[Glorantha] Landscaping with dragons

[Donald R. Oddy]

In message <Pine.GSO.4.58.0606291512160.2025 at paju.oulu.fi> Mikko Rintasaari writes:

>That's the part I like. The true dragons are the equivalent of gods, yet
>reside in the mundane world. It's quite neat that they slumber as parts of
>the world; hills, mountains and even rivers. Heck, with the dual nature of
>the heortling gods (see inner dragon) isn't there some implications that
>Kero Fin herself may be a dragon?
>
>The problem is if they are still supposed to be in the same titanic scale
>when awake and active in the mundane world.

Why is this a problem? Bear in mind that they sleep for centuries
and being awake and active doesn't mean that they move as quickly
as humans. We know the new Temple of the Reaching Moon is built on 
top of a dragon. And when it wakes it devours the whole army that's
present. This makes more sense if the dragon is at least the size 
of an ocean liner rather than a whale. There's also the Dragonkill 
where a small number of dragons killed everyone in Dragon Pass.

Now it's not clear how quickly either of these events happen. I'd
certainly go with there having been odd movements under the temple
for days or even weeks beforehand and a period of several hours
while the dragon wakes up, looks around and then decides what to
do about all those irritating humans crawling all over him. Then
it moves a foot and crushes an entire regiment.

>If I ever need to have Orlanth stride the mundane world (it could happen)
>it won't be as a man ten miles long. It will be as a titanic man possibly
>four meters (~15 feet) tall. Similarily, there won't be any giants that
>are tens of meters long in my GLorantha...
>
>Unless. Gonn Orta (or a similar giant, or a true dragon) would decide to
>fight the Crimson Bat then the battle propably would look like a Godzilla
>movie to any mortal seeing it, with the both combatants in the same scale.

I understand Gonn Orta is a small giant at 150 metres (as described
in Griffin Mountain) and some giants are nearby mountains. The giant 
baby in the RQ Pavis supplement is described as being ten meters long.
So yes I think combat between such beings would be Godzilla scale.

-- 
Donald Oddy
http://www.grove.demon.co.uk/