Joerg

I own the original version of Drakar och Demoner, and the switch to a D20 was quite logical as DoD used a percentile system allowing only increments of 5. (But then so did RQ2.) It doesn't take a super mathematician to reduce the number of dice rolled to one, except for determining crits and specials. Rerolling 1s for crits and 2-4 for specials does increase your chance at a special slightly if a failed crit is treated as a special, but not that much, and re-rolling the 20 for fumbles (in that case on failures) gives you the exact same chances as the percentile system. It is simple and elegant. Some of the other rules changes bothered me more. The Pendragon principle of highest roll under your skill made opposed rolls easy to resolve even on the same result quality, and rolling your skiill gave you a crit, but that doesn't support specials, and we love our slashes, crushes and impales.

From the "20-30% initiates" it looks like a Humakti regiment has at best 50% initiates of the Death God, with the rest being hangers-on or prospects, allowed to wear the insignia on their cut-off vests, or riding along without having any colors to show, or a few neutral/allied cultists. The fifty Humakti in the royal Sartarite bodyguard are a big issue, a military power able to hold one of the lesser cities of Sartar for a week on their own against anything but massed magicians or capital H heroes. But then they rarely appear in full strength, and used to spread among the various acknowledged members of the royal lineage. Ten of these bodyguards at once are already a strong diplomatic statement that the Prince means business. Two dozen are almost a declaration of war.

Sweet or salted? Anyway, take this with a grain of salt, or a few more. Initiation to a cult is something of a norm, but in more recent publications cult initiation has been dialed back from formerly 85% in HeroQuest publications. 20-30% of the adults sounds like a number I would expect in the Lunar Empire, or as the number of Orlanthi devotees under HQ1 rules. It is almost as if the definition of Initiate has changed somewhat again. Orlanthi should have significantly higher numbers, and David Scott's numbers for the Praxians seem to assume 100% of the adults in some form of initiation. The question is whether Ancestor Worship is included in those cult initiate numbers. Daka Fal is a special case. So are spirit cults and hero/regimental cults. One thing I find interesting are the afterlife prospects of the non-initiated. Initiates expect to join their deity in their afterlife. All humans go towards the judgement of Daka Fal after Death. (Not all may make it there if that bridge that kicks oath-breakers into the River of Swords is an obstacle... But then, all manner of ancestors can be summoned by Daka Fal, including a significant number of hostile ones, and presumably some oath-breakers as well.) Afterwards, souls are resting in the halls of Ty Kora Tek until they are reborn. Their spirits are in a spirit world afterlife limbo. Either wait to be reborn. Practically everybody is a lay member of numerous cults worshiped by their clan, or in their city. It is almost impossible to avoid lay worship of Ernalda, and outside of Lunar dominated lands, of Orlanth in one or more of his aspects. Visiting an Issaries market makes you a lay worshiper, as much as literacy makes you a lay worshiper of Lhankor Mhy. Inside Lunar lands, everybody is expected to be a lay worshiper of the Red Emperor and thereby the Red Goddess and Yelm. In the Provinces, the Seven Mothers cult may stand in for the emperor worship.

A lot of the everyday magic may be animist in nature. You collect the dust mice, or chase them out, possibly with a wind broom. You have little helper spirits, possibly using very minor elemental bodies, doing a very specialized chore, receiving some kind of thanks offering, possibly in a niche on a house altar. Possibly small amounts of food. And possibly, some of the destitute in the community go around, take those food offerings in exchange for a Magic Point and maybe some burnt hair or drop of blood or whatever offered to those spirits' collective or individual votive images. It is possible to (barely) survive on zero income in Orlanthi society, partially through directed acts of generosity, partially through acting as the penny-priesthood to these minuscule spirits, taking physical offerings and offering personal magic instead. Other such offerings of comestibles may be taken away by e.g. songbirds, or alynxes, acting as the natural priesthood of such spirits. There will be blessings carved into the beams upholding the house's rafters, or in the doorposts, and people may trace them or at least touch them when passing by. Some of these may be blessings unto the helpful spirits, or summonings of such spirits. The magical expenditure on such activities and beings is below the game-relevant thresholds most of the time. Much of that simply rubs off. There may be more magical places, perhaps (in RQG terms) places that drain one or two MP a day out of their inhabitants/visitors. Most of the time, such drains may go unnoticed. In some cultures, such spirits may have something like a foreman - like a Viking house tomte. That spirit entity may act as the recipient and distributor of the thanks and the propitiation.

Sort of on-topic off-topic: Where in Glorantha would you find Yakhchāl type ice houses? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yakhchāl https://medium.com/lessons-from-history/the-2500-year-old-technique-to-make-ice-in-the-desert-556a05a96fdb

Ralzakark's Egi - put them on the Moon...

In preparation for our Munchrooms game we stumbled over the rule that a successful parry draws the damage from that attack to the arm wielding the parrying weapon. While this is looking like the logical consequence of a shield parry, it is quite different from a shaft or blade parry as I have been taught in the most basic Eskrima lessons (which make even a parry with a one-handed weapon involve the off-hand to prevent the shaft/blade from being pushed back onto the parrying fencer, making it effectively a two-handed parry). Also, in case of two-handed weapons, which arm is affected by this redirection of the attack?

That's actually the weird thing about the Windstop winter effect. Valind's realm reached its greatest extent before Wakboth and the Unholy Trio entered the world again from the far North. That advance broke the icy hold Valind had on the world. (Zzabur's magical efforts to break Valind's grip on the world in general and on Brithos in specific, and the Breaking of the World afterwards which destroyed the Vadeli-controlled lands of the West, both aided and abetted the Greater Darkness. But that Greater Darkness started with the Battle of Icebreak, ending Valind's grasp on the world. The Chaos Age was a relief from the bad winter. Dara Happa sat out the Great Winter in its domed bunker(s) creating a (or several) dome(s) above their ziggurats, using the Iron Ram captured from the Ram People to divide the advancing glacier north of Yuthuppa. That Iron Ram would have been a manifestation of something like Orlanth, and was effective against the winter. It was less effective against the Chaos horde, and when it was removed from the northern end of the Dara Happan dome(s) the cities lay open for the rampaging survivors in the no longer glacier-covered lands of Peloria. Kerofinela and the parts of Saird controlled by the Vingkotlings never had been (completely) overrun by the Glacier, but they too experienced a relief from the worst excesses of Valind after his miserable defeat against the invading Chaos Horde in the Battle of Stormfall, with Orlanth and the Thunder Brothers leading the defending host. (Best source still IMO Uz Lore in Troll Pak, "Eleven Troll Battles") Glorantha had a huge warming event when Chaos entered the world from the North, as the Skyspill turned the southern part of Pamaltela from a tropical sea shore into an inferno of spilled skyfire. This was way too big for a localized event. Seas and rivers unfroze, and became available to deal with the Breaking of the World. So what's the point of this diatribe? Valind and Thryk the Winter Giant had lost their grip on the world even before the Greater Darkness. The Unity Battle which turned the Chaos Horde aside (and led them into Genert's Garden by the eastern route) happened during that warming event. So did the Breaking of the World, and "She is not dead, she is sleeping" - the disappearance of Ernalda (and Eiritha) into the Underworld. The Praxian local myth about the prequel to the Greater Darkness had Death visiting Prax, and Tada hiding Eiritha under her hills. IMO this is the local version of Nontraya showing up to claim Ernalda. Cults of Prax states quite clearly that Death as in Humakt only entered the region in 35 ST, which leaves the Underworld guardian to Subere's chamber of secrets which had been seduced by Eurmal to show up at Ezel, and then in Prax. Nontraya brought with him hordes of the Dead from the Underworld - local Nochet myths point towards the Blackmaw as his point of entry to the Surface World, inside their Necropolis, but Koravaka (the Necropolis city not yet isolated by Vogarth's lake) is another likely place for his appearance. I wonder whether Nontraya had already had his encounter with the Devil. I assume that this wasn't the case, yet. Nontraya's servants were underworld demons and the Walking Dead, but not yet a Chaos horde. I place that encounter some time after Earthfall and Tadafall, though possibly still before the Breaking of the World. That also places Orlanth's departure to the Westfaring into the time before the Breaking of the World. Probably even before the Unity Battle - a victory of his people, but without their god. Instead, Argan Argar looks like the most likely divine leader of that fight. All of this presumes a form of linearity of experiences in Godtime. Cults of Prax tells us that Godtime is cyclical, which means that events ahead may be events behind. Still, there is the trend of the deterioration of the world, aka the Ages of the World, progressing from Creation via Green, Golden, Storm (subdivided into Flood and Winter) and Dark Age into the entropic moment broken by the I Fought We Won moment (and corresponding other such myths elsewhere on fragments of Glorantha) and the Ritual of the Net in the Underworld, leading into the Gray or Silver Age. I am trying to keep my sanity considering this cyclical time by imaginining it as hoops around a spike rooted as a wide circular base in Creation and ending in a point in the Entropic Moment, forming a spiral, but not a perfect spiral, with hoops moving up and down the general degradation, getting narrower as they climb up. Taking for instance Vingkot's track, he rules during the Storm Age, but then slides up steeply receiving his summons to the Battle of Stormfall (in his role as one of the Thunder Brothers, not as the king of the Orlanthi), and meets his almost-demise. He returns downward into the Storm Age, plagued by the unhealable wound, and escapes into his immolation, removing himself from the Surface World (and bypassing the trek to the Gates of Dusk through his immolation). Thus his son Kodig inherits the Sword and Helm that Vingkot bore into the Battle of Stormfall long before that event reached the spiralling line of the Vingkotling people. The Other Side of the Holy Country, depicted in the Spiral Map printed in Arcane Lore, with the Void section, might be a two-dimensional representation of the surface of this Spike. One way to read it is like a spiraling fly trap. My way of reading it is to impose any mythic path as a series of spirals onto this collection of mythical nodes, archetypical events, connecting them in a linear fashion as told in the myths. Arkat (who had learned to perceive the world of magic as interconnected nodes during the sorcerous part of his education as a Man-of-All in Hrestoli Seshnela) later began to understand these nodes as intersections allowing a heroquester to switch paths. (There may still be another dimension involved in this mapping of myths, an ordering of whether this was the original event (the first time it was hit) or a shadow/repeat of that event.)

Its opposite number, the Cold Rune, was introduced in Cults of Terror, alongside the two subrunes of Fire, Heat and Light, and the discontinued Ice rune.

The Telmori don't have to strike at the people, they can strike at the herds of the neighboring clans. Without any custom or obligation to pay weregeld, this is hard on the herders, too. Without the distant pastures, the neighboring clans face economic ruin as pastoralism is essential for wealth generation in pre-Sartar Quivinilands. Wolves strike at soft targets, and avoid the strong ones. They find and separate the soft targets by disrupting herd cohesion. The Maboder apparently took up Hill Fort farming as a countermeasure to the Telmori raids, limiting their livestock to the immediate surroundings of their fortified steads in a manner similar to the late Vingkotling survival sites. With their herds drastically reduced, other neighboring tribes like the Malani and the Sanchali became the new targets of the wolf runners. According to The Coming Storm, the Telmori crossed the Creek in 1452, so their presence in the region was maybe 30 years before Sartar created the Jonstown Confederation and put them under contractual protection. Their arrival may have been seen as a temporary presence of a dangerous migratory folk who hopefully would pack up their belongings and wander onward, but onward there was only barren Prax, totally unlike their normal habitat of forested hills, so the Telmori had nowhere to move on towards. By the time of the formation of Jonstown, the Telmori were as desperate as the Orlanthi they fought. There is no way they would have faced the organized army of Hauberk Jon in the field otherwise. To say that the Telmori are limited to Telmor as their deity ignores Nysalor's gift that was cursed by Talor. There are numerous other spirits in the region, too, like the Six Sister hills. The Telmori probably have plenty of ruins from the EWF, Second Council or Vingkotling eras which they can use for defensible dens. In their Dr. Jekyll phases as carnivorous Hsunchen they are capable hunters and fighters with supernatural coordination with their wolves, and the myths of Telmor have plenty cases where Telmor is Death embodied - in Hsunchen myths it was Telmor, not Humakt (wielded by Orlanth), who slew (and ate) the sun. They would have found and identified with the Hidden Kings myth of the late Vingkotling era, too, already upon entering Aggar and Saird. The Princes of Sartar had two (rivaling) bodyguard forces, one half century of Humakti and one of Telmori. Led by descendants of Ostling Four Wolves, and later on by offspring from his pup from Onelisin, these forces commanded as much respect and fear as the Humakti. But then, Humakt is associated with wolves, too, and there is a possibility that the Telmori bodyguards attended the Humakt services of the bodyguards. The Household of Death was formed around Telmori-spawned royal children turning to Humakt.

Valind is about as localized as Lodril or Heler. As Lodril in the sense that the Glacier is the manifestation of Valind's power on the surface world, just like Lodril's (local) mountain (or open pit lava bed) is the (local) representation of the Volcano god, with lesser volcanoes designated his sons. As localized as Heler as in wherever it snows, there is Valind. He appears to be an ally of Inora, the goddess of mountaintop glaciers and hoar frost, as one's presence enables the other. I don't recall having seen speculations on Valind's mother. Two possible candidates would be deities often perceived in a male role: Heler, and Himile, as Valind is the god of cold precipitation. As snow is a transformation of rain, a parent-child relationship between Heler and Valind makes some mythological sense, and there is lots of precedence of Vadrus getting it on with Water entities or Heler. Iphara is the daughter of the hardly consensual mating between Vadrus and the Blue Woman liberated from Enkoshons, so that occasion is not what brought Vadrus to the world, but there are other meetings between Vadrus and Heler where the Storm Bruiser beat up Heler and possibly enacted his male superiority on the loser. Alongside that keet sage, Vadrus is one of the candidates who are blamed for Heler's inability to return to the Seas. Himile is more of a shot into the dark. There is a natural affinity of Himile's Hollri ice demons and Valind's get of the Frost Giants, and Thryk the Winter Giant could be either. It doesn't have to be Himile himself - Inora appears to be a daughter of Himile (and Kero Fin) and might be Valind's mother. But then, deities aren't limited to a single moment of birth (and thereby a single "biological" mother), so there may be more than one mother. Other than some inherited trait, the mothers of the children of Vadrus rarely play a role.

Perhaps muddying the waters, but if Yelmalio is Lightfore, then what are his myths about the activities of Kargzant in the Sky that seem to be the body of Lightfore myths? Kargzant originates as the southeastern of the Eight Planetary Sons of Yelm in the Copper Ledgers, and becomes mobile in the sky upon Umath's invasion, just like Shargash. Unlike Antirius, Kargzant wanders around in the sky, possibly without any fixed track until late in the First Century ST when Kargzant faces a deity in the shape of a Hill Barbarian warrior in the sky and gets bound to the Sunpath. Yuthuppan star lore claims that Kargzant too spent some time away from the sky dome, though it is not known whether in Hell or whether roaming the remains of the Surface World.

A wedding usually is a big rite introducing a person from a different clan, bloodline and household into a new such community, besides from introducing that person into a new nuptial bed with the aim of generating offspring to the household. The newly introduced marriage partner is supposed to adopt the identity of the new community, legally and by building up new loyalties. Building up new passions, or transferring those passions to a new group of people, in a RQG rules context, too. A biological mother marrying into a new household will usually have to leave any children behind that she has given birth to before, whether within or outside of wedlock. Those children are claimed by the household, not the parent, and if the parent leaves the household, that's a form of divorce from any previous children. There may be an option of giving such children into fosterage by the new household of the parent, but that's an additional contractual complication in the already difficult contractual setup. A biological father will only have lived in the same household as his offspring if that offspring was born to a patrilocal marriage, whether widowed, divorced, or from a temporary marriage in the first place, or as the temporarily married or divorced partner in a previous matrilocal marriage which should have terminated prior to the individual's new wedding. A renewal of a temporary marriage or an "upgrade" into a non-temporary form of marriage will have rites, too, with witnesses from both legally responsible clans present, but much less likely to result in a big feast. In fact, such changes in marital status may be side events in a wedding occasioned by a newly formed partnership. Termination or suspension of a marriage can result from divorce, death of the marriage partner, or exile of the marriage partner. In a divorce, the non-local divorcee is expected to return to whichever clan the individual hailed from - normally the birth clan, but possibly the clan a widowed individual decided to remain in to remain with one's offspring. Other than a clan, the previous community could be a temple, or an urban guild. The actual legally responsible party for the offspring of a tribal noble assigned to a duty far away from their home clan, like Dronlan, the Ernaldori-born tribal thane of Apple Lane, is such a matter. Do they belong to the tribal temple, or one of the local clans, or the Ernaldori clan? Losing status: For an individual to slip into a lower social role than the one he or she was born into is less complicated. If said individual got in opposition to the household head or head of the bloodline, being "offered" a new home in a tenant's cottage is possibly not that much of a deal. If said individual is married and has provided children to the clan, this is more of a deal. The marriage partner (in all likelihood from a different clan) would lose status by being forced to leave the bloodline. A divorce would be a common reaction. A more pressing problem would be the question who keeps the children? All children of a household are raised together, and children of tenant households on the same stead may be blended into that mix, usually with a notion of them being followers rather than leaders. Underaged children are one of the businesses of a hearth mistress, typically delegated to a female household member of her choice. Sometimes a permanent delegation, sometimes assigned to a household member restricted in how she can contribute to the management of the household (like late stages of pregnancy, beginning senescent infirmity, ...) While parentage counts, cousins of an age group probably grew up closer together than siblings from different age groups. Children from non-renewed year marriages would grow up distant from the non-resident parent. A parent removed from the household would be little different from a parent that was divorced or whose temporary marriage wasn't renewed - part of the household, not part of the core family of the person leaving the household. Demoting an entire household is a different issue. Failure to uphold the standards of a thane's or freeman's household could be blamed on the household, but in reality, the amount and quality of land and herd assigned to a household depends largely on what the clan chief and the ring assign to that household. Bankruptcy of a household may be caused by ineptitude or flagrant accumulation of weregeld payments, but can be premeditated by the chief and his ring in the shape of field and herd assignments that are losing propositions from the start or picking an unusual amount of sacrificial beasts from those parts of the clan or tribal herd. This can go on in an underhanded way for some time. In the end, the chief needs the support of a majority in the clan and the clan ring to demote a household from free to tenant status, in all likelihood over the objections of said household and any allied clans that offspring from this household were married into. Such clans may perceive the status gained from such a marriage weakened, or may wish to intercede on behalf of their former members.

That's upward mobility covered. Now how does downward mobility happen? If we look at Argrath aka Garrath Sharpsword, his great-grandmother was an undisputable spawn of the House of Sartar, while his mother was married to a stickpicker.

Yes, this is the amount of interaction expected for a person of Free standard of living. A tenant farmer's wedding will still reflect on the thane who is the master of that tenant, though, and at least on that level local nobility will be involved. Tenant households tend to be smaller than free households, and the RQG rules support such statistics by making survival rolls a lot harder for such households. As a consequence, way more weddings will be among offspring from free households. But social mobility between tenant status and free status in Heortling society is an interesting topic. And what does a free household with more adult offspring than jobs on the stead do? Send them off adventuring? Sacred Time is a magically busy time, a time you don't want to be away from your home community. On the other hand, ceremonies done in Sacred Season may occur on the Other Side, bein more magical than your ordinary rites. In my Glorantha, quite a few holy day rites include ritual marriages between representatives of the deities, including (public) wedding nights and expectation of children from such rites. Such occasions are the only occasions where intra-clan marriages happen in my Glorantha. If your local boy has the hots for the local girl, the couple better make sure to stand in as the ritual couple to get at least the equivalent of a year marriage.

One big aspect of an Orlanthi wedding is "meet the in-laws" as the clan of the bride (or groom) moving to the family of the marriage partner is going to attend in strength, straining the hospitality capacity of the hosts to the max. And it is not just the immediate families (households) of the bridal pair, this includes the chieftain, the clan ring, chief priests, and possibly the respective tribal kings or their thanes as witnesses in case of high stakes weddings. Plus any stickpickers etc. trundling along for free food and booze. Lawspeakers, clan traders and chief herders will be involved as property is exchanged between the clans, and obligations to one another set into memory and possibly writing. In-laws from other clans may turn up - individuals who have been married off to other clans, along with their marriage partners, children, and ring representatives trying to get some diplomacy done alongside the family reunion, both on the hosts' side and on the visiting new in-laws' side. A private and minor party like Biturian's would be rare, and while Norayeep's family turns out to give her husband as much of a political and economic advantage as a priest of Issaries may wish for, Biturian's home community (likely a city guild/temple rather than a clan) is hopelessly under-represented. Calling in the cults rather than kin for those roles is a desperate move you only do in distant border town situations. Biturian's wedding does point to opportunities to show off powerful allies in ceremonial roles during the wedding.

I already have a hard time to provide canonical names for individual Morokanth other than Egaya Chewer-of-Flesh. Astonishingly little is published about the Beast Riders in general, and little of that covers our tapir-like man-eaters. The encounters in Borderlands are about as much as you get, apart from a few NPCs. What little there has been as canonical information like the one named Bison clan - the Flower Bison - got the origin of their name needlessly redefined in the RQG rules. Why? Any other clan name could have been made up and described without contradicting Biturian's story from Cults of Prax. For instance the Blue Llama clan, with its notable individuals Orgwaha (deceased in Boldhome) and Yazurkial. Basically, the trend appears to be tribal beast name plus adjective, except that the Morokanth probably would not be using "herd man" as clan descriptor. As Darkness-leaning tribe, things like "Hungry Morokanth" might be possible. If you want to confuse people, the "sable Morokanth" might use black marten pelts as their clan insignia.

That close to Tarndisi's grove, the thorns could indicate some Aldryami claim on the place. Or possibly a sleeping princess.

Yes and no - Mostal took exception and fixed her by pushing the Spike through. The result was a single dot on the top surface. Later on, the Spike was removed forcibly, and the die broke apart. The mostali are working on fixing this, starting by pulling the Slon shard back into place south of Jrustela. Being perfectionists, they aim for a polished die, starting with the southwestern corner of the Earth which will be complete once their repair has been achieved.

He stopped when Gata complained about becoming dizzy.

Just the original EQ series? The World of Two Moons has a lot of epic, and the sequels are worth reading, too. Personally, I am partial to the spacefaring future of the world where the elves are remembered vaguely by the humans, and where the Neverending (that species that the original inhabitants of the Palace chased across the galaxy) have finally arriived at the World of Two Moons. Those graphic novels hint at some world building that should be fun to explore. But yes, the original quest for the palace is a classic. The rules are based on the first quarter of that saga mainly, and already need some re-adjustment for the encounter with the Gliders. But they also apply to the human SF setting if you add the technology rules from the BGB.

(This was meant to be an edit but appeared as a quote... interface problems?) I prefer the bent reality variant, Mythago Wood-style. If only for the simple reason that you can always add another valley inside a ridgeline, or a ridge-line inside a valley bottom, and expand your campaign's area a bit while leaving the rest of the cartography basically untouched. I have suggested hidden valleys e.g. for the disappeared Karandoli clan. They might still be up there on the northern flank of the Quvin massif, but only heroquesting paths connect their lands with the rest of Sartar.

I am surprised Joerg did not mention that one, he is always telling me this is the gold standard. That map from the RQ2 Troll Pak box had a hex grid only on its backside (in the shape of a troll ball court), although yes, it had the accurate scale and could be used as northern extension of the Nomad Gods map towards the Rockwood Mountains. Its RQ3 Troll Pak reprint map is an example of a map not quite to scale, even though that map is the stylistic ancestor of the new detail maps for Sartar (already found in Pegasus Plateau for the Locaem, and in the snippets shared on Facebook). I would let that slip as a generalization effect, although I wonder why the line of the dragonewt plnth is not straight in the clan maps that treats features of the underlying map badly (like hiding Apple Lane under the Hiording label). There are a few more differences, like a less optimal position of the Swan River label, which suggest that the clan map background is an earlier, less advanced and less corrected version of the tribal map. But that map does fulfill its function - it offers context for the clan borders along water courses and ridge lines. The older version has the correct label for Alebard's Tower and not the spell-checked Abelard (which makes me look for Heloise on that map now). The thematic information in the clan map is clearer and has less cartographic distortion than the more graphic placement of the icons of the central settlements of the clans. Taking a closer look at those two maps, I notice that the clan center of the Enhyli clan (the one outside of Runegate) is designated as Lunar Manor, and not in ruin. Is that a wrong label, or is there a story to that? Why would the Enhyli clan center be given to Lunar investors? (Blackmor's clan is the Taraling clan, the replacement clan for the Runegate Triaty with a new Chieftains' lineage from descendants from Old Man Colymar. What reason would he have had to antagonize one of his closest neighbors in his home district? But getting the exact position of those settlements as a point coordinate in relation to the graphical representation gives a good indication how measurements from map icon to map icon may vary by such amounts. I would expect the underlying point coordinates for all those maps compared in the original post to show much less of an error than the measurements between the graphical representations. I am not so sure whether the clan borders really are that defined as shown in that map, although creating such discrete borders is what you have to do as a cartographer unless you want to go into details (like for instance the acceptance of Orleving border markers by Varmandi herders). And I doubt that the entirety of the clan territories are equally overseen by the clan wyter perception. The ridge-line style of representation of elevations is quite suggestive in creating an idea what one might see from a certain position, but will distort the actual coordinates of peaks and valleys quite a bit. The use of hatching to indicate major elevations in the new topographical map offers a lot less such displacement. But then, how many player characters own hippogriff steeds and can fly between those peaks as the bird moves? (Answer: probably 40-50% of the players in campaigns using the official adventures... which is probably similar to the amount of Balazar's Axes carried by RQ2 players in or near Pavis.) (If this sounds like I am in a forgiving mood - I am currently taking a remote university GIS course, and the current chapter is about cartography.) Last not least a whacky theory about distances and reality in Glorantha: The Glorantha we know now is just a patchwork of the shards of reality that could be salvaged or reconstructed in the Ritual of the Net. Some shards of reality were bigger and more compact than others, some shards were missing, and there may be entire fault lines where most of the original shards are missing now, replaced by "softer" reality spun from the silk Arachne Solara spun out of the digested parts of Kajabor. Distances in these softer parts may vary, and there may be shards of reality taking up more space and distance in the world than the surrounding topography may allow for. There may very well be parts of Glorantha which cannot be mapped to scale in a two-dimensional model. One known case is Dorastor. The mapped information that seems to fill the entirety of that land is probably just a third of the total area of Dorastor, and either the map showing the distances in Cults of Terror or the Guide is distorted, or the effect of malleable dimensions is at work when it comes to the inner Dorastor between the rise to the mountains from the Pelorian side and the descent at Kartolin Castle on the Ralian side. Another theory (not mine) says that earlier age maps of Fronela and modern maps differ by a wedge running from the northwest to the southeast, point towards the Nidan range. Something like that might have happened during the Ban, with nobody really knowing the difference after the Thaw. Then there are Hidden Castles, hidden valleys, Hidden Greens. There may well be a chance that a map with true cartesian coordinates for much of its area may have a shortening or stretching of distances in areas of high mythical pressure - similar to the gravity wells around heavy objects in space. Or you may blame this on sloppy cartography or measurements. I prefer the bent reality variant.

Rick Meints showed off two issues of Gorp! magazine, the ultimate collector's item (aka only original if xeroxed by MOB)..

More thoroughly, in at least 49 parts, as a deity of such power can eventually recover from being separated into 48 parts, according to Orlanthi mythology. The Lunars allegedly have collected those hidden parts, and they have come to a count somewhere beyond 50. They are positive that they will be (or have been) able to reconstruct a pure Nysalor without using any parts of Gbaji nevertheless...