general Out-Of-Universe sexism of Glorantha, primarily, it having sexism be an inherent truth of the universe, something I feel causes it to be MUCH less interesting and fun to play in the long run. And Vinga is a separate deity from Orlanth IMO. Look at Jane Williams page for ideas on turning Vinga into something more than "Orlanth but a lady". She's the goddess of angry teenagers who just wanna gently caress THINGS UP! TheNamedSavior fucked around with this message at 07:44 on Jun 17, 2020 |
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Jun 17, 2020 02:24
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Gender was invented by Mostal because gently caress that rear end in a top hat and it just seems like the kind of thing Mostal would do. E: Advanced Mode: Cisnormativity was invented by Mostal.
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Jun 17, 2020 03:05
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Gender is extremely variable in Glorantha. Sure, the Dara Happans have their extremely rigid roles for it like they do for everything else, but the Lunars will happily ignore it when it suits them. Orlanthi basically fill in whichever god they follow for their gender, with Helerings just writing "All". Invisible God only knows how much the Loskalmi change it, they're into changing everything else about themselves.
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Jun 17, 2020 05:27
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Tulip posted:Gender was invented by Mostal because gently caress that rear end in a top hat and it just seems like the kind of thing Mostal would do. headcanon accepted. wiegieman posted:Gender is extremely variable in Glorantha. Sure, the Dara Happans have their extremely rigid roles for it like they do for everything else, but the Lunars will happily ignore it when it suits them. Orlanthi basically fill in whichever god they follow for their gender, with Helerings just writing "All". Invisible God only knows how much the Loskalmi change it, they're into changing everything else about themselves. These things exist and they are cool, but it kinda feels half-assed in the end when it comes to how these things are depicted in the setting. I.E. In the "Sartar Companion", it's mentioned multiple times that Helen is any gender...yet only one of their "facets" is listed directly as anything but a dude, and it just so happens to be the most "womanly" one IIRC. Not to mention the only time any male deity having a flexible gender that's mentioned in the lore (as far as I know of) is Vinga literally just being Orlanth but a lady. None of the other "male" gods get that treatment. And the fact the gods are gendered in general across the setting, with little discussion in canonical material of if they actually have gender or that's just the way they're seen by mere mortals. Like, clearly, gender is variable as gently caress in Glorantha, but canon is more interested in keeping it strict, even among the cultures you would think would be open about that. TBF I'm mostly looking at the gods when I say this, I'm sure the citizens of Glorantha got a lot more freedom towards their gender identities considering a lot of the male deities allow women and vice versa. But it is an area i feel that the devs could still improve the hell out of.
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Jun 17, 2020 07:56
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Bendigeidfran posted:A bit like how Malkioni "knights" got too close to being imports from Pendragon at times, so things were changed and that became not so. Huh, does that mean they were supposed to be more Christian like in earlier versions?
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Jun 17, 2020 19:21
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PoontifexMacksimus posted:Huh, does that mean they were supposed to be more Christian like in earlier versions?
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Jun 17, 2020 19:29
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