Joerg

There is a general overlap between Air and Sky. The "Lower Sky" is something that may describe the areas where the Sky Dome may interact with the Outer World, where it alternates between visibility and time in the Underworld. In the Middle World, the Sky has been removed from the Earth, with Storm in between. Storm is present all the way up to the star-spangled sky dome. When Orlanth's Ring leaves the Sky Dome, it might even walk the backside, exposed to Dayzatar's light, but Storm doesn't reach all the way to the outermost dome. The Middle Sky is where the planets wander and where the moon hangs. This is also the Middle Air, the realm above the surface air. Umath did not start out as a sky entity. While he was another son of the Primal Sky, he was born to the Earth, and then pushed his father's dome(s) up (and presumably his mother's cube down) to make room for himself. That did not make him a sky entity. That changed when Umath entered the Middle Sky through what became known as Stormgate, an imperfection in the sky also known as "the Pit". Umath came in in a great spiral, as can be seen in the Copper Tablets, and his interaction with the Planetary Sons of Yelm changed the sky forever. It was Umath's arrival and that brought forth the star-bedecked sky dome, alongside the exit of Zator who entered "the Pit". All the stars emerged from Stormgate, including Pole Star and Ourania, the children of Dayzatar. You might call Umath the midwife of the stars. While the ascent of Umath was stopped by Shargash, and then led to a mutual tumble and crash into the Northern Pillar, the fact that Umath cccupied the Sky remains written into the fabric of Gloranthan myth. None of the other celestial bodies that Umath encountered when entering the Sky did ultimately remain in the sky for the remainder of the Gods Age, either. Even Lightfore and Shargash disappeared, according to Yuthuppan Star Lore. Unlike the surface world, Chaos never got a solid foothold in the Sky, with Orlanth defending it. A few pieces of the sky are known to have fallen to the surface, like Selon Mountain in the western Mislari chain or the island of Churanpur which I think is identical to Trowjang (its separate appearance in the God Learner mythical map is a mapping error similar to the Heron Hegemony - remember, the map is not the territory!). What exactly does Orlanth's Ring stand for? Umath never completed his ascension to the center of the Celestial City (which wasn't even visible in the sky when Umath entered). The four rebels appearing in Jar-eel's question "were the rebel gods liberated" in Prince of Sartar all have their own stellar bodies: the moon for Verithurusa, the red planet for Shargash, Artia for the Bat,

One out of print source is the cult of Annilla, which tells a bit of the story of the Elder Giants and their war against the dragons. Published in the RQ3 Troll Gods box, Troll Cults Book. Any of the Pavis books telling a bit of the history of the place, the giant cradles, Paragua and Thog will have pointers, too.

"Was it supposed to do THAT?" Humakt "Sorry, Mum and Dad!" Umath "Blblblblblblttt!" Ratslaff

Definitely not a wandering Jolanti. The Faceless Statue used to sit in the Throne that still can be found outside the Greatway dwarf city on the flanks of the Rockwood Mountains.

As I read the spell, it is quite discriminating in its application of CM effect - only if the person who attempts to heal the berserk is chaotic it will be at 4, otherwise the healer will have to overcome a CM 2, which basically any necessary heal spell will provide.

IIRC the head of the watchdog has a single cyclops's eye. It might be possible to blind or at least significantly irritate the construct by simple means, including Lightwall or Darkwall veils. While it may have other senses, too, this might cause a major debuff. The arms are somehow directly attached to the head. These connections might be the weakest points of the construct, or might be blocked by inserting something as a wedge or so.

I'll count that as a "yes", then.

Do I read this correctly - the French call Takenegi a bastard?

The gods perform sacrifice, too - the Arming of ... myths include sacrifice, even when it is Orlanth being armed. The Celestial Court or its local equivalents might be the obvious recipients of this sacrifice by deities, or a transcendent entity like Creator (Earthmaker), Ouroboros, or the Invisible God. It may be more the act of sacrifice doing something to the sacrificer's magic than the recipient of the sacrifice pouring down magic from the Source, although all those entities are considered more Source adjacent than the deities being armed or otherwise magically pumped up.

It isn't necessarily the mines that have the big footprint, but the separation of the nuggets from the inert rock, and then melting and casting them into tradable ingots. Panning or using fleeces are the classical methods for picking nuggets out of other material. Both require quite a bit of water, ideally running water. Getting a river or even just a brook do the dirty work requires either brute force (like digging a canal, and then blocking the original course of the river - thanks a lot, Waha - or negotiating and enticing the water entity with gifts. Or tricking it to take the unwanted stuff as gift. The fleece may be of interest, too. A cloud-fleece would be ideal if it could be rained off, removing the fleece nicely from the metal without having ot burn it away. Or certain metals require certain beasts' fleeces for optimum recovery. But then there is another necessary form of water management - keeping the dig dry. The rock or soil you have to dig into, and through, will influence the mine a lot, too. Even the stuff you don't wash out has to go somewhere.

Killing Harrek may take more than one success. In his first appearance in publication (White Bear and Red Moon), Harrek as a superhero has a 4 in 6 chance to reappear the morning after. Argrath has a 3 in 6 chance, like any of the capital H Heroes. These guys have long discovered the rear exit from Hell, and it takes extraordinary means to make a death permanent. Even the void of that Thed spell might be insufficient. The God Learners went to great lengths to keep Arkat dead, and so did the Lunars for Sheng Seleris. After Harrek (the avatar of Death) kills Jar-eel and takes her heart as a jewel, she re-appears, blood pumping through her veins. Using the infinity rune certainly will create some extra difficulty for Harrek to return, but he has a best friend who will slay heavens and hell to get him back. Probably drawing the perps into her quest. Maybe it would help to resurrect the White Bear God (in the shape prior to the taxidermy, separating him from the taxidermist)? The reward for a successful, world-changing heroquest is another world-changing heroquest, after all.

I suppose it depends on your mythical and temporal context, and when exactly the Sky River forced its way into the sky. The first time (in the Golden Age) the stars became visible was when Umath disrupted the Perfect Sky (copper tablet 5, or so) and sent one of the planetary sons of Yelm fleeing through Stormgate, which then became Stargate, with all the stars flooding into the sky. (There is a good possibility that the stars had already been in those positions prior to Yelm descending to his first height and usurping the emperorship, but then got obscured by his golden dome.) Monomythically, the golden sky turned blue when Lorian rose up and conquered it. The light above may have been white, silvery, or silvery blue. Tin is the Sky Metal, and I can see the original Aether burning in a bluish transparent or a bluish white flame. A semi-transparent outer globe, letting in some of the actinic glow of random creation and uncreation beyond the world, would be my favored description. Patterns like the aurora borealis, blinking in and out of existence. Some form of mind-devouring disco effect with strobes, UV, lasershows right into your brain, etc., only somewhat shielded by the hazy glow of Dayzatar as recipient of the unbearable beam of light from the Ultimate, looking for Yelm to receive it to give day to the world, and distributing smaller amounts to the various stars. Seeing the light is illuminating. Perceiving where the light emanates is transcendent.

The Animal Nomads have the same origin as the Durevings - they followed their herds down from the upper valleys on the Spike. Unlike those following Orlanth the Ram, the sons of the Bull ended up further east, in the paradisical Genert's Garden, and went so completely decadent that their humanity degraded to herd man levels.

I wonder whether this covers the Dinacoli or the Aldachuri and their (presumably tribal) Yelmalio worship, or just the Quivini. It was only Tarkalor's son Terasarin who welcomed the Aldachuri into the Principality. Extending the royal road beyond Dinacoli territory (who had been part of the Jonstown confederation since its conception) was a big step forward to secure more trade coming through Boldhome. With Goldedge right beyond the Dragonspine and the Aldachuri golden spearman available for visits, I still wonder how Monrogh's revelation was so revolutionary. And, pray tell, what is the Praxian version of Yelmalio worshiped by the Dundealos and the Pol Joni? Sun Daughter?

The Theist experience of magic is somewhat mixed - on the one hand, sacrifice implies a submission to the deity, and cult hierarchy does so, too. On the other hand, theist magic is the magic of identifying with your deity (or hero, or...) and its actions in the Godtime. When casting the magic, you become the deity, and the deity becomes you. In short, theist magic is something you are. Sorcery is something you know. Animism is something you have. Orthodox Mysticism might be summed up as "something you aren't, cannot know or own." Nysaloran illumination starts with a jolt. You don't have to work for it. although saddling a RQ skill with a riddle, as in the CoT write-up, makes effort you put into the skill work towards an illumination success. On the whole this sounds pretty much like an immanent method). Dayzatar may not be questioning the Solar superiority, but his actions may have been instrumental in overturning the reign of the White Queen and the Earth Walkers and instituting the reign of Brighteye and its unnatural Sunstop. Nowadays, his role pretty much fits this description in the Guide: Prayer can be a form of meditation, as can be breath exercise, sufi dancing, tea ceremony, calligraphy, sword smithing, ...

While the person having the noble status is holding the office, no children will be "given away". This is about losing that status (whether by death or to a political rival), having to leave the house and land that comes with the office. Nobility requires maintenance. Read: many tenants. Once the office holder has lost the office, his children may be able to serve some other office holder in the way they observed from their parent's sidekicks. If not yet initiated, the parent may call in a few outstanding favors to place the more promising children is such positions of future service. Service with the tribal king is service to the tribal temple. There is a reason why rolling up the significant parent and grandparent helps integrate characters in RQG. These boasting rights are all that remains of former or loaned glory. They put your character into enough spotlight to get a chance at proving themselves in a leadership position. Whoagain son of Nobody won't that easily get that chance. Dronlan's daughter pretty much does such a thing pre-emptively. (She also refuses to become diplomatic chattel on the marriage market that way.) She joins a temple. Her brothers may have received somewhat prestigious brides, but without rising to some tribal office by themselves, that prestige may be fleeting. Assuming they survive the demise of their father, what is their future? They are somewhat competent as freeman farmers, but they don't have a freeman's stead any more. Who is going to give them one? Which other household will lose that stead? Much of the wealth of the parents stems from their standing in the clan. They manage clan resources rather than their own odal property, and while re-arranging the belongings of bloodlines requires a very strong chief or a strong outrage, it can happen. A noble being sent into exile may mean that his family has to leave the prestigious stead. Now what?

This being a Eurmali heroquest, things may turn out a lot sillier than those of the more stodgy deities. Feats like "Oh look, a squirrel" or "I got a hole in my pocket" may feature. One fun question is, whose Infinity rune got stolen? As a tongue-in-cheek suggestion, why not Hykim and Mikyh's? The twin dragons are always represented with two Beast Runes rather than Beast and Infinity, like e.g. Flamal, the origin of the Plant Rune. Your quest may explain why. The theft may involve something like "your brother sent me to bring him your shared Infinity rune, urgently, or the mating with Mother Mammal will go wrong. Possibly tying into the birth of the Camel myth, where Mother Mammal being exposed to the Trickster results in that most unlikely of herd beasts. Maybe stealing it from Ratslaff himself, but that experience may leave the party Boggled, in a nightmarish toon story. Losing the rune might involve the web of Arachne Solara, and some silliness. Perhaps Eurmal getting bored during the Ritual of the Net and anchoring his string of the net to the rune, going off to doze or booze. The Ritual of the Net is of course a station of the Lightbringers' quest, an easy invite for some more serious cult member roles. They could still see the silly and brutal underbelly of the LBQ, then. Seducing the guardian of the Gates of Dusk, in a joint effort, getting eaten without dying, crossing the bridge of Swords and taking a dive in that river (borrowing from the Eleven Lights quest write-up in that book), seducing and killing the son of the Only Old One in the depths of the Obsidian Palace, disturbing the peace while Orlanth undergoes the Flames of Ehilm, etc. The Sourcebook offers glimpses at those myths. Make a parody out of that.

That (and what happens to children born to the Annmagarn clan, if that clan has adoption only membership) is a good question. Spoiler warning - the example relates to consequences of events playing out in the Sartar Companion. Be spoiled at your own peril. What does taking a tribal office do to your clan membership, and that of your family? We already asked that about Dronlan's children in Apple Lane. Dronlan was an Ernaldori by birth before he became tribal thane of Apple Lane. He brought wife and children along to his (newly created?) post in Apple Lane, a hamlet that may have existed previously, but which then was given in tenancy to the new thane and the royal guest Gringle. (His daughter was a young adult when she joined Torath Manover, which indicates that she was born during Terasarin's reign.) What clan can his children claim? The household is part of the tribal Orlanth Rex temple. Are the children living in the household transferred to that temple? Those born during office? If Dronlan left a widow, what was her status after his death? A similar question about the formation of the Black Spear clan. If a hunter of the Black Spear (say from the Zethnoring clan) was married with children when successfully hunting the spear in the Colymar Wilds, would wife and children follow him to the new clan? What about children born to an adoption membership only clan? Does their adulthood initiation include the hunt for the spear? That would be the easy way. But then, what about their marriage partners? Children who don't find the spear and yet survive the rest of the initiation might be married off to other clans, or given over to the tribal temple - possibly as tenants. Individuals unwilling to become a tenant (or be initiated from a tenant family into tenancy) are free to join a mercenary band, the Puppeteer Troupe, a temple, or try their luck in a tribal confederation city or Boldhome or Nochet (the city with the largest population of urban Sartarites, though not under Sartarite rule). Joining the crowd at the tribal manor in Boldhome or in the confederated city probably results in a similarly vague situation. A tribe is not a clan, but it has the tribal Orlanth Rex temple which legally acts as a clan, and people directly serving the tribe - whether as thanes, free carls or semi-free cottars - are in all likelihood represented by the temple. A supra-clan temple like the Clearwine Earth Temple has a legal position semi-separate from the associated clan (the Ernaldori in the case of Clearwine). The Greenstone Earth Temple (which may still have priestess lineages dating back to its re-activation by the Varmandi) is associated to the Orleving clan of the Varmandi in a similar way. (And this makes me wonder whether the Varmandi could originally afford to be a war clan as they had the parallel institution of the Greenstone Temple to deal with their fertility demands. Early Varmandi history sounds quite interesting.) And the Three Emeralds Earth temple in Locaem lands may have a similar story. Possibly involving Balmyr and Orlevings, too. What are the major earth temples east of the Quivin Mountains? Other supra-clan (and in fact often supra-tribal) temples are those to the deities other than Orlanth and Ernalda. Lhankor Mhy in Jonstown and Derensev, Chalana Arroy (in Jonstown? Boldhome?), Humakt (Boldhome, Two-Ridge Fort), Yelmalio (Vanntar, Boldhome, Runegate, Alda-Chur), Argan Argar (Boldhome, Torkani lands?), and more decentralized Issaries and Geo (and possibly other minor cults to be revealed in the Sartar Starter Set). (Don't even think about giving children to the Eurmal "temple", or having such a thing. Shrines are bad enough.) What are the rules for marriages of temple dependants? As long as it is the office holder who marries, the marriage partner is likely to move into the temple holdings (unless there is a case like a priestess from the Three Emeralds Temple moving into a Locaem clan after they lost their clan priestess of Ernalda without a suitable local replacement). But what of the children of such unions? We might know such a case - Vasana, daughter of an Ernaldori earth priestess serving in the Clearwine temple. Unlike her sister (who seems to be apprenticed to the temple) she has chosen a career as a follower of an exiled noble in the service of Broyan of the Volsaxi or some more direct form of vassalship. (So have Yanioth and Harmast.) After the victory at Pennel Ford which unchained the cult of Orlanth, they appear to have taken a sabbatical or a mission to spread the good news to their birth clan, and then Broyan perishes off-screen, leaving the Ernaldori trio and their new friends/followers in the service of Leika (who may have been the exiled noble they followed into Broyan's camp). What if Vasana's (and Yanioth's) mother had not been an Ernaldori/temple born? Or does joining the Clearwine Temple as a priestess automatically result in adoption to the Ernaldori clan, as would a marriage? A character I am playing in @Bill the barbarian's Torkani RQG game rolled both his father and his significant (maternal) grandfather as Lhankor Mhy philosophers from the Jonstown Temple, marrying into the Torkani clan. Both of them perished in the warfare with the Lunars. I know his father's marriage was matrilocal, but I am not quite sure whether his mother grew up in the clan or whether she returned to the clan with my character's grandmother after the grandmother was widowed. Both women were/are literate Ernaldan initiates (i.e. lay worshipers of LM, which should satisfy the marriage requirement). The Jonstown temple doesn't really need widows of their initiates hanging around in temple-owned town houses, and while they probably would hang on to initiates of their cult, or skilled crafters in cult-adjacent crafts (like alchemy, perfumers, jewellers, ... stuff that profits from literacy and book knowledge), household management is not necessarily what they are looking for in great numbers. While they have a demand for such jobs, they may have a pool of other marriage partners married to living initiates who can manage minor urban temple holdings. Another can of wyrms: During the occupation, some local Seven Mothers temples will have accepted orphans in the cities and the Lunar-friendlier clans. What is their status following the Dragonrise, when those temples are disbanded, their property plundered or confiscated and their leaders killed, captive, or fled?

So, are elementals initiated? And will they donate POW? Do you have to summon them in order for them to worship, or do they show up anyway (like that storm of subservient spirits observed by Biturian at Pairing Stones)?

IMO Dayzatar's realm is within view of the (face of) the Absolute, possibly something like the Face of Atrilith that Nenduren and his disciple Oorsu Sara achieved through Nenduren's practice of Stillness, probably called Ezelveztay by the Dara Happans. It also allows an almost unveiled view into the Void beyond the outermost border of the Universe, a stasis of spontaneous Creation and Uncreation. Entering or even only glimpsing Dayzatars Otherworld requires some fortification of the mind, IMO. For the un-illuminated, it may be an austerity - an ordeal that may put them onto a path towards enlightenment. No easy "snap, you're it" fast track illumination like the Nysaloran riddles, though.

Pulsed lasers can have an energy output a lot higher than continuous lasers. Continuous lasers will mostly heat the ablated matter as a hot plasma cloud, a cloud expanding away from the target. The laser needs to interact with the target matter. If the target behaves like glass towards the laser used, comparatively little energy will be absorbed. Rather than focussed lasers, you could simply slow-cook a target with by heating it constantly at a rather low rate. Heat disposal is a problem in vacuum. A space vessel in the rough focus of a lense may be in trouble. Rather than aiming for hull damage, you can endeavor to fry sensors, weapon systems, drive systems, etc. Electron beams or proton beams tend to be slower than coherent light, but will cause trouble even on misses as their magnetic fields interact with whatever you have going on. Positron beams offer highly energetic matter-antimatter reactions when impacting on normal matter. Any type of charged particle can be used in beams, and can be used to sandblast your target. Sandblasting sensors or mirrors protecting those sensors will blind your target. Reaction drive blowout - whether photons, plasma or railgun slugs - can be an effective weapon. Decelerate into your target and wash it with particles, for effects listed above. If you can turn up the dirt in your exhaust, that can be a weapon. Doesn't have to be your own reaction drive - you could shoot a missile that just rendezvous-brakes into your target after outpacing it. But then, any energy you expend will create an acceleration. The chasing vessel or missile will brake, the fleeing vessel will accelerate by firing. Railgun shells do instant kinetic damage upon impact, but hull armor may be layered with the equivalent of ballistic gel or foam. Range is unlimited, but targeting an evading target needs a lot of prediction, or a wide scatter of shots, and luck. Personally, I would use foamed metal or foamed ceramics as outer hull plating, as it offers a lot if impact dispersal options, saves on mass, and also serves as ablative armore to beam weapons. I would also want slugs that disintegrate into molecular dust after having traveled some time, especially if moving in high traffic areas. A cloud of separate atoms still has the same kinetic energy as the original slug, but dispersed over a wide cross-section the actual impact damage is lessened a lot. Guided missiles or autonomous drones may coast after having been released from a railgun, or a first stage drive, only to re-engage drive once they approach the target. What damage these missiles do depends on the type of warhead you are using. Kinetic impact missile would do kinetic damage. The drive may double as source of a nuclear or matter-anti-matter explosion. Nuclear explosions or matter-anti-matter reactions will create a point source of energy, and an EMP. Directed blasts makes them a short range beam weapon. Theoretically you could shoot a railgun or a bomb-pumped laser as a missile payload. Such payloads may even be strategically reusable. Against hostile salvage parties, they may aggressively self-destruct taking the salvaging drones or vessels along. Flying into a cloud of anti-particles may ablate your hull and any external systems (communication, sensors, weapons, main and secondary drives) and may fuse what remains of your hull into a closed canister. Having the missile produce a beam of such anti-particles from a close distance will increase payload efficiency. Coasting missiles can be calculated, but slight lateral acceleration can take them out of their predicted trajectory. The Honorverse grows nigh poetic about the means a wave of missiles can mess up your detection and countermeasures with a multitude of deceptions. That goes for missile guiding systems, too. You could shoot swarms of remote-guided semi-dumb missiles and a slightly delayed autonomous guiding module, operating on telemetry from a spread of probes scattered around the target. Last-stage sub-missiles may over-saturate anti-missile measures. Depending on the softness of your science, messing with the curvature of space can be used both offensively and defensively. Any form of FTL technology will add evasion and defense possibilities, new targeting options, etc. If FTL is unsafe if used in an environment with too much space curvature, how exactly is it unsafe, and can the catastrophic effects of a failed FTL transition be weaponized? Electromagnetic pulse vs. hardening of your tech, especially your sensors and targeting systems. The question is, what do you want from your space combat? Targets exploding upon receiving a hit, targets slowly beaten into submission, surgical strikes against critical target systems paralysing the target? Should space vessels have the equivalent of healing potions/spells in the shape of damage control teams, system redundance, etc? Can you have emergency boosters, possibly sacrificing redundant ship systems for a performance boost? Do you wish to redline systems versus the maintenance rolls of ships' engineers? Does your ship use life personnel or internal drones? Do you have programmable structural material? If so, how secure is the programming? Can the ship produce replacements for destroyed parts, or does it carry spares?

Do rootless elves still have their elf bow (or other such partner plant)? Renegades are aldryami acting against their own forest community. Elf-on-elf-wars aka forest-on-forest-wars are on the record, and aren't much different from the elf-on-humans wars in Onlaks / Miirdek, Maslo. In such wars, both sides will be integrated with their forests quite well while destroying the presence of the other forest's creatures.

For our planet, it is widely assumed that life only left the waters after the cyanobacteria had poisoned the atmosphere with that new-fangled bi-radical oxygen molecule. Things must have been quite explosive for a while during the transition... Early life likely inhabited biofilms on surfaces. From there it spread into the water body, the water bottom, and the sediments below. Some may have formed scum on the water surface. Gloranthan life was born out of fertility, or created by coteries of deities. Nymphs would self-fertilize or take a partner and give birth to a wide variety of other life. Sokazub, the anestress of darkness beasts, would be such a fertility entity. Varchulanga, wife of Drospoly and mother of the Deep Sea monsters, is another. Triolina's daughter Tholaina gave birth to the less terrible beasts of water. Maran mothered the Earth Shakers, and among others Seshna appears to have mothered serpents and possibly other reptiles. And so on. According to the God Learners, the beast ancestors were fathered by Hykim and/or mothered by Mikyh. Presumably with the primal element manifestation in the Celestial Court. Although there may be a rivaling theory that elements have certain emanations like beast, plant, metal, color, language ... and that these separate out of the raw elements on their own. The western lands of Danmalastan saw animals manifested from principles, and then had these principles permutate with one another - see Anaxial's Roster for the original beasts. Almost all we know about Glorantha is the surface world, on top of the Earth cube. And our knowledge about the edges of this cube is mostly vague, too. The Camp of Innocence apparently was north of the Nargan Sea of Blue Flame (as per the Afidisa story), which means that the other four camps can be expected to have been some distance from the actual edge, too. The eastern camp may well have been in the now flooded lowlands of Vormain, or on eternal Vithela, a land almost as inaccessible as the inside of the Crater. Where have all the feathered people gone that dominated the Early Golden Age? Some still are around in the East Isles. Some, like the Griffins, have stuck to a more beast-like form unlike their king on the Gods Wall. Some may have lost their beaks, wings and feathers by force, much like Hippogriff did. Some may have taken on human shape, as in Rinliddi or Suvaria. Many may have perished at Earthfall alongside Yamsur. A few hang out in Dragon Pass. Quite a few may reside in the lower sky dome, where it touches the Outer World. The serpents and earth reptiles may inhabit glorious underground caverns or tunnels untouched by Mostali tools, troll feet or krarshtkid claws. The submerged flanks of the cube, and the flanks of the rifts of the cube separated by the Doom Currents, have roughly six time the surface that the flat top surface of the cube has. The far East Isles may rest on coral-like outgrowths of the cube reaching out into the slower current parts of Sramak's River. There is space for fantastic, undocumented life there under "First Underworld" conditions as the Dara Happans or Jules Vernes' Arne Saknussemm define it. Lodril did "conquer" parts of the innards of the Earth. Remnants of Aether's fiery seed still sloshing in Gata's womb, possibly having taken over some of those lizardworld areas mentioned above, offering a reddish glow as illumination from the open lava lakes and rivers there. There may be trapped waters, possibly pushing upward to heed Sky River Titan's call to the center of the surface world, possibly taking a more direct course to the rift valleys. There may be trapped air, leftovers from Umath's birth, or that of his sister. Troll, Krarshtkid and dwarf tunnels are filled with the stuff. The fleeing denizens of Wonderhome conquered significant parts of the undergrounds. According to Anaxial's Roster, expect huge giant ants... There may be short cuts to the deep, Darkness Underworld, transitions to the lands of the Dead, to the realms of demons like the Shadzorings or a number of eastern Antigod races.

The Starfall webcomic tells a great story about a single (trickster) alien on a human colony with billions of semi- to fully sapient robots and one uplifted wolf using a similar AI construction (though biological rather than cybernetic). Even Elfquest uses the themes of uplifted monkeys and butterflies. Another excellent short book series is Rats, Bats and Vats where a colony beleaguered by giant bug aliens (reminiscent of Starship Troopers) are fought with conscripted vat-grown humans and military animals - a modified elephant shrew line and an oversized bat line - carrying a cybernetic implant uplifting them to sapiency. I shudder considering what an uplift would do to our (slightly psychopathic) office dog and our office feline. My low opinion of these aliens is based on the fact that they aren't supposed to be of terrestrial origin. When it comes to independently evolved species, assumptions like having a spine, or an endo-skeleton, or a need to walk upright to free manipulatory limbs can be questioned. Niven's Pierson's Puppeteers are a species with an endo-skeleton, but that's pretty much where biological similarities end. Niven/Pournelle's Moties walk upright and have an endo-skeleton but not a spine. Terrestrial biology with latex pasted on doesn't quite cut it outside a comedy. Post away, please.

To start with, real world bronze has a range of material properties, depending on its composition and how it was treated (e.g. hammered). There can be impurities which influence the behaviour of the metal drastically which you would have some problems to measure with wet chemistry, for instance phosphorous. (Less of a problem with instrumental analytical chemistry, but already wet chemistry is hard to envision in the alchemical workshops of Glorantha...) Godsbone bronze is a grown laminate that adds properties only high-tech (like molecular printing) could hope to duplicate. Oh my, different qualities of metal... don't we all know that steel is steel? Agree on cast bronze. Still ends up with a wide range of properties depending on composition and treatment, depending on the nuggets or ingots you use. Bronze is also called brass when it comes from the offspring of Lodril, or the Mostali. (There are Brass Mostali, but no Bronze Mostali...) And real world brass has massively different properties than bronze. We have the name hu-metal (possibly related to the Mongolian folk-metal band The Hu, but really Humath's metal as that was a name for the Storm god that Bertalor knew). What does that name tell your players?