Joerg

Paths? Dreams? Visions? Passions? Sensations?

While Gloranthan mythology knows absences - the Void (although even that is full of potential) - most concepts that would be an absence in our scientific thinking are pretty "material" or at least spiritual things in Glorantha, like Darkness, Cold, Shadow, Hunger, Thirst, Hurt, Death, Separation. Lunars may agree with describing Moonglow as a manifest, under the right circumstances even tangible absence of Darkness. Absence becomes a thing. A thing of Chaos, maybe, in the current expression of Lunar power, but an Illuminate's reaction to that would be a "so what?". Memories are a thing. Ideas are, too, or spells. Even sorcery spells are temporary things.

Taking that onward means that asphyxiation, hunger, thirst, exhaustion, wounds, blood loss, amputations or other mutilations may be spirits, too, spirits overlaying the intact spirit of the victim. Heck, aging is a spirit that could and would be banished (and likewise youth). And of course Death. Maybe even Chaos annihilation? In other words: I can see how something like this would work on a body which has crossed over into the Spirit World, or at least gets sufficiently un-anchored in the Middle World for such spirit abstractions to work. The healing of Conan in the first of the Schwarzenegger movie probably did move the injured body a good way across the line, and bringing the hero back alive from the healing place was another struggle. RuneQuest rules state that a Heal 6 (or higher, but what entity would know such a spell) will re-attach a severed limb. But then, the potency of a wound (the loss of hit points) is treated differently from the potency of a venom or a disease. There should be ways for shamans initiated into certain secrets that should allow to deal with venoms, poisons, etc. The Kalevala has the Song of Iron, a piece of lore both containing the method for making iron (objects) deadly, and for undoing the damage done by iron (objects - usually weapons). There was one type of healing in the later books of the original Thieves World anthology where a healer had a herd of domestic beasts (goats, in his case) which would take on the disease, poisoning or other symptoms of the patient. A less selfless version of Xemela's Healing, really, taking the damage and then re-distributing it.

An Elric license doesn't seem to be up for grabs, but a grimdark apocalyptic champion with the serial numbers filed off might be possible. But then, why limit that to a single champion, possibly the GM's Mary Sue? Sandy Petersen has just published a Planet Apocalypse book for 5E, a guide to end your current campaign's universe. Maybe a Mythras version might be possible?

Diseases are easy - bring a Healing spirit, and set it against the disease. In case of doubt, bring more than one. Poisonings aren't caused by spirits (unless you are talking about bad moonshine), but by substances that are ingested, inhaled, injected or absorbed through the skin. Other than casting Vigor to help the victim of the poisoning to fight the bad substance, there isn't much the shaman can do with magic short of rune magic. Unless there are tenacity passion spirits a shaman can send to possess a victim of a poisoning, or poison-eating spirit leeches, or something like that (for @Crel to add to a future Monster of the Month). The shaman can use herbalism or alchemy to produce antidotes or at least purging agents (teas, aromatic smoke). Shamans and sorcerers can be Chalana Arroy cultists with access to such rune spells. Shamans of Swems might have access to leech spirits, or might be able to imbue leeches with antidote abilities. Is it possible for a shaman to make a spirit pact with (an aspect of) CA or Swems without joining the cult as an initiate?

Given how unplayed the West is in RuneQuest, starting a game there in 1625 would IMO be a waste of all the plot hooks we have in the Guide. Same for pretty much any part of Glorantha other than Prax and Dragon Pass. The events around Brithos and Tanisor enter the Hero Wars when the Windstop ends. I have become more and more convinced that "Orlanth in Hell" may have been the trigger for the Waertagi to finding their way out of Hell, more so than the efforts to put their ancestral planet named Waertag back into the Sky River. We have sources crediting the Waertagi with the flooding of Jrustela. If they re-appeared at the port where the Sky River branches off into the Upper World, they would have encountered sailors schooled by Dormal there. Perhaps even Dormal himself. Aamor's quest for lost Brithos (and his previous schoolings by Xeotam) might be an Argrath-like campaign in itself, much like Gebel's exploits in Fonrit a story-hero driven narrative where player character actions converge with the path of the story hero, whether to rise in those ranks or whether to take over all the good parts of that destiny. If the Waertagi contact Brithos shortly after the Windstop ends in 1622, the Aamor story-line will have come to an at least temporary conclusion as he is the prime candidate for having his hopes betrayed, at least for the moment, assuming he manages to escape the bloody sacrifices by a hair's breadth. If he is a true heroquester, that setback may have sent him off into a crazy Otherworld journey he may come back from. Possibly as one of the five Arkats. The Duchy of Nolos is going to see the brunt of the Tanisoran invasion. A land campaign may quickly overrun the continental part of the duchy, with Pithdaros possibly being given a chance to declare for the Rokari watchers and joining the ranks of the Tanisoran forces. Turning on their erstwhile ally and liege Mulliam might help them to keep hiding their true Hrestoli allegiances while the Watchers deal with the Navigationalists. The broad estuary of the Tanier River looks like the most likely staging area for the Waertagi capital units. It isn't clear to me how they contact Guilmarn or Theoblanc in order to coordinate their coastal assaults, but then there is a possibility that they started those even before making contact with Guilmarn. There don't appear to be any significant numbers of merfolk around the Pasos Isles or Kanthor's Isles. That means that the Pasos fisherfolk may have an initial advantage over the deepwater fleet of the Waertagi due to their familiarity with the shallows and hiding places of these elf forest outskirts. That advantage lessens as they Pasos archipelago gives way to Kanthor's archipelago and the Luatha-controled part of Seshnela. What portion of the Quinpolic population would flee, and in which direction? The orthodox Rokari among the population might feel secure from the fury of the Tanisorans, at least initially, before encountering the flower of Tanisoran nobility and their notion of chivalry when on a crusade. The navigationalists on the other hand are the ones most likely to board their trading ships and seek refuge overseas, or at least on the Pasos archipelago when Mulliam overruns continental Nolos. Will there be some who push towards Ginorth and the Castle Coast? It would be Quinpolic ships which carry the majority of the Iron trade with Belskan, so they should be quite familiar with the Castle Coast sorcerer-knights (old-style Hrestoli Men-of-All) of that area, and at least some trading houses will have contacts or even kin (or at least in-laws) here, making this one possible area of refuge if Waertagi pursuers can be delayed with the sacrifice of the remnants of their trireme fleet. But then, few if any captains would have any experience in using the channels around the old Temple to Seshna. But with a fleet of Waertagi ships in pursuit, facing a single ship crewed by Luatha might seem as an acceptable risk, especially if there is hope that Waertagi and Luatha might annihilate one another. Take a look at the map (Guide p.418, or Argan Argar Atlas p.35). The land around the Temple is at least 2000 feet (600 meters) above water level, in places more than 3000 feet (roughly 1000 m) - that's as high as the Shadow Plateau. The fissures were created by the breaking of Seshnela in the Luathan rites. Such a seismic event will create steep walls, but will also cause a certain slope to result from immediate shake-up and then six centuries of weathering. I expect cave complexes to have broken open by those events - many of them collapsed, but others relying on the Likiti magics to keep their shape. We might even encounter an underground race of part-serpent, part humanoid earth demigods at these new interfaces. There might be refugees desperate enough to attempt to bargain for the support of the Temple. At the very least, that would be stuff for a campaign. And yes, that is a possible alternative (or temporary exploit) for Aamor. The leader of this wouldn't become a serpent king himself, though - his child by Seshna might, though. The Waertagi probably would already have probed these shores upon their return - the Castle Coast is the former heartland of the Middle Sea Empire, as far as the Waertagi know, and unless they have allied with the Luatha, they might very well seek to conquer the coastal cities of Old Seshnela in a first invasion. Instead they find elaborate and possibly fancy but still functional over-sized castles offering a secure refuge from their corsairs, well drilled from decades of exposure to their neighbors in Ginorth and any of their Yggite cousins traveling through this stretch of the Neliomi. But then, Theoblanc may very well make Guilmarn send troops onto Waertagi carriers to eliminate this harbor of heretics for good. The Castle Coast doesn't really have the capacity to hold vast numbers of refugees, but Loskalm does, and the war efforts against the Kingdom of War will actually lead to a demand for manpower. By 1623, the siege of Nolos will probably have resulted in the loss of the city, although the ducal citadel might still hold out when Harrek's flotilla arrives from Jrustela. We know that Harrek is going to fight the Waertagi (viewed from the 1621 end to known development) and plunder Noloswal, so I wonder whether he catches the Waertagi ships while they are in the last stages of that siege, catching the Tanisoran and Waertagi forces from behind and neutralizing any naval advantages the Waertagi might have had by suprising them on the beach or in port. In an open sea battle, the tiny penteconters of the Yggites and whatever other ships may have joined the Wolf Pirate fleet at Threestep up to 1621 and during the Circumnavigation hardly stand a chance in a non-magical sea battle on open waters, and even with a few heroic spearhead ships I doubt that the Waertagi flotilla of underwater vessels would have been put to much trouble when operating in conjunction with their capital units. If Harrek had any Crater-Makers-like ability after returning from Jrustela, I would have expected to see it at Pennel or in the Dragon Pass battles, but no such unit or reports exist, which rules out any magic even minimally paralleling Tanien's Victory. We also know that the encounter with Harrek is an initial opposition, but that the Waertagi greater plan is at best inconvenienced by this encounter. Even if the Wolf Pirates manage to destroy the local flotilla, the Waertagi have more ships, and will continue with their plans. We have no suggestion of Loskalm being visited by vengeful Waertagi, but on the other hand, Sog City is expecting them, and in a rather near future a Grazer King is about to meet a green-skinned admiral of theirs in Sog City. And that's before Phargentes Takenegi shows his face in the neighborhood. (Also, the Elf Reforestation may very well hit before this triumphant largest expansion of the Lunar Empire. A Lunar domination - not necessarily imperieal could last at most 10 years until the flood even if Argrath Lightbringer managing to repulse the Empire from Kethaela and Saird leaves some form of Lunar order in Fronela, assuming that the conflict between the Kingdom of War and Loskalm has been resolved already.) A portion of the Nolosites may have tried to evacuate on Vadeli rescue ships, and if they did so, they might be looking forward to a new home on Jrustela or in Fonritian coastal cities as property of these new overlords. Compare the Children's Crusade - possibly make this a "women and children first" evacuation. An evacuation towards the East would be mingling or closely followed by Harrek's circumnavigating fleet, arriving at Alatan, Khorst or Handra before even coming into the vicinity of Kethaela. 5000 people arriving in Kethaela would mean about 10,000 people leaving the Quinpolic League. That's a whole lot of ships. Does the Quinpolic League have this much room in their cargo holds? From personal memory, the cargo vessel at Cyrene (Cyprus) has about the same cargo capacity as the Gokstad ship (for which we have RQ3 stats in RQ3 Vikings). In a refugee situation (like the ongoing one on the Mediterranean), such a ship could carry maybe a hundred people for a single journey, under similarly desperate conditions. That would still require a flotilla of fifty such ships, plus an armada of smaller vessels (coastal fishing and small traders) for the other half. But then the ship-owner families would more likely outfit a family ship, for themselves and their most trusted retainers, and as many movable wealth as they can get aboard, rather than evacuating hundreds of desperate folk. The Solkathi waters are definitely too warm to stage a reprise of the 1945 exodus across the Baltic Sea, but then the Kingdom of War will have both the opportunity and the climate to create conditions like that in Fronela, possibly in the Janube estuary. This sounds like a scene you might have encountered in Belintar's capital. Do we have any information on where the population of the City of Wonders came from? My own (uninformed) visits in the place had quarters of citizens of the Sixths, posh areas where functionaries of the Godking had their families, and places where the magical denizens or guests would frequent their temple homes. How big would the human population have been? The Aeolians in (or rather just outside of) Nochet, in Esvular and the Heortland cities, and those of their Ingareen neighbors who had left their home archipelago to join in Belintar's cosmopolitan urban bureaucracy and its multi-cultural support structure, wouldn't have seen more of the deities than say the inhabitants of Smithstone or WIlmskirk, unless the Godking came over for a state visit. (Admittedly unlikely for Smithstone, but most other Kethaelan cities and major holy sites would have been visited at least once every few years. The termini of the magical bridges and the Fish Roads would have seen significantly more visits of the God King and his divine entourage. Whether that entourage would have included major aspects of the Great Gods is another question, though. Subcult entities (of Thunder Rebels subcult level weird aspects) are possibly a given. This was basically my old campaign premise. New Malkonwal idealists, cynical western mercenaries, Tarshite Lunars working for Fazzur's and later Pharandros's vision of a Greater Tarsh, agents from Mirin's Cross counteracting that in favour of Appius Luxius and his gang, and rather few Lunar Heartland fanatical haters of all things Orlanthi as most of those would have been caught up in the Assiday plan for the New Lunar Temple (helping or hindering, depending on how the Dart Competition alliances worked out). Then the Windstop, sitting out the anger and desperation of the occupied peoples holding on to as many stockpiled supplies as could be saved or requisitioned, sitting out or succumbing to the alliance with the Queendom of Jab (some possibly actively resisting Scorpionfolk attacking their strongholds, supported by local Heortlanders), and then basically being posted north of Hadrian's Wall without much (if any) support from either the Kingdom of Tarsh or the Empire as a whole. (While I never got around to play or even plan this campaign, my idea for Refuge had Prince Orontes (or possibly a slightly less imbecilic twin brother) as the Tarshite governor-prince, accompanied by five Yanafali bodyguards and a few lesser priests, attempting to create a modicum of imperial order in a city of indifferent or even hostile natives and alien-mentality sorcerers, then receiving a small flotilla of Waertagi dissidents refusing to follow the fanatical schemes of the Waertagi returnees from Hell. Using the Thieves World box, of course.) Apart from the Vulari peninsula (between Kenstone Island and God Forgot), the Aeolians provide at best 50% of the population even in the Esvulari portion of the Heortland Plateau. Their Talar caste, and in all likelihood also their Zzaburi caste, are privileged compared to their Commoner compatriots and traditional Heortlings. Even compared to traditional Heortling nobility, I would expect. According to Jeff, the Esvulari castes are rather strictly endogamous. And at least at some point in the history of the Aeolian heresy, there must have been rites of adoption or conversion to their brand of Malkionism. They appear to be the result an early Dawn Age schism between them and the Ingareens of God Forgot, in all likelihood over their willingness to worship the Orlanthi pantheon (if in a somewhat different way, if only by openly accepting sorcerers in their society). The Foreigner Laws of Aventus (a Larnsti King of the Hendriki when Arkat became a troll and the Orlanthi conquered, then lost Dara Happa) from the early Second Age declared their clans (or however their local organisation was) as one of several non-Hendriki groups required to pay tribute to the Hendriki overlords (who in turn were tributary to the Only Old One, at least until the Tax Slaughter. Daramhy (History of the Heortling Peoples p. 40, p.72), the Arkati Shadowlord who infiltrated and then assassinated his fellow Arkati Shadowlords, appears to have been a Hendriki, ending the Arkati presence east of the Shadowlands already shortly after Arkat's ascension around 500 ST, separating the Aeolians from any connections with the Arkati (except possibly in Nochet). The Nochet Aeolians have their quarter outside of the cyclopean walls of the city, amidst long exhausted clay quarries (possibly given over to use as fish ponds). They appear to be a community of artisans, possibly forming a few quasi-houses interwoven with the Macchiavellan network of obligations and clientism of the Esrolian Houses and Enfranchised Houses. During the Siege of Nochet, their quarter may very well have been commandeered by besieging Lunar forces. Quite likely no longer Fazzurite followers - those would have been working inside the city, trying to establish Fazzur's new Lunar temple in the southeastern quarter of Nochet before his fall from grace and command. It isn't entirely clear whether the identification of Heortland with New Malkonwal was a new idea in the Third Age, or whether already the Slontan conquests in Kethaela brought this concept. The Slontan presence on the mainland appears to have been rather short-lived - the conquest of Esrolia lasted maybe three years, the conquests below and atop the Heortland Plateau little longer. We have three God Leaner travelogues for the Orlanthi lands, the very early one by Hrestol Arganitis in King of Sartar shortly after Obduran the Flyer had resigned from the ruling ring of Orlanthland to meditate upon his transformation into a True Dragon, another one in Middle Sea Empire during the height of draconism possibly shortly before the Machine Wars, but neither of these two mention any place south of Karse. The third travelogue, the Durengard Scrolls in History of the Heortling Peoples, dates from 923 or 924 (fifth year of the reign of Daros, who was crowned in 919), and mentions the Aeolians of the coastal city of Leskos and their relationship to the Slontan conquest by a Lord Danshavalas around 800 ST (during the reign of Svagad, i.e. 789-805 ST). Lylket (below the Shadow Plateau near the Creek-Stream-River/Marzeel estuary) must have been founded around that time, too. Apart from the God Learner presence in the Leftarm archipelago of God Forgot, the Rightarm Isles have two major God Learner sites, too - Ironfort, and the Zoo. The Ingareen settlements and these God Learner places might contain documents, artifacts or other hints about a New Malkonwal in the region. The New Malkonwal of the Expulsion March from Brithos apparently was located on the shore of the Faralinthor Sea. The positioning on the mythic map of the God Learners needs to be taken with a few grains of salt, though. Whether eastern Kethaela is the correct place to look for New Malkonwal is another question. Would a Brithini colony that doesn't appear to have switched to Malkionism be an indicator of that exile group of Brithini who stopped being Brithini? 5000 refugees are quite a challenge even for a metropolis the size of Nochet. A certain portion will be caught by their kinfolk who used to be their trading agents in the city. But the source for their wealth was the market at home and their ongoing trade network - quite probably serving the rich hinterland up the Tanier, whether Tanisor or Safelster. With Navigationalism having become a persecuted heresy, that kind of overseas trade doesn't appear to be welcome with the new masters of Noloswal. (Although it may be simply a case of Guilmarn wishing to harvest all the profits from that trade - not exactly an encouragement for those trading houses to return to their homelands.) 5000 refugees in Leskos would double that city's population. If the refugees were dumped onto the beach there, a refugee camp/slum would be the result, without much perspective for any lasting future. The food situation would be tight - while Heortland certainly produces enough surplus to feed 5000 additional mouths in normal years, this is shortly after the Windstop, when the seedstock still needs to be brought up to pre-Windstop amounts, and transporting food for an entire new city needs quite the infrastructure. Or in other words - if Leskos could feed an additional 5k of hungry mouths, the city would already have become that large in the previous years. Esrolia isn't in a position to export much grain, either, as it too is recovering from the Windstop. Overseas trade for say rice from Melib might actually work, but that surplus is limited, too. A slightly cynical proposal might be to direct such arrivals to Corflu and the former Lunar Grantlands after the Dragonrise. Or to send them directly to Dosakayo on Melib, which might be better suited to take in such a number of refugees than any place in eastern Kethaela. These people would be shipwrights, commercial sailors, and probably some veteran navy personnel. They would be able to keep at least part of their flotilla afloat. But they lack the production base for the products they used to export from their homelands in the Quinpolic League, and taking up maritime trade again is certain to bring the Waertagi to their new homes, too. Inercontinental trade aboard Waertagi ships had been possible prior to the Battle of Tanian's Victory, but the land-bound merchants received only a fraction of the added value, most of that would go to the Waertagi middlemen for their transport and brokerage. Unlike their customers, the Waertagi have fond memories of this state of affairs, and they won't accept anything less than a return of that monopoly for transoceanic traffic. The Vadeli don't show any inclination to give up their own special role in such traffic, but will they take a leading role in defending not so much free ocean traffic but their own special cut out of such trades? They are facing (and indeed aiding and abetting) the re-connection of Slon with coastal Umathela, and afterwards the Land-Raising to re-introduce Somelz. Those changes will lead to the relocation of about 50,000 Vadeli in coastal Pamaltela, or their re-orientation as the new slave masters of conquered Umathela. The Vadeli might be willing to sit back and watch how the struggle for domination of the waves will turn out, what is another decade to immortals like them?

Yes, Genert had his court of elemental deities from the other elements - Yamsur from the Fire Tribe, Seolinthur from the Water Tribe, Storm Bull from the Storm Tribe, and lesser ones like the Long-Ears, Aldryami Lords and other such participants of the Eternal Battle (not "the Silver Age warriors who rode from the Spike", though, as that provides either a very early start or a continuity problem as the Silver Age started long after Earthfall, and only after the Eternal Battle began (I think this is part of the Bull's struggle with the Devil, and led to him being tossed down at what is now the Dead Place). Not sure about any Darkness deities at his court, except perhaps Inora, the White Lady of the Darkness spirits in Nomad Gods. The Necklace appears to be a Pamaltelan parallel to I Fought We Won, only with the deities of the Doraddi rather than mortal (or demigod) heroes. From the Dara Happan sources, it appears that Yelm's outlook was limited by the extend of the Rockwood Mountains when it came to interaction with the East. What would become the Arcos Valley appears to be the outer extent even of the Decapolis described by Plentonius. Zzabur names Genner as one of the Srvuali and False Gods - a runic entity accepting worship. His relationship with the ruler of the northern quarter of the world appears to be one of disdain, but that's the same as for Bamat (Pamalt) and Vit (Vith), the other two directional rulers. Both the eastern rulers and Tada claim to have raised the mountain border between the lands of the East (including Kralorela and most of Teshnos) and Genert's Garden/Meksornmali. This appears to reflect a mutual policy of ignoring what is going on on the other side. Teshnos was drawn not so much into central Genertelan culture but into western Genertelan culture by the Middle Sea Empire. The Beast Riders of Prax and the Wastes started to interact with the Shan Shan mountains and beyond only in the Second Age, after the Hidden Greens of the Wastes had been explored in the Waha Trails. It isn't clear whether the Iron Forts were built as defense against Beast Riders, or as defense against Antigods (like the Chaos from the Tunneled Hills at the Plateau of Statues in the eastern Wastes). The iron of the Iron Forts may have been the prize from destroying the northern mostali colony in the Shan Shan range - the southern colony in Diamond Mountain are strict Octamonists and don't have any iron. (Perhaps in reaction to the destruction of their northern brethren?) The Sea pantheon was both friendly (Seolinthur and his children, including Zola Fel) and hostile (Worcha, the Raging Sea, and the standing wave covering parts of Prax during the Flood). The migration of Gash and Gore was turned away from Genert's Garden twice, with the aid of Yelmalio and aldryami. Dozaki's New Home in the far north-east was not quite a direct neighbor to Genert, the remnants of the Ratite Empire and the Kralori served as a buffer. Inora (singing "Let it Go") may have been a representative of Darkness, but prior to the loss of the Redwood to Oakfed, she would not have been regarded as helpful to the growth of the Garden. The Slaying of the Emperor did not bring absolute darkness to the World. Calling the period after Yelm's death the Lesser Darkness appears to me like Dara Happan propaganda. The Death of the Emperor brought about changes - the Flood, the coming of Winter (Valind's Glacier), and (only with a slight causal connection) the invasion of the Unholy Trio and their collective spawn Wakboth from the north. The Only Old One might be the one to blame for Earthfall - without his success in rallying all the people around his realm against the Devil's army, Earthfall might have been avoided, but instead Dragon Pass would have become a barren wasteland on the way of the Chaos Horde towards the Spike. The Pseudocosmic Egg was one of the double-edged heirlooms the Feldichi left behind. That people appears to have been quite unpleasant, although outwardly helpful. This sounds a bit like the Vadeli POWs rebelling against the Kachasti, who we know were in the area at the time of the formation of the Nidan Range. Even with Genert and his court surviving, the death of Rashoran at the hands of the Unholy Trio could only have been prevented if Orlanth had been somehow able to prevent Ragnaglar's rape of Thed. Ultimately, Genert might be to blame for that - he was one of the Evil Uncles who imposed the lethal or at least meant to be imprisoning initiatory tests on Umath's spawn. Ragnaglar was driven insane in the Sex Pit, and that insanity led to his rape of Thed. Rashoran is blamed in part for the Unholy Trio accepting Chaos as a tool for their revenge against the establishment (including Orlanth as King of the Gods). His message of Illumination was waiting to return to the world. The simultaneous summoning of Gbaji was an unintended consequence, part of the temptation trap left behind by the Feldichi. The God Learners wouldn't have stopped at trying to capture all the Cradles, but would have treated Genert's palace similar to how the Seshnegi had treaded Hrelar Amali - a mix of destructive disdain and a measure of respect. The secret of draconic speech entered the Kingdom of Orlanthland long before the Malkioni discovered the Abiding Book - the claim that it had been God Learners who had discovered that lost ability is baloney. One might be inclined to blame Lhankor Mhy scholars whose libraries later came under the sway of God Learners from Slontos, but that's as far as the connection between the earliest Dragonspeakers and the God Learners goes. The God Learner conquest of Teshnos was triggered by the Loper People who had been campaigning in post-Stygian Empire Ralios, losing the Red Sword of Tolat in the process, allowing a western adventurer to pick up that artefact and to travel to Melib and claim kingship. The Loper People apparently had roamed into Genert's Wastes earlier on, although the way they had ended up in Ralios is another enigma. Whether Genert's presence would have prevented the Loper King from campaigning in (or rather against) the Rightness Crusade in Ralios may have been a tipping point in eastern Genertelan history. Genert doesn't seem to have interacted adversely with Herespur, an eastern Antigod who may have been a mask of a respectable (if warlike) Genertelan deity.

Actually, that appears to be the one time when you can cast a "Spirit Binding" spirit spell (p.265), apparently with a simple resistance roll POW vs. POW rather than the tedious "spirit combat to zero points" job of the Control (Entity) spell (p.258) when discorporated. And I wonder whether it must be the caster of the Control spell who takes down the spirit to zero MP, or whether several combatants can team up on a spirit to make it susceptible to a Control (Entity) spell. And good thing the spirit combatants usually need to be discorporate already, as a spirit fought down to zero MP leaves the Middle World and retreats across the veil into the Spirit World. Immediately? I'd dealy love to see examples of play for this entire subject. That's the way how Control Entity is used while not discorporated. With a spirit magic control spell, that task had better end inside of 2 minutes, too. Zzabur mentality. Nuff said. Yes. @PhilHibbsprovided all the specialities normal RQG spirits have been shown to have so far. The question still remains whether a bound Healing or Disease Spirit (for instance) can be milked for MP, or whether that is such a breach of the contract that the spirit attacks the user, or may attempt to flee, despite the Binding. I cannot remember whether Sandy wrote this in the RQ Daily or whether this came up in personal conversation on some convention, but as I remember the story, these blobs of MP had hung around since the original era of Innocence, the Green Age. I think this was one of the ways Sandy drove the point home that Pamaltela, for all its terrible conflicts between the Doraddi and the Artmali empires and the Six-Legged Empire, retained a modicum of Green Age innocence and wonder. This might resonate with the statement that Dinal, the easternmost part of the Errinoru jungle (and possibly really belonging to the VIthelan quarter of the world rather than the Pamaltelan one) managed not to notice the Greater Darkness. (Being part of Vithela might be an excuse why this forest did not even miss the sun during the Greater Darkness.)

Perhaps as much the amount of spoilage over Dark and Sea Season when the seedstock for the summer grain seeding is put aside in the face of Sea Season. I would be interested whether the Heortlings have both summer and winter seeding, or whether they are limited to summer seeds for their crops.

Actually, the Red Moon is not the only celestial orb that has (or used to have) people inhabiting their surfaces. This may have been restricted to "moons", aka planets using a female pronoun - at least I haven't heard about Shadzorings or fire demons inhabiting the planet Tolat, or Lightfore carrying any surface life. All bets are off for Lokarnos, a deity known for carrying stuff, or the Boat Planet, another vehicle that is usually at least crewed. But then, are these planetary bodies actually orbs, or are they perceived by their crews (and hypothetical inhabitants) as a wagon or a water vessel, respectively? The Zaranistangi on Melib have histories of their ancestors debarking from Veldara's Blue Moon (=Annilla?) and the blue planet Mastakos (which they call Emilla). These bodies may not have been perceived as orbs by the people inhabiting their surface (assuming that they did inhabit the surface, rather than an interior). For Veldara, we know that the Artmali thought of her surface as a land in the sky, with no question about how to stay upon a spherical surface without falling off - they remember that they had to use the ships made of the solidifying moon glow to leave the lunar surface for the Surface World. If these celestial body inhabitants saw the Earth Cube overhead, they may have wondered why people did not fall off that weird surface. Or not.

Similarly, at least according to almost contemprary historians, the Celts who had invaded the Etruscan lands of northern Italy turned their attention and ire on Rome because Roman emissaries took up weapons against them, leading to the Roman "Vae Victis" trauma.

Playing a character who recently managed to raise his POW by 20%, or one point... With the improved chance at getting a POW gain roll from something else than overcoming an opponent in spirit combat or with an offensive spirit spell, starting with a low POW doesn't automatically mean that you'll remain at that low end. Even if my characer would learn Disrupt, he'd now have a 30% chance to roll POW vs. POW, which would give him another 35% chance at best, 15% at worst to succeed against one of your characters, or in other words a 7.5% chance to gain a POW check. And he has only five tries before running out of MP. Having to roll for rune magic hurts a lot more, at least if you need to roll for a non-elemental rune or a secondary or worse elemental rune and you play a character that isn't on the sociopathic spectrum. It gets worse when you need to roll for allied rune magic, as the allied cult may have virtues that are opposed to your own cult's preferences. An Orlanth cultist with a high Truth rating has a hard time trying to use the Charisma spell Eurmal gives him as associate magic.

Doesn't that phrase mainly refer to friendly fire, i.e. the recipient of the message letting off steam on one of their own underlings (in typical Hollywood villain manner)?

For a rune priest, that is at most 5% difference...

Yes, an enchanted item can have a number of quite different enchantments linked together. A spirit binding enchantment and a magic storage enchantment in the same item are almost a standard. You can task the spirit with keeping the storage filled for its own use or for use of the holder, directing it to refill it only after having regenerated all or at least most of its MP. Not necessary, IMO. Dead crystals don't need attunement, everybody can pick them up and use them. They can either hold a spirit (of however many MP it may have) or hold a limited amount of MP. That means that crystals where the finder rolled low are likely to be used to house spirits, and crystals with a decent capacity are more likely to be used as a MP storage. It only takes a command by the holder of the crystal housing the spirit to make it fill an adjacent (possibly touching) storage crystal with MP. Looking at Scotty's recent answer that you need to use some control or command spell only once to be able to interact with a spirit in a housing, it doesn't even look like you have to use a commanding spell if the spirit can do so from within the housing. If the spirit has to leave, then it can be commanded to leave the housing, do the job, and return, for a minimal investment of magic. If you come with the Zzabur mentality, it is "yield your MP, or I'll tap you." Thed is a spirit (or at least she was one under the strict "three worlds dogma") and she is a (regrettable) part of the Compromise, so I guess that means yes, spirits are required as pat of the great compromise. ("extensive compromise" might be a better term?)

Sounds like your characters are training to become Kitori Shadowlords...

This leads to something like a task rating in percentiles, reeking of opposed rolls. It doesn't take more than a 10% skill to successfully produce nitroglycerine in small batches if your augmenting rolls (like "read procedural script") succeeded and your prep-work succeeded, as well as your concentration rolls. With that number of "if"s, the reaction going boom prematurely has a fairly good chance, though. The experienced practitioner will know the pitfalls and look out for those. That can be a very narrow but deeply specialized knowledge. A meth cook with six-figures sales from his production won't be able to be very useful when starting in an analytical lab, and an experienced analytical chemist may still trigger a number of the pitfalls the meth cook knows inward and outward when trying his hand at Breaking Bad. That said, triggering the pitfalls and avoiding the fallout may be two different rolls.

The ramming attack of a lorry or the trampling of a stampeding bison is usually beyond a human's ability to parry, or even just to soften. Such attacks might be dodged, depending on the amount of area effect the attack has (say a brontosaur tail slash, or a great troll's roundhouse big maul attack). The lance has a very small point area of attack. A footman about to be ridden down while not the target of a lance still is in for a world of pain and suffering, and so is a mounted fighter (say a high llama rider) receiving a bison ramming attack from the flank. Even if you manage to get in a hit with your pole axe on the bison's head or front quarter, that won't prevent the ramming of your steed and potentially your leg. Such a lance would deliver a knockback damage even if the parry armor plus the body armor plus whatever magical protection the target is wearing prevents hit point loss on a non-impale event. On an impale event too, but that's included in the impale damage, and might only apply to the carry-over after the body rupture has been inflicted (if any). Damage eaten up by parry, armor or magic might still be accountable for knockback effects, though probably not completely (at least parry should dampen the impact ever so slightly). Should the damage bonus from the steed be doubled for a special success in (any version of) RQ or compatible BRP?

Speaking as the chemist in the lab, it is a stressful and potentially dangerous environment quite often, and failures are common, too. Quite often those failures result just in extra work, some broken glass, and slight exposure to toxic or corrosive spill - usually while being protected, or under somewhat controlled circumstances. Driving is another case where failures are fairly common, and then trigger a series of rolls to deal with the situation to escape real damage. It takes a number of botched rolls to have really bad consequences - rolls not just by yourself, but also by other participants in traffic. Basically, you can call for a roll already in a mildly stressful situation, and a fail will lead to "saving throws" to cope with the situation, or to loss of a resource (like time). You don't have to roll everything. You could do a blanket roll for the quality of your day, and if you get an interesting result (of whichever kind), you might have something to roll for that may give you skill checks. You might earn or lose minor rewards (like saved time, or lingering benefits) on non-interesting results.

The messenger as the carrier of tactical intelligence for a force leader probably is a valid target. The emissary should be inviolate if that individual (or group) obeys the rules of the faction they are sent towards. (Except for factions which receive such emissaries and then complete their voluntary sacrifice by expediting them towards their deity. Such as Delecti, the Tusk Riders, the Cannibal Cult, and possibly a few others.) I think that our real world history had enough customs like this - emissaries volunteering to self destruct in delivering a message. Movements that honor and preach martyrdom, or that promise some form of ascension from such community service. Issaries being the god of all forms of communication, this might well be covered by his cult. (Being the god of equal exchange might even make Issaries eligible as an assassin using mutual destruction. Much like Hahlgrim did using Ironbreaker.)

Iconoclast cultures and/or monotheistic religions which forbid or suppress depiction of the human body have the unhappy consequence of such art being discontinued or even destroyed in religiously apologized dementia. Apart from that Euro-centrism, the video also focused strongly on stone as the medium. I didn't watch it for the whole time, but I don't recall bronzes, ivory, or even special stones like jade or agate, and no wood-carving, horn-carving or terracotta at all. Or just the constructive sculpting in less permanent material like wax that I presume these works were lifted from during their creation. Or architectural ornaments in stucco, or possibly even wattle-and-daub. Decorative art usually is idealizing the subject, usually to the current preferences and cultural context, using artistic conventions of a genre. (Like e.g. sculpts of manga/anime artwork, or Barbie dolls.) There are occasional lapses into naturalism, like Akhenaten's short intermezzo, or naturalism with less-than-ideal proportions is used to make a point in contrast, like a satyr by Michelangelo using all the less than ideal body shape features of his model for illustrating the depravity of the subject of a satyr. Even Hieronymus Bosch only used deformed sinners when making a point, leaving the rest fairly pleasant to the eye (probably to encourage identification of the viewers). Art has to be in a cultural context, too. Visiting an exhibition of an ethnographic collection from the age of Imperialism often lacks such context and is a mere accumulation of curiosities. (That goes for Roman copies of items from subject cultures, too...)

I wonder whether the cults descriptions are trying to combine two quite different approaches to the identity of deities and their (source of) magic into a single game construct. Cults (and by implication the cult objects, usually deities) have runes defining the area of their magics and myths defining the application of their magics. The deities often also have some other domains, like celestial bodies (as primary or secondary manifestation), or other features in the cosmos - storms, rivers, mountain ranges, all the way down to "sacred" places associated with a very specific instance of a myth. And - especially when it comes to celestial representation - a single object often is claimed by quite different entities. Vorthan (the Fronelan war god of the Red Planet) appears to be mainly an underworld deity, a death dealer. Balumbasta (the Doraddi deity that the God Learners identified as Lodril) is a fire deity which may or may not have myths about a sojourn into the Underworld, but whose main feature is the Fire Mountain (not necessarily a volcano but a mountain of fire or eternally burning rock) in the far southeast of Pamaltela. Tolat is a god of Life and Death. Shargash started out as the god of fertility and strength for the southern of the original Dara Happan sacred cities, and a celestial son of Yelm, but upon impact with Umath followed that invader into the place where he had crashed through the ground into the Underworld (or possibly worse, the Outer World) and returned changed (possibly flayed, possibly merged with Shadzor). The Sun and Lightfore are two other over-claimed celestial objects. Sometimes these associations migh be formed by enemies rather than the cults themselves. Disregarding Basko's Black Sun, there is one sun in the day sky, and it usually has one regionally recognized main deity assigned to it. In places with a strong syncretic history like the extent of the Bright Empire and the placed where those syncreticisms were distributed by the Middle Sea Empire, we have the Cult of Yelm as the main recognized sun god. Main recognized doesn't necessarily mean main worshiped. Harono is a useful cult to have as a protector deity as the Esrolians have myths about how to limit his power. Yelm does provide some associate magic and receives a portion of the associated worship for that. If you really wanted a "one book covers it all" opus, yes it would, as you would have to describe the different local cults and their local context to make them work. As far as I am concerned, that is going to be the job that the regional supplements will have to do - if they have a local variation of the sun god (like Teshnos has Somash), those supplements will need to provide that information. If you come across deities like Calyz or Furalor who don't really have any good 1:1 or even 0.7:1 parallels in the Theyalan/God Learner Monomyth syncretic version, then that deity needs to be presented in full, otherwise detailing the differences to previously published versions might be okay if the reference is one of the foundational documents, and/or there is a freely accessible resource with at least the most pertinent points that need to be covered. (Something like RQ3 Gods of Glorantha with at best one line spell descriptions for new spells.) We don't have any such regional supplements yet - even Sartar is still under development, and Lunar Tarsh is going to need one as much as Esrolia. The Grazelands might possibly get covered inside a scenario book the size of TSR or PP.

Are there cultures or regiments where male fighters put on boob cuirasses to signify that they are the forces of life? (in addition to dealing harm or deal out healing or other support magic)

The upper - from Surface to outer Sky. We don't want this to go to Hell.

TL-DR: There are spirits that offer MP to the holder of a binding as their nature, and there are those that don't. I think that different natures of spirits allow them to be accessed. An allied spirit allows partaking of its abilities and energy, it is the highest level of cooperation you can get out of a spirit without coercion. I used to see binding a spirit as a form of coercion, but spirits actually have a desire to exist inside the world of the living and are willing to accept some forms of restraint to partake in the direct exposure to life this side of the veil. There are spirits that do that naturally - usually advanced ones, like nymphs, spirit animals, or genii loci (or combinations thereof), but those are outside of this discussion. There are spirits that can cross the veil temporarily, but there are also those who cannot on their own devices. These spirits can be invited or summoned across, though, and will inhabit a vessel (such as a crystal, a binding, or a beast prepared to house them) for the enjoyment of being in the Surface World. (At least, according to how HQ1 described animist charms.) If that prolonged presence comes with the price of offering a service, that's a price these entities are willing to pay, or paying the price is part of their nature. And for some types of spirits, that price is giving the holder of their vessel use of the magic (points) they accumulated. Back in times of RQ3 I thought that the mechanical descriptions of those spirits were straight from the grey lands of Blandistan (and the spirit plane used to be described as that). I proposed there to be an ecology of spirits, a vast majority of autotrophs ("plant spirits") which turn the ambient life force or flow of energy from the Source (the magical spring of energies beyond the sun and the outer sky dome) and turn that into their own stored magic, not in the shape of starch, but as MP. Those were what I regarded as run-of-the-mill POW spirits. These spirits would also allow themselves to be harvested by other forms in the ecology - I called those bunny spirits. Such spirits might be able to benefit from the stream of energy coming from the Source, but would also be able to harvest the "plant spirits" for MP at a rate beyond their own ability of regenerating. Finally, I postulated another layer of spirits preying on these harvesting "bunny spirits", "wolf spirits" which would hunt these bunny spirits down and devour their spiritual nutrition, leaving them for Godtime-like rebirth and re-acquisition of autotroph-accumulated magic. These predator spirits would understand themselves as part of a food chain, and could be hunted down for consumption, too - for significant amounts of magic gained. They might be "milked" or "bled" by someone they accepted as masters. But then there are spirits which have a regenerative source of magic (aka RQ's POW stat) and a pool of available magic (MP) only for the purpose of maintaining their existence. If they have a personality or will (not necessary), they might donate some of their available magic to a receptable for available magic (such as a dead crystal or a MP matrix). When bound, they might even be coerced to do so. But I wouldn't allow such spirits to gift their available magic to the holder of a binding without having undergone a mutual alliance. Which might be a pact, or a divine assignment. I also think that the spirits presented in the Bestiary show the lowest set of possible abilities a spirit of that type can have. There might be spirits that have an intellect, passions, possibly can manifest a temporary physical body even if their class type (disease, healing, passion, "spell", magic) doesn't have those. Ancestral spirits are a case of "spell" spirits with additional features when employed to learn Spirit Magic spells, IMO. Sandy Petersen told about encounters in his Pamaltelan campaign with spirit entities that had no POW, just MP. They didn't have much of a will or personality, either. According to Sandy, they had hung around since Creation, simply existing. They would allow themselves to be harvested, ceasing to exist when used up in full. I don't think that Sandy's players thought about using them as a (free, possibly unlimited) storage device for MP from another source, by donating MP to them when MP were full or nearly full. Maybe that wouldn't work. Just as maybe, there might be spirits that have a somewhat coral-like life cycle and which spawn such POW-less bundles of MP to drift away, settle down elsewhere, and then give birth to a new spirit of the kind that spawned them, the POW being dormant until the new environment was adjusted. Do spirits procreate? Or rather, do they procreate any more since Time rules the world? Can spirits grow? (One way they might grow is from receiving worship or donations of POW like for wyters. That may be a temporary growth only.) There are known predatory magics that can harm and possibly permanently destroy spirits. Or do spirits require an origin in an embodied life form, and some sort of ascendance after the end of the physical life of said life form? On the other hand, new life in the surface world requires a spirit (or soul) imprint from Otherworld features like Yothbedta's Stream of Life or Ty Kora Tek's Waiting Place. Possibly quite a few of these if we follow the "multiple souls" concept of the Orlanthi.