Scorus

One problem with this is that I now have Nirvana stuck in my head... The world is full of magic. Little prayers and signs to a variety of deities are made every day, some with and some without tangible results. Every hovel and field is inhabited by spirits, helpful and otherwise, who must be appeased. Many of these can work and act like the kind of cantrips that Shiningbrow is suggesting. Most kids would be helping their parents out in their professions, household, farms, etc. before age 10. Until very, very recently that was their school. Teaching them a spell that is helpful for their work could make sense. Healing, slow, ignite, extinguish, repair, glue, farsee, silence, or even strength could be useful for particular chores.

My players are wanting to find Gringle and/or Piku (or Piku's son Wakapo) as they continue to put Apple Lane back together post-Dragonrise. I'm interested in theories as to where each ended up. By my reckoning, they all left together in 1621 headed to Clearwine through Black Spear and then South from there. Gringle was on record as heading for Nochet while it was unclear where Piku's final destination would be (even to him). As Whitewall was still under siege and Gringle needed to avoid Lunar troops to the extent possible, it seems most likely that they would have traveled by river instead of the main road. The Lunars had also infiltrated Esrolia and Red Earth was in control of Nochet until the Civil War the following year. So they could have ended up altering their course along the way and, as far as I'm concerned, could have ended up anywhere from Wintertop to Karse to Esrolia to the Grazelands (voluntarily or as captives)! Interesting theories as to where they are and what they have been doing are most welcome, whether they are thriving, struggling, dead, captive, or whatever!

So this is replacing the previous canon in the Yelmalio CoP write-up? There Yelmalio was clearly in opposition to Orlanth and the Sun Dome Temple were leading the anti-EWF forces.

The normal demographics are skewed in 1625 in Sartar. The Great Winter affected elders more than younger people (in many cases by choice), many adults perished in various battles, and after the Great Winter couples were encouraged to have children to begin replenishing the clans, so there are a lot more infants and toddlers than usual. If you go with the canon, then the harvest problems after Kallyr's failed heroquest and Argrath's wars will continue to have an effect.

Thanks for finding these! I think the ZZ entry should be 271-272.

I'm confused. I haven't checked all of these but the ones I have checked are all already in the printed and pdf versions that I bought almost a year ago.

That is what I'm thinking. And hopefully they waited until they died a natural death...

The legend is that the gods themselves created the tomb, including the hill that the tomb sits atop of, to hold Orgorvale. She certainlly took the guardian role that you speak of. This matches my thoughts on who the inhabitants are. Any other thoughts on what they would want? I'm thinking that some would want worshippers, others would want to be freed. What other options?

There are over 100 spirits tied to urns in the Queen's Tomb. They will attack anyone who touches their urn, except an Orgorvale cultist. So there is obviously a loyalty there. As my players start the cult and prepare the tomb for pilgrims, I'm wondering who they are, what they want, and what my players can do with them. My assumptions/thoughts: 1) I'm assuming that anyone buried there would have been important, or at least friends or relatives to the royal family? 2) I'm assuming that they died after Orgorvale and during her reign as the area's goddess (wyter?), so during the Dawn/First Age? I'm assuming they are all human. 3) I'm assuming Ulanin is NOT there. There may be a very few military people there, but I'm assuming it is more royalty, chiefs, counselors, courtiers? So what do spirits like that want? Do they want ancestors to come worship them? Do they want to be freed? Do they want...what? Any thoughts/ideas would be much appreciated!

Waitresses must be much more aggressive in your game.

Yeah, the books are all over the place on this one. Most anyone conversant in English will define "someone that has been initiated into a cult" as being an Initiate of a cult! If few are initiated, then why are all the NPCs in the RQG publications initiates? In GA, Vareena, the 21 year old waitress in the small village of Apple Lane, is an initiate. Her father the livery man is an initiate. Arnalda the tenant farmer is an initiate. Her 16 year old daughter is an initiate. All of the Varmandi herders are initiates. I'm not seeing a named, human lay member in any of GA, Pegasus Plateau, or Smoking Ruin. The cults themselves seem to back up the fact that initiation is not common by charging 20L to become an initiate, the equivalent of a year's salary for most people. All the people listed in the last paragraph are among the poorest professions and yet 100% of them are initiates. Could Jeff just come here and answer this one? It really does make a difference in our games whether 30% or 100% of adults have rune magic!

Vistera was killed in the Dragonrise (some believe she was the true summoner/awakener of the dragon). Samastina and Vistera's successor Inkarne Reaches All are the big names.

I don't think "divorce from children" or "fosterage" is the right term. These are usually not marriages for life and children do not belong to the parents in the same way that we think of. They will be physically separated from them if they go marry into a different household/bloodline/clan, but the children are not just being brought up by the parents once weaned. This adds to the fluidity of relationships, status, and class. The JC's "In a Merry Green Vale" has an interesting character who has taken advantage of the opportunity to have children with a number of important men throughout the clan through one-year marriages, resulting in a powerful cadre of supporters who have inherited their fathers' lands and titles and all look to her as their mother.

Things don't always work out as planned. Lots of things in a world like that will make people fall. A serious scandal can cripple the prospects of an entire extended family. People are outlawed. Some find the bottle or hazia. Others just have a string of bad luck or end up on the wrong side of some conflict. There are plenty of orphans, battle-wounded, Great Winter-wounded, etc. Their clans and bloodlines take care of them the best they can, but it is a hard life in Glorantha. Dregs of Clearwine gives some good examples of how people can fall.

I seem to remember that Alebard led the Battalion on an ill-fated raid into Delecti territory that severely depleted their strength for some time. I don't remember the date. There is also the unexplained mention by Leika in GA that Tarndisi would not be receptive to her because of her support for the Wooden Sword. Given Alebard's relationship with the Wooden Sword and that he is an "Elf-friend", that is a bit confusing.

Given the recent battles and Great Winter, I don't think unemployment is a major issue in Sartar in the last 1620s. There are probably lots of apprenticeship opportunities for the children of free and poor families, and plenty of children filling the roles of deceased parents at an age younger than usual. In general, nobles probably send their "excess" children to adventure, the military, or the priesthood. Free children go to military, temples, and apprentice in skilled trades. Poor children go into skilled and unskilled labor. And there are of course exceptions for each of these, especially among the more free-wheeling Orlanthi. In my campaign, marriage is the main instrument of social mobility. The lower status spouse goes to live with the higher status spouse's family and clan, regardless of gender, and their children grow up at a higher status than their lower status spouse, potentially giving them more opportunities. But, as illustrated in the previous paragraph, a poor person's child might have opportunities to learn a skilled labor profession and a free person's child could prove themselves in the military or temple to become a landed thane or temple priest. Though somebody still has to be the clan shaman!

Interesting, and there is bound to be drama in such a large gathering. I don't know if the average tenant farmer would have something this large and elaborate, clans are big enough that there would have to be a number of these each year. Which brings to mind the question of what is the wedding season? Weather would seem to preclude mid-to-late Dark and early Storm seasons. Planting and harvest would make Sea and Earth seasons challenging for such a large gathering? That leaves Fire, early Dark (if harvest is done and weather permits), and late Storm and Sacred Time?

As Orlanthi worshippers make up ca 75% of males and Ernaldans 75% of females outside the cities, according to Jeff, I think the default marriage would be Orlanth-Ernalda. While I think Uleria has a role to play in making happy marriages, I see Ernalda as the central figure. I think I would have the clan/town head Ernaldan Priestess be the default officiator of marriages. She brought the concept to Orlanth and the roles of her husbands in her myths are not entirely different from Orlanth's thanes.

This reminds me that house rules make a big difference in the discussion. My comments are based on my game, where you only get a skill check in something if your roll would have succeeded without bonuses. So if you are at 35% worship but bonuses take you to 95%, then you are only going to get the skill check and POW roll if you roll under 35% (though you will get the greater rune point recovery, etc. based on the 95%). This reduces the number of POW gain rolls and the number of Worship skill checks (though several of my players use one of their four extra skills each season on it).

I can see a lot of interesting possibilities for it, but was curious whether there was already something. Or if it was going to be expanded upon in the Sartar book or such. It looks like a placeholder that someone didn't get back to. At the moment I'm thinking of it as an enclave of renegade Runners or some kind of chaos-tainted former Gardener. Though it also could have been the hiding place for the Black Spear when it was cast into the wilderness.

Yes, this is an issue. In my game the players tended to start with low POW, so some of them still only have 3 rune points. But I have one, after only 7 seasons and 2 sacred times, who has 10! That means he has gotten to the point that he doesn't get them all back every season (I don't allow replenishing on associated cult holy days) and that is the only thing keeping him from tossing them around in a rather unbalancing fashion. The NPCs tend to reflect a significant under-appreciation of how quickly POW will accumulate for an adventuring character! Perhaps there needs to be more things that one has to sacrifice POW for?

One of the sites listed in the Gamesmaster's Adventures is Thorn Top. The description solely says "Tanglethorns grow atop this hill at the edge of Tarndisi’s Grove." A quick look at a few sources yielded nothing, is there anything else on this site from previous Glorantha publications or is this a mostly blank slate for GMs to fill in?

The average Joe has very, very few opportunities to overcome someone's power, defeat a spirit, or spend 500L for POW training. They have one high holy day and the sacred time, and they have to make their Worship roll to get those opportunities, so 1 POW gain roll per year seems likely. So 3-5/decade seems reasonable. Profession would affect this. A herder or hunter with binding might use it quite often. A warrior, thief, or bandit might have more opportunities. A fisherman might disrupt fish for a roll, if they have an extremely lenient GM.

Are there any resources (official or not) that give information on Sartarite/Orlanthi/Ernaldan weddings? Not marriages, but the actual wedding rituals, traditions, etc.

Am I correct that you only get one POW roll per season? So things like training POW or supervising services with a successful worship roll as priest do not add a second?