Joerg

I think that all Lunar factions with a modicum of awareness of Dragon Pass affairs would have agreed that Tarkalor was bad news for the Empire, even though quite a few may have been relieved when Phargentes failed to become King of Dragon Pass in addition to all his other achievements. I wouldn't put it past the Assiday to have supported Tarkalor against Phargentes in their contest for the FHQ. Tarkalor would become the model antagonist for the Assiday campaign to punish and destroy the southern barbarians and their god. From an Imperial College point of view, the Furthest Magical School (not a field unit?) may have been a loose cannon, successfully employing experimental magic not sanctioned by the Imperial College, like the stray moonbeam that caused or at least abetted Terasarin's demise. I wonder whether the Assiday are the uncontested leaders of the Heartlands First - Make Peloria Great Again movement, though. There are bound to be other Yelmite Revanchist leaders in the Heartlands, possibly with some lingering nomad attachments - possibly through the Char-un - that spearheaded the Kalikos spiel.

It doesn't seem like the Eel-ariash have that many allies in the Heartlands. They lost their original satrapy of Doblian, and while Jar-eel is a crowning example of Bene-Gesserit style breeding, she has gone far beyond what lowly and mundane concerns her maternal family may have. Still, they are on the good side of Jar-eel, and that means they have some leeway in their machinations.es Other than Doblian, they have managed to keep a strong hand in wherever Hon-eel achieved great things, and they might have some esoteric allies among the lesser Silver Shadow families. They seem to have taken on the task to educate young Phargentes, though. The Eel-ariash apparently follow a course of inclusion rather than separation on the outskirts of the Empire. Sor-eel did a fairly good job in Prax and Pavis up to the Cradle episode, despite allies and followers like the Sable Khan or Gimgim. Tarsh has become an exemplary Lunar province, managing its own Temple of the Reaching Moon and aspiring to renew its dominion over all of Deagon Pass, and beyond. I am not sure how much the animosity between Pharandros and his uncle Fazzur was provoked by agents of the Lunar College of Magic. Tatius has no sympathy at all for that Barbarian cavalry commander who so openly publicized Euglyptus' (and his handlers') shortcomings while coming out of everything ahiny and sqeaky clean, at least until the Blinder's mishap with the Bat. Fazzur's economic use of mostly provincial forces and some Heartland cavalry demonstrates his understanding of the opposition, and without Tatius sabotaging him he might have become the ruler of the CIty of Wonders. Pharandros desires the Greater Tarsh of Yaradros and the provincial clout of Phargentes. Expanding beyond Karse is fair enough to secure his southern flank, but he really would love to gain a permanent hold on Holay, with the rest of the Provinces to follow. (All IMO and IMG, nothing remotely official beyond what's in the Guide) Minor quibble: while Moirades certainly and epicly bedded Jar-eel, I don't see any evidence for a formal marriage there. At their mutual stages of enlightenment, what would have been the point? I agree. Mirin's Cross and Furthest are rivals for the lead in Provincial excellence, each with their own university breeding new blends of hill barbarian and Lunar magics. Mirin's Cross might be stronger in Lightfore aspects, while Tarsh has a stronger Earth affinity, especially Dark Earth. It is possible that they are on friendly terms with Fazzur, too. They came to power in Sylila only after the Hwarin-ony had been destroyed in a dart competition and their successors had fallen afoul of Tax Demons. I wonder whether they were among the hosts of Philigos, Phargentes and Vostor Blacktooth atter Palashee's rebellion. Phargentes may have paid them back through his support to take over Sylila. When and from which mask's progeny would the Errio-unit have received their injection of Moonson's blood? I wonder how much it matters which mask of Moonson left offspring in one of the big Lunar families. Takenegi and Magnificus might be rather neutral, Glamour-oriented daddies, but I suspect the later masks to have been leaning to certain factions in the Empire.

The average Praxian outlaw comes from a Waha or Daka Fal background. Outside of Prax, the Wild Hunter may be a figure to be propitiated, but most Orlanthi rebels are fine remaining with Orlanth, finding some site that would allow them the necessary minimum of worship. During Lunar occupation, such sites would be frequented by non-outlawed Sartarites, too.

That's an interesting question. Tatius has been described as a Yelmite, a Lunar, an Illuminate, and a Chaotic, and of course these aren't mutually exclusive. A core belief seems to have been that Orlanth needed to be eradicated and the people in Dragon Pass needed punishing. Another core belief appears to have been that the interest of the family was at least as important as the interest of the Empire (to understate his priorities). Like calling back Fazzur even though taking Karse and/or Heortland was at least possible.. The Assiday evidently value their ancient Yuthuppan ancestry. They appear to have been a top tier family since the ascendance of Khordavu, and probably managed to remain so under the Spolites, the EWF dragon emperor, the Carmanian occupation, Jannisor's Rebellion, and Dara Happa on Horse. Jeff assured us that they can trace some of their lineage to the Red Emperor, at least through one such marriage to a daughter or granddaughter of Moonson. Probably several. They appear to be innovative magicians, or at least to have plenty innovative magicians working for them for the development of this new type of Reaching Moon temple. Even Euglyptus must have had a non-catastrophic track record as administrator back in the Heartlands to have become eligible as the Governor General of newly conquered Sartar. Or otherwise a significant amount of bribes must have outbid any other practitioner of venality or Simony. Euglyptus probably had to pull a Varus to recover the investment into his investiture, after his bid for plunder from Nochet and the Holy County failed. (The historian Velleius Paterculus alleges that above all Varus ruthlessly became rich at the expense of the wealthy province Syria. He writes: »As a poor man he came to the rich Syria and as a rich man he left the poor Syria.« source) It has been stated that Tatius bid for the New Lunar Temple in Sartar has the Assiday assets riding on that project, which probably means that whoever inherits the top position in that family after the Dragonrise is going to be in a lot of debt and might have to sell off family left and right into well-paying but demeaning marriages. I wouldn't be surprised if a number of ziggurats or astronomical towers needs to be sold off...

The tests were rigged. It's a steal. The empire is a monolith of backstabbing intrigue, with the backstabbing formalized the same way the Lankhmar or Ankh Morpork thieves's guilds are. Formalizing this may have been a Lunar invention. Grievances will last through centuries. The Confederates still smart at their loss, the Orangemen in Ireland profess to pursue regulations almost as long ago as the Thirty Years War. Yelmites are obsessed with purity, and it is practically guaranteed that some obscure but pure family will maintain a bloodline untainted by lesser families' blood, even if that means not to interact with the offspring of Moonson and his low-status female partners (never mind that they underwent apotheosis, their lineages were left behind from their mortal phase of life). But they will have about as much political clout as a single White Moon agitator. Their magic may be immaculate (and fairly useless). Illuminated Yelmites will recognize the moon as an intermediate tool to carry the Empire. The cyclical nature of the moon means that the irritation will go away for a while, and then return with new impetus. The savvy family will ride out either, as they did with that Spolite business, the Dragon Emperor, the Lion Shah spiel or the Bull Carmanian unpleasantness. Those upstart three fifth dynasties so recklessly rewarded for removing a perfectly fine solar overlord may need to be put into their place - any underworld will do, for starters. But let them deal with those unsanitary washed barbarians from the south first.

Wonderhome is where their ancestresses got that bad sunburn. The surface world they fled to had only local suns able to burn them, but Yelmalio never has been blamed for the hurt status of the lesser troll race, the Dark trolls.

But then, the post of the Emperor makes you the head of the Yelm cult. Even individuals of dubious descent like Denesiod or Moonson Takenegi. And it validates all offspring as of Yelmic lineage.

IMO those who raise a house would usually be a household, which is probably the best approximation for a "family" in Orlanthi society if you don't want to go all bloodline. A clan (chief) does assign each household's holding when taking new land, but afterwards the household will have a claim to the place they occupied, formed by the magical connections with the minor entities of the place, and possibly some expression of ancestral guidance and presence, too. Farm houses don't last forever, whether built of wood or of stone (or adobe/wattle and daub, or a combination thereof). Masonry requires specialist knowledge, but that specialist knowledge is fairly widely spread in Sartar or Pavis, and probably in Esrolia, too. Only in comparison to the number of humans inhabiting the place, I would expect. Hearths are shrines of a sort (sites in RQ-speak), and shrines or activities performed at such places attract spirits connected to those activities. Households attract a range of minor spirits, some annoying such as dust mice or pungent winds, others helpful, yet others harmful. Certain measures of bribes or propitiation are part of the normal routines, I suppose. Cities or tribal/clan stockades are areas collectively prepared for human habitation (or some other species if applicable). There will be a wyter or city god involved in dedication rites for buildings. In a tribal or clan stockade, the respective ring will be the owner of the building plots (and any garden plots adjacent to those). In a confederated city of Sartar, there will be several tribes, and guilds and temples acting as owners. If the place used to be a clan's stockade, that clan will have some land ownership inside the city, too. Clearwine is a mix of a tribal and clan settlement, with a powerful (tribal) Earth temple in the mix. In some sense, all the land is assigned by the Earth Temple, but the dispute over Arrowtop Mountain in the Lawstaff myth offers two more Orlanthi claims that stand as traditional laws, Possession (Jarani's claim) and Establishment (Harand's claim). (I'll leave it to the jurisdictionally inclined to discuss what exactly these terms mean, but basically a squatter has a valid legal position, and other claims can be as valid. It is possible that Harand's claim was something an Earth Temple could field.) Possession of land is a legal concept, a precedent. Quite likely some sort of provable use of the place is involved. Orlanthi lawspeaking has no place inside a clan, but a household usually has a marriage partner with ties to their birth clan, which might act as a legal proxy in a select group of possible procedures. (More typically, this applies to divorces, but abusing bridal gifts or dowries or whatever other arrangement the marriage had will bring in the in-laws. Probably where the term "in-law" originates.) Clan politics have to take bloodlines and factions into account. Rent for occupying a house or a plot of land usually only comes into play when the property is a way to support the owner or administrator of that property. If you look at the tenant farmers of Apple Lane as detailed in the Colymar Adventure Book (GM Screen), the rent involves not only the cottage, but also an orchard, and it grants the tenants the use of a gardening plot and probably some part of a plowed field, some nearby pasture and possibly the care of a clan herder for some live-stock, and access to commons like nearby wooded areas. Tenancy probably mandates a measure of maintenance on the building(s), but in the end the owner (rent-taker) is responsible to provide the housing. A tenant replacing a rickety house with a new one built by himself (possibly calling in favors from neighbors) would expect this to reflect in the rent and services agreed with the rent-taker. Patching a hole in the roof would not.

Nick suggested butts, Diana mentioned that they had considered legs, but wanted to aim higher - presumably on anatomy The navel is a bit higher than either of these. Orgies aren't limited to drinking, anyway. Clearwine has an Earth temple, which does imply the occasional fertility-themed get-together. Some of these From Dusk Till Dawn.

How common is drinking from navels in Orlanthi orgies?

A tricky case about tithing is how to tell apart "replenishing the herd" and "having surplus herd animals". The shepherds of the Pyrenee village of Montaillou went into spiritual rebellion when the church wanted to tithe all lambing, taking away any profit and probably some of the substance of their economy.

Building pioneer farmhouses requires first and foremost manpower and some tools. Probably a redsmith and/or a few stone knappers to keep those tools operable. Stone axes are fairly durable and cost a lot less in terms of material. With sufficient local talent, no extra purchases are required. Bronze axes on the other hand may be reworked into military assets after setting up a new home. Manpower may be hired, but will quite likely come from the clan. Doing all of this clandestinely will be a bit tricky. They probably will need to supply the warlord with a couple of warriors for his raids to evade suspicion - one possible job for young clan members. The other role would be to go ahead and prepare the new settlement area. Declaring that as their new high pasture area might allow them to do some preparation without anybody suspecting much. The year(s) before the move, the clan would need to trade for future seedstock and enough food to bring them through a year without any harvest. Ideally already stored in secret at their destination. Even more ideally, they could have prepared fields in the new place with some winter crops ready to be harvested upon arrival. For starters, they ought to send logging teams to create a sufficient stock of building lumber while rudimentary clearing some of the ground they are about to settle - ideally early in Storm Season as that is when the trees have the least water. A few oxen teams to collect the lumber, too. Sea Season should see the last sowing in their old homes - or at least leave the impression thereof. Some of the herds could then already be transferred into the new settlement area. High pastures may vary over the years. Log house barracks will probably be a good idea already for the first teams coming into the new area. People will have to live in temporary quarters for quite a while. A move with foresight will create temporary quarters which later can serve as utility buildings, or possibly be reworked into an ostentatious communal hall or similar. Campaign season might be a good time to transfer all movable property or at least all necessities and valuables onto wagons or beasts of burden, and then make the trek away from that warlord. Purchasing or loaning such transport would be a major expense, building it DIY would at least consume a lot of manpower and pre-made parts. OTOH, setting up an industry for wagons or breeding beasts of burdens (e.g. donkeys) in advance might make this innocent. If there are other people inhabiting the lands en route to the new place, mutual assurances should be made just in time. Tribute might have to be paid. Depending on the subterfuge the clan wants to build up, they could stage a couple of stead-burnings in their old place, in case of doubt to have an excuse for leaving. Damaging the fields (that received hardly any of the real seeds) may be another such excuse. Transferring the wyter might be a problem if the wyter has special ties to the old location. The Varmandi Thunder Oak might be quite problematic to move (although Create Wartree with quite a bit of Extension might work). Bribing the local spirits might be a task given to the herders and builders sent to the new place to prepare everything. Creating places of worship will incur cost, as the gods expect quite a bit of ostentation. Specialist crafters may need to be hired to build such places, or could be married into the clan if the clan is ambitious. So, what's the cost? Acquiring transportation. Acquiring tools. Acquiring food for a year (and bringing the seedstock for the next year(s)). A fair bit of magic to bless the future lands and harvests. Some treasure to finance the new worship sites and their embellishment. Tribute to those on the way, or possibly using up favors earned earlier, or having some allies or mercenaries to deal with troublesome hindrances. Selling their old land is not really an option, unless there is a Trader Prince willing to take over the cultivated parts for tenants of his. Neighboring clans will probably wish them farewell while gleefully expanding into the better places left behind without any compensation, or perhaps for the favor of loaning some transportation or escort for part of the migration. Building the actual houses will the least costly factor in that endeavor, IMO.

Said cool person killed the tax collector after their stead being burned. In the end the Sartarites may be revolting at times, but the Lunars regularly are taxing.

Dregs are spilled, but so are libations, in a more posh way. (Of course, vomit was spilled too, but that might be reserved for a different group.) Otherwise containers: From cups to craters?

The anti-Lunar Dara Happan nobility has had almost four centuries to fall afoul of Lunar suspicion and retribution. If they sat by throughout all the opportunities to go against the red usurper who somehow cheated at the Ten Tests, their conviction cannot have been that ardent. If a family was split into pro-Lunar and hesitant-towards-Lunars factions, and the pro-Lunars would rise in the Empire, those hesitant side lines would have sidelined themselves, and might be happy to provide the occasional member of the lesser priesthood presiding over the lower cults' rites. That doesn't mean that there aren't families now riding the Lunar bat that would not jump off onto another political steed when opportunity arises. The Pentans are uncomfortably close, and uncomfortably active, and weird new movements may show up or come into prominence at the loss of an imperial head. Yelm is not the only old imperial power that may be fomenting inside the Lunar envelope. There may be people dreaming of a Daxdarian revival, of a Carmanian/Castle Blue revival, of a new era of bird-riding overlords, or possibly bull shah revivalists emerging from Charg. Some of those might co-opt the Lunar Way, others might persecute it. Imagine a Lunar dragon emperor wielding EWF powers and the Bat. What we have are prophecies of the Black Sun, possibly radiating into what will become of the Lunar Empire.

In a way, status of a household is assigned by the chief and the clan ring. A household failing to uphold the status may be the perennial topic of gossip and badmouthing, and that may reflect on whoever put them into that position. Status of an individual may be economic - i.e. assigned by clan or guild, unless there is another source of wealth for the individual from adventuring or outlawry - or political, which requires enough wealth to show up as a militarily equipped member of the clan or tribe. Which may be loaned, or inherited, or purchased with the meagre status money the household can spend in a year. These hallmarks of a freeman may be some of the few items in personal possession, even if the clothes a person is wearing are loaned or charity issue. Imported luxuries do show status, but making an effort with home industry can make up at least for freeman ostentation. Tapestries and woodcarving go a long way to show sophistication, and may even bring in cash or be swapped for other ornamentation. Household dyes can be made from various combinations of leaves, roots or berries and curing agents. Stuff like woad or madder. With the prevalence of linothorax as affordable armor, there must be a significant cultivation of flax in Orlanthi agriculture. Flax can be harvested unripe (for textile fibre) or ripe (for seed and linseed oil). Likewise weaving (and spinning, and presumably dyeing) is a signature social and productive activity among Orlanthi women, rather than embroidery. Getting assigned a cottar's farm with rent puts a stop to your discretionary spending of income before you have paid off your rent. On the other hand, in times of bad harvest the tenants are fed before any rent is passed on to the recipient of that rent. Child mortality as per the rules may be exaggerated. In cases where a freeman's farm has a cottar family or two on the stead, providing manpower to the operation of the farm, doing some usually specialized home industry and quite a bit of gardening or possibly cash cultivation and sharing in the farm's pool of childcare, should exempt those children from that mortality trap quite a bit. An isolated shepherd's or charcoal-burner's cottage will be a different proposal, though. Actual death by starvation would be rare, and only in crises (not that those are that rare). Malnutrition will affect constitution, though, whether in development, as temporary deficiency, or as a permanent penalty. This will increase the risk of damage from injuries or diseases, though. Given the Ernaldan magics for blessing conception or births, I wonder that none of this has made it into the creation of adventurers - parents (or grandparents) receiving a boon which results in such a blessing being assigned to a character. But then, there is no "Central Casting Glorantha" yet.

IN the end, your free status is decided at the wapentake, whether you can qualify as a voting member of the clan or tribe by presenting your wealth and willingness to serve the clan. Note that women have it easier to get a vote, although getting it means cold meals for the family left behind.

He is a swimmer, what body shape do you expect?

How are you reckoning the reign of the horse warlords in that calculation? It was them (or at least the first three of them) who created Dara Happa after the Greater Darkness.

Strictly speaking, no metal-using culture will be completely subsistence-farming, and already neolithic farmers would import stone tools, or stone for tools, and salt. Cash crops like fruit, wine, olives, wool, linen, cotton, sugarcane or dyes (like woad) are bound to spring up alongside agricultural surplus feeding the elites. As long as the elites include the wealthier farmers, marginal survival will hit the entire culture rather than just subsistence farmers. Define "breaking even" - do you mean harvest as much as you sowed, consumed, and lost in storage? Few subsistence farmers practice monoculture. While they will have a main crop that may decide about welfare or hunger, it takes more than one crop failure to cause desperation. Droughts, unseasonal inundations, locusts or warfare will be such factors. Climate change, soil degradation or over-consumption of water are long-term deal breakers which lead to dwindling populations and/or migrations. Malnutrition leaves traces in the bone structure, and there are plenty documented cases of periods of malnutrition in cemetaries that left enough bones to analyze. Cultures practicing cremation rarely leave such evidence behind. Often, there are cycles of trial and wealth. The pioneers clearing the land or ameliorating it rarely are well-fed throughout their careers, with the possible exception of the Frisians recovering marshlands from the North Sea as rich pasture. Cultivating wetlands or sandy heath for subsistence proverbially brought death to the first generation, need to the second and bread to the third. Some form of cottage industry or cash crop cultivation still was required for survival when gaining subsistence from such marginal land. But then, cultivating such marginal land usually only occurred when there was a surplus population, and surplus populations result either from land (quality) loss or from surplus production, from socially caused marginalisation, or from ethnic or religious persecution. The Migration Age Angles have quite a bit in common with the Quivini. There is evidence that their ancestral home on the eastern shores of the Cimbrian peninsula and Fyn saw increasing military pressure in addition to increasing soil degradation a century before they appeared in Britain, apparently leading to an exodus into northwestern Lower Saxony. There they joined the Saxons in their piecemeal conquest of Britain. In their wake, Anglia and Jutland mostly lay fallow for a few centuries, although some settlements persisted after the departure of a majority of the population. Over time, the region became repopulated as part of the Danish kindom(s). Something similar could be going on in Dragon Pass. There is this 600 years cycle, which the Orlanthi usually start at strength but then meet decline. I wonder whether the rhythms of soil degradation and recovery are somewhat linked to that. Dragon Pass had been depopulated in the Dragonkill, except for a few areas of (comfortable) subsistence farming in wetlands by the durulz, and possibly by Kitori. While there is no reason the Grazelander pony breeders did not use the Quivini lowlands as part-time pasture, they don't appear to have sought the neighborhood of the former lands of their Pure Horse People ancestral lands outside of the Inhuman Occupation, and their presence appears to have been rather sporadic. 200 years after the dragonkill farmers pushed into the land again, and a generation later they had claimed three quarters of the arable lands for themselves, with the Grazers defending the last quarter by discouraging or suppressing the immigrant farmers for about a century before officially establishing them as serf population. At latest by 1400, the farmers in Dragon Pass were producing comfortably. The farmers in Tarsh already supported a royal and religious elite that controlled most of the humans of the Pass region, while the still independent Quivini squabbled among themselves. Then the big Praxian raids under Jaldon began as the other local symptom of the Seleric Empire alongside the Battle of Quintus Vale, which led to the formation of the Pol Joni from Quivini, Praxian and Grazer volunteers and a seedstock of Opili nation cattle. Tarshite supremacy faltered despite Yarandros' success against the Opili as he had alienated the Grazers and presumably also the Quivini (at least that's what the raid on Bagnot in 1440, the year of his demise, suggests). His successor recovered enough to lead a big expedition into the north, possibly trying to claim Saird for his throne from the Sylilan Lunar dynasty. Five generations of intensive land use may already have taken their toll at the time. The Tarshites under the Illaro dynasty apparently turned to blood magic for renewal of their lands while the Quivini repopulated the losses that Jaldon's raids and the exodus of the Pol Joni had left behind, giving the lands some respite. So did the Telmori invasion that affected all the northern and eastern tribes. The southern Quivini war that Sartar and Wilms mediated probably was a war of overpopulation without starvation (yet). The new institution of a confederate city did take care of some of the population pressure and initialized the rise of the mercantyle elite. The already existing Balmyr salt trade expanded into all of the Quivini lands and the proceeds allowed the establishment of an artisan industry in Wilmskirk. (Lack of salt is a possible source for malnutrition, too, as is lack of iodine - whether such a thing as iodine exists in Glorantha is another question, though.) Other cash crops in what would become Sartar bloomed, too, whether wine, cider, wool or linen. The clans mostly moved away from subsistence farming to supporting the new economy. The greater treaties Sartar forged as King of Dragon Pass offered more pasture to feed the cities with meat, by reducing the distance to the dragonewts, and by joining the Pol Joni to the Sartarite economy, exchanging herd beasts for weapons and armor that brought them superiority over their Praxian neighbors. Allowing the Grazeland Vendref to profit from the trade with Esrolia moved them away from exploited subsistence farming, too, while Lunar Tarsh overcame previous harvest problems with the introduction of maize cultivation (and even more blood rites). The Lunar occupation (and possibly already Terasarin's reign) may have coincided with the onset of soil deterioration in Sartar. While the bloodshed in warfare may have mitigated those problems somewhat, it is possible that Ernalda was already weakened when the fall of Whitewall sent her sleeping. With Lunar taxation and the Windstop, there is a clear scapegoat for harder times for the population of Sartar, even if part of the problem might have been their own success. The liberation and upcoming conflicts offer plenty bloodshed to mitigate some soil degradation, and there are quite a few major causes for enforced fallow periods in the Hero Wars, too.

I don't expect that much unity of interpretation of these measurements. "Any true student of the moon sure must have noticed that the Crown Mountains occupying the visible upper edge of the moon are the mirror image of the Crater rim, and those sit at about 70° latitude. The equatorial circumference must be more than double those 4ßkm." Assuming that such a traveler would have used the primary roads connecting the holy sites on the moon, two days travel would correspond to 12 hexes on the AAA, three days 18 hexes, assuming the marching tempo of infantry as per Dragon Pass rules. Heroic travel would double that distance, and I would assume some heroic qualities of visitors to the moon. This means that you could use one of those icosahedral maps used by Traveller to map the moon in a way compatible to the AAA. 128 km corresponds to 16 hexes (or pentagons when using icosahedral mapping). Halfway around the moon means that you travel through three of those triangular areas, around the equator means you travel across 10 halves of those triangles, not exactly following the hexes. (Who would buy a big D20 with the map of the Red Moon on it? Or DIY a cardboard one?) But then, the Moon sits in the Outer World where distances and sizes become subjective or dependent on context. When Sheng and his disciples jumped on the moon, they would have experienced it differently from someone using the silver bridge. Those scars are said to be the results of Sheng's saber striking the moon.

It probably depends on where you enter. Passing the Gates of Dusk leaves you dead to the world.

To a sun-worshiper, any sun-less environment is a kind of hell, starting with mines and natural caves. To trolls, vampires etc. a place where they are confronted with the glaring sun is hell. Some of the draconic hells are what I regard as extreme outer realms, but not necessarily in the Underworld. I am convinced that quite a few are adjacent to or part of Dayzatar's realm.

Looks like your martyrdom is still ongoing. Living is a universe-reaffirming task in Glorantha all by itself. Undergoing the necessary tasks of in- and exhaling, eating and drinking, ablutions, sleeping, and culturally demanded tasks like dressing, bathing or changing clothes creates the magic that carries the world onward through Time. Ascetically refusing to participate in such activities (at least tuning these activities down a lot) is the path of the mystic who separates herself from the snares of the world. Which becomes a different kind of magical pursuit (through inactivity). To bring back the subject: a certain notorious branch of the God Learners did use imitation of common religious rituals to force their way into the myths behind the rites addressed by the congregations, at first in secret, later forcing those congregations to support their interactions. And possibly that wasn't that different to them from using congregations of Malkioni sending magical energies to the Invisible God with significant amounts of that energy available to the officiating wizards, which appears to be what God Learner orthodox Malkionism was about.

A certain degree of experiential measurement applies to all of the Outer World of Glorantha, whether the Sky, the rim of the Sky Dome and adjacent areas (lands of Dawn, Dusk, Altinela, the Sea of Flame), or the downbelow. Size and distance becomes subjective when traveling outward from the Inner World. If you fly at the command of the Ring of the VIngkotling to face the Luatha on the beach of Luathela, they will appear to be human-sized opponents, maybe with some weird sunset magic, but then so will you wield a bunch of Vingkotling magics bestowed by following that summons. Meet the same individual patroling Kanthor's Isles, and the Luatha will be a giant with unassailable magics. Sir Ethilrist showed us that it is possible to traverse the Underworld without encountering any trolls. He brought the Hound, his Nightmares, and a cloak that releases Goblins, instead. None of these are pleasant. Alkoth has ties into the Dara Happan Underworlds, and possibly beyond. Its Shadzoring demons are like a bad version of Zorak Zoran (if such a thing is possible). There are a number of Antigod creatures in/from the Eastern lands which now are active in the Surface World. (But then the Easterners include the Babadi aka eastern Mostali in that category.) One might say that the trolls are the most successful underworld species in the Surface World, or one might say they are one of the least successful Underworld species, having been evicted from their homelands like nobody else.