Nick Brooke

No need, Scotty’s archived the post here: Jeff’s Canonical Corpus.

Jeff considers Sun County part of the “canonical corpus” as a description of the Sun County in Prax: history, places, personnel, the whole nine yards. 24 October 2022, in a post to the RuneQuest Facebook group. Same goes for Dorastor. Search for it using the phrase in quotes.

It'd look practically asymptotic, Brian.

A snapshot in Time, agreed. A snapshot in space? Different relationships in different parts of the Lozenge?

Genuine question for Jeff: do you think cult compatibility charts somehow express Universal Setting Truths, or are they more situational? How far would you let the relationship between two cults vary from that shown on the charts, in different times, places and contexts? It seems to me that a cult is a mortal construct, fallibly led, bounded by Time and shaped by History, and not an immutable truth. To take an obvious example, Dara Happan leadership after the failed First Wane rebellion had a different attitude to the Red Goddess than the previous management: was this change reflected in the then-extant cult compatibility chart?

Yes, I know. That’s the point I was making. Argrath attacks Pavis for Argrath’s reasons, not Waha’s or Storm Bull’s or anybody else’s.

Alter Creature is a 2-pt Rune spell in the RBoM, I’d take that as a baseline.

Updated again on 24 August 2023: All Along a River, by Paul Baker @Exubae: An introductory adventure set in the distant land of Teshnos, leveraging the author’s earlier works Houses of Teshnos, the Teshnos Companion and Hsunchen of the East. The story follows a river barge, the River Rose, as it travels upriver from the seaport of Dajanpol Rapur. The adventurers have been charged with taking a Maguffin from their home village to the city of Zanozar, and encounter Teshnan exotica along the way: contests, jungle shrines, mystics, were-tigers, crocodile-men and river pirates galore. ($16.00 for 171 pages) Furthest: Crown Jewel of Lunar Tarsh, by Simon Bray & Friends @blackyinkin: The Gazetteer of Furthest walks along each of the city’s main arteries before delving into its quarters, acropolis and sewers. An overview and map of the Kingdom of Tarsh detail the many cities, villages, temples and other points of interest; neighbouring lands are described from a Tarshite perspective. The Kingdom’s organisation is explored: a mishmash of Districts, Clans and Nobles. An overview of Major Players in Tarshite politics describes King Pharandros, his rivals, the Royal Household, civic leaders, military commanders, and two notorious criminals. Jaxarte Whyded provides a street-level view of Furthest. A History of Tarsh runs through Tarshite history at pace. Minor Cults of Tarsh provides a plethora of local spirit cults, detailing their special Rune spells. A Tarsh Bestiary describes several unique species found in the city of Furthest and the land of Tarsh, with full RuneQuest statblocks. Finally, the scenario Something Foul in Newmarket explores the streets, alleys and sewers of the city. ($19.95 for 158 pages) Related: by generous permission of Chaosium, printed maps of the City of Furthest and Kingdom of Tarsh are available from Simon Bray's RedBubble store in a variety of formats, some of them ludicrous. (I've linked to the Large Posters, which are comparatively sane and reasonable.)

“We don’t like people who aren’t like us.” It applies to Waha braves, to citizens of Pavis, to Sartarite rustics and to happy Pelorian peasants. We know the edges tend to get rubbed off in civilised settings, where several cultures peaceably coexist, but that situation creates and exposes tensions of its own. Only resentful weirdos make hating “otherness” and cleaving to what’s definitely, indisputably, primordially “theirs” into the motivating principle of their existence. (Don’t be a weirdo, that’s my advice.)

Don’t think about “what all Praxians hate,“ think about what some Praxians are being (mis)led to do today, by their potentially flawed human leaders. This isn’t some epic of ethnic cleansing, and the glorious inevitable triumph of clean-living nomads over decadent city-dwellers. Thinking that way is bad for your mental health. Some Waha khans think that way, and they’re the baddies in our stories.

I think it’s great, and I love what you write. It’s just that you share an unfortunate tendency with Jeff - who I think is great, and I love what he writes - to exaggerate how passionately everyone hates everyone who’s a teeny bit different, which you then have to row back to a more reasonable perspective (as he does) when people who actually want to play the game ask, “How can I play games set here if everyone is a psychopathic murderous bastard to everyone else, 24/7?”

That’s on fanatical cult leader Argrath White Bull, who leads an apocalyptic fraction of the Storm Bull cult. He’s not a Praxian himself, and doesn’t really mind screwing up their lives, or anyone else’s, if it helps him get his revenge.

Totally agreed with the last paragraph of your previous post. It would take an unusual Praxian to see anything admirable about settled, civilised life. (And whaddaya know: most adventurers are unusual.) But that’s a far cry from feeling a hatred in their bones for the city of Pavis. They just think it’s a crappy way to live, compared to the freedom and mastery of the Plaines that is every Praxian’s birthright. Waha!

Nomad cultures need civilisations to survive, that’s where they get their cool stuff. Old Pavis transgressed, and was destroyed by Jaldon Toothmaker. Waha! Centuries later, strangers from Dragon Pass came and built a tiny little Stone Tent outside the ancient, accursed walls. They’re OK: we can buy metal weapons and armour from them, yes, and firewater, and sell them our cheapest cuts of meat, and occasionally knock off traders travelling across the Plaines to the City. (What’s that, Wahagrim? A conspiratorial group is trying to resurrect those ancient horrors of the Second Age? My sinews blaze with agony at the very thought of it! Summon the tribe! Gird my favourite rhino for war! This blasphemy has gone far enough!)

If 60% of (male) Praxians despise the city or think it’s an utter abomination, it would be rather weird to describe their attitude as neutrality. I think you’re forgetting that the nomads and trolls, between them, did destroy Old Pavis: it’s called “the Big Rubble” for a reason.

There’s a visit to Delecti’s Ruin in The Company of the Dragon, the campaign sequel to Six Seasons in Sartar. Twenty or so years ago, issue 19 of Tales of the Reaching Moon magazine was an Upland Marsh Special; bits of it are in Wyrms Footnotes #15. Possibly relevant to your plot: Delecti inhabits a succession of corpses. “His toe” is the toe of the body he is currently reanimating.

In storytelling terms, native Praxians are often the Others in published adventures. They’re the Injuns, as it were, quite possibly on the warpath, knowing secrets of the land and its spirits that are unknowable to outsiders, lying to traders and ambushing wagon-trains in scenic locations; adventurers are a bunch of Cowboys, coming in as pioneers and settlers with all their manifest destiny bollocks and making a mess of the place for profit. As the GM you can decide to cross those wires, but you need to know what you’re doing. (Similar considerations apply when you think of adding a Lunar adventurer to a party of tax-evading murderous rebel scum - hi, Vostor! - or a baboon adventurer to the Sandheart shield wall - wotcher, Melo Yelo!)

This may be true in Ian’s version of Pavis. In Cults of Prax, our ur-source for these matters, the cult of Waha is “neutral” to the cult of Pavis, and vice versa. Your Glorantha, too, will vary. Nomads don’t want to live in the city (and it’s probably taboo to Waha khans as a practical matter), urban types don’t want to live on the Plaines of Prax, but outright conflict between the two cultures is rare, and most often seen at times of imperial overreach and collapse. Pavis the Man healed Waha the God and patched up a treaty with him at the time of the city’s founding; the Seventeen Foes of Waha (that is, the last kings of Pavis before Argrath) failed to flourish during the prolonged collapse of the imperial age, as Jaldon Toothmaker avenged the crimes committed by Pavis. (Which have now been thoroughly avenged, as historians will concur.) Occasionally things go sideways and some charismatic Waha khan whips up his followers into a frenzy against civilised folk. (Think of Jaldon.) It usually blows over, and it’s not expressing some fundamental religious value of the Waha cult: it’s personal and situational. Think of the distinction between Islamist jihadists (fanatics who emphasise one narrow strand of their religion’s history) and the vast majority of well-adjusted, well-behaved members of the Religion of Peace. Be careful which myths you decide to obsess over. They can easily lead you astray. (There used to be a settled nomad population within the walls of New Pavis, until some tribal nutters tried to sack the city, at which point they were expelled by the Mayor.)

Dear Professor Tolkien, there must be some mistake. Your book Lord of the Rings shows a dwarf and an elf working together, and even becoming fast friends, but your other works set in Middle-Earth tell me about the historical enmity between those two races. How did they ever agree to join the Fellowship without knifing each other?

Sorry not sorry. Furthest - Crown Jewel of Lunar Tarsh

And it’s live! Links are in the first post, inc. poster maps fulfilled via RedBubble.

Have a link: A History of Malkionism. I briefly described rival green- and blue-skinned factions of Waertagi in the old Sog City Guide, available at my antique website. This was, of course, inspired by MOB’s fondness for Constantinople, which is why there’s an associated sporting event.

I don’t understand the question. Obviously you can’t use it in Chaosium community content, so that can’t be what you’re asking. What “situation” are you asking about?

Cover art by Simon Bray: The Blood Rites of Hon-eel at the Moirasseum of Furthest. The index is done. 156 pages. A handful of internal artwork to go, and the book's complete.