Manunancy

Not sure how it would reflect in myth but one positive point of floods for Esrolia is dumping fertile silt on the fields - sure they've enough water but any extra bit of fertility comes in handy. Possibly an extra step in a 'revive the rivers' rites where the freed river brings along the fertile earth that got diverted/stolent/hoarded by whoever kept them prisonner. Possibly an impromptu mariage between Water and Earth prisonners and their offspring Silt coming back to grandmama to fertlize her fields. Which would tie in neatly with the esrolian GrandMothers.

They have an animating magical energy provided by the World Machine that enables them to perform their function. As the brithini correctly knows, upon death that energy returns to where it cames from and gets recycled in the Machine's internal processes. Ignorant mortals calls that energy a soul and because of improper disposal procedures it doesn't get properly recycled and can be acessed through magic. Both stages of that process are wrong, and as anyone even remotely knowledgeable knows, two wrongs almost never ends up a right.

The whole affair may even have been an accidental joint effort (though when mythical heavyweights are involved, coincidences tends to happen more than usual), with lunar infiltrators/assassins disabling some gurads and defenses on their way to slice Broyan's throat (or just poison the supplies or other shenanigans) with some disgruntled element of the army's help and unwittingly opening the way for the darkness critters. which makes all the options (lunars, darkness and inside job) true, even if none is the whole picture... This also gives a neat explanation of why there's so much confusion about what happened.

Back on 'summon ancestors', it may still work even if you're not lieterally descended from who you want to summon : As long you have common ancestors and both you and the deceassed belongs to the same clan/family group - you may work your way down to the last common ancestor (or maybe lower for a more reliable/skilled/in tune with your cause one) who will brign along his dead descendent.

Accept only married researchers who have childrens - that gives a fallback solutions with 'summon ancestors' magic.

2) the orlanthi aren't well-suited for all out war since most of the troops are part-time warriors only. Full-time warriors are a small minority (even if the ratios is higher in war clans who ad tributes to their normal production) 3) a trade town is probably under the tirbal king's control - and probably has the area's larger Issaries temple to manage trading operations, take in taxes and send his cut to the king. Rather than true gang wars, you'll probably se a lot of breibery, blackmail and espionage along with various agetns provocateurs trying to lead the competition into something they can get hammered for. Open fights will more likely occur outside with carava nattacks and the like. Worhipers of Valind and Gagarth make good muscle for that, along with orlanthi outlaws.

I would consider Malia worship soemwhat like you would interacting with teh mob - propiatory worship (aka minimumservice lay-member stye worhsip to keep her diesases at bay) would be akin to paying protection money to avoid getting your shop burned. That's not good, but you can get away with it. So probably non chaotic as long as you don't do too much of it. More active worhsip would me more like paying said mobsters for assistance - say breaking a debtor's legs or having their pet bribed judge let you get acquited. Here you're straying far closer to Chaos and if it gets know, you'll be i ntrouble. And probably earn yourself a chaos taint.

Climate and soil wise that sounds quite lieke what you can find near lake Tanganika - that's tropical/subtropical (going to equatorial on the northern part) with some seriously volcanic areas around (the Niyragongo volcano is around here)

Though if you go traipsing around showing it off to any and all, your clan chief or high priest might feel somewhat grumpy about it - up to thinking you're polishing up your heroic credentials in preparation of an attempt to replace him...

With suitable magics (and often even without) eating troublesome problems is a farily common trollish way to get rid of them. I have vague memories of inclduing even iron and some chaos. So unlike our world, in Glorantha, feeding the troll can solve problems 🙂

That reminds me of a fun moment in our RQ game - My Ynkini noble defending his (occasionnal) relationship with another PC's mother (she's widowed, he's unmaried, nothing wrong going on here) 'I wouldn't dare insulting my best friend's mom saying her 'No'. And of course couldn't resist teasing said friend by telling him 'Don'tworry, i won't force you to call me 'Father''... Yes, he's got a bit of a naughty streak and a questionable sens of humor.

With both the Closing and the Syndic's ban unraveling, you may not even need an action from the island - or maybe whatever was done on the island worked this time because of those two external factors.

Nope, the version given in the books was Aubec of Malador (not 100% sure of the name as i'm working back from the french translation), one hero of the liberation of humans nations from Melniboné - several centuries before elric's time. Elric's father was emperor of Melninoné well afer the ermpire shrank back to just the island and never did tha tsort of things as far as I know (and would have very little incentive to do such risky endeavors for the benefit of worthless rebellious slaves - as the borders of the world lay beyond teh human nations)

My grip with that picture is the dissonance with the mix of a hull form that's very 19th century steamerish and a medieval superstructure. I've seen another illustration with a far more boxy hull that made it's castle-like superstructure (big squat rectangular tower with corner turrets) look far more appropriate. And fits with the dwarves being les skilled at naval architecture than plain old land architecture.

I would expect thetenants and other peoples who do'nt get hides of land from the clan to still have several rights to make a living outside their work : * access to common woodlands and the like (a stickpicker has to pick his sticks from somewhere) * right to do some gardening on plots leftover from clan distribution (including those too small and the lke). Somewhat like what went in the USSR who gave some small private plots (which ended up making a surprising big contribution as collecitvized agriculure didn't work very well)

In glorantha too you should never work for a dragon or trust an elf....

Did he really plan on bringing Sheng, or was it more 'let's dive into the worst lynar hells to find something they really fear and drag it out to trhow it in their faces' - and teh 'something' happens to eb good old Sheng ?

Depending on what kind of sources and myths he's using, there's a chance to slip into god-learner like messes - the more brute-force the apporach the more likely.

I don't feel Arkat and dragons would mix well - you're more likely to end up with air, death and darkness assotiations denpending on where you're starting. Of course illumination can and will lead to weird mixes but i'd save draconic stuff for way laterr.

Form teh other side of the fence, it would also be logical for the lunars to wait for the temple's consecration before going full repressive : the troops will be free and their magic boosted, while if they went traipsing all over the contryside cracking heads, they may get tangled up and mess with the schedule. It means that mobilisation preparations can get started without immediate repercussions even if it gets noticed 'ah those bumbling startarites have screwed up, they'll be ready to rebel only after we get our temple ready'. The magical side, well, they were probably quite confident they could resist whatever Kallyr and her merry band may do to disrupt the consecration - they expeted her to have to do all the heavy lifting rather than merely rousing a dragon and letting him do the job.

The Eurmal bond isn't exactly foolproof - sooner or later the bond will slip and the trickster will bring trouble to his keeper. One mark of a good orlanthi chief is to keep his trickster long enough to have some use out of it (gender gets blurry with a trickster 🙂 ) but kick it out before it causes too serious troubles.

That sort of deals in my opnion would usually be brokered through some middleman - say a gagarthi band, some half loon outcast chaman and the like. Probably along a line of 'we can redirect the broos that planned to attack you while you deal with those guys will attacks them instead'. Nope, not an alliance, just a stroke of good luck, nothing worng with that...

I forgot one sort of peoples when i thought about who might qualify : broos. Perfect sacrifice fodder, nobody's going to miss them. And don't worry, the chaos taint is under control and won't affect the end result 🙂 Back on topic, my impression is that in Glorantha mas unvoluntary sacrifices is something that tends to backfire and/or bring troubles. Well, maybe not when it's dragons who do the deed - because it's lunch time rather than sacrifice... But I wonder what would happen should the sacrifices come to a ressurected Genert demanding justice for their deads ?because no matter how you wrap it up in necessity, there were still lies, treachery and mass murder going around.

Albeit they're human-shaped, they're not peoples but animals. Going by peoples from Prax, you'd have humans and morokanth (by Waha's standard), with aldryamis, trolls, dwarves, baboons, newts and agimori (if not counted as humans) too, even if not explicitely included in the compact. Probably a few others, including awakened animals. At a guesstimate, i'd consider any race that's got unfixed intelligence and was around in Genert's garden will qualify

What gets me wondering is the 'one thousand peoples acrificed' - were the yvolunteers ? maybe in keeping wit the amreindian themes in prax whorhsippers working themselves to death in somethign liek a Ghost Dance big ritual. Or were they unwilling - ennemies and undesirable gathered at swordpoint and mass executed ? The first option may work without too much trouble or taint, but if it was the second, the odds for something going wrong would raise up. Human (or other sentients) sacrifices in Glorantha are a risky business, and very few non-chaotic cultures do it regularly. (the somewhat disallowed Corn Rites, the Black sun cult in Ignorance and that's about it - though sorcerous tapping might count, but isn't more common)