Joerg

I wonder whether moon rocks from the top or bottom pole would be at half strength all the time, or whether moving them takes them into tune with the roving searchlight effect.

Also Garrrath Sharpsword winning the Garhound Contest a few years before Melisande's Hand.

There are bound to be many names for parts of the elephant. Some archetypes have a higher deity or principle beyond normal understanding. Sometimes deities we perceive as antithetical may share aspecthoood of one greater truth while differing in other aspects, possibly mapped to or derived from different entities ("parents").

Myth is the Gloranthan DNA. A certain portion of myth was collected as the Web of Arachne Solara, with read access and replication of it in the form of magic. A lot of myth was inserted by mutation, but few of that mutated sequences get expressed in the body of Glorantha. These strands of myth are there, and may provide structural support to other expressions of myth, but they don't provide the magic unless accessed off the beaten paths - not rune magic, but heroic feats. Although worship can lead to regular expression of such feats as rune magic.

Not of Trilus - no pigs allowed in the citadel proper (any more). But there is a reason why these citadels were built on rocks overlooking the surrounding lands, allowing flow-off to leave the citadels, agreed.

Yelm made himself the perfect ruler for the age of perfection his actions (ending a more innocent period) created, until the consequences of those actions caught up with him. Yelm's period is called the Golden Age. It is the Age of (Godtime) Civilization, of ordered society creating something more than just the family community. There are civilizations "contemporary" to Yelm's reign which may have earlier and definitely indepenently developed civilization - Genert's Garden, Pamalt's Fields, the Kingdom of Logic with its arts (writing, architecture, seafaring, ... and last not least sorcery) or Vith's mystical rightness in the East with more tolerance for the disruptive side inside its extent. There are civilizations that built on earlier ones, and there are many forgotten earlier civilizations. Entekosiad makes the claim tha Brighteye usurped the role of celestial overseer from a previous "White Queen" who may have been a cyclical goddess in a sophist way solving a problem with ill intent. That's more of a cyclical pattern both in Godtime and in history. Any historical age begins with Orlanthi humans at the pinnacle of human civlization (although the collapse of the EWF blasted the center of Orlanthi civiilization and distributed it among the foes or neutrals to the Dragonfriends). They soon get into conflict with the Solar Empire and get beaten badly, in part by those of their number who ally with the Solars, but then strike back at the end of the Age. (The Second Age was a bit weird, but such trends are present.) The Six Ages games fail to acknowledge (so far) that the best and brightest of the Horse Warlord emperors in Peloria was the Hyaloring Vuranoste, the third emperor using the Jenarong rites to pass the Ten Tests. Unfortunately his sons failed to provide a successor, instead using up their pure sun magic in the struggle tghat led to the Bridling of Kargzant biding their free-roaming horse-loving god to the Sunpath of the re-awalened fragment(s) of Yelm at Day and retracing it at night. Plenty, usually in the second half of a historical Age. Dawn Age: the Battle of Night and Day was followed by almost three generations of Palangio ruling over the Orlanthi (outside of Lokamayadon's direct followers who were his allies) in Dragon Pass, Maniria and Ralios, enslaving or starving the Heortlings at least as bad as the potato famine hit Ireland. Lokamaydon had usurped their magics. Second/Imperial Age: The Orlanthi domination of Dara Happa lasted less than a generation before all Orlanthi control over the conquered lands of Dara Happa had been removed. The rich tribute from Dara Happa which was supposed to be shared with the trolls failed, and what had been intended as a fair share from that tribute to those who had contributed most in Dorastor became an onerous duty bleeding the Orlanthi white, which led to their fall-out with their former troll allies. That disunity was a solar triumph, too. The dragonfriends were a new thing that took control first of the Orlanthi core lands and then of Dara Happa, but it was the Dara Happans who overthrew the Dragon Sun emperor, then joined forces with the Carmanians and willing non-Heortling Orlanthi to destroy the dragonfriends. Their success led to the EWF becoming as oppressive as Arkat's Command had been, and losing their way from the intended greater draconic conciousness they had envisioned. More Orlanthi joined the fight against the EWF, spearheaded by Alakoring, whose successors joined forces with the foes of the EWF and destroyed the Orlanthi core lands in Dragon Pass twice (the second time mere hours before being destroyed by the dragons in the Dragonkill War). The Carmanians who came out on top after the Dragonkill disaster under the Bull Shahs and a revival of Spolite Darkness were overthrown by a Yelmic resurgence merging forces with the new Lunar Way. Then Sheng Seleris brought in a rivalling solar model - not to the advantage of the Orlanthi, even though the Kingdom of Tarsh was the leading force in pushing back Sheng's southern (Opili Nation, Praxian) allies, with a huge triumph at the Battle of Quintus Vale aided by the Lunarized Orlanthi of Sylila. The Yelm cult dragged the Lunar Way into the philosphical trap of the Empire, hindering its mystical ascension in a way reminiscent to the distraction of the EWF for cheap trick advances. Tatius the Bright rose to become a Yelmic rather than Yelmalian Palangio until he was eaten by the Brown Dragon. Sure. That's part of the historical cycle which starts with Orlanthi supremacy at the start of an age. The closure of the Second Age saw the Yelmalio cult (Orlanthi solars) in power everywhere south of Dara Happa proper, and the bull-Orlanthi influience Bull Shahs taking over Dara Happa, while south of Dragon Pass the Hendriki had acquired more than half of Esrolia, and after the 1042 forced incomplete ascension of the draconic leadership also the survivors in the ruined Pass region. The Bright Empire did push Yelm into the role of the World Emperor even in Malkioni lands. The Monomyth inherits the Bright Empire doctrine that it was Yelm who was slain by Orlanth, making him universal and pushing out earlier notions like Ehilm from Jrusteli / God Learner monomythizing, Other than the elephant rather than bird imagery, Somash in Teshnos is imperial Yelm - possibly reinforced with Sheng Seleris's conquests and exchange of literate administrators betwee his various conquests. Sheng Seleris ruling Peloria, Kralorela, Teshnos and almost conquering Vormain? Sheng is an alternative Yelmic ruler to Moonson. Also, the Solar Empire is the organizing structure in Teshnos and Vormain, and in a draconized way also in Kralorela. The Orlanthi culture was dominant at the Dawn, with the Dara Happan revival under Jenaong and Vuranoste dragged down by the barbarism of other Horse Warlord emperors. Avivath was the prophet of Yelm who re-kindled the urban solar culture as dominant overseers, aided and abetted by the Second Council, and then all but taking over the God Project leading to a Bright Empire rather than the Mystical Storm Empire. First, the dragonfriends beat the Traditionalist Orlanthi. Badly. The EWF conquest was not done by Storm Hill Barbarians, but by Solar Hill Barbarians become dragonfriends. While Obduran had demonstrated how Storm and Dragon could be united, his successor Isgangdrang took Storm away from the Orlanthi and transformed it into dragon power. Losing the mystical goal through his short cut fallacies, but still... We don't really know the human identity of the EWF Dragon Sun emperor, but I bet he was not a Dragon Pass Orlanthi but someone from around Imther when he joined the dragonfriend mystics presumably when they still were persecuted by the Council of Orlanthland and their Yelmalian allies at Domanand (now Mirin's Cross). Orlanthi tribalism ad disobedience is rather different from the structured society Yelmic rule encourages and enforces. In 1984 RQ3 presented four levels of civilization - primitive, nomadic, barbarian and civilized. Respect for indigenous people has made two of these terms suspect. Still, Dara Happan views of the hill tribes uses the term barbarian from the in-world perspective. As Dara Happans, their influence reached down into central Saird, past Sylila and Vanch.Yelmic administrators were spread by the Bright Empire, and are welcomed by the Solar hill barbarians worshipping the Cold Sun. There is a map of the Sun Dome temples on the Well of Daliath... Half of Peloria has been Orlanthi since before the Great Flood. The pastoralist hlll folk made their incursions down the Rockwood and Nidan ranges. The origin of the Yolp Mountains and the reign of Daxdarius fall into the period around the Great Flood. It can be argued that the Orlanthi were subjects of these bodies - other than the Unity Council (which was not an empire, but the resulting Second Council became one), there were Orlanthi uprisings against each of these empires after initially being co-opted by these entities. The concept of Empire is alien to the tribal nature of the Orlanthi. Orlanthi are raiders, but not administrators. The Dragon Emperor used draconized native administrators to maintain its hold on the empire, while the short Heortling occupation at the end of the Gbaji Wars attempted to do with their own administrators, and failed miserably. Both the Carmanians and Sheng Seleris used solar administrators for their conquests, as did the horse warlords at the Dawn. Without such solar administration, no long term occupation can be maintained, and longer terms of interregnum tend to lead to the rise of new dynasties (like e.g. Denesiod's). The Pelorians are a varied group of cultures, and their homelands are the river valleys of the Pelorian bowl. Sure, they share their grain goddess with the uplands in the foothills of the Rockwoods, so by that definition their "homeland" is shared. But that is about as much cultural unity you can find for "the Pelorians" whether you include or exclude the Pelorian Orlanthi. The Arcos Valley folk come in two major ethnicities - Rinliddic for the lower Arcos, Zarkozite goat hillfolk for the upper Arcos. They are two of the four non-Dara Happan ethnic groups traveling on Anaxial's Ark during the Great Flood. The Suvarian weeders are a third independent group of the same origin, even though they provided the last Anaxial-dynasty emperor Manimat. The Dara Happan Empire in its full extent would rule over all the people whose ancestors debarked from Anaxial's Ark. The dry lands during the flood, including the Syliling and Vanchite hills, would be included as border marches inhabited by settlers descended from the Ark peoples, expanding Dara Happan culture and influence into Saird and Dara Ni (at the Dawn First Council lands under Troll or Heortling domination). The (Heortling, plus a few other) Orlanthi were part of the Lifebringer/Lightbringer missionaries sent out to awaken those survivors of the Greater Darkness trapped in their PTSD even a century after the Dawn. Protected by the Shadowlords of Argan Argar (later the Kitori Shadowlords), they got into contact with the survival centers (Nochet, Obsidian Palace, Dragon's Eye, Korolstead and others) already before the Dawn. (Those other Orlanthi included Vanchites, Sylilings and other minor non-Heortling Sairdites as well as Manirian Vathmai Entruli and Harandings and the Esrolvuli Grandmothers tribe of Ezel and Nochet.) The Council lands included weeders like the Black Eel River Nogatendings and horticulturalist elf friends in Dara Ni who received the (apparently superior) Theyalan magic already before the Dawn. (How Rune Magic may have worked in the Silver Age is an interesting conundrum - while Heort is said to have furthered Hantrafal's ways of rune cult sacrifice, what deities were there before the Dawn that would respond to such sacrifice?) For the Third Age the prize might equally well go to the Pentans, the only group ever to rule over both Peloria, the Wastes and the Genertelan East. Orlanthi expansion by settlement was mainly a Godtime Late Golden/Storm Age phenomenon when warlike herders professing a kinship to their ungulate herds descended from the highlands and encroached on the lowlands, picking up transhumant pastoralist agriculture during their descent. For the Imperial Age, the God Learners were unrivalled for world-wide imperial presence, sparing only Carmania, the EWF (Dara Happa included in either), the Errinoru jungles and the further East Isles. The biggest empire of the Dawn Age would have been the Bright Empire co-founded by Orlanthi but trampling on the majority of the Orlanthi (enough for many of them to align themselves with soulless Malkioni), with the Vithelan sphere empires a lot less expansive (Kralorela, Teshnos, Vormain, various East Isles) except for the Mokato Thalassocracy and a few warlike precedessor confederations suppressing the antigod empires. That is at best semi-true. The Carmanians have the Yelm-lookalike higher god Idovanus, one of the Jernotian Seven Celestials, a god who got inflated by Carmanos the Prophet as an expression of the Invisible God. The Bull is just a dynastic ancestor deity for their Malkioni hererodoxy, much like the preceding Lion cult was. There is the inheritance of the Spolites, a western Pelorian reaction to the Bright Empire exploring the dark side of illumination, at one time powerful in parts of Dara Happa, too, but crushed by Syranthir's mercenary refugees from God Learner-conquered Fronela. The Carmanians (except for their ruling castes of mixed Pelandan and Western descent) are Pelorians, too. Eastern Carmania now is an integral part of the Lunar Heartlands, the Oronin and Doblian satrapies. Their culture contributed to the Lunar Way about as much as the Dara Happan culture or the Rinliddic variation on Dara Happa. In terms of manpower, Argrath has the much smaller population base behind him. He never conquered Esrolia, only became its protector. Esrolian military was rarely useful in his struggles in the north, and played about as much a role in his campaigns as did Italian forces in the Carolingian fights against the Vikings. They provide a financial and logistical base, that I grant you, at least until they are hit by the Reforestation and the flooding. One constant source of fighting power for Argrath are the excess young males out of Prax which come in waves as new Praxian boys get initiated into adulthood. The Praxians expand a lot under Argrath, establishing no-longer-quite Praxian pastoral overlordships in Orlanthi lands like they had done since their rewards for the participation in the victory of Argentium Thri'ile. Some of them may adopt a variant Orlanthi way over time, or they may adopt Solar ways - both happened in the Dawn Age, in Sylila and Kostaddi. By this logic, the hispanic-speaking population of our planet are the supreme rulers. You are assuming an Orlanthi unity that never happens. Even with the magic of Orlanth Rex (a solar Ralian magic carried to the Heortlings by Alakoring?) Argrath has almost as many Orlanthi opponents that may become hesitant mercenary allies at best and open foes at worst. Dara Happa offers direct fealty of the subjects to the Emperor. Orlanthi fealty is only to the immediate leader - a difference similar to the difference in centralist kingship between medieval France and the Holy Roman Empire. Ralios is looking westward, fighting the Rokari kingdom of Tanisor as their evil emperor. Maniria is beset by the Reforestation and whatever bad news may emerge from Ramalia. Esrolia is nervously watching the seas, whether for Wolf Pirates or semi-uindead Waertagi returnees from Hell, as well as the Aldryami reclamation of agricultural lands for forestation. Admittedly that is a problem for the Pelorians, too, as for civilized Fronela and Ralios. Much of Argrath's most populous Orlanthi territory is going to be flooded when the ice floe gnawed off Valind#s Glacier blocks the Maelstrom for a year. While that is true, a lot of the Orlanthi religious influence has Malkioni or non-human overlords (Umathela, Fornoar, Safelster, Fronela, Carmania). A significant portion of the Orlanhi has solar- or Lunar-worshipping rulers, too. Patently wrong. This honor goes to the Malkioni. The Tanisorans are basically Malkionized Ralians, conquered from the Bright Empire, and so are the Safelstrans (conquered by the Jrusteli after Arkat's companions received overlordships there). The Old Seshnegi assimilated the greater portion of the Pendali-ruled natives of that peninsula, plus the natives of the Tanier Valley. The Fornoari - Ehilm-worshipping Enerali who had accepted Lightbringer Ways - are now the main population of the "Kingdom of Seshnela". In Fronela, the Enjoreli bull people have been transformed into Hrestoli Malkioni, with a few bull-Orlanthi holding out on the fringes. The Janubian city states are the creation of the riverine Waertagi, as are the Sweet Sea and Poralistor river folk who fell to the Carmanians and then the Lunars. Drowned Slontos and Jrustela as well as coastal Umathela has former Orlanthi more or less firmly Malkionized, with hardly any Brithini ancestry in either Slontos or surviving Umathela. (Jrustela actually had a good amount of Brithini and Fornoari ancestry, possibly 70%.) Vadeli ways have been inherited by the Fonritians, one of the most populous human civilizations. Teshnos and Kralorela managed to throw off the Malkioni influences, as did the Arbennan Doraddi of Jolar. The God Learners spread the Theyalan mode of Rune Magic to Fonrit, Teshnos and possibly Kralorela. The Vithelan east may have a different variant. Errinoru probably brought some of the Theyalan aldryami mode to the jungles. Argan Argar spread the Theyalan mode among the trolls, infusing Kyger Litor and Zorak Zoran, too. The Artmali survivors never quite acquired that, and apparently the Loper-riding Zaranistangi didn't either, or perhaps from their Arkati allies. Peloria has (acquired) a need for imperial order, something the Orlanthi cannot provide. The horse warlords could, if only a less codified form than their urban precedessors (who failed to overcome the Greater Darkness on their own except possibly in Manimati dismembered exile or Alkothi hellspawn tyranny) and their successors who infused the Second Council with their ways, taking it away from the Orlanthi. Ralian solar overlordship became the Nralarite Flamesword dynasty in Seshnela and Jrustela, but yielded Jrusteli emperorship to the more warlike descendants of Damol, Seshnegi pagans with maternal descent from Froalar who adopted Malkionism either in Silver Empire Seshnela or in the religious awakening of Abiding Book Jrustela). The Lunar Empire resurges with the Eel-Ariash machinations, like Phargentes II Takenegi and Jar-eel apotheosizing as the new face of Sedenya, surpassing her current role as mere avatar of the Red Moon. I don't see evidence for Argrath managing to conquer Dara Happa - at the height of his power in the north, he incites the dismemberment and fall-out of the Red Moon. IMO this is going to be co-opted by Jar-eel for her apotheosis, completing the Eel-Ariash scheme. The Eel-Ariash might be the worst foe of imperial Dara Happa, although their scion Phargentes II wields it to its greatest extent - all the way to the Neliomi and Rozgali Seas. His bureaucracy rules supreme. Yelmalio does have his victories with the right (Theyalan) allies. Creating at best a short Orlanthi interregnum. The EWF Dragon Sun was the longest lasting one, possibly tied with Shah Cartavar (whose son decided to become the Yelmic emperor). Cartavar was a Spolite-leaning bull shah ruling through Carmanos' Malkioni powers of kingship, not at all an Orlanthi. The Orlanthi are one of the less important foes of the Dara Happans - unpleasant raiders at times, although the Ram Folk was soundly defeated and enslaved by Urvairinus after their destruction of Elempur, the city of archers. Their enslaved iron ram deity served as the strong point against the forces of the Glacier. The Battle of Night And Day was won by Palangio, a Rinliddic Dara Happan stealing the barbarian sun god, subsequently enslaving or starving the Heortlings to the point that none of the Heortling tribes existed any more a century after the Gbaji Wars. Karvanyar overthrowing the Dragon Sun Emperor, his three grandsons dividing Peloria into Dara Happa, Carmania and Saird jointly defeating the EWF, weakening it enough that the dragonewts pulled the plug, and then in 1042 the three allied kingdoms plundered Dragon Pass, and destroyed it in the week before getting eaten by the dragons in the Dragonkill 78 years later. The (Solar-descended) Pentans (including descendants of survivors of Nivorah who disobeyed Manarlarvus and his dome project) had been made enemies through the genocidal pogromes following the battle of Argentium Thri'ile and were the greater threat to Urban Dara Happa, even though parts of urban Dara Happa allied with Sheng Seleris against Moonson. Don't discount them .- their Dara Happan emperor exterminated all the anti-Lunar elements in the Yelm cult alongside Sheng Seleris. That downgrading of Yelm was a Pelorian inside job, and surgically careful to retain imperial authority derived from Yelm. Why worship that illiterate brute under the slippered heels of his dominant faux-docile ruthless wife? He is a useful idiot creating mayhem where he is pointed at. The one thing he did on his own (successfully defending the sky realm against Chaos) allowed the surface world to get ravaged by Chaos, upon which he had to be tricked to accept more sensible advisors (LM, CA, Issaries, even Eurmal) to go and beg for the forgiveness of Yelm. You worship Orlanth, you live in a world where fights between testosterone-drunk deities trample everything you own. You worship Yelm, and those bullies fight elsewhere most of the time. Orlanthi infights are guaranteed, and it is rare that they can postpone those inevitable falling outs long enough to build something greater. The rise of the dragonfriends was a civil war that lasted almost 200 years before the EWF finally emerged from urban Orlanthland. Orlanth doesn't provide an emperor who keeps the bad people out. Instead, he consorts with even worse bullies. Even the Crimson Bat is less disruptive to Pelorian life. Southern Peloria has been Orlanthi since the Golden Age, since Murharzarm's reign. It was the fringes where bad things like Orlanthi or trolls happened. Yamsur's descendant Hyalor acculturated some of these dry-during-the-Great-Flood tribes, giving rise to the horse warlords. There is the deep cultural difference between wheat and barley agriculturalists vs. rice agriculturalists. The Dara Happans are rice agriculturalists, largely independent of Pelora the grain goddess. While they can administrate barley and grain farmers, those are only somewhat docile if they require irrigation for their crops. Those who don't spell trouble. irrigation works are a unifying task, way beyond the road upkeep worship of the Sartarite toll-takers. Overseen by Yelm, accounted by Buserian, built by Lodril's get. The vast majority of the Pelorian males worship Lodril, a fun manly god worthy of worship. He builds, he fights, he has lots of sex, with the blessing of his main wife, unlike Orlanth who has to choose most of his mistresses from his (part-time) male companions like Heler or Mastakos, possibly even Elmal, or who even becomes a woman at times (Vinga). Muich like Orlanth, Lodril leaves the heavy thinking to others, like Yelm, but when the result of such rationality hurts, he rebels, hard and effectively, toppling what oppresses his people. In his more reflective moments, Lodril becomes Turos or even KetTuros, the city-builder. When needing powerful primal magic, he becomes the naked painter of sacred symbols, or he erupts in hot lava. Lodril is lord of part of the Underworld, providing something Orlanth can't. He has direct marital access to the vaults of Asrelia, unlike his son-in-law Orlanth who has to go through his wife, Lodril's daughter. That scheming woman keeps Orlanth on a leash most of the time, not that her father would reap any benefit from that, but Lodril has a multitude of children more grateful than Ernalda. Peloria and especially lowland Peloria is the land of Lodril. Sure, Yelm gets to be the aloof emperor above who makes up rules that may be convenient to follow at times, and convenient to disregard at other times. Yelm is extremely selective in allowing who may worship him directly. Except when it comes to nomadic horse riders, where every second or third ass in a saddle will be eligible, or as spawn of the daughters of the Red Emperor. You don't get to choose to initiate to Yelm, you get chosen by birthright.

Climb withteh water rune is myhthically correct (beyond agility as a watery property) as for most of Godtime rivers ran uphill, as did Lorion into the sky.

Vehicles exploding might do so due to a construction flaw (which might be present for cinematic effects) that could be rolled. Otherwise, the vehicle might have hit locations that catch fire or cause immediate (possibly partial) loss of energy/propulsion and a countdown to explosive malfunction if enough damage is inflicted. Or loss of steering, like popped tyres or a hit to the rear fluke or rotor. When you write "destroyed", how much recognizable wreckage do you accept? Could a destroyed vehicle still have (badly wounded) survivors?

Making (certain tribe of) the Andins something like "non-Kyger Litor trolls" with a common feature like horns (and resulting head-butts) or similar, possibly with a patriarchal clan structure (like presumably the Shadzorings of Greater Darkness, Gray Age and early Dawn Age Alkoth), certainly makes sense for creating stats. I would add some distinct deviations from common uz appearance, like replacing the tusks with a more carnivorous set of dentition, or possibly some form of dentition loaned from primitive fish (shark, lamprey, ...). Extra appendages like (non-functional?) extra limbs, bat-like wings or similar, and possibly a common chaotic feature for some of the tribes, would be an extra. Other than the Huan-to that are statted out in the RQG Bestiary, one species of antigods that we have RQ3 stats (RQ3 Gloranthan Bestiary) for are the Gorgers of Kimos, originaly from drowned Duravan east of the Errinoru Jungle. Other Pamaltelan creaturesfrom Sandy's Pamaltela campaign blamed on trolls might be of antigod origin instead, too, like the flying hoons or the Nightstalkers.

Even post-Dragon Rise, there are bound to be several thousand Seven Mother initiates native to Sartar. The Jonstown temple would have suffered quite a bit of attrition by the battle that destroyed the southernmost portion of the city, with those Lunar officials not invited to the Dragonrise temple dedication likely casualties or captives (possibly deportees, possibly lingering in ransom captivity) from the fighting for Jonstown. Out in the "stockades" (larger clan or tribal centers across Sartar, like e.g. Red Cow Fort) there may be local shrines if not temples surviving, and initiates should be able to find ways to remain active within their cult semi-clandestinely without leaving (Old) Sartar. Beyond Dangerford, the tribes are under Lunar Tarshite control - not quite occupation, but allies to local nobles projecting the power of Pharandros and his court. Plenty of places to worship the Seven Mothers right on the caravan route on the royal highways, all it takes is a short stint as a caravan guard or drover around the relevant dates. Initiates from Jonstown are less than three days of road travel from such highway side shrines or even minor temples.

Discussion often needs a more or less controversial statement to get off, and subsequent exchanges tend to help form opinions. In this case, you are pointing out some of the consequences of the delay of a GM guide that would provide such meta-rule observations, possibly by following a fictive GM statting out a creature "balancing" the effects of its various skills, attacks etc. And given the limitations of the Jonstown Compendium license, a thing like that might have to be an ORC supplement for BRP UGE rather than RQG with strong hints of cross-platform applicability unless provided by Chaosium and inserted into the sequence of upcoming (and long delayed) products.

@AndreJarosch

There is nothing to bar a deity from incarnating in a mortal and experiencing life as a mortal (or demigod) with a reduced set of divinity. Jar-eel is an example of that. Other people who apotheosize and become a subcult of a deity work that way, too. Then there are special times in the year when Godtime may intrude into people's lives. And there are places where the gods visit(ed) regularly, like the City of Wonders. If you can hear the Wild Hunt above, the guest at your door might be anyone. Dawn Age Seshnela is full of offspring of Aerlit and Basmol born within Time, to ladies lost in magical woods - Damol and the three "sorcerer" children of Basmol (including the witch Narvwi who later married a Seshnegi man-of-all) should be mentioned in the History of the Kings of Seshnela. Demigod emperors or even normal emperors are often credited with such behavior, such as Harun al Rashid.

Basically, it is the decision of Derik to put his warband there. Derik was successful enough to form a tribe. It is the story of a warrior band out there to put Jaldon to rest establishing itself as a tribe, building up a sustainable pastoralist economy, getting wives and children, and taking land from the Praxians who had harmed their kin. They had learned mounted warfare against nomad foes at the side of King Yarandros, fighting the Opili Nation Pentans not only at the major battle of Quintus Vale, but throughout the Seleric episode. Jaldon's Great Raid was part of the Seleric commotion, too. The core of Derik's followers already lived much of their lives in the saddle. Making that their new way of life was not that big of a change for them. The Grazeland dissidents desired such a nomadic way of life, too, and their Praxian outlaw recruits brought the necessary survival skills for a long term stay in the region. These were warriors fairly rich in plunder, which would be why the Quivini tribes would send them brides despite their nomadic ways. Your story of have-nothing refugees setting up their own doomed farming community in the Verge may have happened over and over again, leaving dead bodies and burnt down hovels behind, but that is not the story of the Pol Joni, or their settlement known as Barbarian Town. There is one other such settlement on the fringes of Prax: Adari, up north in the Bison Plains, just outside of Dagori Inkarth, birthplace of Pavis (the hero). Adari served as the trading town for the Pure Horse Folk of Prax, basically Pentan sectarians who found employ by the Kingdom of Orlanthland (not yet draconic) as a buffer against the increasingly less Lightbringer-worshipping Praxians - maybe because those who had embraced Lightbringer ways had remained in lands they received as spoils of war like e.g. in Sylila or Kostaddi as cavalry nobility lording over farmers. The wolves we know nowadays are as much the product of human selection as are our dogs, by removing those more suited to co-operation with humans we have created the wolves who aren't. A similar influence on the Beast Riders may have changed their outlook towards the farmers of Dragon Pass.

The trauma of Jaldon's Big Raid, which destroyed many a clan, was Derik's motivation. Derik (and numerous other Quivini) found service with the King of Tarsh, and opportunity to shine in the Battle of Quintus Vale. With Jaldon put to rest, there still were too many Praxians willing to raid the Quivini border region. Following Jaldon's ways was to bring the raiding to the Praxians instead, and depriving them of their best lands. The Pol Joni Marches (as they are known to the Quivini) were known to the Praxians as The Good Place and The Better Place, other than Eiritha's Sacred Ground around the Paps the most fertile parts of Prax west of the Zola Fel Valley, and fine for nomadic and even transhumant cattle grazing year round. Ernalda's blessing (or that of her grain goddess daughters) is required for agriculture - plowing and harvesting. The Pol Joni gave up on that, and turned towards Eiritha for the blessing of their herds, and received it. By interbreeding their hill cattle with Pentan steppe breeds, the Pol Joni arrived at a hardier breed well suited for the Pol Joni March. One difference in the Praxian outskirts is that the well-watered valley bottoms aren't given over to plow-land but provide prime pasture instead, something less available than among the Quivin hills, and getting scarcer even in the Grazelands now the Vendref had a protectress. Going head to head with the nomads was unavoidable. The only question was on whose terms, and Derik offered favorable terms compared to sitting by your grain fields while Praxian herds graze on your harvest and your cattle is driven away or slaughtered. A similar question would have been what Colymar would leave their birth clans to join the cattle-rancher Annmagarn in the Colymar Wilds? And who would sponsor a cottar's or stickpicker's initial capital of a horse, a few cows, and weapons required to join the Pol Joni? A sufficiently able Praxian outlaw would bring his own steed (even if he had to give it up for a horse) and a few meat beasts, and weapons. A Grazer exile would come with re-mounts and expertise at horse breeding, and weapons. The Orlanthi would need expertise in cattle-herding and breeding, which is rare among cottars, and nearly unheard of among stick-pickers.

I see the Pol Joni core as a migration of the vengeful following a heroic leader. "Sartarite" wasn't a thing when Derik left, during the reign of King Yarandros of Tarsh, the most powerful ruler in Dragon Pass since the EWF. (Phargentes was lord over plenty territory north of Dragon Pass but never conquered Sartar, and Fazzur and Tatius had no authority over Tarsh when ruling over the rest of Dragon Pass.) They were joined by dissatisfied Grazer clans or warriors unwilling to yield rights to Vendref and the FHQ, and they offered Praxian outlaws an alternative to Gagarth provided they changed their mounts to horses (mainly of Grazer provenance, though not necessarily traded for). They opted for pastoralism as their main (possibly only) primary production, with a heavy side order in trading animals to the Quivini for metal and grain - horses from their own breeding, possibly mules, and certainly captured Praxian mounts. Bringing in cattle (to be bred with Derik's magical bull) or horses means that the Pol Joni emigrants were people of some means in their homeland. Exilestead in the Verge served as a place for specialized craft that was ill-suited to nomadic life without wagons. In order to become and survive as a Pol Joni, you need a horse for each of your family members (plus a few spares as remounts and beasts of burden) and a small herd of cattle. As a cottar, acquiring these might be very hard even trading in all their other possessions. As a stickpicker, short of getting lucky in raids or in the wars of the Seleric era nothing in your previous life will get you these. Exilestead might be the winter quarters for transhumant shepherds roaming the high slopes of the Storm Mountains in summer, shared with sky bulls rather than non-winged cattle. That would support a clientele less well-off, unable to afford steeds for the entire family (if they can afford a wife and children at all). There also is a service industry in Exilestead allowing for a small non-rider population in a role similar to (but much less oppressed than) the Oasis Folk of Prax.

The ancient Malkioni do claim that the gods are just powerful "human" magicians who became gods and were worshipped as such. While we don't use the terms "saints" or "knights" any more, the implication of "Saint Orlanth" is that this is a creature (a Kaelith?) who first became a Srvuali or Burta of a Burta and then an avatar of the Invisible God. This is where Brithini taxonomic lore gets fuzzy. On the one hand, Malkion the Founder is a Burta of Storm and Sea, on the other hand he is the expression of the Man Rune, elsewhere known as Grandfather Mortal, or (more fuzzily) of the Law Rune, and thereby effectively an Erasanchula.

You are of course right, Balance is one expression of the Lunar power. A giant hummingbird wouldn't necessarily be much longer than the Goddess herself, but it was visible from all over the battle field, so it should have had at least a certain size.

Fossilized water, aka salt, some of that toxic ash from Oakfed's wildfire that eradicated even the Redwoods of the original Praxian savannah, carried in by seasonal "serpents" and then evaporating. The place is not a salt plain like in Utah, but the soil is permeated with the potash and brine. And that happened after the Storm Bull received all of the life that had been in the soil before. IMG there is a small trade in salt from the Dead Place for embalming corpses - the lifeless soil will even stop Darkness from rotting corpses.

The Crimson Bat is the sorry remains of the Rinliddi Bat goddess (the death-bringer) which was flayed by Arkat during the last weeks of the siege of Dorastor or so, fielded by desperate defenders. Whether it has any follicles left or whether those are writhing tendrils or tentacles is up to your personal preferences in horror. Neither can we say what that membrane between these elongated finger bones are - in case of doubt, they might be solidified moonglow rather than skin. I am not informed where the Rindliddi Bat God encountered Chaos enough to make its maw an entryway into oblivion. It might have taken a load of surplus Chaos off Teelo Estara.

Why did you not use the mirror rune, ?

Luck clearly is the lower half of Fate.

At the First Battle of Chaos, the followers of Teelo Estara perceived their re-appearing goddess riding a giant hummingbird instead of the Crimson Bat. (A fact that makes me somehow puzzled about the bat imagery in their commemorative coins.) Given the Lunar association with insanity, many Lunars might think that sanity is overrated.

Which Dark are you talking about, Nick? The Monkey Kingdom was a Golden Age empire, when the monkeys told the newly introduced humans the mores of civilization and city-building. It all happened under the watchful gaze of Brighteye, not somewhere huddled in the long night.

Last Word of Jeff had the Aeolians practicing close endogamy in their three castes (talar, zzabur and commoner, with every caste taking up arms as required). While there may be the occasional Malkioni or Orlanthi convert joining one of their castes, there don't seem to be any efforts to attract new worshippers. Possibly owing to the fact that the local Orlanthi worship may act as additional lay worship to their temples? The Marcher Barons apparently uphold a tradition of heavy horse-mounted cavalry, possibly with Western style armor and tactics. Whether they (or at least their nobles) are Aeolian or traditional Orlanthi may differ from case to case, as with the Bandori tribe or the rest of Esvular. As a rule, it is a lot more likely for noble Aeolians to be able to own and maintain a cavalry-trained horse and the associated personal armor than for Aeolian commoners, and ditto for the local Orlanthi. Baboons can teach humans about reaching their human ancestors, which means that Nick has a point about being taught about religion. But unless there is a branch of storm baboons, that exposure doesn't quite explain how and why they turned to the Storm as amendment to their Zzaburi ways.