davecake

Not sure this is the case even in short world models. There's a back passage in every dreaming head where it opens up again to the sea and responds to those tides. As should be clear, I don't agree that dreams have no connection to the ultimate either. Greg directly links the Seram Ambon point of view - sleep and dreams are states of consciousness that are necessary to master for mystic attainment - with the yoga sutras of Patanjali, that for a long time was his core text for understanding mysticism.

Ogres don't necessarily use garottes like the thuggee (or Thanatari), but no reason why not either. They also can stab from surprise, hunt humans like game for the fun of it, lay vicious traps and scares, seduce people and strangle or bind them in their sleep - ogres are a diverse bunch. I'm sure lots of them torture if they have a chance just for the sadistic joy of it. Cacodemon teaches them to be sneaky (hide, sneak, conceal) and they do enjoy a good ambush. They can use incapacitating poisons if they are lucky enough to have a little Alchemy knowledge (though ogres probably never kill with poison, because they want the meat to be good - they might use incapacitating poison, and then keep them captive long enough to get the poison out of their system, if you want a reason why ogre captives (even PCs!) might still be kept alive for a while). Not quite sure if Cacodemons signature Vomit Acid rune spell is something they hate doing (because it eats away the meat) or if it is like marinating or pre-digesting, and so something they love doing. The really odd thing is that if ogres know that Illumination keeps them safe from Storm Bull Sense Chaos detection and potential similar things, they are going to go out of their way to become Illuminated. Some will join the Lunar religion obviously. But it implies that ogre mystics, who have set out to study mystic philosophy with the end goal of continuing to eat people, exist and may be relatively common. What mystic teachings do they end up with having studied that? They must be weird awful people - and the Thuggee are not a bad comparison there too.

I would love to see a simple interchange format for characters/stats that could be used by multiple tools. It wouldn't be hard at all - just whip up a schema for JSON or something. I would be willing to do coding or other work for this.

I didn't get that impression about ogres at all. The Cacodemon cult gives them a reason to travel from time to time to ceremonies - and it also serves as a secret society that allows initiates to identify each other. This has been true in every Cacodemon writeup. While ogres are certainly capable of violence towards one another, those in the Cacodemon cult seek to have a lot of incentive to cooperate. Cooperating with other ogre groups helps them get magic. And any group of ogres that doesn't move around is going to have to be incredibly careful not to arouse any suspicion from locals. Travelling groups are going to have a lot easier time of it, as long as they are careful not to approach known Cacodemon holy places when others are around, and prey mostly on other travellers. While ogres are not a unified people, and individual ogres can join all sorts of cults (and sometimes may never have met another ogre), the Cacodemon cult does appear to be very common amongst ogres, and to substantially increase their prospects of survival in a hostile investigation (thanks to the False Form and Detection Blank spells). Occasional group rites allow them to learn more magic. And if the visitors are willing to share some of their kills, it is in interests of any group they meet to welcome them (as they get to satisfy their craving for human flesh with minimal risk). And ogres who do travel to engage in larger Cacodemon rites are going to meet other ogres, and so do not have to rely on incest to reproduce (which is going to be alleviate suspicion from their neighbours further). So I tend to think of the Cacodemon cult as often acting more like the Thuggee. Every so often they go off on a seeming innocent bit of travel, murder a few travellers or people who live in seclusion, meet up for some hideous rites, and then return home talking about what they did at the big market, or other similar cover story. Many of them probably claim to be hunters, thus having lots of reason to disappear for a few days. My local groups favourite running joke about Ogres is how the random Encounter table for Prax and the Wastes in the old RQ3 Shadows In the Borderlands supplement had an entry for "Ogres masquerading as traders" - but no entry for traders.... so any traders are always presumed to be ogres.

If the Short World hypothesis was true, and the world of dreams has no link to the Ultimate, there would be many dream magicians and mystics in the East who claim that may have been true when it was the kingdom of Avanapdur, but it seized to be true once Oren Parond, who is a creation of Mashunasen and thus a being of mystic truth incarnate, entered into the dream world, bringing a connection to the Ultimate with them (and becoming Thella in the process). In other words, the world of dreams is a world of falsity and lies (of course it may be temporary reality, but its fault is not being untrue in the moment, but of being transient - Adpara is able to pass through the Gate of Truth, but is destroyed by the Gate of Tranience), but mystic insight and a connection to the ultimate can be found there, only through Thella/Oren Parond/mystic practice. Oren Parond gives Truth magic that can disperse Illusions, but also teach great truth. The multiple approaches to dreams come through different Eastern sages and magicians. Seram Ambon says true mystic knowledge can come from dreams and sleep, as through understanding dreaming and sleep we can understand the levels of consciousness and unify our consciousness into one. It is pure mystic technique. Misool Pulau learnt that Thella keeps us safe in the dream world, and that revering her keeps the dreamer safe. It is a theist technique of reverence for a deity, but it is also about learning the art of lucid dreaming, eventually leading to dreaming within a dream, to reach the deepest level of dream, dreams of a higher consciousness. Engano Palopo taught that dreams can be brought back into the waking world. He creates dream magic. I don't know how we would classify Dream magic in RQ terms. Perhaps as related to shamanism. Dream magic is dangerous - overextending turns one into a dream wraith. Tangan Sorong is opposed to dream magic. He says Thella is just Avanapdur in a new form, and dream magic is dangerous. He says we must awaken from the dream, and this will involve waking the other deities from their dream, instead. Oolen Sorong goes further - he wants to destroy Thella herself, by travelling through the Gates of Dream. They are the Gatherers and they want to destroy Thella, Thellas Net, and dream magic itself. I wonder what their methods are - they seem to be anti-dream magicians who use dream magic only to fight the power of dreams? Instead of being reunited with the gods by waking the gods, we must be reunited by waking ourselves, permanently, by destroying dream. Sula Mangole says that wanting to destroy Thella, and dream magic, is to fight an illusion, and in so doing, fall prey to an Illusion. They are the Dividers and they want to unravel Theya's Net little by little. These would seem to be fanatics of Truth, opposed to dream magic and to dreams themselves. By unravelling the net of dreams, they eventually will reawaken Thella. Of course the Thella dream magicians think these last three are deluded, and they are deluded victims of Avanapdur. I want to keep this controversy real - no Gloranthan product should say whether the Thella magicians or their various opposition is correct.

There is a fairly distinct split in Jonatela etc between the noble culture, which seemed quite Orlanthi and was then unified by Jonat and somewhat Malkionised, and the peasant culture. The Peasant culture has Ernalda and Frona, but the male deities still seem largely animal gods (the Black Bear god, and Bakan the Boar, prominent among them, as well as bull reverence somehow - Urox is still one of the war gods). It sounds to me a lot like the peasant culture has a much larger presence of the old Hsunchen culture, and the Noble culture is much more Theyalan. The Guide says the Hykimi encouraged Theyalan worship among the Hsunchen in the early First Age (I guess while the Hykimi began as a shaman-priest class among the Hsunchen, they were outside the individual clans and had little loyalty to the specific Hsunchen cults), and the Tawari and Enjoreli more broadly embraced it. And then once the Hykimi are smashed the Hsunchen either retreat into seclusion, or become Orlanthi dominated pastoralists. The Tawari seem to have been Hsunchen who transitioned to being pastoralists, but when that transition really happened seems to be question.

I agree. Perhaps it staves off Death - but does not actually cure the injury? ‘Death based healing’ might a temporary thing, but works against causes of death besides injury - poison, for example. It lasts only as long as the spells Duration - which might give you weeks, or months, to find a true cure. Sounds a fun role playing concept. I think they might attain immortality by summoning the spirit of their own Death, and commanding it to leave them alone. Of course if the spell fails (and it may have weird requirements) Death comes calling. They may even be able to do the classic folklore ‘remove the heart and put it in a box, and be unkillable until it is destroyed’ trick.

It is worth noting that Aldryami religion has a deep connection to the Underworld, much more than usually recognised, almost as much as the Uz. From the Guide: “For some cultures, most notably the Uz and the Aldryami, the Underworld is their Otherworld. “ “For the Aldryami, the Underworld is the home of Flamal the Father of Seeds and source of the Primal Plasma that animates all Life.” we think of the Aldryami as being associated with Light and the Sun, which reflects their life. But they are born in darkness below the earth. I think Aldryami shamanism centres around extending their elfsense, their psychic roots, deep below the earth, past the places where plants come into being, past where their roots seek nutrients for life, down to where the spirits that may become plants one day live, ultimately deep down to where all life begins. So elves and underworld cults isn’t as big a stretch as people think. I don’t think we need to think about forest canopies etc too much - trees have half their bodies in the Underworld in their understanding.

Thank you, Joerg, I was reaching for this explanation. So Xiola Umbar is Xiola of Darkness (that it literally means something like Dark Chalana or Dark Carer is plausible). And the link to Umbarism becomes a simple linguistic one. This makes about as much sense as saying Issaries and Lhankor Mhy are not Orlanthi deities, IMO. Especially for XU - I can literally think of no reference, apart from current speculation, to any tradition of non-trolls worshipping XU anywhere. The trolls have four main categories of deity (ancestral, Darkness entities, Darkness animals, foreign powers), ancestors is just one, the others are still troll deities.

I think dreams are totally an Illusion power, and as Illusion is a core rune not particularly associated with any particular deities (though there are deities associated with Dream Magic, which is a specific Eastern tradition). I don't like to think too much about the Short World idea. The Dream magic material in Revealed Mythologies has a lot of controversy over whether dreams are pure Illusion and falsity, or whether dreams can provide insights to deeper Truths, and want to keep that ambiguity - can dreams connect to the Ulimate? Maybe. I definitely prefer the dream world as more shifting and amorphous than like Lovecrafts Dreamlands - except I think Lovecrafts Dreamlands might be a good fit for the time of Avanapdur, dream and reality flowing into one another. Dream magic doesn't only have to be from Illusion/dream deities - its part of everyone. But dreams that cross over into the real world is unusual magic, mostly only for Eastern dream magic practitioners. Who are not all good guys - things can get a bit Freddy Krueger I think. Specters are native Illusion beings, and can be very dangerous. If I ever get around to running my planned East Isles game, this is what it will be about. Dreams crossing over to reality and the return of Avanapdur.

I use it as a term for Death rune sorcery, I guess. But of course sorcery has a very flexible approach to what that means - for a sorcerer mastering a rune means both empowering and removing. It makes sense that for sorcerers, dealing with Death implies dealing with Undeath. And perhaps even some forms of healing.

Oh, absolutely. If YarGan was not sorcerous (and I think he was at least originally Waertagi), he was certainly an ally of sorcerers (the Logicians who are probably Kachasti). Sorcerer have been in Pelanda since at least then. I think the Darkness sorcery tradition probably predates Syranthir, and is actually pre-Dawn. And like most such sorcery, the Magi disapprove of it and won't go near it themselves (but allow Spolite viziers to use it). I agree that it won't work. KaraMoripi is a dark planet, not the Sky as a whole. Dead Entekos. Yes, Netta and Gorgorma and Subere were part of the historical Spolite Empire and modern Spolite practice, but this may not be directly connected to the pre-Time myths, it is pretty malleable . The core of Spolite philosophy is around Velortina and Gerra, but that isn't really the sort of stuff you build an Empire on. Annara Gor and Ty Kora Tek are more or less just the Pelorian and Theyalan names for the same goddess. The God Learners would definitely treat them as the same deity. Azerlo is to Annara Gor is to Ty Kora Tek as ViSaruDaran is to Turos is to Lodril (or, I guess, Vekarthan is you wish to be nitpicky). Xiola Umbar - I do find the name and Umbarism to be very interesting, but it is literally the only bit of evidence I can find that Xiola Umbar enjoys significant worship from anyone but trolls. And the Umbarism name could be explained other ways, such as Umbar being a title of the deity Xiola or something Yes, I think the necessity of human sacrifice is a very primal thing, though, a lot of religions in Glorantha believe in it, it isn't necessarily a link. The central rite of the Black Sun is cooking up a big meat stew full of organs and blood, and creating an illusionary (but permanent until dispelled) monster from it. It does't have to involve the death of sentients, but the results are more useful (the monster is intelligent) is you do.

The community (via the 'priest') can force it to spend POW, and likely will, to defend it. Essentially, the spirit should be willing to risk its life and existence for the community, or at least a substantial portion of its power. And this may have consequences for other things. If a nymph or other genius loci is weakened because it becomes a wyter, the natural health of its geographical area is also at risk. The dynamics of the story for other sorts of wyter will be different. Intelligent elementals might be changing the elemental balance, and attracting the attention of opposing elemental forces. Demi-god children of gods might draw the attention of their parents, and their parents enemies. Artificial psychic constructs might start out weaker, and might attract less external attention but mirror the communities inner tensions more. Ancient heroes will attract their ancient foes, and draw the community into larger conflicts. Wyters, especially new wyters, are a rich source of story ideas, and they can be great stories too - ones that reflect the communities values and choices and what the community wants to be. One of the important Gloranthan principles is that these sort of relationships are not simply symbolic - we see symbolism as external observers, but to the Gloranthans it is a real phenomenon not a symbolic one.

Following up - for a new wyter, for a community of under 50 people - track its growth, and the growth of the community, manually and directly. When 5 new people join the community, it should be an event, something your characters hear about and probably are directly involved in, at least as decision makers or influencers. When someone sacrifices a point of POW to the wyter, instead of to a god, it is a role playing opportunity, even if it is an NPC. I don’t think a new wyter is necessarily weak - it depends on the wyter and it’s origins. If a group of people convinces a nymph to be a wyter, it will still be as powerful as a nymph - but if it has few people yet it the community, and little POW sacrificed to it, it’s wyter powers will be weak. Maybe make the acquisition of new wyter powers something that happens through heroquest. If your wyter maybe has the power to blast trolls with fire because trolls are ancient god-Time enemies of the ancient Vingkotling clan whose legacy you are rebuilding, maybe you have to heroquest and re-enact their God- Time battle against trolls for it to have that power? But about 50 people seems a good point to stop trying to track individuals, and just start tracking the community as a whole, and just linking the wyters health to the community (except where the wyter is directly involved in game events.

Corrected. I can't think any particular reason to associated Suvaria with a pit, and it is in about the right position for Gerra's pyramid or Natha's well.

I think for wyters for groups below 50, play it out. Work out what the wyter is before it becomes a wyter through play. Eg if it is an ancient hero or a genius loci, let the players meet and establish a connection through play. This may be a heroquest, but equally might be normal RQ play. Play out the ritual to create the community and bind the wyter. There is one example on pgs 159-161 of the Eleven Lights, but that is for a magical community (a minor sub-cult, effectively), not a clan etc, the ritual will differ for others (less weirdness, more Orlanth Rex/Dar the King, imagery for a clan). Part of playing that out might include acquiring some magical requisites - for a clan it might be ancient regalia to establish a link to history, for a magical hero band it might be something more esoteric - and also overcoming any mundane barriers (in the example, Lunar soldiers prevent access to the ritual site). And there are choices to be made in terms of the powers of the new wyter, and the organisation of the new community. Perhaps in Glorantha these are usually weighty decisions discussed over weeks, with deep mythic and philosophical arguments - in a game they should involve many PC choices. I hope the campaign book will provide more about the details of both wyters, and communities in general.

I would love a complete set of Wyrms Footnotes, though the Wyrms Footprints collection has most of the good stuff, and The Glorantha Sourcebook takes the core parts of that and updates and expands them. But there are odd things (RQ stats for major NPCs, for example, or the Dragonewt stuff from WF14 that I definitely USED to own) that I still wish I had access too. I do make use of that material sometimes - for example, Jar-Eel, Gunda, and Fazzur Wideread are all NPCs in my game (well, the PCs have not met Gunda yet) and their stats from WF (yes, even the D&Dish Hargrave ones) have been at least inspirational. I loved Tales and have almost all issues - but there are huge chunks of stuff published in Tales (most of their Lunar and Western stuff, especially) that is now too far out of continuity to be that useful. A lot is still inspiring and fun to read. And it remains a great celebration of community creativity and humour.

Natha's Well is also part of the Greater Spol cultural area, though it is on the other side of the Oronin to Spol proper. Entakosiad pg 66 implies that this was where the Spolite Empire reconstructed the city of Hagu.

I think many do not, and the Orlanthi habit of having an ancient hero be the clan wyter is both specific to their culture, and a variant of a common pattern (many clans in more ancestor worshipping cultures probably have an ancient founding ancestor as the wyter. Some of the sorcerous unit wyters are either weird or abstract. That makes perfect sense to me - they are basically practicing a form of demonology, they aren't summoning a spirit with a long history with their community, they are summoning a known spirit from some exotic grimoire, binding it, and building a relationship from there. Some may even just be summoning up a powerful, but abstract, being and trying to give it personality. There are as many different variants on the process as there are magical traditions and types of wyter.

So, I asked Jamie Revell, who worked on this with Greg (and is, of course, also a font of wisdom of the intersection of biology and Glorantha generally) and he said the Blue Bears are a Gloranthan only species. They are a sort of blueish grey and smaller than brown bears at least. But he got nothing more from Greg than that. Short nosed bears (arctodus) exist in Umathela, though they are referred to as 'running bears' in the Guide (which is now believed to be a misnomer, they probably were not good runners at all) The Andrewsarchus known in the Pamaltelan deep jungles are referred to as crocodile-bears, though they aren't really bears at all.

I think yes, or at least often so. But it will happen in such a way that causality is not clear, usually - many of the things that might attack a wyter also involve attacks on community spirit, like warfare or curses. A community could, in extremis, bond with a new spirit as its new wyter if its old one was destroyed, if it did so quickly enough to stop the community collapsing -- but that will change the nature of the community too, probably very deeply. It is also possible for a community to die but its wyter to live. The wyter becomes weaker, and loses its wyter powers and eventually ceases to be a wyter in any useful way, but if it had existence before the community bonded with it as a wyter, it will return to that existence, though probably not unchanged. Many of Orlanthi clan wyters are Vingkotling hero spirits that may predate the community (the Red Cow clan wyter Many-Breath, for example). I think it is an unformed, amorphous thing that doesn't really act (eg doesn't have an INT), usually - but any attempts to magically interact with it fasten it into a form/connect it with an existing being (usually an existing entity with CHA and INT and POW whose POW and CHA increases through becoming a wyter). Many wyters of small communities may begin as a genius locii of the location, for example. Often this naturally happens as the community grows, and the wyter is more or less established before people do much formal magical interaction with it - this occurs quite naturally in an animist society, and may also happen in theist societies in which local heroes etc are included in worship ceremonies. Wyters that have no pre-existence before they become the wyter - those that originate as artificial psychic constructs, for example, which is probably pretty rare outside sorcerous societies, and actually sounds like the sort of thing that originated with the God Learners - are a different story. Yes. Using your wyter as a weapon is generally a terrible idea for most communities - it is greatly upping the stakes in the conflict in terms of what you stand to lose, without much increasing what you gain to win (though it may increase your chances of winning). Even War clans think twice about involving their wyter in conflict beyond its natural defensive role. But regimental wyters etc exist, and for them weaponising your wyter somewhat is almost inevitable - and for magician units, weaponising the wyter is often literally why they exist (for the units of the SMU and the LCM at least). But when the wyter is eaten by a gibbering chaos monster or dragon, or slain by sorcery, usually most of the rest of the unit/community suffers the same fate, so it may often be largely academic. We see this has happened to multiple of the Stonewall Phalanxes (whose wyters were all originally Star Captains, I think) over the years, for example.

FWIW, I don't think the Black Sun has much to do with Spolitism per se (they largely evolved entirely separately), but probably got tangled up with Umbarism in Dara Happa. And who knows what happens in the Hero Wars.

Its unmysticism. Illusion and lies with little meaning. You cook people into a stew to make illusionary monsters. It is like a trollish offshoot of Adpara. Mysticism says the world is an illusion, so the best thing to do is to ignore it and try to find something important behind it. Adpara and the Black Sun say the world is an Illusion, so the best thing to do is to make more Illusions.

Let m Woohoo! Let me just say this, as one of the privileged few with access to the GoG preview (thank you Peter Tracy!) It is good. Very good. The write ups are thorough, and detailed, and packed with Gloranthan detail. Some things are similar, some have changed where needed, some have not changed but have been greatly and usefully expanded. Some are new, and provide detail we have wanted for *decades*. It provides enough detail to play pretty much anywhere in Central Genertela, including Kethaela and most of Peloria. People are going to love it, and the huge amount of work Jeff has put into it is very obvious. I have quibbles, of course, because that is in my nature - but even then, my quibbles mostly arise from me being a bigger fan of Jeffs HeroQuest books than he is! People are going to love it.

Polaris at least has Stasis, and as a war god he is pretty much the god of unit integrity. Like Lhankor Mhy, though, none of his magic actually uses the Stasis Rune. Even Granite Phalanx does not get Stasis Rune magic so it it appears that, once again, Stasis is a rune that might describe their non-magical behaviour but has no magical expression. In fact, he even has more magic that can use the Mobility rune than Stasis, even though he is a Stasis god! Of course, the Stasis Rune be used to help rolls to hold the line and stay firm. But again, we have a Stasis rune cult where the practical consequences of a low Stasis rune are fairly minimal for a PC. There aren't really writeups of any cavalry gods in full that I know of (gods like Hwarin Dalthippa, Yelorna, or Yelmalio, even Elmal, dabble in cavalry as one aspect amongst many - and of course Yelorna and Yelmalio are gods of shield wall/phalanx fighting as well), and most of those (not Yelorna, obviously) seem to express their horse connection through being associated with Hyalor Horsebreaker, who grants Command Horse. Obviously Mobility magic is going to be pretty handy, but making your horse willing to do things (like charge a group of armed men) that it naturally is very reluctant to do seems more important. Kargzant is almost just cavalry only Yelmalio minus phalanxes - none seem to have Mobility rune magic.