davecake

Most Pentans are not Pure Horse People like the Grazers or Char-Un. They worship Kargzant. They do not worship Yu-Kargzant. But they retain the same social structure. So in a Kargzant tribe, they still have the same age related statuses. I think they are a bit misleading though - most males never become a leader or chieftain, many do not even progress to warrior (but instead pursue a different role via a different cult). Probably you can skip steps, but not go back - so you can go straight from Warrior to Elder, but in doing so you accept you will never be a leader or chieftain (which indeed, most warriors will not), but most just pursue advancement by other means and accept that their youthful dream of being a great warrior is unlikely. So probably roughly Rider = lay membership, Warrior = initiate, Leader=Light Son, Chieftain = Chief Priest (hey, Sunspear from Yu-Kargzant!), Elder = Priest, but also often retirement. Polaris is really important as a war deity as well - Kargzant is more about individual ability, Pole Star about fighting as a group, and also (with Mobility and seeing in the Darkness magic) is great for scouts. Most of them fight as Light Cavalry, and Pole Star is very helpful. Only a minority of Kargzant Warriors fight as Heavy cavalry. The Warriors also worship Hyalor as an associated cult, which is great for cavalry charges (in game terms, gets them Command Horse). I don't know if their shamans get to belong to Golden Bow, or not. I think that the shamans among the Kargzant tribes are mostly not associated with Kargzant, but with the other star and fire deities - Polaris, Oakfed, and various star and fire deities. Note there are lots of powerful spirits that are star or Sky beings they can call down. The Polestar mountain is their great centre of shamanic power. Like most shamanic traditions there are heaps of minor spirit traditions they learn to contact as spirit cults once they are shamans.

Source? I’ve only heard directly of him dying once (at Kartolin, so Harmast had to bring him back). I don’t doubt the could have died other times (and been brought back by Resurrection or less hero quests), just never heard of it.

Any current day group of ogres that may or may not exist is a plot line - that the Red Cow have historically been plagued by ogres is common knowledge within the clan. So not a spoiler, other than in the sense of Checkhov noting they have a firearm permit.

Read the Eurmal write up in the Sartar Companion for HUGE info on the variety of Tricksters. The GaGoG write up is not wildly divergent.

Etyries was the first Lunar heroquester to travel to the Green Age, shortly before Valare Addi. But the Lunars were totally not the first people to do so (though they might have been the first, or the first in a very long time, to visit Green Age Wendaria). The God Leaners managed to compile reasonable maps of the Green Age, and other knowledge that indicates they had visited it. EWF magic, including sorcery etc not just draconic, was very interested in the Green Age. Pavis probably visited it to create his Book of the Original Man grimoire. And I think that a lot of Nysaloran First Age heroquesting did so as well. I also think that in a few places it was probably something that was done all along - it seems likely it happened in Esrolia, for example, as they have maps of Grren Age Nochet. I think Green Age heroquesting is the secret core of the Imarjan mystic tradition. See the mention of Green Age heroquesting in the Eleven Lights - it’s dangerous and hard to return from, but not hard to reach if you are following the right path (paths that many religions don’t have if their deity post dates it, but quite a few do).

Yes. If you visit the Green Age and are merely Illuminated, you’ve done well. You’ve had your consciousness broken down to a part of formative proto-reality, and then come back.

FWIW, I think Vingans are able to become pregnant (though like @Qizilbashwoman I think it likely there is a form of reliable contraception, though of course humans are idiots who are not in themselves reliable), and to give birth (and there is even a myth about it). What Vingans don't do is child rear and child raise. They hand the child over for child raising, and probably wet nursing. The former possibly even to a Nandan cultist (and who knows, maybe the latter).

Yes, that is how it works for the Chaos rune. Of course, most clans aren't cursed with ogres the way the Red Cow are, but there can be other issues that cause similar problems. The Moon would be suspect if it was known, but it's not usually known unless it magically manifests, which usually doesn't happen unless there is a Lunar cult to join. You are just a bit weird and awkward. I suspect most such young initiates in Orlanthi society just join a non-elemental cult. A Rune that isn't magically used is just an aspect of the personality, and while you might get a few raised eyebrows a Humakti or sage or trader is going to be treated much the same regardless of what elemental rune they have (though obviously Storm is handier for Lightbringers, concentrating on the core powers of your cult is more common than otherwise so its not essential). And the Moon rune does mean you are more magical, which is hardly going to be considered bad. Plus in Argrath's Sartar, such people might gravitate to being a warlock.

A wyter normally is worshipped as part of the worship ceremony for associated clan gods. For most PCs, the worship of Orlanth or other major clan gods includes the wyter. Usually a person will give magic points like this only to the clan wyter and to temple spirits (that are part of the worship ceremony at the temple). If the wyter uses its power to aid the clan, it becomes weak. The 'priest' (usually the clan chief, for Orlanthi) may ask the community to give it power. This is a special thing, it doesn't happen all the time. This happens as often as the GM wants, and usually is not mandatory but voluntary. I don't POW sacrifice is usually necessary, having the appropriate Passion and participating in worship will do.

I'm happy to assist with: proof reading editing, including plain copy-editing and copy-editing for Gloranthan obscurae. playtesting. Just about any system in theory. assistance with character stats and mechanics. limited technical assistance with publishing

Which is why think the differentiation between the forms of magic was established in the Golden Age, not with the shattering of the Spike. Lots of stories about the confrontations between different forms of magic happen in the Golden Age. So if you want to discover how the different forms of magic are really one: - travel back to the Green Age - if you manage to return and not stay there forever, have ancient secrets of the unity of consciousness that enable that enable you to see the unity of magic - but you are unable to rationally explain it in words, so no one really understands - and those who do understand, perceive you to now be Illuminated, so don't really trust you anyway. - but hey, you have cool magic secrets and powers, you heroquesting mystic weirdo!

Why prior to the Windstop? The Blue Moon isn't the Red, the Blue is the primary tidal power. It has connections to Water that are important to the Pelaskites and the Left Arm Islands. But not as important as Water. The process of her creation is mostly from non-Lunar myth, isn't it? She is the daughter of Gorgorma and the Red Emperor, and Gorgorma has fairly little to do with Lunar myth (though the Red Emperor is probably doing sneaky Lunar magic tricks, like invoking the Dark Moon to be his own Shadow). I like the idea that it is a subtle Solar corruption a lot - or even Spolite. The Empire must be destroyed for the Moon to travel the true Moon path. I wouldn't have quite said she was useless. She does get a quarter of his followers to desert in 1405. And after Sheng is imprisoned the nomad decline is swift. But she certainly can't defeat Sheng as easily as the Red Emperor hoped. I think her effect is to invoke Lunar and Darkness powers so that Sheng can't succeed in becoming the true Solar Emperor - otherwise, I don't think it would have been just Kostaddi that defected. I wouldn't have quite put it like that, but it is something like her being an attempt to turn Sheng's assumption of ancient Solar powers into a way to force him to adopt ancient Solar weaknesses. It kind of marks a point where the Red Emperor stops trying to fight Sheng as duelling Solar Emperors (a game Sheng is winning, and continues to slowly win) and starts using deeper Lunar connections Sheng does not have access to as the core of his strategy. I think the Zolathi are used primarily as a tool to prise the Solar powers away from the Red Emperor and back to Sheng, who magically is reviving the ancient Horse Emperors. Sheng's overt power is all about Pentan Solar magic - the Zolathi are a subtler instrument (as most Mystic magic). And that tactic keeps working for a while, while the Red Emperor has to fall back on Lunar and Carmanian powers that are less overtly powerful but eventually prevail. I think the sacrifices to her are definitely connected to the power of the Glowline. Not a byproduct but a piece of magical engineering - the Lunar Hell and the suffering of those within powers the Glowline, and this a deliberate Lunar magical act to regain some of Darkness powers used by eg the Spolite Empire and make a Lunarised version for Imperial purposes.

I don't think all children strong with the Moon rune are killed. They are just weird and awkward - and very much aggressively discouraged from magically following a Moon path god. But it is not even obvious that someone is strong with a rune if they don't magically develop it. It may become clear only at initiation, by which stage it is too late to kill them. Chaos, though - yes, they are killed if it is know. But it is not usually known. The Coming Storm describes being initiated into the Chaos rune, it is obvious to the initiate but not to others. And once the initiate realises what they are, they are going to shut up about it.

Sure, but it's not the criteria for Disorder. Many deities have the Disorder rune, and Trickster is an important, but not the only, Disorder figure. What this has to do with culture defining heroes like Waha or Pamalt (who are the opposite of what you describe - heroes who act unselfishly to assist others) I have no idea. Right. You are not saying White is Black, just sometimes White really is Dark Gray. There are clearly some connections here and there, but that doesn't mean that all gods who make meaningful change to the status quo have a Trickster aspect. Are they Disorder or Illusion powers? Then the Trickster can't access them through Trickster magic. Can he access them by other means? Sometimes, but there has to be an actual mechanism, like an obscure myth (or at an outrageous lie). Trickster can, for example, find a myth of stealing fire of course, but thats Trickster being Trickster, not Yelm being Trickster. Of course, the Trickster can access some of Orlanths power - they are associated cults. He gets Wind Words I think. But thats not the same as accessing a secret Trickster aspect or Orlanth. They are two extremes. Both exist - the latter most likely someone weakly drafted into the ritual role trying to ritually build it up, the latter is actually a pretty good description of the 'Killer Boy the Destroyer' role, and requires the community to invest magic (and rage and hatred) in charging up the Trickster to be an insane destructive bundle of rage - its ritually turning a Trickster into a magical weapon. Neither are a normal Trickster, who normally lies somewhere in between.

and If you want to go with a definition of Trickster that is so broad that all deities who do something clever and disruptive to change society once are Tricksters, so broad that (say) Orlanth or Waha or Hrestol or the Emperor Mikaday, even though after they did the tricky thing that disrupted society they became culture heroes that defined the normal cultural values of big swathes of Glorantha, then you are effectively redefining the term Trickster to became roughly meaningless, a personal and confusing use of the term that has little to do with the discussion the rest of us are having. Change is not Disorder, Disorder is not necessarily Change. Real change is almost by definition no Illusory (though Illusion may make it appear so). The gods that define the right way to do things (culturally) can't be the same as Trickster, who in many ways is there to demonstrate the wrong way.

Kind of a goddess that gives the benefits of other plants beside the major grains (like Ernalda) and other domestic animals (such as are typically worshipped as sub-cults of Ernalda, Uralda is pretty much is just the Orlanthi version of Eiritha). She is also the major goddess of the womens power in society (like Ernalda). But she is almost entirely concerned with the benevolent, socially useful aspects of the Earth (somewhat like Ernalda), whereas Serdrosa is concerned mostly with more primal aspects, like talking to rocks. There are fewer difference between Ernalda and Aleshmara, than there are between Serdrosa and either. Serdrosa is mostly concerned with the magical connection of individuals to the element, like Kolat for men, sometimes they solve problems by talking to spirits but mostly their powers are outside the main concerns of the deity. But then Faranar has some aspects of Ernalda as well, but only some - she is the goddess of the social role of wife, and much of the social role of womens power. Except Aleshmara is still the goddess of the most important aspect of female social power among the Doraddi - she owns everything, including the tent they live in. So Aleshmara has some aspects of Asrelia as well - Earth as provider of wealth and prosperity - while Faranar is a sort of cut down version of Ernalda governing the child bearing years, mostly. Though most of the pregnancy related powers that fall to Ernalada in Orlanthi fall to Nyanka among the Doraddi. And it all gets more confusing when you consider the difference between the Arbennan of Jolar and the other Doraddi. In most of the Doraddi, Faranar is Pamalt's wife, and Aleshmara his mother in law. Because of the unusual marriage customs of the Arbennan (young man marries older woman, young woman marries older man, divorce when the older one retires to an oasis can no longer easy travel) maybe they sometimes see Aleshmara as his first wife?

I think the Earth Witch, and Kolat and Dehore, etc are exceptions to the general rule that you can approach a deity multiple ways. I think their purpose, their prime role and core identity, is the provide a shaman path and they do not normally make sense as a priestly cult that stands alone. They might end up as a sub-cult of a though - perhaps just a collection of Summon and Command spells for different spirits, along with Discorporation as 'shamanism lite'. Yes, though they generally don't call him Oakfed. All the Lowfires (so also the Workfire and the Hearth) are children of Lodril. Confusingly, considered the same as Enverinus, a part of Yelm.

Roughly, yes. Gata in Genertela more or less the same as Yanmorla in Pamaltela. Genert of course had a whole court with many other deities who died with him. Aleshmara is not the same being, or the same social role, as Serdrosa the Earth Witch. Thinking of her as the Pamaltelan cognate of Ernalda is wrong in the way the God Learners are usually wrong - but its still much more correct than thinking of her as the Pamaltelan cognate of Serdrosa. Look at her runes in the Guide - same runes as Ernalda - Harmony, Fertility, Earth, does not have Spirit (Serdrosa has Earth and Spirit). She has huge temples at the oases. Aleshmara is the patron of yams - and hens, and making huts, and gathering food generally, She is a Blue Moon goddess I thought. Even when she is given some land (the Camp of Innocence) her people remain mostly a marine people. I tend to think of her as her own thing - like XU, but linked to Blue Moon and/or Water powers. Yes. The many chaotic hydrae could be another explanation for the lack of dragons (assuming the dragons actually lost their battle with chaos and became hydrae). Or it could be the many dinosaurs, and the strange way in which time works for both dragons and the Doraddi - perhaps the dragons of Pamaltela are yet to come, evolving from dinosaurs instead of devolving into them. For the moment, I prefer it as a mystery - but I don't think it has much to do with Amuron, who is the Horned God but not restricted to the vision of Man IMO. It's worth remembering that the deforestation of Jolar took place in the context of the First Age elf wars, and that Pamalt was also the god that aided the elves of the Errinorru jungles against disease at the Sunstop. The Aldryami are far from unified, and it seems as if Pamalt was allied to some, but not all, and appears to have no anger against those that stay on the right side of the Fense. I think Pamalt took sides in the elf wars. That's one of those ideas that, whether or not it is canonically true, absolutely someone believes.

I don't believe they are Tricksters. But Argrath certainly has Tricksters that accompany him (currently Elusu, though he goes through a few over his career), and they are very likely Illuminated. I don't know of Arkat having Tricksters, but we don't know much about his companions. Many. Trickster is universal. The Orlanthi do make it easier by providing one socially acceptable role for Tricksters, but other societies do as well (for example, sometimes a type of shaman) and many societies have an 'officially outcast but viable' role such as professional thief, beggar, etc. From Sartar Companion Eurmal write up "Verenilp of Rion (of Danmalastan) who was made of the Devil's shadow and whispers evil ideas into the ears of Malkioni." Note that in some versions of the Lightbringers Quest, Eurmal joins the group when they rescue him from being executed as a criminal in Sorcerers Town in the West. I do not believe Pamalt to have the Trickster nature. Quite the opposite, he is the culture hero who is the opposite of the Trickster. Pamalt is clever and innovative, but fundamentally honest and fair dealing. I think if you make the assumption that every deity who tricks someone once is a Trickster, you will get very much led into error. Orlanth tricks people multiple times - he is not a Trickster. Thief deities are not necessarily Tricksters, innovators are not necessarily Trickster, liars are not necessarily Trickster (though Trickster is all those things). There are multiple gods who have Illusion or Disorder powers but are not Tricksters (though may take some of that social role occasionally) from Zorak Zoran to Donanadar. I'm unconvinced that Bolongo is the reason there are no Dragons. I don't think of Amuron as relating to Dragons as we know them, more like the Serpent-Beast of Hsunchen deep shamanism. It's an interesting speculation, though. Tricksters have the Disorder rune, and cannot be relied on to be consistent. They all have a dark side. The worshippers of Hyena will also eat your carcass if they get the chance. The Raven can help your tribe - by stealing from others, which occasional alienates allies and brings huge troubles. They are NOT predictable, except that at some point it will go wrong. They fundamentally lack consistent empathy, common sense, and compassion - even the nice ones have self-centred or thoughtless streak, maybe that manifests in a way that is intended positively (say, trying to help you in a way that is poorly thought out and makes things worse).

Glorious as the new cults book will be (I’m one of the lucky few who has a preview), it can’t be everything. In general, Gloranthan cults are not strongly centrally coordinated. Individual temples have local traditions, leaders have weird opinions, heroquests and such revitalise old myths, different sub-cults and hero cults have varying importance, and so on. Your temple is probably different. Or maybe you are the to change it ( for example the way they Eleven Lights bring back ancient gods). And some of the old and out of date books, especially old myths, might be how it happens. The cults book will give you the current, standard, ‘correct’ version. The world has variations, diversity - even heresy. If your game wants to ignore it, grab the cults book, and it’s all you need. If you like your Glorantha a little messier, you have plenty of fuel. If there are disagreements about Vinga, Lodril, etc - I like that to mean that there disagreements in Glorantha too.

My very half-arsed wikipedia research suggests that in Fonrit its probably pearl millet that is the grain of Ernamola, on a cultural basis. Probably eaten as a flatbread or porridge, or made into a drink. I'm not sure what variety of millet grows in Slontos.

Aleshmara isn't Earth Witch, or shaman only. She has some great temples scattered about the plains. Though Earth Witch is associated with Aleshmara for sure. To a God Learner eye, Aleshmara is Ernalda (though it's a bit more complicated than that). Dehore is probably Darkness shamanism. The main shamanism tradition of the Sea pantheon is Veredth. GaGoG says Oakfed isn't really shaman only - its the same deity worshipped as Enverinus by the Dara Happans and Furalor by the Teshnans. But shaman only among the Praxians and Orlanthi.

No ones copy-editing is perfect.

Yes, but you didn't say anything about the Poor Fund menu (which is a minor thing), and did publish a book later mentioning potato bread, so it was kind of a stealth change.

I thought millet was native to Fonrit, with Ernamola the Millet goddess being the matched Grain Goddess? It sort of made sense in Fonrit, as tasting awful and thus being an appropriate food for the Veldang slave classes, and being avoided by anyone who didn't want to be thought of as a poor slave who had to eat millet. There is more than one kind of domesticated millet - perhaps the type found in Slontos and the kind found in Fonrit are different.