davecake

This is absolutely a factor. Some of the rules changes in RQG have quite far reaching consequences that are not obvious as they interact with other parts of the rules.

I tend to think that this was how things work in Old Sesnela under the Serpent Kings and since the True Hrestol Way purified all this pagan nonsense this sort of thing is looked on with extreme suspicion. Nobles leading Earth cults, in particular, especially if they make too many claims about their ancestral connections to the Earth giving them priestly authority, is particularly historically problematic, and will have the Ecclesiarch sending his Watchers around in no time. (Pointing here to @Nick Brookes History of Malkionism and it’s lovely depictions of both the outrages of the pagan excesses of the decadent hippy Serpent Kings and the rightful sealing of those dreadful serpent demigods into underground ‘dungeon’ complexes). The Talars, advised by their zzaburs (who are guided by the wisdom of the Ecclesiarch) of course decide which of the dronars make acceptable priestly leaders, but the actual details are probably caste mysteries. And of course it is important that the Talars are not members of the secretive War Societies, because if the Talars should discover the War Societies should be doing something so irresponsible as worshipping pagan gods in return for good combat magic, they might have to put a stop to it, and that would irresponsibility compromise their military assets.

FWIW, I don’t believe that it is a caste violation unless you do it to someone who has a caste, and some sects have practiced slavery of others, but I do believe the Rokari and Hrestoli both consider slavery to be wrong, possibly for quite different reasons. The Vadeli consider that, as Zzaburs law saw says nothing about how to treat the people not following caste law themselves (in their interpretation, anyone not of ancient Danmalastan), and they care about caste law absolutely only in as much as following it grants immortality, anything you do to random non-Malkioni people is free from any consequences, moral or magical, and slavery is one of the more logical options. But then, the Vadeli are largely logical sociopathic nihilists. They had, in the distant past, at least one vast slave empire, and the slave magic of Fonrit is based on ancient Vadeli slave magic. The Brithini probably don’t have slaves because they think they are inferior to having Dronar, and associating with non-Brithini is corrupting, or some such nonsense, essentially because they didn’t have slaves in Danmalastan rather than any moral reason. Besides, it’s kind of a Vadeli thing, and therefore suspect. Besides, they are so short lived, might as well just Tap them. I think the Galvosti would probably consider enslaving non-Malkioni a humane alternative to Tapping.

I don’t really see it that way - the various smaller sects are not all just variants of the 4 larger, but all quite divergent. But if you were to group them into 5 main groups, the fifth large grouping would be Henotheists. I think the Hrestoli absolutely do not aspire to become Brithini. The Rokari do. They are unstable in that this is essentially unattainable and their society is only viable because of the many ways they depart from Brithini practice - but on such hypocrisy many societies have proved stable for centuries, the Rokari amongst them.

Shields are weirdly bad in individual melee in RQG - they actually have a mild disadvantage (you can’t parry with a shield in the round you attack with it, which isn’t true for other weapons), and don’t seem to have any particular advantages, and amalgamating attack and parry means many other weapons are just as good at parrying. On the other hand, passive use of shields to block missile attacks is great, allowing advancing under fire, and shield walls are great. One of the net effects is small shields are virtually useless. The iron armour Iron Mostali wear is mostly unenchanted iron. I don’t know whether the Mostali have some means of casting sorcery that does not have the negative modifiers from unenchanted iron (their spells that specifically target iron maybe do? ) or they just go all out to massively boost their cast chance with ritual etc. But it might be difficult to cast too much in combat - their boon of Karagan Tor etc are likely long duration casts made out of combat. On the upside, they are very difficult to cast magic against. I’ve figured the most common weapons for Iron Mostali are axes - perfect tool for chopping vegetation such as elves, war trees, etc. and work fine against trolls too. But warhammers and such are possible - and I think it’s quite possible that some Iron Mostali even have Enhance STR cast to give them a damage bonus. I think their may be reasons to use warhammers and other blunt weapons when fighting other dwarves, which will have been quite a lot of the action many Iron Mostali have seen, considering the various dwarven civil wars. Dwarves did occasionally have need to fight predating the invention of Iron. And what weapons did they use? They don’t appear to use bronze, and most of the other metals don’t hold a good edge, so they’d be using blunt weapons. I’m sure they have at least the same skill in creating lead weapons as trolls, for example -and may still use lead when creating war hammers etc. Their continued use of blunt weapons may descend from such ancient practices, and they may have some magic or other techniques to boost them somehow. Their ancient edged weapons, such as for fighting Aldryami before the creation of Iron, were probably of sharp rock such as obsidian - and interestingly, one Mostali spell for this is known, because they taught it to the Caladra and Aurelian cult, who have it as an associated cult spell, and it’s fairly potent, the equivalent of Bladesharp 8! It’s also interesting that the Mostali seem to have abandoned this entirely (or virtually so), perhaps sharing it with humans only because it is regarded as superseded, antique, technology, quite unreliable (and such weapons do break often). Some specialised units of Iron Mostali probably learn to fight in tight formation with pole arms as secondary weapons, and probably fight in shield walls etc and use other socialised tactics - the infamous pike and musket regiment is an example. And they also have siege equipment (including, but not only, cannons and other artillery) and such things as war jolanti (some of huge size) and alchemical and magical equipment. But such units are unlikely to be seen much on the surface outside of actual warfare, most small squads of Iron Mostali encountered on the surface will be more flexible general melee and missile skirmish troops.

Note that pistols and muskets aren’t the standard Mostali missile weapons, the average Mostali would still use a crossbow, though they do have the neat repeating crossbows. The slow reloading of gunpowder weapons probably means that pistols are only for Iron dwarves closing to melee. It’s said that the iron weapons were in the first age civil wars used by the Nidan Decamony, who invented black powder, used it as a weapon against the Dragon Pass era Opendandist heretics, which would include the Dwarf of Dwarf Run. Obviously they dwarves of Dragon Pass and Greatway have access to gunpowder now, but it’s quite possible that dwarves outside Nida still have restricted supplies, and/or still have some trained in crossbows. This may even be part of the reason why the Cannon Cult are human not dwarven.

Thanks for the kind words. I worked pretty hard on them. That was very much my intention, that a martial artist character or mystic would be roughly as powerful as a character that used different magic, but feel distinctively different. Very definitely yes. Those are all planned for future books, some already in progress. They will probably happen eventually, but we’re not in scope for the first couple of books.

My own working assumptions - For the Rokari, the Zzaburi must be sorcerers. The other castes may learn sorcery, but seldom do, especially as Horals and Dronars may not be literate. Talars sometimes learn sorcery, but it is rare, and rarer still that they are skilled at it. A farmer Dronar knowing any sorcery is unheard of, but some of the secrets of the crafter sub-caste/guilds are sorcerous, including enchanting, and/or alchemical. The Horali are usually focussed magically on the beast societies, many of which have inner secrets that are downright pagan. The Talari often are quite de facto mostly pagan, with the justification that the god in question is an ancestor - though they are careful to observe caste strictures and maintain Rightness, of course, as their privileges rely on it. Cynically, it is easy to see the Rokari as a society that maintains an outward appearance of pious Malkionism, while hypocritically almost everyone (except the zzaburi) flirts with pagan magic regularly and it is required for society to function. But the zzaburi are also necessary for society to function. And they maintain that they are returning to Brithini caste laws, but of course very much of what they consider the law is God-Learner era innovation or Serpent Kings era henotheist holdovers (despite official purging of both those things). Various Malkioni societies acknowledge that spirit magic is useful, but ‘bad’ for you - mentally unhealthy, reducing Free INT but also clear thought. The ‘right’ way to use spirit magic is using sorcery to bind spirits. Almost all Zzaburi use this (the spirits are both a valuable source of magic points for sorcery spells, and provide the ability to cast convenient and fast spirit magic), but they may not rely on collaboration with specialists rather than learning the spells to do so themselves. Binding into objects that can be passed on to colleagues is regarded as better form than into animals (‘familars’) among organised schools of the Rokari. The Brithini do rigidly maintain caste laws, and only Zzaburi learn sorcery. But they rely on many sorcerously produced items, alchemical creations, and they often have what we might consider heroquest powers through centuries of effort and caste rituals (that we would often consider heroquests, of a very uncreative nature). The Vadeli specialise in creative loopholes in caste law, though mostly maintaining its strict letter to remain immortal. They are all sorcerers, but caste law restricts them to certain sorceries. Brown Vadeli are prevented from casting sorcery that is directly used for war, but have many creative ways around it - for example, animal husbandry is within their caste function, so commanding hordes of monsters to devour their enemies is fine. Much of their sorcery involves having Elemental or Form Runes, though they also are masters of Movement rune magic through their connection to the ancient Viymorni. Red Vadeli, on the other, specialise in magic that directly attacks others and empower their weapons, usually using the Death rune. They compensate for the issues that having no Talar caste causes in their society either by getting outsiders (most notoriously, Hrestol) to judge disputes, or by adopting Waertagi naval law (hilariously reminiscent of the sovereign Citizen movement), which is why their leaders are always called admirals. The New Hrestoli Men-of-All all must show some official demonstration of suitability for the Zzabur caste to become a Man-of-All, but I suspect this is pretty minimal, like demonstrating literacy and some study of philosophy. Many ambitious families will start preparing their children early for this. All that are capable are encouraged to learn some sorcery in their spare time, but it is only after they become Men-of-All that they are encouraged to study to master runes, and access to the various schools of sorcery is fully opened to them. Most Hrestoli sorcerers are less capable than their Rokari counterparts.

I have one of the few posters of this framed on my dining room wall. Sadly, I think Dan said he is unable to reproduce the image, as some of the flowers were actual flowers, that fell off.

The Arkati believe that Illuminism allows abuses of the natural order, but not that it is, in itself, an abuse. Illuminism takes moral authority away from the gods and back in the hands of man. It is a thus a test, that many fail. But not all.

For my game, the Blue Star magi have become a small group of Annilla/Blue Moon connected sorcerers, who must all commit to keeping (their particular) secret to maintain their powers, and are obsessed with collecting secret knowledge. They are not Tricksters, far from it.

In the Skyship scenario, Dormal is the steersman, wrestling with the ships huge steering oar. But most of the crew are from the original ship (Anaxial's Ark), including Anaxial as captain, Lukarius as Commander of the ships defenders, etc. A Waertagi was the original ships designer and magically defends it, a Gold Wheel Dancer is the sounder, a giantess is the deck officer. But what Dormals role is before the ship returns we don't know. We can surmise that if the Boat Planet returning is what finally breaks the Closing, the disappearance of the Boat Planet was closely connected to what created it. And the Waertagi were involved in that. Very likely whatever keeps the Skyship/the Boat Planet trapped in the underworld is what keeps the Waertagi dragon ships trapper there too - the Waertagi support breaking the Closing because, though they would like to find a way to break it for just them, they know of no way to do so. I wouldn't get too hung up on describing the closing in terms of a Runic principles as JonL suggests. These great spells of Zzaburs are not sijgle great spells of Zzaburs, they are more like mighty mythic engineering projects, multiple great spells, multiple sauces of power, multiple resources and access to secret knowledge and hidden parts of the world. Its explicit that Zzabur can't do things like shattering the West, or the Icebreaking, on his own - he must enlist multiple sources of assistance.

In a practical sense, the shrines to Lodril in Sartar are likely to be tucked into the corners of temples to the Lowfires, an associated cult of all as their father, and even they are going to be pretty rare because most temples to the Lowfires are only going to be shrines anyway. Mahome barely exists as an independent cult most places (though ubiquitous as an Ernalda subcult), Oakfed exists mostly temporarily when some shaman gets a spirit cult together, usually when something or somebody needs burning. Practically, you are mostly looking at cities large enough to have a minimum of 400+ people who are smiths and potters (or at least connected enough to those industries to be lay members) to create at least a major temple to Gustbran.

There have been a recent spate of attacks on sailboats by or as off the coast of Spain and Portugal, which indicates that orcas can be a significant threat to humans if they decide to be hostile. It appears limited to there, possibly to a single pod. It’s fascinating, because it shows how much of orca behaviour is learned and ‘cultural’ - orcas can pick up behaviour from each other, and transmit it to others. This shows how important control of orca interaction is, a pattern of hostile to human behaviour could start from an bad human behaviour, and potentially get learned by others. We know that pods can differ in their hunting and other behaviour quite a bit, that individuals can transfer between pods and change their behaviour to fit in. Most amusingly, they even appear to have fads - there is a recorded incident of multiple orcas all adopting the odd habit of balancing a dead salmon on their nose for a season, then giving it up the next year. Which all adds up to me thinking of orca as some level of sapient, in Glorantha and probably Earth as well. Obligatory Glorantha - there isn’t much about cetaceans written in Glorantha, but we know they exist, and are all over the place - or at least, in the frozen waters of the north-west Hudaro ocean (many species including baleen whales), in the warm waters of the south-west Swemela (Worm) sea, and Orcas at least in the Kahar Sea in the north-East. They are children of Tholaina, goddess of sea animals, and some Storm deity (I’d suggest mostly descendants of Valind). Whales seem to be summonable by the Magasta cult, and also used as war beasts by Waertagi (perhaps by the same means, as some Waertagi worship Magasta). This seems to indicate they are allied with the Sea gods, like their cetoi cousins the Ludoch. Some sources say there was a third type of cetoi merman, the hreekeen whale men, until they were destroyed by the God Learners in the Third Age (probably because they were Waertagi allies). We know that orcas in particular are significant in the north-east, in Kahar’s Sea of Fog, and we know that there is a Cult of the Orca in Kralorela, which humans learnt of from Thunhin Da, the Dragon of the Waters, to combat the Zabdamar mermen. This becomes a potentially quite complex story - because the Kralorelan dragon Thrunhin Da is claimed to be the same being as the East Isles sea goddess Harantara, and the Zabdamar are the children of Harantara and Kahar. So what is Thrunhin Da doing creating a human cult of the Orca in order to war on her own children? And what do Orca (presuming intelligence) think of it? Orca IRL have been observed attacking dolphins and even right whales on occasion - I’m tempted to make them not unified, not all worshipping sea powers, and perhaps having a role in the fairly complex story of familial disharmony among the sea powers that is the core of the Harantara story, especially as, like all Cetoi, there will be a storm god as their ancestor.

Similarly, there is a non-Chaotic god of scorpions who hates Bagog, and goat people unconnected to Ragnaglar and Broo. And other Chaotic species hated by the original non-Chaotic version, like Damali? versus Dorastan slime deer. Chaos sits outside the genealogies of other creatures. Though bats are a little more complex - the Dara Happan goddess of bats is also a Death god and associated with the Blue Moon as well as Artia the bat planet, so while not Chaotic has been incorporated somewhat into the Lunar religion, and was an enemy god of Yelm. The Hsunchen bat deity of the Pujaleg bat Hsunchen appears to still be associated with the blue moon and other celestial deities, even in Pamaltela (ie see Guide p.561). The Crimson Bat is definitely a Chaotic corruption of a previous bat-monster, but the previous monster was still a terrifying demon of Death, and it’s unknown when it was corrupted by Chaos - while the Crimson Bat as we know it was brought back from the Underworld by Sedenya and was far more Chaotic than it had been, the previous version was banished by Arkat and he must have had good reason, perhaps it was turned to Chaos by Gbaji in the First Age? There is enough there that a good story of bat corruption could fuel some interesting material for bat mythology adventures (perhaps connected to Harrek’s conquest of the Pujaleg in Laskal).

What about his description from the Glorantha Sourcebook? Is that also wildly non-canonical?

You might want to take a look at Middle Sea Empire, which won’t tell you much about the Bright Empire directly, but will give a good example of what can happen when you discover a magical imp from the Nysalor eta.

Well, sort of? I more or less take Rigsdal as presented in The Eleven Lights as his main role in the Orlanthi understanding of the Sky world. Rigsdal is distinct from Elmal, because the night watchmen is a different role - their job is to raise the alarm, not lead the fight themselves. Yes, Polaris in Dara Happa is a war leader god -doesn’t mean Rigsdal is. Agreed. But an associated cult of a minority variant cult adds up to very small indeed. sure, though she seems (according to the HeroQuest material, it may have changed) to have picked up her celestial lore mostly from oddball heterodox Dara Happans. It’s certainly possible that she studied Rigsdal legends, and it’s also possible that she later (after she was already connected to Polaris by heroquest, though) exchanged notes with the Eleven Lights heroquesters (who of course may be PCs) or at least Minaryth Purple. Or the reason Minaryth Purple is able to research that quest so effectively is because of earlier researches on Kallyr’s behalf. Why Inora?

Several of Orlanths associated cults don’t share a rune. Chalana Arroy, Ernalda, Lhankor Mhy, etc. IMG there are a few minor places where Rigsdal is acknowledged as an associated cult of Orlanth. Kallyr probably sponsors a shrine somewhere. They probably grant the Star Sight spell. But it’s not really any different to it being a minor spirit cult in its effect on the world - just there are a few Orlanthi who know of Rigsdal as Orlanths night watchmen, and get some minor magic from it.

I do not remember that, no? What is this a reference to?

The PC is back in their body. But not just the PC. They are now sharing it.

I think Joy and Illumination are very different. But with a few things in common. They are both personal, subjective experiences, and they both can reveal that rules you have learnt can be approached differently. Joy is the revelation that it is possible to develop a personal relationship with the Invisible God, rather than relying on the methods laid down by Zzabur. I think to Hrestoli, they believe that Malkion understood the true way for mortals to approach life, for right and moral behavior and to cultivate a relationship with God, and expressed this as a series of principles. And Zzabur turned this into a set of rules, a list of not what we should do but what we should not, and in doing so made it a form of magic ritual, a life long ritual that if observed strictly functions as an immortality spell (it’s not intended as such, but as a spell of preservation, but as it was created before Death it protects against that - though from Zzaburs point of view it protects against further devolution and dissipation, including the terrible innovation of universal Death). To the Brithini, Zzaburs laws are the perfect expression of Malkions principles in action, and clearly work as designed. The Vadeli see that, by saying only what is forbidden, it does not constrain them from doing what it does mention, including the entire world outside the West (that the Viymorni, ancestors of the Vadeli, know more about than any other Westerners) - they can treat Zzaburs law as a morality free set of ritual constraints - and so go on to become the perfectly logical, immortal sociopaths we know. And make Zzabur froth with rage and hatred. Hrestol comes at a much later time. The Brithini have already found Zzaburs laws incredibly hard to maintain in the Great Darkness. Many are not truly ageless any more, those that are are often falling to attack by external powers because their laws have not prepared them well for dealing with foreign powers, especially Chaos. And once it stops working, you can’t fix it - maybe it’s because it preserves not recreates an earlier age, but for whatever reason once you lose immortality you can’t get it back. Hrestol says Zzaburs solution isn’t working, and if they keep trying it is going to lead to their doom. But he wants to believe in it, and he eventually learns that there are other ways to follow the Teachings of Malkion than the Laws of Zzabur. The teachings of Malkion, and so the Laws of Zzabur and the teachings of Hrestol, say there is a world of Matter and Energy, but by our Intellect we can master it. Some schools, like the Irensavalists, say that this world of Matter and Energy is a trap, and by our Intellect we can escape it. The mystics say Intellect is just another part of the trap. Mostly Malkionism reacts badly to this. In Malkioni terminology Zzabur says follow my ways and you retain (if you are Brithini) the advantages of the world of the Forth Action and fend of the encroaching world of the Fifth Action. Hers too says too late, we are in the world of the Fifth Action, like it or not, but by following the ways of Malkion we can try to repair it. Mystics say the worlds of the earlier Actions can be reached inside us if we are willing to give up the mistakes, such as the idea of individual identity and the power of Intellect. Illumination gives a glimpse of this. And so most, but not all, Malkioni reject Illumination. But even those that do not reject it, treat it as dangerous.

I agree that it’s a minor cult. I think it’s likely that, given his role in Orlanthi mythology is that of the night watchmen, rather than as a war leader or captain of stars, that the spell granted by spirit cults among the Orlanthi is Star Sight (also in the RBoM rather than Captain Souls. It also seems likely that Rigsdal is sometimes worshipped as a very minor associated god or Orlanth rather than a spirit cult - by which I mean only that there is a minor shrine within a larger temple, rather than the intervention of a shaman.

I agree. Allied spirits and fetches are not analogous.

And I, for one, will be perfectly happy if RQ3 style familiars never reappear in RQG. Bound spirits, sure. They are both clearly within the rules, and staggeringly useful to most sorcerers (awkwardly, in large part because it lets them cast spirit magic without hindering their sorcery, though the magic points would be enough). Bound spirits in animals - sure, not in the current rules but trivial to add to them (pretty much just replace enchanted animal with magic item in the Bind Spirit spell description), and almost certainly something some sorcerers do, because it’s so useful, if not as prudent as a sturdy object. Bound spirits of an artificial nature that have the capacity to move etc - sure, with enough spells and extra enchantments on top of your binding enchantment, why not, if you really want to bring back Nailhead etc. But it never really made sense as an intrinsic part of sorcerous philosophy to me. And the rules always seemed very strange, as in practice the natural idea of what a familiar is (an animal) was disincentivised by the rules, and all manner of cheezy bending of the rules was actively encouraged by example (eg HvE’s ‘well, I first get this creature, kill it and get a ghoul to possess it’). Lets just return the word familiar to the way it is used in the RQG rules - a bound spirit in an animal body - and accept that it’s a minority sorcerous practice, useful but not essential. And I don’t really buy the idea that familiars must be an analogy to the fetch and allied spirit for sorcerers (and even less mystics). Though the idea of a sorcerer developing a presence in the otherworld is a reasonable one, and works for me - neo-Platonism is often mentioned as a useful way to think about RQG sorcery, so we’d be talking about something like the autogeides, or ‘body of light’. This idea was in Sandy’s sorcery system, as Presence, and helped resolve several other issues.