davecake

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.

Minlister is in there, as a subcult of Ernalda. In moderate detail.

Good point, but we are left again with them being a minor subspecies not a separate species, and so should not really be a whole separate type of hsunchen. Or Greg could have just got his biology mixed up.

I think a collective spirit of a community less than 50 in size is usually not powerful enough to have all the abilities of a wyter. But it is probably a fuzzy border - a wyter of a group that dips below 50 may gradually lose abilities, perhaps may not be able to forge a bond it its 'priest' dies, but will not suddenly stop.

Or the Ernalda spell Summon Household Guardian is actually summoning the very weak wyter of a normal household.

Just agreeing that Rathor the White Bear no longer grants magic (well, not to anyone but Harrek), but the Rathori get magic from their direct ancestor bear spirits. There may once have been white bear hsu Chen who got their magic directly from Rathor, but if there were, Harrek would have killed the last of them. It is entirely possible that the Rathori could magically restore Rathor to life - but it would probably require killing Harrek, so don’t hold your breathe for it to happen soon. I personally don’t think the Irdag (black bears) are associated with Darkness, rather they are simply associated with the black bear species (who are crepuscular not nocturnal). Note that black bears (who are dominated by brown bears when they meet) are a definite majority on Earth (there are more black bears than all other bears put together), but with a much wider range - and while described as a minority in Rathorela, there are other bear cults outside this range that do not seem to be hsunchen (like Arakang and Odayla). The blue bears are another story - the Tibetan blue bear is a subspecies of brown bears not a true separate species, so I think the Blue Bear is something else - a Lunar connection seems plausible, but more like the Orogeria connection than something more purely Elemental. Remember all the hsunchen are not restricted to only worshipping their totem god, but have a range of other spirit cults and animist magic available to them, including Ancestor worship

Just wanted to add - I should be clear that I have access to the GoG preview, so I'm informed by that - which references the Gorgorma cult as the major power behind both the rise and fall of the Spolite Empire, and notes Xentha as one of the deities worshipped as part of it. Subere is my own extrapolation, but it makes sense to me. There is no story of Asrelia that corresponds to the Derdromus/Azerlo story - Asrelia is a goddess of the deep Earth, and keeps her treasures, but is never the keeper of the dead, and never imprisons her children. Ty Kora Tek is also the same 'age' as Asrelia, or older. Ty Kora Tek is the ruler of the land of the dead, and there are myths of her imprisoning her children, and marrying a Darkness demon to do so. eg from the Glorantha Sourcebook. And Asrelia is beautiful - Ty Kora Tek, and Annara Gor, and Azerlo, are all described as hideous. The case for Azerlo=Annara Gor=Ty Kora Tek is very strong, Asrelia much less so. If anything in the ViSarudan/Azerlo story, Asrelia would be HerthaElsor, but there are both the normal mutable nature of the Earth deities, and the confusing nature of the Dendara/Ernalda identity, to consider.

I've always thought of Addi mostly as representing something like the power of human collective action, its main symbolism is the tool of the council leader. So I feel identifying her with Glorantha herself is a bit too far.

The official rules answer seems to be 'Any community with a Passion associated with it has a wyter', but that just leads to how big a community does it take to have a Passion associated with it? Especially as the rules seem to have quite a few examples of Passions focussed on a single person, so we then have to ask what counts as a community? In the Hero Wars/HQ1 era a lot was made of wyters of herobands etc. I don't know if this is still going to have the same focus, but it is part of the plot of the Eleven Lights and it is clear that Sartar Magical Union regiments are wyter based (and their Lunar College of Magic counterparts). A hero band in practice could include their magical supporters of various kinds, and everyone who participates in their rites, which could easily make it exceed the 50 persons rough estimate. I think wyters are a natural phenomenon known through out GLorantha, but some cultures (particularly the Orlanthi, the Lunars, and oddly enough the Rokari) may approach them in an organised and systematic way that is very magically productive, others may understand them less well and it is a bit more ad hoc. A wyter with no 'priest' is less reliably useful to a community. I don't think so, though it could act directly for the spear carrier.

I don't know the names used, but I think a substantial part of modern Spolitism is straight out Darkness worship - Xentha (named by the Pelorians Netta) and Subere. Both of these cults have relatively limited Rune magic but a powerful range of cult spirits to draw on, and the way they cults are structured (Subere only allows non-Darkness races like humans to initiate if they are already initiates of another Darkness cult) makes them naturally function like an Inner and Outer cult, first you initiate into the surface Darkness, then the deeper Darkness. That's modern Spolitism though - the Entekosiad makes no mention of deities of Darkness as such, though that doesn't mean proto-Spolitism didn't exist, just Valare didn't investigate it. (I know Netta is associated with Kygor Litor on the Gods Wall, but Plentionius is wrong about many things - Gods Wall IV-5 is Kygor Litor, but Plentonius gets the name wrong) Also, a modern (definitely Carmanian, rather than Pelandan) Darkness based sorcery tradition, focussed on summoning underworld beings, including necromancy. Which of course has suspicious links with vampiric sorcerous traditions. I equate Azerlo with Ty Kora Tek/Annara Gor - after the 'Lodril in the Underworld' story, she remains a goddess of the dead and guardian. I don't think she is generally equated with compassion, she only showed it to ViSaraDaran after he showed it to her, and there are no other stories about her showing compassion. And of course her cult includes necromancy. I think the 'knowledge of all death and suffering' experience of Vogestes in the Gods Third Error story is understood by the Umbarites (and so many Spolites) to be the Darkness equivalent of Illumination. Whether this is 'true' or a post-hoc rationalisation I can't say. I don't know when Umbarism, as a native Darkness mystic tradition, begins - earliest we can be sure of iate first age, though it is presumed to probably be much older than that (late First Age is just when the Dara Happans recognise it). I'd probably tend to link it to Rashorana. Gorgorma is also part of the Spolite tradition. We don't really need to do anything to incorporate her - she was freed by ViSaruDaran at the same time as the benevolent deities, so is already part of the myth cycle.

Particularly notable evidence for this rumour is that one of the Uncommon Regional Activities for Carmania in the Guide is and, of course, if it is going to be anywhere in Carmania, Spol seems to the obvious candidate. I agree - the ancient traditions of Natha, etc are the roots on which Spolitism draws, but it didn't become a real tradition that combines it all together until post-Dawn. Spolitism also really becomes invigorated by Umbarism as a Darkness oriented variant of Illumination in the late First Age onwards. Generally, I think of vampirism as a type of Chaos that began in the West and is mostly sorcerous, though the Nontraya myths of Ernalda might argue otherwise, and I tend to think it either began with Umbarism or came from the interaction of Carmanian Spolitism with the sorcerous tradition brought by Syranthir. But a pre-Time origin with YarGan is also pretty plausible.

I'd love to see one that WIP text with the original God-Learner names in place. But I'd also not take it as being 100% correct - our understanding of the Earth goddesses etc has changed a lot. A lot of them might be now regarded not as deities but as aspects of deity, the way Orane, Kev, etc are now regarded as aspects of Ernalda.

I’ve been thinking that, as most Grimoires/schools seem to based around a single Rune, that if you have mastered the Rune you may develop a skill in the grimoire/school that applies to all spells in that grimoire. So your Debaldan could actually know a bunch of Water spells, your Furlandan a bunch of Spirit spells (mostly anti-spirit spells really), and so on. It doesn’t change game balance much - the power of spells is based on other factors, Free INT doesn’t change, sorcerers are still relatively specialised, but the number of spell effects they can cast is significantly expanded so sorcerers are much more interesting to play.

And not every book mentioned in those 120 volumes is in the Library, and not even Garangian has read them all - sometimes he will have read of the existence of a book in a third party commentary, or it was cited by another, but he has never seen it. That’s one of things that makes it comprehensive. And of course well known books are always being squirreled away, as Jeff says. Finding a book in the index is one thing. It doesn’t mean you can find the book. But knowing the existence of Garangiums Compendium, Desosinderus’ Scheme as well, and knowing of the existence of Restricted Access caches and who might know about them, is all part of the Library Use skill.

The Gencon preview says Gods of Glorantha on the cover, and Cults of Glorantha on page 1. So if you were hoping that it would clear up the confusion, it won’t. I personally think of it as being roughly Cults of Central Genertela - it’s got the great majority of what you need for play that area fully detailed, and the only obvious outlier would be Ygg, who can be justified as a major god of the Wolf Pirates. A few cults will come out in settings books (eg Pavis and Flintnail), and the remaining Lunar material could be among them. For Western Genertela we mostly just need Malkionism done properly (both rules and philosophy wise), most of the cults needed are just variations. For the East generally we need Mysticism beyond Illumination, including martial arts cults (which may not be strictly mystic, but like the Lunars are strongly mysticism adjacent), and while there are a lot of Eastern only deities many can be written up as variants. Carmania might be best done as part of the West, though it also obviously overlaps with Lunar material. Pamaltela we really just need to do it. A bit more engagement with the existing shamanism rules would be good for the Doraddi, but there aren’t any big barriers. As soon as it becomes a priority it will not be that hard. I think this is only likely to happen in HeroQuest Pamaltela material drums up interest.

As far as Ars Magica goes: - magic have more spells they can cast than sorcerers, and quickly improve to the point they can have quite a repertoire. This usually includes a few combat useful spells - they can usually manage quite a lot of utility magic spontaneously, so are interesting to play in problem solving sort of situations. - there is a whole chunk of the game that gives them a wide range of interesting things for them to do in their downtime, between adventure, time. There are lots of choices to make of really, and it really becomes a whole game within a game that interacts with the adventure side in interesting ways. This could be done with RQG, and there are some rules along these lines, but it hasn’t yet. - it’s not the need for sorcerers to focus, or the need for sorcerers to prepare, or the emphasis on most sorcerous improvement being out of adventure, it’s that these aspects are overdone or not developed, or approached in a way that just isn’t fun (there probably are people for whom developing a ‘schedules and spreadsheets’ mini game for your long Duration casts is a kind of fun, but not many).

I’ve had a couple of Carmanian sorcerer PCs, and both were viable fun PCs. The Spolite Necromancer was particularly pleased when that graverobbing ability he’d put on his character sheet was directly used in play. One was in HQ, one using Mythras. Notably I don’t think either would have been a very viable PC under RQG rules.

Yes! I think my main difference with Jeff is that I very much want sorcery focussed PCs to be fun, playable, and relatively on a par with their fellows. I find the attitude that this just will not ever be something the rules try to make possible to be inexplicable - it’s effectively saying in entire cultures the rules will punish you for being interested in their magic and core cultural concerns. I’m perfectly willing to accept that such PCs would be atypical or exceptional for their culture, but that is part of being a PC.

While I’ve seen more Humakti than Jeff, I’ve seen about as many LM than Storm Bull. It is a relatively popular PC cult. Nothing to do with sorcery though (can’t actually recall an LM sorcerer PC). Some people do enjoy playing the scholar. And realism be damned, it is all very well to say that realistically successful scholars are going to be those who devote decades to careful isolated study. PC scholars should be those who explore the unknown, take risks, do interesting things, and succeed (perhaps largely because of the assistance of their more heavily armed colleagues, but gaming is a group activity), and as a result unearth new knowledge and ancient secrets. I know in any game I run with a scholar PC the new (relatively generous) Book rules will see frequent use, with books as regular rewards for PC efforts, to compensate for the (relatively ungenerous) research and training rules.

I totally do understand that. I think the play balance issues with sorcerers are very weird now (having deliberately inherited the same issues from RQ3), it is definitely possible to have a sorcerer that is powerful enough to present play balance problems, but difficult to do that (or even make a character that is roughly equivalent to Rune Lords and Priests in general effectiveness) while still being fun to play. My main point about their flexibility being too constrained is it makes them dull.