davecake

Deities list - the Hungry Goddess remains little more than a name. I'd love to know more. Ikadz and Seseine are both known, explicitly under those names, in both Fonrit and Peloria, but not really anywhere else. It would be really interesting to know which region is the source (I'm assuming Fonritian, as neither deity is mentioned in GROY or the Entekosiad, and Seseine appears in other Pamaltelan myths), and how they came to known. I personally think both have their origins in Vadeli practices, but what is the Pelorian connection? Somehow via the Artmali/Blue Moon connection? Or a God Learner thing?

My assumption is that the weapons are restricted by custom, not law - e.g. a slave champion, gladiator or bodyguard of high status might use a masarin style short sword, the reason slave soldiers use a heavy single sided sword is they are cheap to manufacture in quantity (like a Chinese saber). First I have heard of Fonritian slavers attacking Seshnela! Where else in Genertela are they likely to attack? We know very little about pre-Garangordite first age Fonrit (apart from Thinokos). The rule of Jraktal The Tap implies an exploitative sorcerous rulership, but in practice it sounds as if the conquered Veldang were animists or theists, and relatively peaceful. But we also know little of the Hungry Goddess of the Veldang. The section on crafts implies the existence of that classic RPG and fantasy literature institution, the assassins guild. I also have always assumed alchemy and perfume making were branches of the same profession, but this section implies they are different - and checking Revealed Mythologies, this is my error, as they have different divine patrons. There appears to be a native Fonritian sorcery tradition. How much this is related to the worship of the Glorious Ones I don't know? I would assume that Fonritian sorcery has some influences from both the God Learners and the ancient Vaseline practices. Some Malkioni influence via Umathela is also likely.

It's very clear how thin the Lunar veneer is. Everything is in terms of urban Dara Happa and rural (and provincial) Lodrilite. The division of the Dara Happan upper classes into Witnesses and Officers was new to me (or at least, I don't recall it). Law - it says fines are the most common penalty, but presumably non-payment of fines (which is presumably common for the poor) leads to slavery, or at least indentured servitude until the fine is paid? Or do they go for more physical punishments if a fine isn't paid? Deities - interesting how low ranked and unimportant Dendara is, even compared to other female deities. Presumably her major rites are even led by male Enverinus priesthood. Also interesting is the description of how rich and varied Lodrilite religion is, considering how little we know about most of it. How tall is a typical Lodril 'ten block pyramid'?

There are a number of factors here. One is that it happened a lot longer ago - centuries, while Sartar was within the lifetime of most adults. They've had a lot longer to get used to the Lunars, and there has been a lot of history since then (including the brutal occupation of Sheng Seleris, which makes most people value the Lunars over the mythic Solar connection). There were certainly religiously inspired rebellions at various points in history, but the Lunars suppressed them efficiently. Another factor is that 'Lunarization' wasn't peaceful at all - there were long military campaigns, including famous magical battles like the First Battle of Chaos and the Four Arrows of Light - but politically, this was Lunars and the traditional Dara Happan Yelm worshippers allied against the Carmanians. A third factor is that the Lunar religion is intimately connected with the Solar, and the Lunar Empire carefully observes most traditional forms and allows the traditionalists their due. The Red Emperor is both the Solar and Lunar Emperors. And the Red Goddess was once a 'son' of Yelm. While Orlanth has only ever been an enemy deity for the Yelmic mythology.

Noted the unusual eye colors of the Orlanthi - orange eyes, for example, relatively common.

Read things written by Ken Hite. The Trail of Cthulhu rules book (a very different game to Call if Cthulhu, but made by people who love CoC) contains some very insightful writing, especially the section on the Great Old Ones. The discussion of the various monsters that can be found in the various Ken Writes About Stuff articles are excellent too. Where CoC is the true classic work of Lovecraftian gaming, Ken is is an amazing scholar who challenges you to rethink the mythos and enrich it with a range of modern and diverse ideas. There is plenty of other Hite writing on the mythos to dive into, and it's all good.

One thing not mentioned here but that shows up in Pamaltelan myth is that there are a lot of hsunchen wandering around on the plains. Personally I think there is quite a bit of cultural interaction, and Doraddi shamans may interact with many of the same spirits as the Hsunchen ones, especially spirits of general flora and fauna.

I agree with Peter that the paragraph that discusses the High Shamanic Ideal is a bit confusing, especially the mention of integration etc.

I love the Doraddi, one of my favourite bits of Glorantha. So different to most fantasy (and not just because it's more African then European). The question of what to do in a game is not difficult to me. There are monsters to fight, many of them chaotic, and social status to gain as a result. The big difference is that they are much more reluctant to settle problems with other Doraddi with violence. Contests and debates instead can still make for interesting games. Plus the plains are littered with weird old ruins of various types etc.

The independent tribes are included in this section even though many of them are quite culturally distinct. The description of the Men-And-A-Half here is more complete than in Pavis, and confirms that they are a significant departure from the human norm - not just big and strong, but requiring less sustenance. In RQ they were a little fireproof too. The question is, do they still exist in Pamaltela? Presumably there they would be a separate tribe who revere Balumbasta (who I'm presuming is the same as Baba Ulodr).

So note that the Korgatsu tradition includes not just the totem animal, but many local flora and fauna, ancestor worship, local spirits, and even great spirits like Oakfed. So it seems that while all hsunchen have the strong relationship with their totem animal spirits, they can develop other animist magical relationships in addition, and this is normal. Again, it looks like the hsunchen previously looked at in detail like the telmori and basmoli are atypical weak minority groups, and large hsunchen groups have access to a much wider range of Magic (while still remaining hsunchen, and mostly pure animist).

The gender stuff is interesting. I assume in practice that most of those not happy with their gender end up as shamans (or die in the attempt). Otherwise it seems like exile (unless those secret trans communities really exist). The waken the dragon line is especially interesting considering the relationship of the Dragon people to the Kralorela hsunchen. Perhaps the Dragon People were all sexually genderqueer and also all shamans! i will mention one further way in which sexual ambiguity of magicians can manifest on earth, though I'm not surprised it's not mentioned in a book for a general audience - genital surgical modification as an initiatory practice. In some traditions (I'm aware of some Australian Aboriginal practices) this is explicitly considered to magically change gender, sometimes to be both genders (i.e. Men having access to women's rites). Now that I've made several of us uncomfortable...

I've tended to think of Pamaltela as more hsunchrn dominated than Genertela, so it was a big surprise to me that around 40% of all hsunchen are in Fronela. Also interesting that the areas we are most familiar with from published material (Prax, Dragon Pass, Lunar Empire) are all areas where hsunchen are a small minority. We really don't know much of the detail about the areas where the hsunchen are a big percentage of the population, and not much about complexity of a big thriving hsunchen culture. And once we do dive in, even the small and despised Telmori have a whole second shamanic tradition (the Ituvanu, in The Coming Storm and Dorastor). There are hints that there is a lot more going on in hsunchen groups like the Rathori, Uncolings and Pujaleg people.

I thought that providing the art direction even when it did not match the art was an odd choice, but it worked for me, and rewriting the art description so it matched the art would have made the book seem more polished but not really added to the Glorantha content at all.

The Guide in general talks about pantheons and deities without specifying the nature of the interaction - some might be regarded as great spirits rather Gods in previous editions, and Storm Bull is clearly both to different people. In previous RQ material the line was a bit fuzzy between divine and shamanic magic anyway (quite a bit of animist magic was in the form of rune spells obtained from spirit cults). I think most of the big names in the Pamalt pantheon are animist, but well developed animists with lots of advanced powers and different ways of approaching them that might not always look like animism to the rules.

Wow, Eleven Lights layout posts from August - getting close to an entire year that it's been at the layout phase! I very much that future products will have a more streamlined process.

Obviously Waertag is an ancestor of the Waertagi, and Waertag is descended from Triolini, so ultimately from Triolina. Triolina is a child of Sramak and Daliath. Waertagi are mortals, so via Phargon (child of Triolina and grandfather mortal) and Mirintha (child of Nelat and Triolina). So merfolk can trace their ancestry back to Nelat and Triolina, and so can Waertagi. Sogolotha, and other undines, share Triolina as an ancestor, and so are relatives of the Waertagi, but descend from Heler and Triolina, so are cousins. But really Sramake and Daliath are Mind and Body, Framanthe is Spirit, and any water being with a spirit also has some connection to her. There is enough connection for the Waertagi to revere Framanthe as well. And via Framanthe and Daliath (so also cousins) Manthi and Natea, rulers of the oceans, and the third child of Framanthe and Daliath, Magasta. Triolina, the undines including Sogolotha, Framanthe, Manthi and Natea, and Magasta are all gods of the Waertagi. And also relatives, if not directly human. The Waertagi see Magasta as part of the 'family', but not Magasta's other wife (Robber) and child Wachaza, who are Death and Darkness beings, so they are mostly shunned by them. Wachaza was mostly a god who opposed the Waertagi (and was revered by the God-Learners for it) not worshipped by them.

It's not very strong in part because of Doraddi HeroQuests. In earlier eras, the plains of Jolar and Kothat were jungle. And they still actively magically contend at the borders. Yes, but spirit relationships must be re-asserted via HeroQuest to access the greater powers. Note also that most relationships with animals are not fully native to the Doraddi magic tradition, but are acquired via interaction with the Fiwan tradition. There may be rites to re-establish connections. That's a bit of an exaggeration. There are a number of Godzilla size monsters, especially the various hydra, but there is plenty of smaller chaos. There is a tendency for Pamaltelan chaos to be a smaller number of more imposing, and more chaotic, monsters but it's a loose trend only. Yes. Aldryami stuff. But sssshhh. It's a secret. (See the boxed info on page 590 of the Guide).

Both the Waertagi and the early Seshnelan kings seem to work on the basis that interacting with gods is ok as long as the gods are your own ancestors. Note the importance of lineage and having a direct ancestral connection to the gods in the Xeotam Dialogues. I think that they believe that a connection with gods that is established by an ancestral connection does not threaten the soul as a connection established via submission or sacrifice does. There are no doubt differences in the form the interaction takes. So I reject the idea that the Waertagi pick up random pagan beliefs. Rather, their ancestor worship and their worship of the sea gods are considered the same things, as they can directly trace their ancestry back to the gods. I think the later purist Return to Rightness movement reject this reasoning, and this is one of the things that puts the early God Learners at odds with the Waertagi.

Creature stats are easy. I'd expect full stats in the RQG rules, and HQG stats can be improvised (though I wish Chaosium would go more with the stat format in the HQ2 rules book, which makes explicit what HQG sometimes I think assumes players will fill in from background knowledge that not all players have). But the real issue is long form cult writeups (where cult includes animist and sorcerers traditions, obviously). Well over half the information in them is not game specific and should be the same between game systems. Repeating all that content for each of the two game systems is unlikely to be a popular move with those who end up buying both. Personally, I'd prefer just putting both versions in one book, for books that are mostly game system independent. Make e.g. the troll books include a couple of pages of RQG notes and unique spells with each long form cult write up. I am *very* much looking forward to especially the second and third books, I hope this doesn't end up like the Red Cow books with a much longer than intended gap between publications. For those of us who already own the Guide, and all the RQ2 and RQ3 troll books, the first book will not contain too many surprises, though I'm sure some great campaign material.

I'm in.

Explain to them that it is very rare for a character to use all three Runes for magic - and that its not necessarily what they want, as makes them unfocussed. And I think of it as a feature, not a bug - if every god got magic from three runes and everyone chose all three of them, every worshipper would have the same personality more or less. But I do find that experienced Gloranthan players start with a god and work backwards from there most of the time (they just don't expect that this means they get good magic from all their runes necessarily). I have a PC with Death and Darkness, but they are a Humakti who is just miserable and moody. I would suggest that they get some chance to change a rune if they are unhappy. But Argan Argar for Darkness or Humakt for Death are good choice - and while Law is very unusual for most Orlanthi, as others have suggested the Black Arkat sorcery school has links to both, if you want to add the Law Rune. Arkat is a fairly challenging choice for a beginning player, though.

Australian Indigenous art is by no means a single tradition - central dessert dot painting and 'map' or 'track' art, Northern coast 'x-ray' bark painting, ochre body painting designs. representational cave painting, etc. And of course a lot of interesting evolving traditions via contact with European and other cultures too. I'm guessing you mean the 'map' or 'track' style, which is symbolic rather than strictly representational (though the symbols mostly represent tracks), except you specifically say not dot painting, which makes it sound like you mean something else? That sort of art would be a good match - part of its role is to record maps of important landmarks used to navigate around the big empty deserts. Though it also records stories, often at the same time - a story often involves a lot of travel and the series of sites where various events happen is the story in geographical form. This reminds me of great story from when we lived in Central Australia, actually. My wife (who is a doctor) attended a discussion/lecture in which the indigenous healers (some might call them shamans, their own word is ngangkari), many of whom do not speech English and have to be translated, are discussing their role and work - how they generally accept Western medicine is best for many physical ailments, but they still have many duties, including healing the sadness caused when a traveller leaves part of their soul behind and the ngangkari must travel far to retrieve and return it. A member of the audience asks how they know that someone needs them to perform this duty when they may be hundreds of kilometres away. Once the question is translated for them, they look at the questioner like he is an idiot - and hold up a mobile phone.

The Plateau and the many surrounding areas shows that the lost era of Genert was complex and rich, and probably contains many myths and peoples that we now know little about, including Mostali that very little is known about, including many gods we don't of, an otherwise unknown group of Mostali, whatever brought those damn Boggles there, and so on. The most important thing we know is that there was a great deal that was lost and don't know about. I very much agree with the idea that a 'normative' position is vastly better than an absolutist one from a creative position. My normal reaction to a version of something Gloranthan that I know to be 'wrong' is that it exists somewhere. If I think it is definitely solidly false, then I think someone believes it, or someone believes it. Even the most homogenous Gloranthan religions that we know to have a strict orthodoxy and believe themselves unchanged are still pretty heterodox and changeable (just look at the many movements that have reshaped Yelm, for example).

FWIW, I think Peter is mostly right here. We know at least some of the blue people are Waertagi, there is no reason to assume Chaos or Vadeli. There are clearly multiple types of blue people, but the other kinds are either locals either interbreeding or imitating, or underwater beings. And the Waertagi and Kachasti being associated, and the Kachasti being the Logicians makes sense. Yes, the Blue Vadeli are blue, even corpse blue like the DediZoraRu, but they aren't connected to water, and there is no other reason to suspect any Vadeli involvement.