svensson

Answering the OP: The law and custom of primogeniture seeks to keep property in the hands of the named family and, failing that, specifically describing the lineage necessary to inherit that property if the direct male descendant line dies out. Strictly adhering to that basis, Sir Celyn would inherit the family's tenured fief. Lady Bronwyn has married. English, French and German law in the Crusades era all clearly state that she takes on her husband's prospects [titles, lineages, properties, etc.] and that her son has no claim to Sir Alain's lands while a direct male heir of her father still lives. But yes, the noble senior to the 'MacAlain' family [be it baron, count, earl or duke] will certainly have an opinion of who ought to inherit the property if any bar exists to Sir Celyn.... if Sir Celyn were a felon, or had a disease that might impact his heirs [leprosy, for example], or was a bastard [acknowledged or not]. And the two points that the liege lord will look at are: a] How will this effect my feudal muster and b] How do I think any heir will do in paying their taxes and stewarding the fief.

Funny stuff aside, the Grail Quest's entire intent is for knights to embrace the character traits that are hardest for them to reach... Knights by their nature are a proud and willful lot. They risk their lives for Lord, Lady, and Land often and do so by choice. They have an entirely justified pride on very masculine skills... skill at arms, skill at hunting, skill with horses, etc. And the whole point of the Cult of Courtly Love [and for that matter the Cult of the Virgin Mary] is to soften and humanize these meatheads in metal shirts. The Grail Quest emphasizes the antithesis of these traits: humility over pride, innocence over worldliness, submission over dominance. And while most Christian knights have had some exposure to this [though most usually pay it lip service at most], pagan knights will have a **significantly** harder time embracing the goals of the Grail. If the Grail in KAP has a 'personality' or some kind of will of it's own [instead of being symbolic object], I'd venture to say that your pagan knights would stand no chance whatsoever of even finding the Grail until they converted. It might be better story-wise for you to use the Grail quest as a guide to develop a pagan quest of similar mythic significance.

Of Daka Fal? No. Of Thed and Mallia, yes.

It doesn't matter what the staple foods are when we are discussing the organization of the food supply at the city level. The issue at hand here is the method by which food is distributed to a high concentration of those who cannot grow their own and at what medium of exchange and price point of exchange. Now, I'm not getting all 'MBA' here and substituting 'widget' for something as vital as the food supply. It's of obvious importance on a local level what can be grown, how often it can be harvested, and how it can be preserved. This is Glorantha not the Forgotten Realms and while the Earth Goddess are a necessity to the production of food, there isn't a friendly priestess bopping around the neighborhood casting Create Food and Water in times of famine. And for all the magic in Glorantha, famine and devastation of the land is just as important a tactic of warfare here as it was in Peloponnesian Wars on Earth. There are those in Tunis that strongly believe, for all their Muslim sterness, that Romans poured a curse in addition to salt on the land that was Carthage. [Brief note, the Romans did not sow tons of sand into the soil of Carthage. They used a couple of tons and cast it on the ground in ritual condemnation. But curses, be they true or false, often take on lives of their own.] As @Qizilbashwoman pointed out, we have Cruciform tablets and earlier evidence that food, cooking, and taxes were communal and related [meaning that paid taxes bought access to the food supply on an annual basis] in early Mesopotamia before improvements in agriculture and husbandry drew in enough of a surplus that it could be done 'for profit'. This is partly because there was enough of a surplus of some foodstuff that the supply outstripped the food's 'shelf life' allowed by preservation techniques. Even grain kept in sealed granaries can develop ergot if the temperatures changes develop a damp/dry cycle and the sources like the Aramaic translations of the Bible and Gilgamesh speak of 'old grain' in terms that it was rancid and not fit for consumption.

DAMN IT! I took the field and the spread on that one! 😁

So, as a reenactor I'm always on the lookout for interesting tidbits that might be of use to the RQ gaming audience. This one is for you Lunar fans out there, a letter from Roman legionary on the Pannonian frontier to his family back home. Enjoy!

For reference, Ötzi the Iceman's equipment included a flint shaper. [link to museum list of Ötzi's equipment below] https://www.iceman.it/en/equipment/

Replying to the OP here. There are surgeons who insist on doing neurological surgery with knapped obsidian scalpels because they're the only blades both thin and sharp enough to split nerve tissue lengthwise. So yeah, against bare flesh, clothing or soft leather [including hides and fur] knapped igneous stone is a pretty good bet. However, you'll probably be replacing the spearhead when you retrieve the spear out of the beast. Paleontologists and primitive bushcraft experts theorize that an average hunter likely carried several pre-made replacement blades for his weapons and probably raw nodes and a knapping kit as well. And I am purposely not quoting fiction here. 'Clan of the Cave Bear' is an entertaining read [and probably mandatory reading for Hsunchen players] but I'm getting my statements about the efficacy of primitive weaponry from the Universities of Colorado and Arizona.

Just as any living being 'knows' that being set on fire, or falling from a great height, or being submerged in water will kill it, any spirit [which are specifically defined in Glorantha as being alive and can be killed] will fear those substances or situations that are deadly to it. Call it what you want, 'instinctual fear' or whatever, but that knowledge will determine how that spirit /elemental will cope with that situation. Yes, yes, I know there are some creatures that will ignore obvious danger and kill themselves [lemmings, etc.], but these are overwhelmingly the exceptions rather than the rule.

Okay, then building on @Darius West's comment, Vishi could have the vision he described but find the pregnant cow [I have no idea what the word for 'adult female llama' is] giving birth to a 'super-llama'... the lamb is the get of Storm Bull and Grandmother Llama. It's much tougher and larger [say another 2-3 SIZ points], smarter, but also willful and prone to the occasional angry fit over nothing [they don't call him 'Storm Bull' for nothing...]. Vishi regains his mount, but he has to raise it from a lamb and train it as well. And, hopefully, keep it from biting Molon, Vasana's bison! 😉 This way Vishi's player learns a lesson [Praxian, BUFF YOUR MOUNT TOO!], gain honor that he has to live up to in his tribe, and doesn't lose the cash value equivalent.

A question, if I may. Is this a solo campaign or are you playing Vishi in a regular game? If it's the former, I have an interesting suggestion. If it's the latter, that suggestion really should go to your referee 🙂 The llama spirit is a great idea and I like @Darius West's suggestion as well. Vishi's alticamelus represents better than 75% of his wealth [the equivalent of taking all of a warrior's armor] and unless there is a definite plot hook [the scripted capture of the whole party, for example] where everyone suffers a huge loss, it ought to be replaced.

What do you give the Gaul that has everything? More gall.... 🙂

In reply to the OP: I see the Orlanthi, or perhaps more specifically Sartarite, economy as being more of Celtic/Gaulish one, where gift giving fuels the creation and dissemination of high quality /high prestige goods. A sword taken as booty given to you by the chief or prince is certainly a prize, but a cloak hand made for you by tribal queen at the specific request of the king is something you'd kill to protect! Sure, the sword has a matrix on it and that's nice, but the cloak is a visible symbol of your standing with the rulers of your area. You may not be a thane in royal household, but the King knows you and values your friendship enough to grant you something not only in limited supply [the royal household can produce only so many cloaks a year after all] but with a personal stamp on it. By this process alone, you could easily have 5 or 8 people employed cleaning, carding, spinning, and weaving the woolen fabric, and that doesn't take into account the dyes and embroidery. But some materials are expensive to get... even if you have that rarest of rares in your tula, a tin mine, it takes A LOT of manpower to wrest that metal out of the ground. And that's manpower taken away from feeding the clan. Then, of course, you have to smelt the tin to a pure enough alloy to make bronze, which takes MORE people. What I'm saying here is that gift-giving only goes so far as an economic driver. At some point you have to go to an exchange /cash economy in order to import necessary goods for your clan's craft operations. And the more crafters you have, the greater the need to import materials. After all, a clan would quickly deforest their entire tula if they relied solely on their own resources to supply firewood and charcoal [two VERY different things]. So I do see the need for cults like Gustbran and Issaries in an Orlanthi clan. Third Eye Blue is a secretive sorcery cult and just because Apple Lane had a pair of TEB smiths doesn't mean they're common. Most smiths in Orlanthi society would likely be Gustbrans. Ernalda is a perfectly good cult for men and women handicraft-crafters [potters, weavers, other on-the-steading make-as-needed crafts] but cults that rely on mathematics [masons, for example] are going to go looking for a deity that'll fit their needs. I'd imagine that Flintnail could very well expand out of Pavis after Argrath's victory.

That I've seen, Police Detective, Dilettante, Antiquarian, Military, and usually some criminal background. Comparatively few Authors, Doctors, Journalists, etc. But then, most of my players are veterans or military family members, so that gonna skew the demographic a bit.

Wow. Have we hit the big time? Are we famous enough to steal from? What was that Nirvana quote? "Hey guys, I think we're famous. Weird Al wants to do a parody of us..."

It's been a sad week for women that so many of us old geezers remember fondly. Tatjana Patiz, a German supermodel from the 80s and 90s passed away from [very sadly] breast cancer. Gina Lolabrigida, one of a generation of Mediterranean beauties [Gina, Sophia Loren, a couple Greek actresses that didn't get as much coverage], passed a well-lived life at age 95. Renee Geyer, a singer from Australia, passed away due to post operative infection. Lisa Marie Presley also passed. Don't get me wrong here... we're going to miss such legends as Jeff Beck a lot. But a lot of men have school boy crushes on actresses and singer that's not only biological, but indoctrinated behavior... Madison Avenue has encouraged us in this silliness [and that's exactly what it is -- assuming it does metastasize into obsession] since the time we started noticing girls and our voices started sounding funny.

I don't think so. The fact of the matter is that the market has been indoctrinated towards d20 /class-based systems. That's not good or bad, it's just a recognition of fact. RQ has always been second fiddle to EGG's monster but OTOH that can be seen as a good thing. Look at what popularity and market forces did to the Forgotten Realms... every time DnD had a new edition, the world got nuked to fit the new narrative. Glorantha has had no such dilution of the creator's vision. Greg's creation has been augmented, been changed slightly, but nothing like Ed Greenwood's milieu has been through.

There is some VERY interesting video on the 2500th anniversary of the Battle of Platea in Greece. Reenactors dressed out as hoplites recreating the battle. You might find that educational. *I* sure did. The second thing is that they could have specifically targeted the shields with aimed attacks with the intent of destroying them. That wouldn't work so well here on Earth, but with spells like Fireblade available, that becomes a valid tactic. It also serves to burn off the enemy's Magic Points as they desperately pump MP into Repair spells instead of Heal spells...

Well, if your players are interested more in the RP aspect they could also support Argrath's efforts that are 'off script' from the action in The Cradle. - Finding, vetting, and assembling adventurers to do the combat lifting - Negotiating with or organizing the assistance of the River Folk - Helping suppress Chaos along the route - Sabotaging Lunar and Sun County efforts. If you want them on the Cradle itself, then perhaps they're detailed to physically protect the Baby at all costs, as well as providing support for those involved in active fighting. Lots of RP possibilities dealing with the many disparate groups Argrath recruited and possible hostility between them.. the Trolls and Orlanthi are going to need a little smoothing over, for example. A situation like this might involve: - protecting Ernalda, Chalana Arroy and Xiola Umbar healers and getting the wounded the help the wounded need - keeping the Baby calm amidst all the ruckus - combat once the Cradle Protectors are driven below decks - smoothing over relations between groups that have to work together to survive. Those are few ideas that come to mind right off the top of my head. Something else to consider is that YOUR version of the The Cradle doesn't have to be 'canon'. Do what you think you need to entertain your table.

As for allowing augmentation for the contest with Bad Man and the acquisition of your fetch, it seems to me that only a HeroQuest would require more careful deliberation and preparation. By all means, DO the extra work and ritually prepare!

Welcome to Greg's Geriatric Grognards, Geoff!

So, I was a medieval reenactor for a long time in the era B.I. [Before Internet 😁]. Back then you had to do your own research with whatever sources you could find, gather, and borrow. My primary interest was the period before 1200, basically from the First Crusade on backwards. I'd read an account of Alcuin speaking of a battle on the Franconian March [the border with the Czech-Slovak region, which was still Pagan at the time] where several women donned armor as part of the markgraf's levy and were killed in a border skirmish. The bishop accompanying the force wrote to Charlemagne calling it another 'Massacre of the Innocents' and saying that women were needed to bear the next generation of warriors and therefore shouldn't be soldiers. But I read that reference almost 30 years ago and those notes are long since gone. It was in a book at the University of Washington but I no longer have access to the library there.

There WERE female war leaders and combatants in the Middle Ages. The historical record is absolutely clear on that point. There is speculation that there were even Christian Saxon female thegns to go along with the Norse/Dane shield maidens. That one is still be argued about, however, and I don't know of any conclusive proof of a any equivalent to a Christian woman knight. We also know from the writings of Alcuin of York that Carolingian women took part in combat... not merely protecting their village but as armored semi-professionals. That and modern sensibilities allow for female knights. Yes, the Christian ideal is the cult of Mary 'maiden, mother, matron, crone' archetype, but there's room for a 'Dame Aelgyfa' in the Round Table.

Well there is a 'Conan-ish' Legend [BRP variant] milieu set in Xoth, a very REH /ERB milieu. You can get those books on Mongoose's website as pdf only d/ls under the Legend heading.

They tried that already. There's a d20 version of Conan produced by Mongoose back in the day. The system is, well, d20. If you like it, then it's not altogether bad. It's a bit overpowered for my tastes personally, and I tend not to like 'ding! I leveled!' systems much anyway. But there was some solid milieu writing in it. It's kind of like MERP that way.