Daesta

Hmm, I was referring to the confederation city (like Jonstown) as the main "trade center" for a tribe.  

Some useful links:
https://wellofdaliath.chaosium.com/tribes-clans-of-sartar/
https://wellofdaliath.chaosium.com/the-tribes-of-sartar-1625-1626/
https://wellofdaliath.chaosium.com/rural-sartar-urban-sartar/
... and if you make it past the bit about the word "Mayor" vs "Rex", there's a bit of discussion of Town vs City here:
https://wellofdaliath.chaosium.com/city-rex/
 

Most material I’ve seen presents the tribal confederation’s city as the local trade town, and each clan having its own central settlement, sometimes - but not always - a hillfort.  As to there being a settlement that is the seat of the tribal “king”, not so much a thing since the tribal king is a member of one of the clans of the tribe.  And the king’s “court” moving between the settlements of its member clans. 

But - if you’re creating your own clan and such for your own game - my tip would be to take an eraser and “de-canonise” a whole tribal area for your game, and then create what you want.  For example, in a past game I pretty much erased everything written about the Dinacoli tribe (not much really) and put in my own clans and settlements.  
In your case - creating a central trade settlement for your tribe’s feuding clans isn’t world-breaking - just the way things are done in that tribe.  And if MGF for you is a tribal king as an ageing vingan dressed in piecemeal armor, the tribal champion is a great troll who carries its human “master” around, and tribal justice is dispensed by an ancient artifact in the form of a “wheel of justice” - then why not.

I’v always viewed an air elemental carrying a person as more of a “mount” type situation, rather than an “engulf-and-carry” type situation…

And I guess our house rule was that an elemental could be healed with the same kind of healing magics as a person, and protected by the same kinds of protection magics.  

On 7/23/2023 at 9:05 PM, Akhôrahil said:

I would agree that this is a poorly designed rule. It would probably work better if only Summon Cult Spirit existed, and then every cult had a list of its cult spirits (including elementals where applicable). You could also get some gaming goodies out of this by, say, having a shrine that allow people to learn to contact an otherwise unavailable cult spirit.

Totally agree.  Summoning cult spirits feels a bit bland and generic.  Some kind of listing or example of cult spirits would be really useful.  For example, I recall the fiction describing “flint slingers” as Orlanth cult spirits?   As a player, I always felt bemused that these were described, but we never seemed to have stats for them as summonable things.  And the concept of having a local shrine teaching how to summon a particular cult spirit fits my viewpoint - I’ve already used when GMing.

For what it's worth: in my Glorantha a HeroQuest is always a big deal, and has some foundation in myth - either adapted from existing Gloranthan corpus or one created by the GM to suit.  
When working on the framework or myth behind a heroquest, I like to think of it as a bit like a children's picture book... 
Which makes me especially amused to see that the example of a mundane everyday heroquest was "Orlanth Buys the Milk".  Since Neil Gaiman seems to already have made this quite an epic heroquest-like tale in his story for young readers "Fortunately, the Milk". 

Quote

"Despite Mom's advance warning, the family finds itself ready for breakfast but without milk for cereal and tea, so Dad takes a trip to the store to get some. Upon his long-awaited return, he gives the children a fantastical and descriptive explanation of the adventures he faced while trying to make it back home. Not only did he embark on a time-traveling hot-air balloon ride with a stegosaurus, but he also confronted pirates, aliens, wumpires, and a volcano god, never losing possession of the milk."

I used Affinity Designer for a similar purpose - though I must admit there’s a learning curve.  My one word of caution: if you want your end result to be a pdf with fillable “forms” fields, Affinity Designer is not going to do that for you.

Here’s a map of Whitewall 1625… 

https://wellofdaliath.chaosium.com/home/catalogue/websites/facebook/2019-04-jeff-on-facebook/image-61-2/