[Glorantha] Gloryadze Extractorfan and the Mostali Sound Machine

[Stewart Stansfield]

"Oh-ay-oh-ay! (oh-ay-oh-ay) Oh-ay-oh-o-ah! (oh-ay-oh-o-ah) Oh-ay-oh-ay!
[Yah-yeh-go] (oh-ay-oh-ay) Oh-ay-oh-o-ah! [Yah-yeh-go] (oh-ay-oh-o-ah)...
OOO!"
--Incantation to Mostal the Great Maker

Gloryadze Extractorfan was/is* a true Gold Dwarf of the First Age, dedicated 
to restoring the perfect harmony of the Wold Machine (through traditional 
dwarfish song-and-dance), and instructing others in endeavouring likewise. 
She** concerned herself mainly with those minor parts of the World Machine 
known as collectively as 'Man'. Some of these cogs, gears and co-axial 
escapements are quite simply malformed (the result of unlicensed procreation 
and a flood of chaotic ébauches) and need to be recycled. Others should run 
right, but somehow don't; and while some can be taken apart and put back 
together again with minor adjustment, a great many are simply poorly 
lubricated, or require the most minor regulation in a bid to fine-tune the 
musical mainspring to impart true rhythm. Sure, they have always been mean 
and perishable, not least in this day and Age, but with careful servicing 
there's no reason why a Man shouldn't run with a fair degree of accuracy for 
six-dozen or more years, until it wears out.

Unfortunately, Man's various life-habits would make a broken dwarf appear 
virtuous, and it displays an utter lack of self-awareness as regards its 
condition and state of wind. It is also stupid. Since it couldn't keep 
itself running properly, the dwarfs had to get involved. In her researches, 
Gloryadze discovered that the manipulation of sonic energy could induce Man 
to behave properly, and operate at the proper timbre within the World 
Machine. After decades of work, she and her team perfected a sonic regulator 
that could achieve such a feat without preliminary dismemberment and close 
inspection under a diamond loupe: the Mostali Sound Machine. This dwarfish 
treasure is hard to describe, but is constructed from the finest refined 
(and ensorcelled) gold, silver, brass and tin (in fact, the tin is very 
important, as tin always is). Each is composed a multitude of parts: humming 
protuberancies, whirling gears, jewels, springs, and rhagons (I just wanted 
to write 'rhagon'). Partly because of this, and partly through racist 
defamation of dwarfs, the elves derogatorily call them "cog boxes".

When correctly operated, a Mostali Sound Machine emits a vibrant, rhythmic 
refrain that causes those components of the World Machine to which it is 
properly calibrated to start to move with a defined and irresistible beat. 
The reaction to this powerful stimulus to motion (particularly in the 
shoulders) is wholly unconscious, and unless the body is well limbered can 
occasionally cause poses that inflict pain, and muscle and bone trauma. Such 
components are usually so worthless that they should be recycled. Indeed, 
the Mostali Sound Machine has proven very useful against those broken dwarfs 
infected with the Foolish Beat of heresy. When properly calibrated, the 
Mostali Sound Machine can produce a signal to which any virtuous dwarf can 
move to freely, but causes arthymic spasms, dislocations and worse in 
apostates. This physical shibboleth proved very useful in fighting heresy, 
exposing the pitiful displays of "break-dancing" that arise among broken 
dwarfs.

The first Mostali Sound Machine was constructed in Gemborg, and cog boxes 
were quite prominent in Caladraland during the First Age, when many of the 
savage tribes fell securely under Martaler the Blazing Forge's patronage. 
It's very hot down in Caladraland, especially when one lives in the middle 
of a volcano, so Gloryadze's companions kept their beards trimmed short (or 
even retained only a moustache!), and tended wear open-chested working 
jackets, with large, magically treated collars and lapels to shield them 
from the ablative heat, and glowing talismans on their chests. The dwarfs 
took great interest in the volcanoes and their central function in the World 
Machine, and were instrumental in the native ceremonies, which were 
accompanied Mostali Sound Machines. It were great. Until the Second Age, 
when some ponces came along prattling about "fair trade" and incest, and 
replaced the cog boxes with fucking pan-pipes.

Still, some tribes have preserved, or reawakened, this ancient tradition. In 
the west, one of the great tribal hegemonies, living around Bluesmoke, 
worships Gloryadze Extractorfan as a totem: a tribal demigoddess, a patron 
of their ancestral hero-founder. Unlike many tribes, which prize height and 
a honed physique, this tribal hegemony values body forms that mimic the 
dwarfs, and practises brutal eugenics. The ruling bloodlines take this all 
very seriously. Babies are forced into cramped cradles, while children walk 
around with weights on their heads and are fed raw eggs. Girls especially 
are raised in Gloryadze's image, and a chosen few are veiled and shut off 
from the outside world, condemned to a lifestyle of industry, dwarfish 
elocution lessons, weight-training and upper-lip skin-grafts. They are 
raised until puberty in what is a quixotic cross between a Swiss finishing 
school, a Spartan agoge and Bolton Technical College, when they might be 
married to Gloryadze's children, the stunted man-gods of the mountain.

The dwarfs are utterly perplexed by this state of affairs, and tend to 
process the girls into canned food products.

[*some believe that Gloryadze is still alive, and pefecting her cog box 
designs. Like me.]

[**As she only had a moustache, it was generally assumed that Gloryadze was
a female dwarf. The jury's out on the matter. Look, this is just how it came 
out. I'm really, really not trying to imply that any Latin woman possesses a 
moustache, or contesting her femininity.]