davecake

I suspect a lot of Chaos heroquesting consists of charging into other people’s heroquests and messing things up. In particular, chaos heroquesters are often the subject of the Summons of Evil. What that experience is like from the other side may be the core of chaos heroquesting.

Most of these I think are useful to consider as symbols in use by someone, and possibly many people, but not Runes in the same sense the core Runes are. If you are trying to write rules that incorporate the idea of Runes, probably best to ignore them for the most part. But if you are looking for mysterious symbols, decorative motifs, your characters tattoo, etc - knock yourself out. Eg compare the way the Sartar Rune has been used in Moon Design products -it’s known, it’s important, it’s probably not a separate affinity or the RQ equivalent.

I agree. There have been a few treatments of 'here is how to run a heroquest' in generic terms, and its good to see some consensus emerging, but a big book full of heroQuests is something that hasn't bee done and would be really great. Especially if the quests were offered with a few variations (including suggested local variations or practical issues, different enemies who may appear, etc), a few suggested game system specific issues, to make them reusable as game supplements. I tend to, as much as possible, make it game system agnostic or multi-statted at this point. We have 3 very different game systems that could all use such a book a lot.

Personally I think the Basmoli still in Pamaltela still have lions (and believe Basmol is absent, but not dead). I think they are warriors and hunters who hunt with their lions, more like Telmori than like Praxian beast riders.

From my own notes on the Black Sun, Adpara, etc. The Black Sun can be understood from a theist point of view as the Shadow of Yelm, and also as a deity of essentially sacrifice misunderstood - the Blood Sun w a disastrous cult that sacrificed real Life for temporary power, the Black Sun has reformed that to become the sacrifice of real Life for Illusory Power, which is sustainable but still nonsense. From a mystic point of view all Illusion cults are a misunderstanding. Mystics preach that the entire world is illusion, so all paths to power are misleading. Illusion cults misunderstand that to believe that if everything is Illusion, trading real power (such as Life, freedom, etc) for Illusionary power is a good bargain. Avanapdur is the ultimate expression of this - if all is Illusion, then Illusion is All. Note also that the Black Sun cultists are descended from those followers of the Solar Storm who saw its enlightenment as failure. The Kingdom of Ignorance is founded on rejection of mystic insight. Adlanari, the Black Mirror or Black Moon, is the power of Illusion as it is now, after the downfall of Avanapdur, mostly constrained to dreams. They offer comforting Illusions, in the world of dreams but sometimes manifest in the waking world, including servants, lovers, dead children or parents or lovers returned, etc. Their rites to manifest something in the waking world, like those of the Black Sun, require sacrifice of something real.

To look behind the curtain a little.. The terminology antigods is very likely something picked up from the book The Myths and Gods of India, which is recommended in the Guide bibliography as a mysticism source. Now, I’m by no means suggesting that the term is not modified from there in its Gloranthan use, but it’s still helpful in interpretation. In there, the term antigod is used as a translation of asura (sura meaning god). The comparison to the Gloranthan terms Parloth and Adpara is obvious. A quote: “The antigods are, thus, all that draws man away from the path of realization. They are those powerful instincts and attachments which keep man within the power of Nature (prakrti), prevent his progress, and obscure his intellect. The division of gods and antigods need not therefore be clearly drawn. In the general evolution of man, a few antigods will become gods, while some divinities will be reduced to the status of antigods. The principles that are gods on a particular path of spiritual development may be gods on another.” As with the adpara of Glorantha, the majority of the asura are listed as classes of demons (in the Mahabharata) but there are individual asura who are worthy, such as Maya the architect of the Asuras, and teacher of magicians, who becomes a devoted worshipper of Shiva. I recommend this book very highly.

But its not actually correct - they are descended from Gebkeran its true, but the Sheradpara are considered in some cases to have severed that connection. At best it is like claiming that Humakt is an Air god - true in some very specific ways, but incorrect in most of the ways that matter. At worst it is like claiming sons of Orlanth as being Earth deities because of their mother. Descent is not identity. And worse, the same reasoning classifies every God (Parloth) as being of Day and the Above, even though they have quite explicit other portfolios like Animals and Plants (including those that are explicitly tied to the land), which is even more misleading. So I'm prepared to take the chance that by merely clarifying that which is pretty misleading, I'm adding something, especially as think I do add things later in the same post. If you are trying to answer the question directly, answering it as if a few thousand years of theological development and history had not occurred is not the most helpful approach, IMO. The ontology of antigods is not the same as their ancestry, except in certain simple ancient myths. The theory of their patrimony is less important than how the term is used (especially when you get into later myths like that of Govmeranen, who is either the son of the anti-god Dogsalu, or the son of anti-god who became a god, but is certainly not an anti-god himself). I think that is a valid way to think about it, even though the myths themselves all claim that the three noble magical antigods all learnt their core powers before they left Vith's house, and only developed them elsewhere (that is to say, its literally wrong in the myths, but there are often useful insights to be taken from a euhemerist approach. But the question of how exactly we reconcile very primal myths is both arguable and largely irrelevant to, as you say we should prioritise, answering the question asked. Is the issue that the ancient peoples contested with Vith, or that the other methods of magic were known by the peoples of the East as their mythology developed and mysticism proved its superiority to other paths? How would we even try to definitively answer that, and what difference would it make to the modern use of the term anti-god anyway, given that the idea of anti-god seems to have clearly developed past the point of simple genealogy by the end of the Green Age/Creation Cycle anyway? You'd prefer to base discussion of modern Gloranthan cults only on myths about a distant time before individual human consciousness? (though personally I'd claim that mystical introspection begins with Oorduren, if we choose to take Eastern mythology as a linear record) Why? By focussing only on the genealogy of the gods and ignoring other later myths and development in terminology, it you are doing the opposite - you are trying to define terms by the starting point of their theology, not the end product. It comes across somewhat as trying to define Eastern mythology the way simple theists would see in (in terms of genealogy of the gods) rather than the way mystics would see it (where a lot of it must be understood as metaphor for consciousness, quite explicitly, and the myth records the development of mystic thought). And I'm not sure what is the point of that - you kind of end up with what Eastern myth would look like if mysticism wasn't central to it. I agree, Orthodox was a bad choice of term, as its at least doubly overloaded in that context. Un-illumined, plain, simple, or strict sorcery would all be better terms? Martalak would be identified with eg Zzabur by the God Learners, but to the East Islanders he is simply the god of plain sorcery that does not perceive the mystic truth that sorcery conceals. Similarly Festanur might be identified with Bamat (Pamalt or Amuron) but practically is simply the great shaman. I don't think Ombardaru is even significantly thought of as the god of the North at all, but simply as the god of the indigenoous low priesthood. And of course, later again in their conceptual/mythic development, we seen that shamanic (eg Ven Forn) or theist (eg Mairnali) can be integrated with mysticism as long as you recognise its illusions. Perhaps yes - certainly Ven Forn and later Ven Fornism gives us the idea that the followers of Vith would often also investigate other forms of magic.

Kahar is not an anti-god. I think there are probably a few other exceptions - Daliath maybe? The ancestors of the Ludoch? Peter does a pretty good job of making the case that Tyram was known to the Orlanthi in the first age (which certainly could have been any time from the Unity Council on when they gained knowledge of Dara Happan myth and begun integrating it with their own). That the Belorden Fragments only mention him as the father of Bes Gezos doesn't indicate that Tyram was an unimportant foe - if there was the myth of Orlanth fighting Tyram, so it makes sense that Orlanth would later meet the son of a deity whose father he had destroyed earlier. Bes Gezos could easily be a part of the Sky Terror that separated when he fell (like as Yelm did). Agant Farailtion is somewhere in the West - probably in the West of Genertela, roughly speaking between the Nightwood and the Sea. It is probably, as we know it today, a God Learner combination of three or four myth cycles: an Orlanthi myth about fighting a sky demon, possibly even Ragnaglar, a Pelorian (probably Yuthuppan) myth about an evil god that invaded the Sky and drove Dayzatar out; a (Western? Ralian?) myth that interacts with the Lightbringer Quest about a fallen Sky Demon in a chaos blasted landscape; and an Eastern myth about Akorgat the demon that invaded the Sky during Avanapdurs reign. Some of these myths were understood to be related in the First Age - probably the Akorgat myth was not connected to the Tyram myth until the God Learners.

Anti-Gods are not *necessarily* Chaotic gods. But Chaotic gods are almost certainly anti-gods. No, the anti-gods are what people inside the Eastern Isles consider to be gods incompatible with 'good' mysticism, where goodness is somewhat arbitrarily defined. And many of them are gods of Night and Below, or Illusion and lies, etc. But importantly the Anti-Gods includes both gods who seem perfectly good and benign (the 'Noble Wrongs') other than being associated with a non-mystic magic path (eg the gods of orthodox sorcery and shamanism), and gods who embody a magically effective but 'wrong' approach to mysticism, both of which categories often have nothing to do with night or the below (though not always - the leading non-mystic shaman traditions of the East Isles are necromantic) Tyram is not an Eastern name, but can be considered for most purposes to be the same as the Eastern anti-god Akorgat (both have the title 'Sky Tyrant' and lead the Chaos invasion of the Sky). The very Dara Happan focus of the Tyram myths as they appear in the Guide, but the mention of Orlanth, makes me think he was originally a Dara Happan or Pelorian deity, a minion of Kazkurtum or similar, but merged with Orlanthi myth - maybe by the God Learners, maybe earlier. Probably part of Yuthuppan myth. I don't think Tyram is a construct invented in whole by the God Learners. The story about Vakalta in hell seems to be part of the same cycle (not sure if Bodastu is an Eastern version of Vakalta or not). Akorgat is also the founder of a 'wicked' martial arts tradition, one that only uses killing blows. I agree that the Uz worship of Basko is not chaotic. But it is Illusionary (and as such a broken misunderstanding of mysticism), and it is *allied* with Chaos magically, and so is problematic. The Uz worship of Basko is not chaotic. However a worshipper of Tyram might be able to access Basko's magics because of what the God Learners did. I think many East Islanders would argue that the Black Sun lost its power in the Earth (and its alliance with with Chaos) when Avanapdur fell. Now we can tell the difference, and we know its just Illusionary. I think quite possibly the Black Sun was manifest in the Sky during the reign of Avanapdur, but now it is cast down and disproved it is known in the East Isles as the Black Moon and found only in the dream world. And during the reign of Avanapdur it was, as Sandy says in Forgotten Secrets, a giant all seeing eye in the sky, all pupil=hole in the sky. Now you only see that in nightmares (and when I get around to running my East Isles game, it will be about stopping its return to manifestation in the waking world)

Definitions vary - sometimes a grain is a defined as a small, hard seed, sometimes the definition includes 'for human consumption'. Either way, linseed and sunflower seeds are also grains, but not all seeds are grains. And that is totally correct. Chieftains and kings are sort of orthogonal institutions in some ways - the chieftains are the norm, are all Pamalt cultists, and are usually semi-nomadic. The kings are a lot fewer in number, are associated with a specific territory so pretty sedentary, and are usually also chieftains (but not always). A chieftain is associated with a group of people, a king with a place, and mostly the chieftains make agreements on behalf of their people with the kings. Its not strictly hereditary - kings come from certain lineages, but it can be any man from within those lineages, and the women choose which one based on merit. There are similar rules for a few other roles in Doraddi society (often because they are mythically outsider). Pamalt is both Chieftain and King - he is both selected by the people, and has power over the land. Yeah, lineages are ancient - I think all of them are descended from the Agi. A modern lineage would probably have to be founded by one of the few remaining Agi choosing, after all this time, to drink water, become mortal, and die. There are clearly some lineages that are now very rare. Those are good questions. I suspect in Pithdaros they are carefully cultivated with some difficulty. In Prax they may have died out or may persist at certain oases?

To reply to your pedantry with more correct pedantry, Joerg, what you mean is no cereals. Pulses are legumes that are grains. It is also possible that some of the staple grains of the veldt are psuedocereals like amaranth, quinoa or buckwheat. Bloodbean in Jolar (definitely a legume), Squaa in Tarien, Lagniappe in Kothar - I don't think we know much about Squaa at all, I think lagniappe is regularly made into patties. The staple food (the one that has a 'grain goddess') of Zamokil is sweetgrass, which despite the name isn't a grass (but is sweet), so sounds like a psudoceral type crop. There are other staple vegetable foods, or course, but they aren't grains and can't really be stored long term. Yams, probably plantains in some areas. Yes. But also, if it is the seat of a king (a chieftain is not always a king, and a king is not always a chieftain, but usually a king is also a chieftain), then relative immobility is common and symbolic - kingship is tied to land, not people. I agree that it is best not to take that too literally. The key point for Doraddi culture isn't 'backwards' it is 'we tried that'. They don't reject civilisation entirely or think of themselves as retrograde - they think of themselves as having tested various civilised ideas and found them wanting, but they are not afraid of innovation in the abstract (though it often seems that way). But if someone comes up with a new way of making something etc that seems useful, they'll try it (and there are probably some aspects of Doraddi society that are quite sophisticated).Hon Hoolbiktu, in particular, was quite an innovator, just many of his innovations were put aside once they were no longer at war. The symbolism of the chiefs special seat is the sacred mountain Um. I have this from Greg (we chatted about it quite a bit, some years ago). Its certainly not implausible that some chieftains have ancient heirlooms to sit on, but its unrelated to the symbolic/magical function of the chiefs seat. The chieftain lineages are ancient, though - I think mostly they go back to the founding of the lineages at least mythologically - so I bet some would be happy to demonstrate their links back.

Though neither Temela or Pastact seems to have made it into any modern source (and I don't think any public ones), so not sure where either might be, or if there are equivalents in modern canon.

FWIW, while as a Glorantha nerd long form write ups of stuff I've never seen a long form writeup of before really appeals, as a player and GM some of the terrible enemy gods are fairly urgent and I don't want to have to wait an extra year or so! A wider variety of protagonists is great, but a game needs a good supply of antagonists too! I'd rather see a bit more division by regions. Eg having one or two cults from eg Kralorela or Pamaltela, as in RQ3, wasn't that useful - you still didn't have enough to run a campaign without having to do a lot of work yourself, so I'd rather wait and have a whole bunch of material for a particular region drop at once. (of course, as someone who owns all the RQ2 and RQ3 and HQ stuff I'm sure I can wing it, but that isn't going to be true for everyone)

While I think this is true in the generic case, Jakaleel, whose primary shamanic connection is to a fourth world that hovers stationary in the air, is always going to be an exception that is outside that system, the question is how. I've seen nothing that says to me that Jakaleel necessarily has connections outside the Underworld, as all her other connections seem to be to Darkness or the dead. That said, their spirit travelling ability might be cyclical too.

Maybe, it depends on climate a bit - I think food storage pits are only really viable in fairly dry climates, so they wouldn't be great in a lot of Kothar. The basket is the canonical food storage for a household or individual - light and easy to carry, and is the symbol of Aleshmara. I think they get pretty artistic too. But I agree that the oasis people are going to want some grain storage, it is probably a duty of kings to ensure this is organised.

I don't think the chairs for their chiefs are a remnant of a Golden age when everyone had chairs. And I don't think carrying the chairs around is really an issue - sometimes the chiefs throne is immobile (cut into an old termite mound, for example), sometime it is just a stool that is easy enough to get someone to carry. Rather, the chief sits on a chair because it is a symbolic cognate of the holy mountain Um, and everyone else doesn't sit on a chair (or sits on a lesser chair, like a bench or a log or something) because they aren't the king.

Several of the Seven Mothers were experienced magicians before becoming Lunar Immortals, it doesn't necessarily follow that they can fully share those powers with their followers. But sure, if Jakaleel tradition is such that it has general access to the Spirit Plane, fine. In game terms, I guess that is the Dying Phase acts as the Spirit Rune for purposes of accessing the Spirit Plane, not just Lunar spirits. Which would make spirit travel problematic on Dying or Black moon days. It sounds as if the Jakaleel tradition has essentially no friendly non-Lunar spirits in any case. In contrast eg a Red School of Masks shaman might have the Spirit Rune and their Lunar phase replaces a different rune, thus having no limits to their spirit travel outside the Glowline.

You can always, as a shaman, interact with a spirit should you happen to meet it. Not every shaman (though the majority) can travel freely on the Spirit Plane, so some may have to encounter a spirit in the physical world to interact with it. The big examples here are Kygor Litor and Aldrya shamans, both of whom travel into the Underworld rather than the whole Spirit Plane. They also both 1) in RQ3 can only bind certain spirits to their fetch and 2) in HQG, probably use a rune other than the Spirit Rune (Darkness and Plant respectively) for their magic. Even if a shaman does have the ability to travel freely on the Spirit Plane, the spirit plane is a complicated and dangerous place and getting to the part of the Spirit plane where a particular type of spirit can be contacted might be too difficult for most shamans to attempt, especially if it is a hostile spirit. Jakaleel shamans may have some of these restrictions, I'm not sure - can they freely travel to non-Lunar parts of the Spirit Plane?

I don't want full NPC stats a la HW back, but I would like to move towards a bit more detail than current HQ2. Even just a list of a few abilities the character is good at, a few notable weaknesses. Even if they are not used to set difficulties, they are still useful to explain results (eg if you failed to overcome them, mention their strengths, if you beat them soundly describe it as exploiting a weakness), and while I certainly think narrativist concerns overrules simulationist ones, a little consistency and verisimilitude can improve any narrative that has some realist aspirations.

While I don't miss the AP rules, that always seemed a bit weird and confusing to me, I do miss that the AP variations, edges etc gave you some interesting variables to make combats a bit more interesting and varied. I liked that you could have combats that might go fine, but where much riskier. Or Combats that you knew you would probably win, but would take a lot longer. And so on. I uncomfortably have begun to feel that while HeroQuest succeeds at its goal of making a rules set that can tell an incredibly wide variety of stories, and model a wide range of types of conflict, using it to run combat scenes has begun to feel like having a tiny special effects budget - I want combat to be quick (and have moved much more towards Simple Contests) because if I take longer, it becomes more noticable how generic it often is.

I find it helpful to have abilities in this format, even if I don't necessarily keep to those ratings very strictly. It is important to note that we hopefully have a few players who play HeroQuest, but not RuneQuest etc, and so don't immediately have a good sense of the 'attributes' of any uniquely Gloranthan creatures. Without having a sense of scale of how challenging HeroQuest creatures etc are supposed to be, it can be quite difficult. I think this is a flaw in the beastiary pat of HeroQuest Glorantha - a lot of creatures are not described in enough detail to get any idea of how dangerous they usually are, and sometimes not even the physical size, and this is a problem most of us tend not to notice because we already know from other (eg RQ, or even HW) sources, but I think could be a real issue for some new GMs. I think it would be helped by adding notable weaknesses, if any. And for HQ Glorantha purposes, maybe notating some magical abilities with a Rune. And yes, I know the 'difficulty depends on story' mantra, but even if you stick to that rigidly, you need to know which choices of opponent make the level of difficulty plausible, and/or appropriate story framing eg want to make an encounter with a minotaur easy? Make it a contest of wits.

A classic weird RQ thing was that my players often complained that their 'wealth' was largely in training credit that they never had time to use (quite a few adventures had adventure sponsors giving the reward in training credit). Which reflected some very skewed economics. I much prefer the post-HQ era of wealth being measured primarily in cows.

The Doraddi largely don't even use large ceramics much (without beasts of burden, too heavy when you want to uproot your entire home), and generally store liquids in gourds. (sorry to still be talking about liquid storage when everyone else has moved on to cavalry issues)

Red wine of various kinds is the primary market for barrels for aging beverages in, whisky etc are after markets that use old wine barrels. While historically wine was aged in amphorae etc, if wooden barrels are in use there is no particular reason for people not to have developed a taste for it.

The ability to use incompatible runes is the rarest of the 7 well known Illuminate powers. By no means every Illuminate has this power - and I think it’s quite specific in which powers are accessible by who. An Illuminated Seven Mother’s initiate might get to combine both Life and Death. Some might get to combine Truth and Illusion. But the Lunar path doesn’t usually provide a way to access both Harmony and Disorder.