Joerg

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?

And those who followed them? Good question, actually. The Godtime dragon emperors may have had a chance to ascend, but then, what about TarnGatHa (Aether/Vith), HeenMaroun (Yelm/Govmeranen) or Metsyla? What about the non-Draconic Thalurzni, and what about NiangMao? Were these emperors defeated by the Antigods, or were the Antigods their instrument of utuma? Did Yanoor's ascension go without a flaw? And what happened to all those souls waiting for him to ascend? What about all those souls who had died in the Shang-Hsa interregnum? Are they still waiting for Godunya to ascend, or did they get released in the Dragon's Awakening Shudder? How did things work out for Ingolf, for Labrygon, for the dragonspeakers in 1042?

Perhaps the hierarchy you are pointing out here is what has become "Anathema to Canon". At least some of the subcults in the Hero Wars material are "the deity as a spell". You learn the rune spell "Flight", and you joint the subcult of Vanganth. You learn "Lightning" and you join Yavor Lightning, aka Lightning Boy. Hero Wars gives you the skeletons of myths that apply to these feats. Both RQG and HW put severe limits on how much you can emulate your deity. Both games also mention ways to transcend these limits through your character's narrative. The rules for RQG heroquesting are apparently still under development. Hero Wars and HQ 1 offered a formalized hierarchy of resistances to overcome to do so, HQ2 and its follow-ups HQG and QuestWorlds did away with fixed value resistances and made those narrative, and always relative to your current character ability. The relative meanings of "initiate", "subcult", "devotee", "rune level" may vary between the game systems.

I'll grant you that for the Nysaloran teachings. The dragons and their different perception of Time (and thereby possibly also Uncreation) may regard Chaos as irrelevant, but for some reason not exactly detailed, the Inhuman King of Dragon's Eye chose to make a stand against the moral evil of Wakboth brought in by the Unholy Trio's interpretation of Rashoranic Illumination. In Prince of Sartar, Jar-eel asks an interesting and pertinent question about the Rebel Gods (including Verithurusa): Did they achieve Liberation? One question that is absent from this and the following pages is: Did Rashoran achieve Liberation? And is there Rashoran in the Vithelan (and/or Kralori) mythical cycles? There are just three names in the Gloranthan material that I have positive data on achieving total transcendence - Obduran the Flyer, Venforn the Immense Master, and Sivoli. Oorduren being nowhere to be found when Oorsu Sara is looking for him hints at successful transcendence - the wording is quite similar to Queen Hrensenseso being unable to find Venforn. Malkion (son of Aerlit and Warera) attempts Liberation, but is sabotaged/entanggled by Zzabur. Did he meet Rashoran before attempting the Fifth Action? Did he create Rashoran? Arkat undergoes ascension around the year 500, but remains manifest as the hero cult and the star until suppressed and presumably shattered by the God Learners. The shards are still around, though, and five of them are bound to return. Not liberated. Sedenya still is bound to the Cycles, and I wonder whether she actually seeks liberation from those cycles. To me, this is a revelation of the ability to make a possibly objective assessment of everything, at least the opportunity to re-assess one's position and one's fears, hatreds, etc., possibly to recognize them as shackles. At the same time making you responsible and culpable for your actions, and distancing yourselves from the shackles of your responsibility and guilt. You can accept them and bear them - that's the process Orlanth undergoes, wherein he shackles himself to the Great Compromise because of his attachment to/entanglement with the universe, by choice. As do the other parties at the Ritual of the Net. Are heroquesters mystics (or failed mystics)? Is a follower of Yelmalio who returns from the Hill of Gold quest half-way with his power over Fire intact a (failed?) mystic? Is a follower of Yelmalio who undergoes the entirety of the Hill of Gold Quest with immortality and returns to the world a (failed?) mystic? What is the difference between these heroquests and ascetic austerities? Yes - Nysalorean illumination seems to boil down to (or at least have a very strong element of) one's relationship to Chaos as the misplaced manifestation of unlimited potential within Creation. In my interpretation his philosophy hasn't changed, only his emotionality has. He can still be the Bull. But he has a choice that he did not have before.

Maybe initiation to Aldrya is akin to shamanic awakening? The Elf Bow (or some other "plant brother") appears to make the initiate a dual-body, dual spirit entity.

I think that the trigger of releasing the Cradle may have been the awakening of Pinchining through the worship Urrrgh the Ugly gave to his gold hoard. Urrrgh was reborn as a crew member of the Cradle (and actually improved his dump characteristics). The description in the Well of Daliath document suggests that the Drinking Cauldron counteracts the dwarves in some way. Did Greatway stand in the way of building new Cradles? Who exactly built the 1621 Cradle?

The sizable blobs that were the first life forms leaving a geological record were prokaryotes, too. Already "Darkness" in them differentiating an outside from an inside, but more primitive than bacteria. Masses of bacteria can be seen with the naked eye. They are observably alive in that they grow and they digest. Rot is a Darkness process - it is digestion. Its agents can be quite amorphous, but they can also take more physical forms. Darkness is fluid that way. Putting Dark and Blue Age into a single category simply implies that the God Learners found no way to quest that far back.

I don't think that Illumination creates a philosophical neutrality towards Chaos. Looking at the dialogue between Oddi and Paulis after Oddi's "success" in the Riddle he was given, and applying that to the current RQG rules, Oddi lost the ability to invoke his passion in his fight against Chaos. I think that Arkat did "embrace" Chaos in fighting it - the duel atop the City of Miracles was one between two Chaos horrors. Three, possibly, if you subscribe to my "extenalized Gbaji" theory. Two of the most chaotic curses in Glorantha fall back to Arkat (Dorastor) and Talor (the Telmori curse), both modifying (in a bad way) what Nysalor (or Gbaji) had wrought before. Was this just externalizing and demonizing? Or did the two rescuees of Harmast wear the mask of Gbaji uttering or solidifying these curses? And if so, were they ever able to rid themselves of it? The concept of Irensaval was introduced by Tomastus (sp), a companion of Hrestol after he came to Loskalm. This was after Hrestol's experience of interaction with Zzabur and the Vadeli, and may explain the loathing for Makan as the evil demiurge that is pretty much at odds with the ancestor worship that defines the Malkioni religion, seeing Malkion as the devolved re-incarnation of the Creator. It is possible to see Hrestol's experiences on Brithos (which he survived) and as judge of the Vadeli as a form of austerity, and his Death experience after murdering Ifftala certainly counts as such, too, but Hrestol was not satisfied with what he had built in Loskalm, and had started from zero again, leaving Tomastus as the spiritual leader of that new brand of Hrestolism in Loskalm. The same has to be said about initiation, or acceptance as an apprentice or rune level. If your teacher still is around, this teaching isn't about the Absolute, but a lesser goal. Which may be a step towards the Ultimate, but it won't take you all the way. So, a successfully transcendent mystic leaves this world, and leaves their disciples with perhaps some idea for their intention in the last steps, but not a tested method. When these disciples took whatever they had integrated from their master's teachings, incomplete as they may have been, and experimented to arrive at the target. In this process, errors or at least risks for failure may creep into the taught methods. If I look at Nenduren, his brand of mysticism from Stillness was an incomplete path. The Great Self Atrilith is achievable, and apparently was a laurel to rest upon indefinitely in Nenduren's time, and actually fed back into society. Nenduren had his lasting successes, like his disciple Kahar whose studies made him an acceptable partner for a True Dragon class entity, Thrunhin Da, known as Harantara in the non-draconic further east. And Nysalor's teachings cannot be complete, as he did not emerge from the Sunstop as Osentalka, but part of the insight he had to impart instead went to Arkat as the Godtime conditions of the Sunstop fell apart. But then, any teaching of mysticism is only a first step towards ultimate transcendence, and the following steps will be something that cannot be taught. Illumination is an incomplete insight. Look at orthodox (Obduran-style) EWF mysticism. A high practitioner like Ingolf Dragonfriend stil only have an incomplete insight. And even True Dragons are still a step away from transcendent liberation like that obtained by Obduran after one day as True Dragon. Obduran is the only EWF mystic to achieve this transcendence, and the only EWF mystic combining draconic lore with Orlanth worship to achieve full dragonhood. If I look at Nenduren, or at the disciples of Sivoli, they have a lesser goal than the Ultimate. Now how is that different from the very limited goal of Immanent Mastery to achieve a physical draconic body, or of Isgangdrang's slightly more advanced Short Cut method of the Right Left Hand Path which allowed its leader to show up in a body undistinguishable from a True Dragon, probably by combining draconic meditation with the concept of the Great Living Hero receiving worship from a vast number of people. Attaining the Lunar mysteries is as limited a goal as attaining the Breath of the World, aka the Storm Rune. Acceptance of Chaos is the one distinguishing feature that sets the Red Goddess and her worshipers apart from the Storm worshipers and their form of mystic unity with their Greater Deity. Those who truly transcend it all are no longer part of the world. True Dragons still are part of the world. And yet we talk about the Dragonet as something like a Bhodisatva, a mediator sticking on yet a lower level of mystical insight, delaying its departure. Maybe I am overly harsh with my critique of Mashunasan as a failing mystic because he is still around. He probably is the equal to True Dragons. In some aspects, he may be the equal to the High Gods like Vith - which in the God Learner Monomyth would be the original sources of a (major) rune. But consider that his meditations on the Void to achieve Durapdur or Being-NotBeing (and we know that "ap" translates as "anti-" or "not") is just another incomplete path. Note the similarity to "Vezkarvez" in the Glorious ReAscent of Yelm - the Before. Dara Happan mysticism struggles to achieve Ezelveztay, a core of Vezkarvez. The "Before" could also be equated with the Creator, the entity outside of the world which caused the universe. Dara Happan numerology and the Zzabur-influenced God Learner numerology of Actions appear to agree largely. The devolution of beasts as per Anaxial's Roster shows the "dragons" Hykim and Mikyh as Second or Third Action entities. That entire scheme is a pars pro toto reflection of the general view of Creation, which (unless you are an Irensavalist) is the signature of the will of the Invisible God. The Twin Phoenix Saga and the rules set up to play this out still are in the Guide. I am not yet willing to dump the baby with the bathwater that was the first drafts of mysticism in Hero Wars and HeroQuest1. Dayzatar's meditations appear to be on a level similar to Nenduren's Atrilith, or Greater Self. It allows existance in the immediate neighborhood of The Source. No more than three letters in the Ouroboros poem. I think that to make the approach to mysticism which birthed Sheng and the "illuminated antigod" phenomenon in the further East playable, the GM needs to be given some sort of structure or frame of reference what happens to a character when she achieves (a level of) illumination. I had my last chat with Greg about mysticism at some incarnation of Tentacles, when HQ1 still was the current thought on mysticism. The Twin Phoenix Saga was where mysticism was the core method of leading the conflict while martial artists - perhaps with the aid of some form of magic gained during low-grade mystical experience - were doing the initial adventuring stuff while the mystics meditated for insights. A bit like the idea of having the dragonewt egg meditating while the mobile dragonewt was experiencing stuff, really. The only connection between mystic and martial artist transcended the Fourth Wall, in the person of the player bringing the experiences of both characters to the table. Not that it was formulated like this at the time... I wouldn't give up on tantric mysticism, yet. Unlike Mashunasan, Venforn experienced full Transcendence. His pupil Sivoli ascended during (his only) sexual cohabitation after having schooled a number of outstanding martial artists, who in turn taught others about their ways. There appears to be some sort of Devolution in the teachings of mysticism. Mashunasan is quite similar to Zzabur as a disciple of the earlier, near ultimate source of that magic who remained behind, never achieving anything like his teacher Oorduren, failing to achieve the very thing he taught. Looking at Revealed Mythologies, I don't see any successful ascension in the ranks of the named austerity mystics. Nenduren successfully meditated on the Great Self aka Atrilith, but not the Ultimate, and him teaching Oorsu Sara caused his annihilation. Larn Hasamador achieved Nothing, although not necessarily with the capital N. You can use your draconic powers, but you have to make sure that doing so furthers your insight and advancement, to absolve yourself of entanglements, but Ingolf's use of his powers furthered his entanglement, and ultimately set him back to starting again from zero. It isn't quite clear when Ingolf found his end at the encounter with that avenging dragon - it is quite possible that this is part of the 1042 mass utuma, or enforced incomplete ascension. Even the goal of this path is limited. But then, Isgangdrang's short cut path was an acceptable or at least tolerable way of draconic development inside the EWF, even though it failed to provide a true transcendance to the (intermediate level of transcendence in) the being of a True Dragon. I don't know whether Labrygon/Lorenkargartan (possibly missing a syllable or two) was on a truer draconic path than Isgangdrang. It looks like that mystic survived the destruction of Isgangdrang by Alakoring, and he may have made it to the enforced Mass Utuma of 1042 before leaving his existence as a human. Much like Larn Hasamador, I suppose. "Oh, nothing."

Meeting Gonn Orta was not part of the quest - having done the quest was what gained/will gain him Gonn Orta's aid for his glorious return for the Battle of Gargantuans.

Where is that from? The Coming Storm has Jomes as a (tribal) native from Aggar, who fought Telmori on behalf of his king before being sent to join the regular Provincial troops. Jomes gained his Wulf eponym from his achievements against the Telmori in Sartar.

The Roman roads of Sartar are such a borderline case. Greatswords in my Glorantha need to be hammered from sufficiently sized pieces of godsbone. Cast bronze won't do, only the lost limbs of (usually lesser) Storm Gods. The ancient Malkioni had a quite high-tech urban civilization right next to the Mostali, and acquired quite a few technologies in trade or imitation, or parallel development. Including crossbows and opus caementitium. Who came up with boiling murex snails by the pound to get purple anyway? This is already a quite fantastic endeavor. What other beasts would be hunted or fished for dyes or other essences (like Ambergris)? Wikipedia says that the saddle quern "were superseded around the 5th to the 4th century BC by the more efficient rotary quern." In Scotland, not the Mediterranean. The stone-wheel oil mill appears to be a quite ancient design: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datei:Frantoio_Ipogeo.jpg Typically drawn by donkeys. This kind of mill would be able to crush grain into groats, too - if most of the grain goes into porridge, that is all that is required. Water mills provide vertical rotation only. But that can be used for hammer mills, which offer another (terribly loud) method for crushing or flattening stuff. I have seen a hammer mill used in preparation of mash for alcohol, and for fullering and felting wool. Removing the linen fibre from rotten flax involves a crushing step, too. (But then, a lot can be said about the idyllic crushing mortar scene in the first minutes of "Amok", or other such "documentary" "anthropological" shows...) Other than gears, belts may be used for power transmission. The fire drill is an ancient example. The leather strip on professional war javelins is another such example. There are pumps working on this principle, whether as bucket chains or by pulling knots through a pipe. Speaking of irrigation, you don't need transmission on a water wheel with attached buckets pouring out their water at the highest point. It doesn't have to be a water screw, although that was known and used in the Second Age. How are the potter's wheel or the wood-turning axis put into circular motion? Leonardo's pedalcopter must have some form of transmission, too. Maybe not the bicycle chain one might imagine when hearing the word, though. Gears may be more in the realm of precision transfer of motion than in force transfer. Avoid anything from maritime cultures unless you are dealing with one, too. River boats, even on a mile-wide river, aren't quite the same as ships on open waters. (Fjords and bays aren't quite the same as open sea, either.) A lot of Neolithic stuff on non-irrigation plow farming will look pretty much like Anglo-Saxon or Viking stuff. Think Aztec Tenochtitlan when you hear Neolithic for the upper limits of what is possible. A culture that impressed the Spaniards who had already been exposed to formerly Muslim Spain's grandessa... RQ3 used the term "Barbarian" for the various cultures of non-urban free warrior farmers it depicted, inside as well as outside of Glorantha. The Orlanthi are also known as hill barbarians. This doesn't (necessarily) mean the fur-loincloth fantasy barbarians of Hollywood B-Movies or Arnie's Conan movies with their blatant anachronisms, however much fun watching them in a slightly inebriated state may be. Stuff you aren't likely to find in Glorantha (at least mine): chainmail (outside of mostali manufacture), especially in bikini shape (plate armour is a different story, though) boots with heels (geta-like plateau boots are an option, though, and in all likelihood as practical as high heels) nailed-on horseshoes modern saddles buttons and buttonholes (outside of Kralorela and Seshnela) flat roof gardens in area with heavy rainfall or snow fall farmers or hunters requiring specialist crafters for everyday non-metallic tools of their trade potato farming (manioc or similar tubers in tropical environments still possible) Technologies which should be rare and involve sorcerous knowledge: non-alchemical smelting of metals (transformation of ores into metal) manufacture of clear glass Anachronistic stuff you will find (occasionally) in (my) Glorantha (some of this only as forbidden knowledge of earlier ages): stirrups pairs of short ski for downhill gliding for giggles and bragging woodcut printing, clay and wax tablets with long text seals imprinted flint and pyrite for firestarting gem-cutting water screws scissors geared calculators armored turtle galleys spewing fire (possibly even napalm, aka Greek Fire) ship-building traditions able to build 200+ foot long huge sailed galleys and sea-going pleasure barges transparent glass manufacture and glass blowing non-fractioned distillation, spirits and essential oils caffeinated drinks (tea, coffee, mate) concrete structures viaducts, aqueducts, sag pipes, syphons hydraulis (water-pressure-driven pipe organ) huge cast-bronze items like bells polytonal harmonies (music) and notation for that kites

So far, the Char-Un have one carnivorous stallion, and I guess they make do with long pork for the time being.

How many multiple initiations would be in those numbers? Broosta is one known character with multiple cult memberships. The cult of Pavis may be a secondary cult to quite a few Pavisites.

To restore the original great stature of Hippogriff, the celestial being that was mutilated and diminished by its foes. But you bring up an interesting dilemma - the Char-un are Pure Horse Pentans, so what do they feed to the stallion? The only chattel property they own are horses or human slaves. Feeding horses to a horse would be highly un-ethical, right?

Some of the Heroquest challenges are hard to discern from the ordeals of mystics. Orlanth has to undergo the test of the Flame of Ehilm (a sun god different from Yelm Ash-liege who demands the test) and only succeeds because he underwent an earlier such trial, the Baths of Nelat. Ingolf Dragonfriend, an EWF mystic who failed on a true mystic path unlike the majority of the Third Council members who followed short cut paths like or similar to Immanent Mastery, undergoes similar soul-searing trials on his way to dragonhood. Central Genertelan mysticism is portrayed as proselytizing their nostrums, like spreading the knowledge of Auld Wyrmish, or exposing people to Nysalorean riddles. The EWF starts as the Hunting and Waltzing Bands, hippies dancing in the wild, embracing one another and the occasional dragonewt. This may be seen as a kind of pilgrimage, or just as partying. The Lunar mobs following demagogues and discussing illuminated theories are reminding me of people I encountered at university - true believers in the writings of Karl Marx and (name any one 20th century dictator with "socialist" on their party book) trying to make the world better and more fair, believing in the promised goal rather than looking at the obviously failed states resulting from those theories. Willing to go on protests or even riots, willing to do some symbolic protest standing outside of official buildings holding up a sign, and doing surprisingly good jobs at networking students and sharing their lecture notes/scripts. People who will make improving the world their "day job", sleeping in occupied houses or similar. These demagogues and their followers pursue memes around the cognitive dissonance that needs to be overcome to become illuminated (or thoroughly indoctrinated, as the "improvements" of chocolate rations to ever smaller amounts announced by Orwell's Ministry of Truth). Illumination can be a disconnect from observable reality. "Positive thinking" as Voltaire's "Candide".

"Bronze Age" is a label, and it is more applicable to the social levels of the world than to its technology. Any immediate association with the Fertile Crescent and its neighborhood is bound to be faulty, too. And people in full hoplite armor aren't Bronze Age but Iron Age or classical antiquity. In our world, farming is a Neolithic technology that remained largely unchanged until the modern age, with powered tractors and synthetic fertilizers overturning long-accepted truths about manpower and beast power. The use of concrete predates the knowledge of smelting in our world - Catal Hüyük has terrazzo floors... We don't know much about the availability of textile dyes beyond purple and woad indigo. Textiles require quite extreme conditions to survive the millennia. Egyptian mummies, ice mummies (from Kurgans, or the notable Oetztal individual), finds from the Hallstatt salt mines or findings on bog mummies are among our best sources, and all of these have been subject to chemical degradation of some kind. Preservation in salt has been the least corrosive form. I have seen a wide range of wool mordants in the Iron Age research park of Lejre (outside of Roskilde, Denmark - a must visit, alongside the Viking ship museum in Roskilde if you happen to travel there). Glorantha's technology has bronze as its everyday metal. Gloranthan bronze varies between your expectations from terrestrial cast bronze and superior material hammered and welded from Godsbone. Iron is know, it is (anti-)magical, rare, and hard to work. The mostali of Glorantha are the source for much of the technological anachronisms like crossbows, but there were other Godtime civilizations with quite advanced materials and if not technologies then magically produced processes, too. The Glorantha you encounter is a post-apocalyptic world, in the grasp of apocalyptic cycles, and another of those cycles is close to its culmination. The heavy horse is one of many giant-sized animals. There are people riding the backs of oversized hawks in the lands of Balazar, and you react "Ok, this is fantasy." There are herds of very large horses from the magical lands of the west where they were bred by immortal humans. The descendants of those humans have lost immortality, but some held on to the huge horse breeds, the likes of the Thessalian breeds ridden by Alexander and his companions.

If this magic is going to imitate the magic of the Odyssey version of Circe, it should be an enchantment on herbs or similar that need to be ingested to cause the transformation, rather than an attack spell.

There is another quite sizable PHP group which took a loony turn, up in Erigia... They even managed to breed a carnivorous stallion and a winged mare. There may be more of those. Pentan tribes have the opportunity to stay out of sight for long periods of time, and those without cattle can go a lot farther north than those with cattle, as cattle cannot deal with frozen-over pasture. They'd still be rivals of those keeping reindeer alongside their horses.

Yes. On the one hand, Orlanth weakened Yelmalio as a defender of Justice. On the other hand, Orlanth became Yelmalio's stand-in as defender of Justice. This may be behind Orlanth's one great victory over Chaos, when he defended the Upper Air/Middle Sky against the Sky Terror and its hordes. I wonder whether this carries forward to the Bridling of Kargzant, too.

As far as I am concerned, Humakt is both the wielder of the original sword of Death, and the sword itself. When Grandfather Mortal tried out the new, untested power Eurmal and Humakt had lifted from Subere's vault/the Chaosium, Humakt owned the act, and became the act of dealing out capital-D Death. (Eurmal pretty much prefers to be identified with the Lesser Death... even though he, too, has an aspect that is bringing Death just by his presence.) The deity present inside its own paraphernalia is a common occurrance. Eurmal is his own misplaced dick, Lodril is just the same with his misplaced spear, and Humakt gets passed around after being separated from his two-legged divine expression, undergoing a number of shapes and owners before returning. Speaking of misplaced weapons, the Red Sword of Tolat may be another such pars-pro-toto item. Orlanth is the world storm (aka Ohorlanth), he is the Thunderbolt, he is the Storm Ram, and he is (part of) Orlanth's Ring in the sky. At the same time. Arcane Lore has a few notes on the subject of pluripresence. Yelmalio is the Shield of Justice, even though he lost it to Orlanth.

Any personal, face-to-face followers of Orgorvale (and Ulanin) would date back to the Vingkotling Age. Any cult recognizable to modern Orlanthi would have used the methods introduced by Hantrafal, who was presumably a contemporary of Heort in the Silver Age. Do we know the circumstances of Orgorvale's burial? There are know cases where a burial doesn't just mean corporeal death but an ascension to guardianhood, like Sartar entering his brazier. Given Orgorvale's past role as such a guardian, could she have undergone such a transforming rite rather than a normal burial? It is entirely possible (and fairly normal) for people who died of natural causes (if you include warfare and other such grisly ends) to become guardian entities after their death. Even circumstances like the Night of Horrors haven't stopped the Hon-eel cult from manifesting. Another source for these spirits could be temple spirits summoned and bound in the Dawn Age and possibly the earliest days of the Kingdom of Orlanthland. These could include notable descendants of Orgorvale summoned by their descendants. Or they may be the spirits of the defenders of the temple against the EWF take-over, sworn to defend the temple even after their deaths (likely dragonfire incinerations or similar). Any spirit will appreciate the chance to have a physical presence and to receive worship. Some of them may be available as allied spirits to rune masters of Orgorvale.

You are far from alone in that bafflement, and the distinctions made between the sun disk and the sun horse and whatnot. It's all gods within gods, venn diagrams rather than clear definitions. The nature of the Solar Emperor cult is at least as mysterious as is the row of previous and concurrent incarnations of Sedenya. There are separations and mergers and falling apart and battles in the sky. All the Golden Age is a Sunstop, yet there was night long before Umath invaded the Sky World, and a young Yelm conquered the world at the start of the Golden Age while Yelm the Emperor already hung in the sky with only minor altitude adjustments. Who is (y)(u)(e)(hi)lm(al)(io/e)? What's the deal with Antirius, Daysenerus and Tharkantus? What about the Griffin Sun, the Dragon Sun, why just the Sun Birds and Horses (and in several places)? Why no Yamsur, and what about Hyalor? Where do the Starlight Wanderers enter, or the Shadow Rider (confronted by Vuranoste/um) come into this? What about Harono of Esrolian lore? And why did Sandy Petersena's Gods War game portray the Emperor as a dragon - just a EWFism, or an older truth that the Dara Happans have pushed out of their memories? What happened to the Sun and its deity should be a universal truth, observable in the sky dome from anywhere beneath, right?f At the very least, the Orlanthi and the Dara Happans agree very much about the Copper Ledgers (as depicted in the Guide), only disagreeing about the names and the meanings of the events. And these events show how Reladivus aka Kargzant emerged as one of the Planetary Sons, and how he remained in the sky when Umath broke the stagnant (Sunstop?) formation (aka the Perfect Sky in Dara Happa) before being dismembered by Jagrekriand/Shargash/Tolat/Vorthan. In Umath's wake, the stars emerged into the sky, taking up (or back) their positions that had not been seen before. Later on, many of these star captains leaped down to the surface to act as local defenders/guardians - dozens, if not hundreds of local variations of the Antirius myth about the static defender of people whose actions as defender cause a descent and ultimately death/extinction of the Star Captain, allowing the community to survive in a number of cases. Possibly falling to a descending Fire Demon/destroyer of the Jagrekriand/Shargash/Tolat kind. One such localized myth can be found as the story of Garan, lover of Serias (in Heortling Mythology) and presence of the fire demons at the Battle of Aurochs Hills Somehow the slaying of the (Eveil) Emperor of the World resulted in a weakened orb or disk slowly lowering down from the sky, coming to rest on the local ziggurat/peak. At the same time, the steadfast spear warrior and/or horse (man) wandered the sky/the surface world defending the surviving communities against monsters. Elmal and Yelmalio and Kargzant and Hyalor's dad/ancestor all have something to do with Sunhorses, ripped out wings and beaks/canines/claws. There doesn't seem to be any single, streamlined myth that explains the identifications of Yelm, Yelmalio, Lightfore and whatever other names there may crop up, and while the long cult write-ups suggest that there is such a myth, it doesn't touch upon all the secrets and alternatives of the cult, and tries to touch on as many such aspects as it can when many local variants won't have all of what is described there (like shamans of Yelm outside of horse nomad culture).

The history of presentiting Gloranthan gender in publications was a bit weird in the nineties and naughties, starting with the introduction (and eager adoption) of Vinga in King of Sartar (as opposed to Elmal, whose appearance caused heated arguments and a major defection of old-style Yelmalio-friends), and Hero Wars presented quite adamant standards on male and female cults and roles, acknowledging exceptions but re-defining and over-defining those. Some debates brought sexual preferences into that gender discussion, and things went downward from that, in something of a reprise of the Elmal fall-out. (The more recent "Where's Elmal" debate reminded my of the blood spilled around 1994...) Thunder Rebels appears to have been a bit too true to the sources of our ancient world when it came to gender (almost equalling sex) roles. The vision of the (too) many Earths (and Storms) or at least more names than even hard-core Glorantha afficionados could tell apart did make playing Orlanth cultists quite diverse and more interesting, but the Allfather and Allmother aspects (while mythically sensible) made Ernalda quite domestic and very much non-adventuring. Nothing against a minor form of an Earth Healer in the Ernalda cult, but as a dedicated, exclusive cult? Hands up, who had such a character (even as side-kick or NPC) in their game? But let's take a look at a slightly earlier history of Glorantha publication for RQ3, in the middle and late eighties: Actually, the Ernalda cult write-up in Book 5 of RQ3 De Luxe already gave us the rules for acolytes, inside the paragraphs titled rune priestess of Ernalda. To me, this suggests that by 1984 already the full set of the rune owner cults was pretty far advanced in writing before the decision to make Gods of Glorantha into something closer to the Red Book of Magic than Cults of Prax was made. I wonder what exactly caused the delays between the publication of the rules and the Gloranthan supplements. And whether Monster Colliseum was originally meant to be set in one of the metropolises of Glorantha, and which. I still think that all it needs is an extra booklet on Lunar Dart Competitions and a tale of two houses to kick off an urban Lunar campaign. But that's another thing that probably weirded a couple of people who came into contact with Glorantha via RQ3 out - why give Ernalda and Dendara as the sample cults, with few incentives to be used for adventuring characters? Ok, the rpg industry wasn't ready to hint at fertility rites with nudity and congress in those years. Not for the US market, which apparently is the lion share for the English language market (despite my impression that the British, Irish and Australian scene was at least as active). The French RQ3 went for a lot more risque depictions - not sure whether aimed at a more mature or at a rather more immature audience, but with aesthetics similar to the adult French comic books, and the Japanese editions oriented their imagery on contemporary manga art. Still, RQ3 Ernalda (and even more so Dendara) were "the good wife" cults rather than adventuring material. And attaching Barntar and Lodril as warriors and plowmen might have helped a bit.