Joerg

There is more to the Red Goddess than just awakening the seven souls - I think Teelo Estara achieved that when she returned for the First Battle of Chaos. At some time, Jar-eel would have to absorb the secrets of the Blue Moon. And there are the examples of Hon-eel to study and follow, and to overcome. I would expect her to retreat to her maternal family, the Eel-ariash clan, which has a long expertise raising magical prodigies, and probably has an infant educational system that makes even the most ambitious modern achiever parents look like slackers. Hon-eel is the Artess, and her significant skills in the arts of entertainment would be a good vehicle for her interactions with the White Moonies. Lollapalooza rather than Moonfire and brimstone.

I would look towards the EWF for the common cause between the Skanthi and the Talastarings. This is the area where Isgangdrang subdued the Old Day Traditionalists, and this is the area where Alakoring found willing supporters in his fight against the EWF. A common anti-EWF cause would have been helpful in overcoming the bad vibes that the Bright Empire had brought. In the Paulis Longvale narrative in Cults of Terror, the Skanthi were hosts to the exiled Talastarings, which doesn't sound like they were in any way subects of Bolthor Hairybreeks.

Depending on the amount of world-building you put in in defining your setting, picking and choosing elements from Glorantha for your world-building is always a possibility. The "what your parent/grandparent did" part needs to be redone for your own setting, of course. But it is a good exercise to create your setting, asking about major incidents in the recent past and how your community would be involved. Using the runes in another setting can be done easily. For my homebrew RQ3 setting, the runes were the major constellations or objects in the sky. Creating your own set of deities, with slightly different powers for e.g. the storm giants aiding the earth-and-stars pantheon of the previous folk enslaved by dreadful über-sorcerers is not that hard. Quite a bit can be inherited. You need your own names and interactions of those deities and mythical monsters and other baddies. My RQ3 setting had Chaos as a corrupting intruder similar to Pern, and the existential threat as the ousted but not quite gone über-sorcerers of the past. And it had other evils or at least defense-aganst-destruciton-weakening entities or magical methods. RQG doesn't have the nice world-building guidelines that RQ3 had. Not yet, I guess. The text exists, and it is as relevant to Glorantha as to any other setting, so I expect it to re-surface as advice to the GM. Doing your world-building around such elements may limit your freedom a bit, but so does every attempt at world building that has to go with a magic system (or several).

The southern (former) Locaem clans more or less stayed where they lived when they shifted their loyalty towards Monrogh. Tarkalor's war against the Kitori started either during Saronil's or Jarolar's reign, well before he came to take the title of Prince of Sartar. IMO the Kitori wars were part of the reckoning with House Norinel and the houses of the Suitors, Around 1470 the Locaem and Kultain have invaded Balmyr and Sambari lands, and threaten to oust these tribes from there. Sartar solves the conflict by founding Wilmskirk. If the light-worshiping clans are under duress, did they form the forefront against their northern neighbors, and are now thwarted in their attempt to get away from the Kitori?

When I first saw the ad in Wyrm's Footnotes, I thought "a board game about the God Leaner empire and its naval and magical struggles against the East Isles, Errinoru, and possibly the EWF". While the name now is taken for this rpg, one can still hope someone will come up with a game around that topic...

Does your Yelornan ride a unicorn? In that case, something unicorn-related might be part of the rite. If she would be eligible but doesn't have one yet, some preparatory instruction for that quest might be part of the festivities, if not the actual quest. Yelorna has a number of Darkness Age martial myths. Given the troll and Chaos neighbors, things could get interesting. Tourney Altar as a mundane version of Kargan Tor's gym is one way to go about a Humakt holy day. Some regimental training might be a way to celebrate a holy day, too - shieldwall training, possibly Battle. Dealing with restless dead, reclaiming Death from those who abused it, those are the main Godtime pursuits of Humakt other than getting the True Sword from the Underworld and testing it. Humakti might experience having their (gift-carrying) personal sword (ritually) stolen by a Trickster, and then having to reclaim it wielding a replica. Chasing that Trickster might include some slapstick they have to endure before getting to recovering their belonging, from an opponent wielding it against them.

So the solo adventure is not about causing the Dragonrise. Gotcha.

While speed and acceleration (and deceleration) are important in a chase, maneuverability, traction and/or turn radius and turnaround speed are integral to chases. Not to mention adverse conditions like oil slicks, ice, water (aquaplaning), smoke/fog/dust, potholes (causing attrition to the vehicles), and use of moving obstacles (aka traffic). A motorbike will accelerate faster than a decently motorized car, but may lack in top speed, or may be more prone to adverse wind. While not exactly a chase or a race, I had the opportunity to use an unlimited speed low traffic part of German Autobahn to test my car against a motorbike, and while it accelerated to about 110 mph a bit faster than I did, I was able to get a little more top speed and pass the motor cycle. The "chase" ended with the motorcyclist electing to leave for a resting place rather than following me. I managed to make it home in time for the scheduled online meeting without egregiously breaking any legal speed limit... A hostile chase may see additional maneuvers, like forcing the other vehicle off the street. For any "full contact driving" like giving the chased vehicle a rear bump, the vehicles had better be reinforced, and airbags re-calibrated. It doesn't take much of a bump to your front grill to lose cooling fluid in a moment, or for a side bump to push in the car wing to scrape on the tyre or to hem in the front wheels, limiting steering. Bodyguards get special training to drive armored cars, both defensively and to create an escape route. I know a retired bodyguard who likes to talk shop every now and then. I don't think that BRP game values are easier to handle than some ordinary physics. At least over here in Germany, those physics (or at least the results of braking etc. at a few standard speeds, multiplied by the braking distance) are taught as part of getting a driver's license. Then there is the danger of braking harder than the vehicle is really constructed for, when it becomes a case of reaction time and skill to avoid getting into an uncontrollable instability, and managing some instability. Same for maneuvering on slick surfaces - that's skill and reflexes, too. At sufficient speed, first grade dry tarmac can be a slick surface... Then there is the problem with diminishing returns as your engine is revved up almost all the way. Quite a lot of that is down to engineering, to different gear-switching stratagems, and ultimately to redlining the vehicle - whether traction or engine output or cooling/lubrication, or overheating the brakes. Those can be GMed as narrative trade-offs.

There are auspicious times for magic and heroquesting used by most questers to "get to the other side" across a "weakened barrier", to use HQ1 terminology. Rites all over the place reinforce the cyclical meaning of dates, and provide sets of people commemorating and reenacting certain episodes of Godtime. This does provide a pool of people to draw into a quest without having to reach out across generations. You cannot prevent Harmast from succeeding on either of his Lightbringers' quests, but that doesn't mean that you must lose against him. Especially heroquests have the concept of losing forward.

I'll buy the Footprint, as it is all about hobbling the god of movement, but I don't think that Whitewall was already on the Storm Age map when Gorangi Vak captured his sky bull. (And Cragspider would not yet have established herself at Conquest Peak, either - getting past her is not part of that heroquest, but a heroic endeavour of its own.) Frankly I am not quite clear why starting at Cliffhome is a thing for this quest. Cliffhome and Stormwalk aren't even on the same hex meridian (aka ley line). But then, maybe there is an intermediat step where the questers switch ley lanes? Broyan was a heir of Hendrik, and might have been able to use his magical routes. (Although leadership during a siege and never sleeping twice in the same place - apparently a common Larnsti practice - don't go well with one another.)

I tend to compare magic roads to warp drive physics - the magic (or heroquest) creates a local realm about you of limited extent to the sides, and of limited contact to most of the land to the sides. It may take note of landmarks in a sort of topological order, acknowledging that the path goes past them. The dragonewt plinths are both such landmarks and tools to uphold the magical road. They are brimming with magic, a magic easily tapped into, even by accident, which then would cause fluctuations of the magical road. Some such fluctuations are normal, but it is quite possible to interfere with traffic along those roads when occupying the space of such a plinth. The magical bridges (of Belintar, Godunya, or the top level of the Daughter's Road) may have such nodes, too, but they are a lot less leaky and probably a lot more thirsty when it comes to magical energies fluctuating through. The route from Cliffhome to the skybull pasture on Stormwalk Mountain takes a quester out of the mundane world, and offers few if any chances to drop out on the way. If you lose your way, you might be lost in the hero planes, in a "lost in space" or "jumpdrive mishap" sense. It should be hard to go to Stormwalk without at least interacting with a skybull in a taming attempt, although a failure to tame and some high-powered evasion may do the trick. (On the other hand, who will say no to a flying steed?) Anybody who makes his departure at Cliffhome should be impossible to stop until at Stormwalk - which was the reason why Redbird and his companions took that route in 1613. There are a few heroquest paths from Dragon Pass into Ralios, like Mastakos seven steps west which are some sort of seven miles boot effect, or possibly slow teleports, or the Plundering of Aron, which requires some combat, and exerts a strong force to complete the quest (or have the quest supporters suffer from beast failure). A few extra individuals might be able to hitch a ride and jump off at some conflict or other while the rest of the questers makes sure that no such loss of beasts is incurred.

There's that. Some say this extends to being a warrior... I think this may be a bit harsh. We know that there was phalanx warfare in the Gods Age, and Yelmalio may have been involved in a few hussles involving phalanxes. In such altercations, he may well have been the second man in the front rank, and the fifth, and the seventh, and... not necessarily throughout the battle, but in critical moments. It is pretty hard to survive in Glorantha as something else than a farmer, or manager of a farm. The Templar hoplites or bodyguards may manage to do so, but they come from ranks of pre-templar spearmen/hoplites who have to work for the living they make outside of militia duty. Your landed Pendragon knight becomes a farmer, too, or at least a farm manager. Only freemen can afford a templar's basic set of equipment. Do the hoplite-class non-templar sun domers of Prax or Goldedge have tenant farmers, or do they manage unfree or live in semi-free folk who do the actual field work? Do they have lighter spear-and-shield forces (at least in the militia) who train both in hoplite formation and as skirmishers? The horse-archers would have to be fairly wealthy freemen, too, in order to be able to support a horse. They might be recruited from mounted herders rather than grain farmers.

Names of the gods: Isn't it part of the worship rites to call out the myriad of the deity's names, possibly in the right order for the date of the service? What is the proportion of Barntar farmers (for less martially inclined farmers) in the Sun Dome lands (Goldedge, Vanntar, Zola Fel valley)? Yelmalio isn't that well known as a plowman. (Neither would have been Elmal.)

Does said player roll for parries? A 60% chance to Parry leaves him with a 2% chance of suffering a severe combat disadvantage, after all...

Of course. Brangbane was one of theirs.

If they have ancestral waters which they can draw powers from, yes, I think they would like to stay with those waters. However, when and from where did the Ludoch arrive in the Rozgali and Solkathi Seas? Would they have East Islander features, or would they be Wareran (or at least Wartain)? It took the Breaking of the World to return the Seas to Kethaela. Whichever merfolk might have inhabited the Faralinthor Sea would have had to survive a prolonged dry period in a salt desert to see the Silver Age. Also, at that time the Neliomi Sea had been tapped into a fetid, energy-less body of water. When Sramak's River followed Sky River Titan's lead, forming the three Doom Currents, waters from the edge of the Lozenge flooded in from the West. Somebody must have built the walls of Old Karse in this time - there was little reason to place a city for the Pelaskites there while Choralinthor lay empty and no rivers had their roots in Faralinthor's basin any more. Panaxles might be a good candidate for that. (Could that mean that Seapolis was designed by Sestarto?) The arrival of the Ingareens in the Left Arm might fall into this period, too, as might the Waertagi beacon at Jon Barat (Talar Hold in older maps). For the Waertagi, this would have been a return into the neighborhood of their old drydock site just west of Defender's Shore. Nochet would have become their new location for a Drydock, so to say the successor of Ex (a rumored city of Tada's Prax, half a day's walk from Sog's Ruins). In a strange way, the Breaking of the World was an upbeat event for the Choralinthor Bay and its peoples. While their victory in the Unity Battle had prevented an earlier collapse of the Spike, that event created more favorable conditions to a number of peoples. Worse times still were coming. The two devils Wakboth and Kajabor still had to tear into one another, sending one down into Hell and the other into Prax. Nochet had to be abandoned for a while, despite the advantages the (brief?) contact with the Waertagi had brought to the city, with most of the population following Queen Norinel into the Obsidian Palace. The Silver Age is about getting out of the hiding holes and re-uniting a cooperation which had turned the Devil and its initial host of horrors away from the lands which used to be the Vingkotling kingdom. Placing Panaxles in the Silver Age makes attributing pre-Greater Darkness events to him sort of problematic, IMO. Even if he is now another bastard of the Powers, an imitation of Mostal the Maker. The Shadow Plateau makes sense as the truncated peak of a volcano deity. It isn't the only peak suffering decapitation in the the region. It isn't the only volcano that was overcome by hostile forces. It is not the only myth in which the volcano god was enslaved. For most of history, the Obsidian Palace was the highest elevation in the world. Its tip was broken off by a passing planet, star, or possibly the sun, after the Sunpath got established. Veskarthen's mountain is absent from the list of sacred peaks. Cliffhome is in it. How comes? Having Panaxles erect a kilometer high plateau of pretty much unworked rock doesn't quite feel in character with "The Architect", the person using pre-made shapes to create big things out of them. Building just some rock jutting up steeply would be worthy of "The Landscape Gardener", but "The Architect"? Carving Esrola's throne out of the side of that plateau, or erecting Axe Hall over the holiest site of Babeester Gor in the region (if not the world), now those are feats worthy of Panaxles. As would be overseeing the construction of the Waertagi drydock at Nochet. Those drydocks are important to the role of Nochet as the greatest city in that part of the world. Yes, it already was the most populous place at the Dawn, with roughly three times as many inhabitants as any of the major Heortling citadels. The Esrolians still were outnumbered by the Heortlings by at least 3:1. Is Merngala a Silver Age heroine if she saw Ernalda "not dead but sleeping"? Or is she a goddess rather than a heroine, a local goddess welcoming the Lightbringer gods and their rescuees on the day of the Dawn (before Compromise prevented them from manifesting again outside of rites)?

Spoilers, Bill!

What is your source for that? Neither Missing Lands nor the Introduction to Glorantha nor Men of the Sea nor the Guide nor the Sourcebook have anything to say about such a preference. Gilled Waertagi share the upper-body appearance of piscoi merfolk, but retain their human legs. Those may have fin-like extensions, though, making them look a lot like the scuba divers in Captain Nemo's employ. Originally, they claim Ludoch ancestry, as per the Guide p.465: I used to be a bit dubious about Jeleka (Malkion's sea-wife) being a Ludoch, but it is possble if you postulate that the Neliomi waters were transplanted to the southern Homewart Ocean by the Breaking of the World. She could have been a Waertain niiad taking that shape. Warera would have been a niiad mermaid, as her encounter with Aerlit would be in the time frame of the Vadrudi "wife-raid" from which the Triolini kindred descended. Waertag would have been three quarter niiad, one quarter storm god. While legged, his sea ancestry is fairly strong. I don't see how interbreeding with air-breathing Ludoch would have spawned a gilled sub-race of Waertagi. Interbreeding with niiad mermaid kin of the Ludoch however easily carries those genes, and I suspect that's what happened. An alternative breeding partner may have been the Hreekeen Orca-form Triolini who swam and burned besides the Waertagi at the Battle of Tanian's Victory. This topic was discussed here almost five years ago, e.g.: The piscoi merfolk anywhere near the Choralinthor Bay would have been the Ysabbau, who may range into the Solkathi and Rozgali seas. No idea whether those charming entities have an appetite for Ludoch tails. The Waertagi may have cooperated with the Ysabbau. One little fact which surprised me when I looked up the sources for the Waertagi was the fact that Sog's ruins were destroyed in the Great Flood. Possibly by Worcha? The port would have been at the eastern shore of the Aroka Sea, at the foot of its slope which covered parts of the Rockwood Mountains and presumably much of Balazar at the far end of that standing wave.

I think that anywhere unsettled in the region is unsettled for a reason. Not that that reason may still be pertinent, but something will have kept people from moving there and founding new steads. Usually the reason would be neighbors, and in case of the foothills of the Western Rockwoods or the eastern slopes of the northern Sky Reach range, those neighbors may include the trolls of Halikiv who have a history of staging huge and devastating raids into the lands north of the mountains. Other neighbors in the region you might be wary of include the Red Dragon, the Hydra, and Sir Ethilrist. Dryad Woods sounds like you should be careful in clearing land, too. There are people inhabiting Ormsgone Valley, and I think that they owe some tribute to the King of Aggar. But then, you will have to pay some form of tribute everywhere, unless you have a huge army at your beck, like e.g. the Black Horse Troop. To me (just like John Wick in Pegasus Plateau) the Bush Range sounds like the most promising area to be re-settled. Moirades pursued a scorched earth strategy against the Exiles and made sure that the farmlands just outside of the Glowline would not offer a haven for rebellious Tarshites disputing the Lunar lineage's claims to that crown. Forty years of lying fallow may have led to reclamation by the wilderness, but will also have given the soil some rest. Nasty neighbors - well, this is Glorantha. Tusk Riders go everywhere, Lunar Tarsh (and another stretch of no man's land) lies right beyond the Dragonspine, and dragonewts and dwarf mine are nearby, too. Snake Pipe Hollow isn't that far away. Then there are dinosaurs. The Tarsh Exiles have a grudge, and may think they have a claim on this land, too. On the other hand, you might be able to recruit some folk in the Alone region whose families came from here, giving you some ancestral claims. (Just don't believe Griselda's kin...) Other than the Falling Ruin right on top of the Dragonspine, there don't appear to be any famous ruins nearby. West of the Dragonspine you would be at the mercy of whatever happens in Tarsh and the Empire. If you are neutral or friendly to the Lunar Way, and willing to submit to the Empire or the Lunar royals whenever they come, those fringes might be a place to consider.

Do the Rokari watchers have magic to assess (and possibly alter) Rightness?

I didn't mean that - I view Entru more as a chthonic guy, a local Tada, or perhaps mildly stormy. No more so than Durev, though. Drorgalar sounds like a later by-blow of Orlanth, possibly around the time Vingkot was conceived, too, or during his self-imposed exile after being unable to solve his kinstrife case. I wouldn't be surprised if he was from a different branch of the Entruli than Harand. Perhaps a descendant of Drorgalar through another child than Urgkronika.

Why Heartland (sydänmaa) for Heortland?

Just like her sister, adorned with severed sex organs...

The Entruli are an older group of Orlanthi than the Vingkotlings who turned into Heortlings. I am not quite clear whether Entru was a Storm Rune leader or an older Earth Rune (or maybe Fire Rune) leader, an Earth Walker, a minor version of Tada. Another difference is their early contact with the Seshnegi during the reign of the Serpent Kings, which had one of the heirs sailing east on a Waertagi ship and bringing back a wife (presumably an Earth Priestess) and a serpent-legged son. There aren't that many people eligible for that contact. I don't think that the people of Tanisor would have been eligible, as they were in close contact, allied with or even ruled by Pendali lion lords. The next place where there would have been humans would be the Entruli, who we know had Waertagi contacts at least somewhat later in the Dawn Age when some were transported to Jrustela and possibly directly to Umathela. While Lalmor of the Vathmai brought Heortling (or rather Hantrafali) methods of sacrifice to the Entruli, contact with the Pralori (as per Jeff) and with the Seshnegi and Waertagi would have been a strong influence to make them different. Later on, they also integrated Basmoli/Pendali heirs as (Orlanthi) nobility - the lineage Greymane stems from. I was about to ask you since when there were Malkioni in Kaxtorplose - after all the Archduchy of Slontos was formed only after the start of the Return to Rightness Crusade. Missing Lands mentions the inclusion of the Archduchy into the Middle Sea Empire. To me, the Dureving Downland Migration would have been in the Golden Age, probably just after the initiation of Orlanth. Things start with Orlanth the Wild taking the measure of the land, and getting distracted by fishing. I wonder how much difference there is between the Diroti and the Helerings. These Diroti are obviously not heirs of the western Sofala, as those had been killed by the Seabird Army. (Making the Seabird Army the least likely ally for the Diroti of Choralinthor Bay, in my book) We may have a name - Drorgalar Orlanthsson. Harand Boardick's wife Urgkronika was his daughter. (King of Sartar p.63) The Helerings sound like a later arrival than the original migration of Entru and Ketha, which I place as significantly before the Flood. (Harand and the Lawstaff story are significantly after the Flood. It looks like the ancestors of Harand and later Aram ya Udram returned eastward after those lands had been recovered from the Sea covering parts of Halikiv, Arstola, and apparently the lands just east of Skanthiland (unless the Skanthi had to evacuate until the sea had been overcome). If the Entruli have a strong ancestral Earth connection (and Ketha alone would provide that already), having hiding places with cyclopean walls (featuring polygonal blocks that would return to their positions even after an Earthquake shaking them) may be possible. We know that Gouger destroyed three cities before Aram ya Udram caught up with it. Some of those may have been in Entruli lands. The Caladraland range activity may have done in other such places. None other than spillunder from Halikiv, that would have somehow bypassed the Arstolans, probably through Haranding lands. Or some other site of draconic energies.

Perhaps his passion remained, rather than his consciousness?