The runes in the header correspond to the seven personal skills in the game. They’re slightly different than in King of Dragon Pass, since we won’t have quite as big an emphasis on farming. Animals and Plants have been combined into a single skill, Food. And since it’s a clan-level game, we added Diplomacy as an explicit skill, rather than just averaging Bargaining and Leadership. (Bargaining, Combat, Leadership, and Magic are the same. Custom is renamed to Lore to reflect a wider use.)
Most of the skills had fairly obvious runes (Combat = Death, Magic = Magic), but the Food skill gave me trouble until I remembered this:
Man
Meaning: Mortal humanoids
This Rune represents the humanoid shape, and is common among all intelligent humanoid races. Some other races interpret it as “slave” or “food”.
HeroQuest Glorantha, p. 17
Man means food, eh? I think the local local Storm Bull would like to have a word with you.
But really, I’d argue that the earth rune is the most closely associated with food. Fruit of the earth, and all that.
Talk to Kyger Litor… (Actually I suspect this quote probably goes all the way back to 1st edition RuneQuest.)
Earth would work too, since domestic animals tend to be associated with the Earth Mother.
It’s a Troll concept of food David was referring to. Trolls actually view almost every other race in Glorantha as either tasty or yucky food.
Here are a couple of short quotes from Elder Secrets of Glorantha that portray the Troll worldview. They’re basically answers from a troll elder to all the fundamental metaphysical and ontological questions young initiates might ask.
Why are we here?
We are here to serve our masters, to be served by our slaves, and to feast upon
our enemies.
I have heard of other powers. Can you tell me the truth about …
…Aldrya?
This is a good food goddess. Her children can be annoying to the point of death,
but they are well worth the killing and eating.
…Chaos?
When we were forced out of Wonderhome to grim Komor, Chaos came to rob us of
even the miserable lands we had left. But we fought it, killed it, and ate it.
Now chaos is driven into the hinterland.
…Mostal?
This is another good food god. Some of his children are immobile stone, and
others, called dwarfs, can move around. They are often clad in poison metal and
rarely come above ground, but they are the tastiest of all. The sweetest meats
are the dearest.
…Yelm?
This bad god forced us out of the primeval Wonderhome. He crippled our gods.
When we fled to the Komor, he followed us here to persecute us.
But now he must flee around the universe, eternally pursued by Xentha, goddess
of night. His sons have been eaten and broken by our gods. And Subere has shown
us secret parts of Hell untouched by Yelm’s burning presence.
Cheers, and good luck David with the last couple of months of development.
It’s the months before the last couple months that I worry about…
However I actually agree with Scott A that “earth” rune would describe the concept of food better than the “man” rune.
I’ve deciphered it.
https://s21.postimg.org/ou1h1x93r/Deciphered.jpg
Uh, no.