davecake

I believe I incorporated this into the description of the Brithini in the Guide to Glorantha. Its not mentioned in the main description of Brithini on pg, 405-406, but the section on Western Culture says "Those directly descended from the ancient Brithini average around 5 feet tall and weigh between 95 to 135 pounds."

The timing doesn't work. It takes 99 years to create the 'mini-Shengs' (mini, only in that they are as powerful as Sheng was in 1350, so demigods), he is not able to use them in Peloria until he attacks the Moon. Or maybe some appear just slightly earlier when his apotheosized - but none have appeared by 1428 when his 'brother' attempts the Ten Tests. The First crop of mini-Shengs do include some of his literal family members, though. Absolutely. All about reasserting the nomad supremacy over the walkers and city dwellers.

I think Jolaty is a Kralorelan mystic deity, possibly an obscure one essentially rediscovered by Sheng - it isn't native Pentan, was unknown to the Pentans before Sheng introduced it, and was discovered by him during his 100 years of torture. Oh, and Jolaty -> zolathi is linguistic drift, Pelorians trying to pronounce a Kralorelan term they learnt via Pentans. But zolathi -> dolathi is a change in meaning - the Red Emperor purging the mystics from the Selerian era that had adopted some Selerian ideas, and replacing them with tamer, more orthodox Dara Happan, ones.

Which is why the Red Emperor is the greatest Emperor ever! Duh! You are missing the whole point of the Death of Imarja story, and it ushering in the death of the Green Age, IMO. NOT every god or goddess dies and is dismembered, it’s a very specific myth. You seem to essentially making the leap that because they are both bird goddesses and both involve sacrifice, that Surenslib must be a goddess of mystic cosmic unity too, and I think that is totally backwards, pretty much making assumptions about the deep nature from the iconography. Oh, and while I acknowledge that the theory about the God Learners getting confused about the relative positioning of the Heron Hegemony makes perfect sense, I like the idea there was just a whole ancient heron civilization we knew nothing about over there.

So here is a secret. I have an old document Rob Heinsoo gave me to read when I visited Chaosium in I think 1997 or 1998? that is about the secrets of Sheng/AgartuSay. And most it made it into the Guide, but one bit that didn’t (and that is explicitly described as ‘an SS secret’) is that his First Discipline takes about 100 years to work. Like it isn’t just ‘be tortured like he was tortured’, but you have to do it for about as long. But the real secret? Everyone knows it takes 100 years - but it actually takes slightly yes. Godunya and the Lunars both mess up with this, which is why he is able to beat Godunya and plunder the Moon - in both cases he is assisted by demigods, ‘mini-Shengs’, that his opponents had thought they were pre-empting. My personal theory is that the exact number is based on the time of the rising of Kargzant and Yelm after the Darkness - eventually he symbolically becomes Yelm himself, heir to all the powers of the Sun. But that’s just a private theory, we don’t know why the timing, why he gets all sorts of solar etc powers. some got ‘released early’ when he was apotheosised and gets his star. This may explain some of the timing issues Peter notes - Sheng is putting off some of his big magical confrontations until his demigod Disciples have ‘ripened’.

Yes, and the Selerian nomad followers regard them as worthless things to be plundered.

Yes, there is a reason the Emperor participates in the heron rites beyond simple leasure, it’s because he has to prove his status as ruler in a fully magical way, probably once each incarnation. Surensliba may have roots that go back to the Green age like the rites in the Entekosiad - I’m not sure. But I do not think she is a mystic unity goddess like Imarja - she is a very active, involved, goddess of interaction with the land. note Imarja is symbolically dead and separated into parts - this is the end of the green age and the end of the unity of consciousness. To meet Imarja, you must journey back to then, otherwise you only meet a part. Surensliba is very much alive - you can meet her in ceremonies. She is still right there now, full of life as the marshes of Darjiin are full of life.

I do not think Imarja and Surensliba are analogous. Imarja is understood as a mystic goddess of the unity of goddesses. Surensliba I think is a goddess of actual herons - though as such also the ruling goddess of the marshlands. I do not think Surensliba is a mystic entity.

That is pretty much all I know, and I’ve scoured all the sources I could find. They are all mentioned in the RQ3 Gods of Glorantha Grain Goddess writeup, I think.

The God Learners were always presented as tragic hubris, at least from Cults of Terror. On Elmal/Yelmalio - the existence of Elmal is of course the controversial point that everyone focusses on, but there are quite a few other significant points of development. Early on Yelmalio was identified as being an elf god as well, but it took a long time for how that happened and what it meant for the nature of Yelmalio to get thought about. There was also at some point an explicit identification of the martial sun god (but NOT Yelm) to become associated with Nysalor as Daysenarus, and so identified with Illumination and mysticism (then still thought as mostly separate, the idea that Mysticism is largely Illumination is very late) - I think this was explicitly done (and named) quite late in the piece, but was a firming up on ideas that were very old. And King of Sartar was after Glorious Re-Ascent of Yelm, which was a huge shock at the time. Among many many revelations, GROY had this deity called Antirius, who was obviously how ancient Dara Happans conceived Yelmalio (he got the crap kicked out of him at the Hill of Gold) but was actually not a Son of Yelm, but a part of Yelm. The idea that the Yelm cult themselves didn't really know who this Yelmalio guy was was just as big a revelation about the cult as Elmal, really. Yelmalio became the centre of a spectrum of variations, not really any more 'true' than Elmal. GROY was the official publication that really showed us what the God Learner monomyth was, by showing us just how unfamiliar pre-God Learner (and pre-First Council) mythology was, not just in the names and identity but huge mythic events (like putting a ceiling over Dara Happa!) that we'd never heard about. It was a real shock to a lot of us. That, and the Entekosiad, really kind of divided Glorantha fandom, in a way that I think is still largely present, into fans of the familiar RQ2 playable world, and fans who loved the depth of deep, confusing background that invited endless speculation but that seldom had much effect on actual play. FWIW, I certainly wouldn't describe Elmal and Yelmalio as opposites. They share many attributes with just differences of degree (both are into horses, for example), and a lot of the differences are clearly cultural (like phalanxes). The two really big differences are closely related - loyalty to Yelm vs Orlanth, and loss of Fire powers. Because Yelmalio hasn't really lost his connection to Fire, he just gets it via Yelm rather than directly (as Jeff never tires of pointing out, Sunspear is the best Fire spell in the game, and Yelmalio has some access to and Elmal does not, so from a certain perspective Yelmalios Fire magic is actually stronger). While the normal myth blames Zorak Zoran, it also makes sense that Yelmalio doesn't have Fire power because he acknowledges that he is only a part of Yelm (and not that part), and he could have hung on his Fire power by denying his inferiority to Yelm (and instead treating that Orlanth vagabond as an equal).

Certainly possibly, though I'm a bit more sceptical about Three/Four Worlds based models now in the details. I don't think its necessarily that they must be mastered or left behind, more the divisions between them are seen as immaterial, and all non-mystic paths as largely irrelevant in the pursuit of higher truth. I absolutely did not mean to imply that I think all the Grandmothers, or even a majority, are Imarjan Illuminates. The true Imarjans are more likely to step off that path entirely. The danger is not just that they become failed mystics (though that is certainly a risk), but also that some mystics tend to see the Very Big Picture enough that they may see a few 'minor' issues like a few thousand 'extra incarnations' (for others), a little bit of suffering (or the torture of many) as unimportant consequences, of little 'real', important in their plans. I do not think the various atrocities of the Lunars are because they are failed mystics as such. But then, who can tell if they are failed except maybe another mystic?

I've been thinking about the idea that Imarja is not a cult, but besides a deity acknowledged in other earth ceremonies, it's a mystic tradition for advanced Earth magicians. My idea is that they are generally Illuminated, but do not usually know how to teach Illumination by any simple means (ie in terms of the HeroQuest rules, their tradition does not normally include the 6th power, Ability to Illuminate Others, which is one of the rarer Illuminate powers) -- instead, they recognise Illumination as a consequence of heroquesting to the Green Age, which is something that the Earth mysteries are very interested in. So its not an active proselytising or unified tradition, rather a vein of teaching and writing that runs through the high echelons of Earth worship, recognising that sometimes those who heroquest come back changed in particular ways, and teaching how to reconcile that with the Earth powers. There is much philosophising, some magical scheming, etc that goes on between those recognise each other as Imarjans, but to most Esrolians its simply another layer of confusing complexity within the deep mysteries of the Earth pantheon. So its about spiritual liberation, and a vision of unity of the Goddess, in many ways the very opposite of authoritarianism. Which is not to say that, just like the Lunars, sometimes a vision of mystic insights can't be used to justify terrible acts in this mundane world. The vision of unity of the goddess includes the 'Malign' aspects (eg as Durga, Kali are to Shakti, Maran Gor and Babeestor Gor are to Imarja), and your caring, nurturing Ernaldan may suddenly find that they are understanding of the blood thirstiness of her sister and daughter as never before.

Apologies for the thread necromancy - been meaning to get around to commenting for weeks. In general, I agree with Peter here. Pamalt isn't just the culture hero of the Doraddi, he is the Earth King for the continent. Joergs assumption that Pamalt would be totally unknown in Umathela and Maslo rests on the assumption that Pamalt is just a culture god, not part of the mythic geography. The elves in the jungles will know of Pamalt as the Earth King, and acknowledge him as such, just as the elves in Genertela know of, and give some worship to, Ernalda. When Earth worshippers arrive in Umathela and attempt to contact the local Earth powers, such as the local land goddess, they will find the Earth King appearing when they heroquest, etc - and in the God Learner era the identity of the Earth King and Pamalt was thoroughly established. I think the idea that the Earth cults determine the mythic landscape, rather than the other way around, is flawed - ultimately the same sort of error as the Goddess Switch - if the Earth King (or Land goddess, etc) is there, the Earth Cults will learn of it. Sure, that version of the Pamalt cult will be different, but we are talking about Pamalt as Earth King - even if he, like Gata or Flamal, sees worship more through the religions of other deities, he will still be significant. And this will be separate to his role as culture god of the Doraddi - but probably not 100% separate. And Pamalt is known to the Fiwan, too. There are plenty of myths of Pamalt interacting with the Fiwan known to the Doraddi, and I am pretty sure it goes the other way too. Also, the hostility of Pamalt and the elves may be a little overstated, or at least oversimplified - it is true that the Doraddi cult deforested the plains, but this mostly happened in the First Age, and was just as much (or more) a result of the inter-Aldryami wars of that period. The truth may be Peter asks what is Pamalt like in other areas. In the jungle, I think he not only is known for his power over Earth spirits, but as a shamanic means to interact with foreign powers (often via shared reverence for the Earth) - eg elf and fiwan and the pygmy humans, all of whom know how to contact the Earth King through shamanic means, may come together as part of Earth ceremonies. He is not much actively worshipped, but interacted with by shamans regularly. There are also many stories of how the animal god interacted with Pamalt, mostly which end in friendship and them doing each other some favour - in particular, usually the animal gods lend Pamalt some assistance (often by providing him with a tool or weapon) when he fights Vovisibor. And he in turn assists them, usually by settling a dispute or by interceding so a foreign power can solve an animal god problem. In Umathela, among humans he is known, but generally worshipped as a major deity that is part of Earth worship, as Flamal or the Land goddesses are in Genertela. He may also provide shamanic secrets like an expanded version of the Earth Witch tradition. The Aldryami may invoke him in ceremonies about their rulership over the land. In Fonrit. as I've argued previously, Pamalt is known widely, and more or less always has been. Amongst the Garangordites, he is acknowledged but mostly only in word - he is considered to have a role as the origin of sovereignty, but his ways are outdated and suitable only for the (rural, uncivilised, and derided) past, and authority has passed to Garangordos - and besides, the very urbanised population have little interest in the pure powers of the elements, but mostly stick with deities of professional specialisation. Among the Pure Doctrine Freedomists of Katele etc, a very rigid formal version of his cult exists - where Pamalt rulership in Jolar etc works mostly through long, involved, talking through decisions until some form of rough consensus is found, and when that cannot be found tensions are often resolved by dissenters simply leaving, in Katele it has become complex, bureaucratic, and a decision may be arrived at as much through adroit manipulation of procedural rules as through real consensus - or a frustrated leader resorts to more direct means, and finds justification later. The magic of Pamalt remains powerful, however, and magicians have rules for the use of a big hierarchy of powerful earth spirits in particular, and may resist Garangordite aggression via invoking powerful Earth spirits in juge ceremonies. And in Fonrit generally, Pamalt as the Earth King is also known as an ancient shamanic tradition, especially among the Agimori population, but seldom rises above the level of folk tradition among the rural poor (and is actively suppressed by the Glorious Ones if it does). There may be occasional places where it rises higher for a community that has thrown off Garangordite rule, and some places where it (like voudou traditions in Haiti) forms the core of a 'secret counter government', which sometimes brings them into alliance with darker powers also worshipped in secret shamanic rites. All of these things can be seen as a corruption or misunderstanding of the true way of Pamalt, but that's Fonrit for you.

In my (Red Cow) game, Ragnaglar, though no longer surviving as a separate cult, is a sort of secret sub-cult of Orlanth, a hidden Thunder Brother, able to receive magic from Orlanth worship because the kinship cannot be denied. This may only be the case for those clans, like the Red Cow, in which occasionally ogres are born to human bloodlines. The ogres in the clan go through a sort of perverse initiation that starts out resembling Orlanth initiation until, they are driven from his hall. I admit this is largely for play reasons, so ogres aren’t immediately obvious as that one guy who has no obvious magic of Orlanth or other public deities,

General Guidelines - - any NPC that is given a proper description (not just a name in passing) is probably at least as good as the starting PCs, and probably better, if you need stats for them at all. - The Runes that are in the NPC description are all at least 70%-80%, and if they are a Devotee will be at least % in their cult runes. - any character that is a Devotee in HQ will be a Rune Lord or Rune Priest at least in RQG, and will have the appropriate advantages and the required skills at at least 90-100% or more. - their keyword is roughly equivalent to profession in RQG - give them the skills they need for that profession at a high level. Thane is roughly Noble. - HQG talks about Lunar Phases - any character that has a Lunar Phase will be a member of a Lunar specialty cult (usually a Seven Mothers sub-cult), and will be able to use their Moon Rune in place of another rune to cast magic (in addition to normal Moon magic), and probably has access to an extra spell or two either via that means eg Deezola might be able to cast some Earth spells, using her Moon rune in place of Eartth) or via one of the existing runes (eg Yanafals Tarnils can cast True Sword using their Death Rune or using their Moon Rune as their Death Rune if it is higher. Until we have the RQG writeup (well, some of us have access to the GenCon draft, if anyone wants to summarise) that will do - you should be able to wing it from the Pavis writeup.

The Purification Rune was a creation of the God Learners/ Zistori, and may have been more a goal than a reality. Or if they did succeed in creating meaningful Purification Rune magic, would it keep working after the fall of the God Learners?

To the extent that the Masloi are a sea-going foreign culture, the local land gods are of limited relevance. They are, however, no longer a sea-going foreign culture. Pamalt is about as relevant to them as, say, Genert was to Fronela - a significant mythic figure that mostly appears as a foreign power. Only Pamalt isn't dead. Likewise. The historical connection is much more recent - but the Pamalt pantheon are still related to some nearby peoples and geography. No, his role was explicitly overridden in a way that requires explanatory reference - the myths of the Garangordites are explained in terms of the Pamalt cycle. In other words, its much more like the role of Jernotia, Orogeria, Lesilla, Antirius, etc in the Lunar heartland. Or saying the Kodigvari are unknown in Esrolia. That the Garangordites felt it necessary to explicitly recreate the divine structure of the Pamalt cycle makes it clear that the Pamalt pantheon was known in Fonrit prior to Garangordos, and regarded as vitally important - and that the Garangordites reference Pamalt myth to explain why certain acts were taken ensures it is remembered. And since we discussing earth and land deities, the most significant deity outside the Glorious Ones and Ompalam is probably the millet goddess (others are locally more powerful, but less widespread). It is also worth noting, in modern Pamaltela, the existence of the Pure Doctrine Freedomists who worship the Pamalt pantheon and explicitly acknowledge them as the ancestors of the modern Fonritian peoples. So there are literally purist worshippers of the whole Pamalt pantheon in Kareeshtu. It is certainly true that Fonrit was ruled by the Vadeli or Artmali, but it also contains many dark-skinned people who mostly believe themselves to be descended from the Doraddi. It is true that in Maslo and Umathela the Pamalt pantheon are mostly known as enemy pantheons - but they are still the original earth gods of the region (the gods of Umathela and Maslo are explicitly not native as part of their mythology), and known at least partly for that. They acknowledge the local earth goddesses just as the Seshnelans acknowledge Seshna Likita and the Lunars acknowledge Oria. Not worshipped, but known. Remember, in the Tishamto era the Doraddi pantheon was a lot more civilised, and included contact with the coast. The Artmali were far more sea focussed, but there are still Tishamto era coastal travel (think about why one of the Esiti is the sea deity, even though the modern Doraddi have almost no contact with the coast). And also that the Artmali and Vadeli empires included huge numbers of Doraddi slaves, who retained their own worship - particularly of Balumbasta. Anyway, this is all a relatively ridiculous aside because you wanted to quibble with one offhand comment about how some aspects of Doraddi myth must have confused the theyalans. The Doraddi pantheon were very clearly known to the Fonritians, and both the Theyalans and Westerners had contact with the Fonritians (as did, not that matter, the Masloi and the Umathelans).

I think expanding to Prax and Pavis is a bit of an obvious next step. Rangers work well as Praxian warriors given the Praxian mount feat and a little tweaking, and I think a transformation of the Druid class into Shaman would work pretty well.

The Trickster class bugged me a bit. It was a fine implementation of ONE aspect of the Trickster, and not necessarily that core an aspect, and excluded many others. It seemed to have no Illusion powers at all, really, for example

I would have done a LOT more of what they did with the Rebel and have some Talents that you can only take if you have the appropriate personal Rune, which by default trends you towards a cult. Take a generic class like Warrior and add a bunch of Talents and abilities and Feats (some of which are likely generic) that you can only take with the appropriate rune, and you have a class that could be Orlanthi, Argan Argar, or Elmal depending on your Runes. Or something like cleric Domains applied much more widely. I also found that there was a strong tendency to make the new classes more complicated than the old ones, and I'm not sure that worked that well. If you want very complex specific characters, quite possibly dual-classing is a better mechanic for that. If felt like 13thAIG was 13th Age advanced. I wanted it so that if you wanted to play a simple straight forward Warrior or Barbarian, that your character was just as 'Gloranthan'.

Joerg - the Pamalt pantheon are known in other parts of Pamaltela, not just the southern plains, even if they are not the primary deities, including Fonrit. And while the Theyalans never tried to conquer Pamaltela as the Middle Sea Empire did, they had trade contact, etc. Admittedly there was never the same level of contact as the Six Legged Empire trying to conquer them etc. The God Learners certainly tried to interpret the Doraddi deities analogously to the Theyalan Earth pantheon. David

Pamaltela has grain goddesses (though the plants are not cereals). Curu is the grain goddess of squaa, the main grain in Tarien. Nomiama is the grain goddess of bloodbean, the main grain in Jolar. Sedaia is the grain goddess of lagniappe, common in Kothar (and I think somewhat like a lentil maybe? Made into patties, anyway). And Mwara is the grain goddess of sweetgrass, a plant from Zamokil (that is not, in fact, a grass). They are friendly, just their role is different because Pamalt is still around. And Pamaltelan religion cares a lot less about trying to construct consistent genealogies of their deities, which must have confused both the theyalans and the Westerners.

While I'm at it, anyone have any info on the magical units of the Tarsh Exiles military from Dragon Pass, besides what is in Tarsh In Flames? That is the Old School, Moon Haters and Baron's Friends units in particular. Which Baron? Mularik? Tarsh In Flames implies the magicians of the Old School are anti-Hon-Eel Earth cultists, and the Moon Haters are tribal warriors (which doesn't really explain why they are magicians). Also, the Twins - the Exiles hero unit - the twin children of Arim returned, or something else?

Thank you David, I had forgotten about Tarsh in Flames, and somehow missed it on my initial scan. I've found my copy now. I notice it mentions a planned Tarsh Liberated! book to be release by Issaries Inc. set in the 1630s. I wonder if any trace of that project survives, or who might have been working on it?

The soul and the shadow are different things. It is the lower soul, yes, the part that goes into the underworld - but it is different to Kazkurtum, the shadow. Bijiif isn't particularly tyrannical or arbitrary - just impotent and dead. Kazkurtum, the shadow, is the absense of rule. In Lunar parlance, the Nysalor part would be the Seventh part, the greater consciousness.