Joerg

That won't stop sexual innuendo in her treatment of Orlanth.

The very same author was crystal clear at the time Arcane Lore was finally published that the magics showed by the mystics would be forms of sorcery, theism or animism, apart from that refutation ability slowly accrued by meditation through various means, including asceticism, austerities, and tantric practices. This does give a mystic justification for even the degenerate excesses of the orgies of Red Emperor Magnificus as valid mystical practice on the way to greater enlightenment. The company of victims of deluded hedonism may serve as the mystical challenge/temptation for those who engage in the practice. But individuals like Moirades succeeded in their ascension to the Red Moon in the course of these orgies, and any such success is of course a cause for more such celebrations.

We did have an outline map for the continents, and some of the great rivers already in the RQ2 rules, and there was a somewhat detailed but flawed map of Genertela in the Genertela box. The detail maps in the Genertela Book could be used to create a mosaic, but the scales of the various maps varied by a factor of 2. Prior to the Argan Argar Atlas, the published gold standards for maps were the Dragon Pass and Nomad Gods gameboards, the maps in Griffin Mountain, and the Holy Country map in RQ2 Companion, and the accepted scale was the Dragon Pass hex. The Argan Argar atlas adopted that Dragon Pass hex, and that subjective scale is still available. The daily movement rates of troops in the Dragon Pass board game under full mobilization have been there for the entire publication history of Glorantha. Population numbers assume a maximum of 500 people per hex in mixed cultivated and wild terrain like Sartar, and possibly quadruple that in extremely densely cultivated lands like riverine Esrolia. Try the population numbers in the Guide with these numbers, they ought to work out. The RQ3 GM book had a systemless section on population distribution in an agricultural society (not specifying whether neolithic or more modern), giving typical agricultural settlement size, surrounding wildland, etc. in a 2.5 km radius for a population of 50-100. Sum these up for a hex population of 500, and you get say 7 such circles inside a hex, which calculates to a hex side length of about 5 km. Maybe 5 miles if you allow for a bit more wilderness. That's your scale. Now go counting hexes.

Welcome, and hopefully the right place for you. Definitely the right place to ask this. Influences should always be many, often from unrelated cultures. Getting down to a single parallel will create clashes of disbelief later on. Not exactly how I imagined them - but then that's the risk with making these assumptions. But then, that may depend on your definition of Celt. Are we talking about the majority of Hannibal's troops at Cannae, for instance? Are we talking about the mythical Milesians leaving Iberia in ox-hide curraghs for Ireland? Orlanthi are a case of a farmer-warrior culture surrounded by centralized urban civilizations, having experimented with urban life, some adopting that, others rejecting that. Their peculiar definition of a clan is something I have not yet found in any culture - an exogamous group of 500 to 1000 people, headed by an elected cheftain/priest who has the last word on 95% of all the property in the clan but who can be challenged whenever being unjust. There are elements of Germanic "hundreds" here, or "Sippe", but blown up to a size which no Germanic farmers' republic ever managed to maintain in a stable format. Their material culture comes from herding sheep and cattle and doing grain agriculture alongside side crops which may include vegetables, wine, orchards for fruits. They inhabit a climate range from subtropical to subarctic, usually in highlands (hence their moniker "Hill Barbarians") or adjacent lowlands. Their religion defines their magic, which in turn influences their material culture. Their personal magic stems from identifying with their patron deity inside the polytheistic pantheon they all sacrifice to. These individual identifications with a single cult are the most pronounced among the Orlanthi of all cultures, many other cultures have a less personalized relationship with single deities of their respective pantheons. Another strong personal magic stems from ancestry. Ancestral spirits or even deities can grant boons to their descendants if they take on the ancestors' values. Perhaps as important to shaping their culture are the magics for their community cohesion. In Glorantha, each community of a certain size and magical potential creates an esprit de corps, a magical representation of the community. In order to interact with these collective entities, the Orlanthi summon a spiritual intercessor with these magical entities, personifying that entity and giving it worship in exchange for quite specific blessings. These facts of magical economy shape their material culture, much like religious beliefs shaped the ancient cultures. Looking at Egypt without looking at their death rites overshadowing their everyday activities won't give you much insight into a population of farmers depending on annual floodings to provide them with extraordinarily fertile fields in a warm climate. When it comes to "visualizing", matching relative body size, skin , hair and eye coloration will come into play. Well, Gloranthan humans are more colorful and diverse than our own planet's upright apes. Not to the extent of manga hair coloration, but dark brown-hued skin and red or fair hair are pretty normal combinations. Rather than strange hair colors, there are strange skin colors around. Blue, green, actual ruddy red or fairly bright yellow are possible skin colors inherited from magical ancestry. Orlanthi redheads usually come well tanned rather than the pale skin you find in western European-descended redheads. Any comparison of the Orlanthi with Vikings, Celts and Germanic tribes brings up phenotype expectations which are usually way too white. The material culture of the Orlanthi reflects the climate range they live in, the religious preferences, and their primary occupations. Textiles are fairly optional when not dictated by the need to protect against cold. Holy people of various cults are expected to go totally nude, and participation in rites may call for nudity as well. That said, the culture has a strong urge to display status by ostentatious ornamentation, and that does include textiles and furs besides jewelry and symbolic armor. Orlanthi admire the dieplays of wealth by their neighboring cultures,and want them for themselves. Those who can afford them will wear clothing and jewelry in imitation of neighboring cultures and display furniture, tableware or even architecture adopting those styles, usually while replacing representations of magical identification with the deities of that culture with their own deities. Gloranthan metal is way more common than it was in the Iron Age or any historical Bronze Age, but most of it is bronze, with significant amounts of unalloyed copper, lead, and alloys like pewter being used as well. There are rarer metals like Sea-Metal - stuff that can take on a liquid shape or can be solidified. The solid material has about the density of sea water. Gold and silver are coveted, but used a lot in ostentatious displays of wealth (as such displays help to make the wearer more like the deity she or he identifies with). Most of these metals and even alloys can be washed out of deposits as native metal, including larger parts of gods' bones (or bones of other magical entities with stron elemental associations). Gloranthan iron (or steel) is a rather rare material with magical or rather anti-magical properties. It is the metal of death and separation, and can be superior to bronze. The magic of smelting iron is restricted to the Mostali and possibly a few secret cults who managed to steal those secrets. Orlanthi culture is a contradiction between pastoralist ancestral origins and a history of being one of the most advanced urban societies in the world (at several peaks of civilization, usually followed by a decline and return to non-urban life as a reaction). One point of Orlanthi culture is that a small group of people can be as productive in their primary activities of raising crops and herds as a big, centralized state or city. Orlanthi agriculture is not dependent on big communal works to provide irrigation or drainage, and the bureaucratic apparatus and centralized rule that are necessitated by such demands When such water works are necessary, the Orlanthi can handle those. In that regard, they bear some similarity with the Frisians who maintained Germanic farmer republican attitudes even through the feudal period while handling huge communal endeavours in flood control and draining of land. Unlike the Frisians, the Orlanthi don't normally have to fight the sea intruding on land slowly sinking below sea level, and most places they inhabit have enough seasonal rainfall to avoid having to irrigate their fields. The Orlanthi farm resembles the Neolithic farming adapted for cold winters. While there are Orlanthi lucky enough to live in places where you don't have to stable your herds through the worst of winter, most of them live in uplands which cannot be used as pasture year round, with access to high or otherwise seasonal pastures where to drive the majority of their herds in transhumant practice. These transhumant practices are a major distinction from both their more sedentary, urbanized neighbors and from their almost purely nomadic neighbors (Praxians, horse nomads). Dairy and meat are a significant portion of Orlanthi primary production, with meat consumption a feature of their religious practices. Pious persons may gorge themselves on meat fairly regularly in the sacrificial rites, regardless of social status. High status people may have meats on a daily basis - possibly less as a dietary preference and more as a display of status. Office holders represent the community and the community's pride (which in turn is fueling the community cohesion and the magic available to the community). There is no element of envy in putting the leaders - the holy people handling the communal magic - in as ostentatious apparel and displays of wealth, but rather one of communal pride. The splendor displayed by the holy people reflects the community. The Lunar Empire is the latest in a succession of empires dominating the lowlands of northern Central Genertela. All of these empires have been headed by divinely blessed emperors desended from the ruling deities or at the very least a demigod ancestor descended from the supreme deity. Like all the empires before, it emerged from overthrowing the previous regime. All kingdoms or empires in Gloranthan are based on the religious importance of their rulers. In the Lunar Empire, this may be even more true than elsewhere, as the emperor is the reincarnating demigod son of the Red Goddess who founded (or took over) the empire when she still walked the world as a demigod avatar of her ancient magical power. The Lunar Empire is a magical empire, of several layers of imperial magics and harvest magics. Some of those magics date back to Paleolithic ancestral practices, possibly including fire farming, alongside horticulture. The Roman Empire has too much of a Republican pre-history to be a good parallel for more than a superficial similarity. Another name for the Satrapies has been Sultanates. At the heart of that empire is a riverine network of cities overseeing irrigation agriculture around them, with just the minimum amount of herding necessary to sustain the plow beasts used for growing rice or cereals in dry farming. Cereals really dominate the diet. Irrigation is required, as there is little rainfall during the growing season, and most of the available water comes from the snow melt, both locally and in the (Orlanthi-inhabited or wild) surrounding uplands. Centuries of cultivation have reduced forestation of the land to a few lingering major areas, replacing them by grasslands used for herding - mainly of smaller herd animals like goats, and of horses. The temperatures of the Lunar empire are comparable to the US midwest (before the recent anthropogenic climate change), except for a rather recent magical anthropogenic climate change introduced by the Lunar Empire. The Lunar Empire brought a bunch of revolutionary magical and social changes, and created a few New Model Cities, but it also rules over some of the most ancient and most persistent cities in the world, whose urban culture and domination over the surrounding farmlands underlies a majority of the new ways. If you want to take the Roman Empire as your parallel, you should look at those parts of the empire which were based on the conquest of older empires, including the successor states of Alexander in Greece, Asia Minor, the Levante, and Egypt, and the former Carthaginian lands. The Danubian and Atlantic Coast conquests of the Roman Empire are not a good comparison for the Empire as a whole, although the Danubian conquests offer some parallels for the Empire's interaction with the Orlanthi. British and Gallic conquests are culturally in the forefront of what people of Western European descent picture as the Roman Empire. And while there are good anecdotal similarities in e.g. the Iceni uprising or episode in De Bello Gallico or the Germanic campaigns (including Varus' battle), many of these are misleading. Likewise the all-important role of the Mare Nostrum (aka Mediterranean) for the infrastructure of the Roman Empire must not be under-estimated. The Lunar Empire has a riverine infrastructure resembling the Indus or Ganges valleys or the lower Nile Valley. Sluggish rivers almost a mile wide dominate most of urban Peloria. While there are some functional roads in the Empire, some even magical, the majority of traffic and trade depends on the rivers. Control of the rivers is half of the imperial authority, although almost nobody admits to that. Part of that is the history of having been conquered (or even rescued) by horse-riding nomads, nomads some of whom claim a shared ancestry with the urban culture. The lands of the Lunar Empire emerged from the apocalyptic Greater Darkness under the able leadership of horse nomads which then was marred by a succession of let's say less able emperors too confident in their god-like and god-given status. Apart from barbarian foes (the high culture of the Orlanthi and their non-human allies, which at that time was possibly more civilized than the lands under the horse warlords), an upsurge of the urban population under their rule seeking their own identity as sun-blessed overseers replaced the horse nomads, who were driven off into the inhospital (to humans, especially from agricultural societies) grassland steppes of Pent (which offer ideal horse-breeding conditions, though). Horse nomad neighbors with a national memory as imperial overlords over a farming population are one main topic of he history of the empires preceding the Lunar Empire, and are a recurring and serious threat to the Lunar Empire as well. The other recurring theme in the Lunar Empire are mystical insights altering the reality of the land. Illumination. The Lunar Empire is one such movement, the third such major change of the magical and physical reality of the lands, the Third Age mystical empire. The First Age (aka Dawn Age) saw the Bright Empire (grown out of cooperation with the Orlanthi civilization), the Second Age saw the draconic Empire of the Wyrm's Friends and ther dragon reality take over the ancient empire for a while. Other, less blatant mystical insights or aberrations like the Spolite Empire with its Darkness orientation also turned up in the Second Age, at first before the EWF, then again after the fall of the EWF when becoming the dominant creed in the Carmanian Empire (the empire toppled by the current Lunar Empire). The sequence of empires in the lands surroundin Mesopotamia may be the better ancient comparison to the Lunar empire. Alexander and his successors bear some similarity to the Carmanians, but so do the Persian horse riders preceding Alexander. The religious fervor of the Lunar Empire shares aspects of the early Caliphates, although the religious and social tenets don't share that much. Looking to the Sassanians or the Byzantines may be more fruitful than looking to the early Roman empire, but then take either back into a Bronze Age environment with demigod kings and magical feats of battle like in the Vedas. Material culture can be surprising, but then use of concrete in Catal Hüyük's terrazzo floors predates metallurgy. Technologies coexist in closer temporal and local proximity than at any time in Old World history. Parallels from the pre-Columbian New World are harder to use because of the importance of domesticated cattle for plowing and domesticated horses for warfare. And bigger domesticated beasts in the mythical past. I find that superficial similarites with naval cultures or with cultures not using animal muscle lead to visualisations that trigger a dissonance. "It's like modern America, only without fossil fuel engines or electricity." In other words, not alike. If you want to use past civilizations as short-hands, always use multiple sources, point to a few similarities that apply and to strong dissimilarities which don't. Use Meso-American, African or South-East Asian ones in connection with Fertile Crescent-adjacent ones. People must eat, and feeding them is the basis of all cultures. The infrastructure and magic for keeping the people fed are integral to all Gloranthan cultures, and then comes the mythical past, usually reflected in the main figures of the culture's dominant reliigion. Thus it is Orlanth, the rebel king, who overthrew the previous urban/celestial Evil Emperor and freed his sophisticated wife who brought an ancient agricultural society into his pastoral clans and tribes, and that merger defines Orlanthi culture. Thus it is divinely ordained centralist government by Yelm the Sun God over the entire array of subservient deities, some of them rebellious but kept in cheick, and then the Red Goddess returning that divine right government along with a philosophy of mystical liberation. Thus it is the strict, "logical" caste system of the westerners instituted by Malkion, maintained by Zzabur, and reformed by Hrestol for the "monotheistic" West. And there is eastern mysticism and meditation, at times combined with mystical martial arts, at times with draconic magic and symbolism, carried forth by the great mystical sages who advised and instructed emperors or became dragon emperors. There are the two nomadic cultures inhabiting the wastelands of central Genertela, one horse-riding and -worshipping former emperors of what is now the Lunar Empire, the other Beast Nomads riding anything but horses and a culture based on survival after the devastation of the Chaos Wars and dealing with the all too present remains of that Chaos. Material culture and appearance are linked to habitat, climate, history and religious/mythical preference. Find a balance for these in your parallels. Horse nomads will loan from the well-known horse riding cultures of the Old World - Scythians, Gauls, Sarmatians, Huns, Bedouins, Magyars, Mongols, Cossacks. The material scaled back to an ancient world feel, with iron replaced by bronze and certain Iron Age devices like chainmail not available. (Don't even mention stirrups, or absence thereof.) They have a traditon as urban overlords. They have a history of following great leaders displaying powerfuly mystical magics (which made e.g. the Char-un Tribe devout if rebellious followers of the Lunar Empire).

Keep in mind that you are moving on the (very perturbed) surface of the sea, and that the Great Hurricane is raging above as much as the waves churn below. It's not just Zaramaka, it is also Umath. Possibly tattered and in pieces, possibly some of those recognizable as Orlanth. And, however far out you may be, have you reached the outer layer of Nakala or Aether yet? It is unlikely that you will have much of the influence of the Red Moon out here, or of Earth. There may be Blue Moon out here, possibly drifting in the churn, possibly in the hurricane, possibly below the waves. Quite likely in tatters, too. Possibly also white moon, lost planets, lost stars. Lost pieces of the Spike, perhaps of the Celestial Palace or the white elf forest on top of it. Firebergs, possibly up in the air. Entire pieces of land held up in the air by the hurricane. Stretches of metallic air or water. And temporary reality, aka Illusion. Or absences - how much of the web of Arachne Solara will be consolidated that far out?

@Stew Stansfieldhas produced a number of distinctive duck style architecture pieces. An alternative to the artificial island lake house would be the stilt houses, like those on neolithic Bodensee. Yet another version would be boat houses. Both these alternatives would have "cellar doors" into the water (but then artificial islands may have "sewers" allowing underwater access to the lake, too). And "lake" can be read as "open area of water inside a bog". In your Diaspora, there might be more "nests" between "group" or "pair". But you can pull those out of those pairs, I guess. Walls are used when the ducks occupy a larger piece of dry land. But even then, ditches, canals or grachts may be of greater importance, too. Other than walls, extensive thorn thickets (possibly with water-filled tunnels beneath) might make use of less solid soil for a fortification.

Sounds like an issue with double f being replaced by a single kerned ff version to me. This may irritate search functions, too.

Has she teased big blustery too much?

If it comes to personal cat communication experiences: Mine! Feedme! Letmein! Letmeout! SeewhatIcaught! Brushme! Now!

Humakti ambush by stepping forth challenging their opposition...

IMO the magic point system works just fine. A 1000% Sword Trance would have a casting time of more than 16 minutes. Crystals and matrices don't fill themselves, you need MP donors. Bound spirits will do, but it takes a 100 POW spirit farm 24 hours to refill all that storage, and probably requires some form of enchantment to allow a bound spirit in one crystal to push MP into a different crystal. There might be another limit to how many such storages can be used in a single spell casting - you usually need to actively touch one to draw out the stored MPs. I would ask for a concentration roll each time an MP storage is switched.

One of my whackier theories about the nature of Gbaji, Arkat and Nysalor is that Gbaji was the mask of Arkat when viewed from Nysalor's side of reality, and the mask of Nysalor when viewed from Arkat's side of reality. The battle on top of the tower of the City of Miracles was a duel between Gbaji and Gbaji, leaving at least one of the combatants dead and dismembered. The weird two-dimensional, hollow form of Ralzakark may be a manifestation of that (the rightmost of the three Ralzakarks on p.343 in the Guide).

Beyond, yes, but Sramak's River is limitless, and Glorantha is one eddy inside it - admittedly one with a seriously huge intake of water. Which Outer World reality you encounter and how you experience it will strongly be influenced by your means of arrival and your intentions. Depending on your expectation, there will be an outer shell of Darkness below and Aether above that marks the end of Creation. It is known that stars from the Underworld sky show up on the horizon as the tilt of the Sky Dome deviates from the vertical axis. There are a number of named realms on those borders, or possibly beyond, such as Kapertine, visited by draconic mystics like Ingolf. Depending on your expectation, you will be able to sail on forever (assuming your vessel is built for the ultimate hurricane with the ultimate wave action), and possibly enter different zones of calm, possibly under a different sky dome. Depending on your expectation, your course will take you up Lorion's Sky River rather than out to Sramak's Ocean, or down onto the Styx. I understand that strictly speaking Primal Chaos lies at the bottom of the Underworld, beyond Subere's hall of secrets, beyond the Chaosium, but the Chaos Rift created upon the implosion of the Cosmic Mountain carried that into the heart of Glorantha - somewhere in the below-surface parts formerly occupied by the Cosmic Mountain, encapsulated by the Maelstrom of the Homeward Ocean. It is also anywhere where the strength of Arachne Solara's Web is weak, and shards of reality are only tenuously connected. And it lies in waiting at the End of Time.

Yes. With emphasis. Falling off the edge is easier in Magasta's Pool - somewhere out there on Sramak's River, the waters churning down in the Maelstrom come up again towards the surface, and from the re-appearance(s) of the main Waertagi fleet, that somewhere can be found in the West. If you can sail against that current, you'll get to Hell, but there are other places that allow access to the Underworld. The Hell Fount in the middle of the Jrusteli archipelago goes the other way, too, but Revealed Mythologies p.15 tells us about a maw to Hell, opened by the Vadeli to swallow a tidal wave sent against them by the alliance of Brithini and Waertagi. There are places where the Sky Dome dredges up water from Sramak's River to feed the Celestial River, and also the Skyfall in Sartar. Sailing up this river and then following some of its tributaries may bring your vessel outside of any known referential points. There are approaches to the Outer World that let the explorer grow in size commensurate to the size of the denizens, like the Luatha. There are others that keep the travelers small and meek. Sailing the outer portion of Sramak's River takes magical vessels, as this is where the full gale force of Orlanth's Hurricane strikes the churning surface of Sramak's River. The visible Sky Dome is just the first permeable obstacle on the way out. There are weirder outer places beyond that first dome, some draconic in nature. Finally, it might be possible to sail across vast stretches of Sramak's river into another Inner World, with its own floating piece of dry land, its own celestial dome, and its own Chaosium.

More neolithic, I guess. Tenochtitlan had the lake, and lake-based horticulture, which provided short travel times and enabled bulk transport. Also great crop cultivates and probably an expertise in soil improvement. Water management was too advanced for their own good, though. I didn't know about Toena Valley, but from previous discussions with Jeff I knew that Killard Vale is a very productive place for agriculture. Fertility magic certainly plays a role, but mobility magic of the royal highways may play the greater role in keeping Boldhome's granaries stocked with grain. In an earlier post, Jeff discussed how Earth Temples would hold agricultural lands and sort of lease those to the clans inhabiting those regions, some of that in a tenant relationship. I wonder how much of that is true for Killard Vale. Where are the local major earth temples?

One third of the acknowledged descendants of Sartar are reckoned as descendants of the Feathered Horse Queen. This means grazers. Inkarne also has claim to descent from Hon-eel via Moirades, so defining her as House Sartar is a bit difficult. Tarkalor's son Saraskos had two recognized children who were treated like potential heirs of Sartar and assassinated, along with Terasarin's children. It isn't clear whether the Lunars persecuted Onelisin's lineage, although that may have explained the destruction of Argrath's homestead prior to his exile. For some reason, the Helkos Brothers were spared in those assassinations when their wives (daughters of Terasarin) were not, even though another Telmori-born spawn was regognized as legitimate heir-in-waiting for the throne of Sartar (before dying heroically with his Household of Death). By-blows from harvest rites should be common - Garrath for instance should have a pair of twins in the Garhound clan which is about to come of age by the time he liberates Pavis. Given his childhood experiences, it is possible that he has given them some Black Fang observers to avoid a fate similar to that of his parents before leaving on board of the Cradle. Eonistaran is the only by-blow of Sartar who is known to have received acknowledgement as a member of the royal house, and his children grew up as companions of Saronil's children. Eonistaran may have overseen Tarkalor's port project in Karse. The Lunars may have been aided in their war of assassination against the House of Sartar by people in House Norinel in Kethaela, who may have sought retaliation for some of the assassinations against their house in the wake of the death of Sarotar, and also as a move to keep the majority of the Pelorian trade in Nochet. Saronil took his wives from Shaker's Temple. Tarkalor's dalliance with his cousin, the third Feathered Horse Queen, preceded him inheriting the principality by about 20 years. Terasarin's daughters had married their Telmori bodyguard cousins, and Salinarg's wife probably was a bodyguard before, too. The question is how much these lineages were acknowledged and pensioned. Yes, but the juices you get during processing... Given the known recipe for Mostali food, there should be a high mineral content in Mostali droppings anyway. But let's not get too deep into these gritty details.

Boldhome has the dwarf-build pockets, cliffside-houses cut out of the rock of the mountains, without any provisions for gardening or keeping some husbandry. These also have some water management, both for fresh water and drainage of water. (Not designed for night-soil, except where there may be public lavatories - dwarves probably collect the "solids" for their alchemical production of black powder.) In contrast, there are the tribal manors, small "palaces" which serve to store some of the tribal wealth and produce in the capital, supported by herds on high pastures reachable by the back path that winds its way through the Quivin Peaks to High Wyrm, and by some nearby pastures for hay making in the valley of Boldhome. In between there are the much more ordinary urban areas with multi-storied houses with inner courts where some husbandry is kept - pigs, fowl, donkeys or mules, possibly rabbits, doves or other such easily maintained source of beast protein. I don't see much potential for fisheries, even though there are a few ponds and a major drainage outlet out of the high valley. Perhaps enough to keep the palace in fresh fish, but that's about it. Boldhome is a very high place, which limits local gardening to either making use of the equivalent of orangeries (potted orchards brought inside through Dark and Storm Season) or to hardier produce only. No alleyway orange trees up here, unlike in (parts of) Kethaela. Transporting meat into the city is fairly easy - it is driven there on its own legs, mainly, possibly carrying some other produce in the process. So is the Guide - Old Sartar and the Far Place together equal the numbers in the Genertela Box or the numbers in "Gloranthan Military Experience", the latter without accounting for minority ethnicities other than different species. The majority of the ducks live in the wetlands around the confluence of the Stream and the current coming through the Upland Marsh. I think that your figure for "distributed throughout Sartar" is way too high. Hamlets like Drakemere (in Pegasus Plateau The Rattling Wind) are rather uncommon, and even if there are occasionally one or two dozen ducks on a crannog in some less accessible wetland, I don't think they amount to one third of the total population. Any isolated population would have been easy prey for tax avoiders. Ducks might be attracted by inns, as those places are slightly more tolerant of more alien visitors and occasional residents. Those ducks who act as factotum for moderately influential individuals like Gringle may be part of Jonathan Greenbeak's network of informers. Currently, I would expect 8 out of 10 Kerofinelan ducks to inhabit Duck Tribal lands (between the Lismelder lands, Locaem lands, Colymar lands and fuzzy towards the Marsh and Beast Valley), one in ten along the Creekstream and New River, and the rest distributed, either attached to some influential human or as small bands like Yozarian's or the Drakemere bunch.

Lunar lore possibly has it the other way around. In the deepest Hell, Teelo Estara offered her All to Blaskarth, the Face of Chaos, and in doing so she found Taraltara, the transcendent portion of Sedenya. Lunar or cyclical doesn't necessarily mean Chaotic. It possibly has an inherent entropic quality, but that's the nature of Time. There are plenty masks of the Devil, and both Praxians and Orlanthi are among the most diligent Devil worshipers in Glorantha, in the form of propitiary worship. The Storm Bull cult has the most dedicated worshipers propitiating the Devil. It is part of the Eternal Battle.

The Talar/Man-of-all heavy cavalry of Seshnela has in all probability first pick on long-term support sorcery. With Blessing of Kargan Tor and Ward Against Weapons, and items with Attract Missiles and Attract Magic, all these people need is horsemanship. Looking at where the "new Seshnela" is located, the Enerali cult of Ehilm might be the go-to "society" for that. Their worship of such deities might very well be reenactment quests without direct sacrifice but dedicating overcoming a quest obstacle to the deity. Farmers will mostly be involved in rites to the Green Lady - which one may depend on location, some of the southwestern provinces of Tanisor might actually belong to Seshna. Rindland and core Tanisor are at least as likely to be part of Ralia's domain. Not sure how jealous the Land Goddesses are of their domain. Urban worker caste folk are the unknown. They might be rudimentarily literate, where their crafts are involved or where they take over the actual work for trading leaving PR to the lowlier members of the Talar caste who don't serve as body-servants of the higher nobility. (At least that's what that unpublished frieze of Seshnela indicates.) Much of New Seshnela is Tanisor pretending to be the direct heir of Seshnela - pretty much like the Holy Roman Empire of German Nation was an empire of German language(s), but neither holy nor Roman. Not even in the administrative traditions, unlike the Merowingian Frankish kingdom. The Ralian version of sun worship apparently celebrates the exposure of skin to the sun (see for instance the queen of Galin in Mark Smylie's cover of Men of the West) much like contemporary sun worshipers (allied to the cult of Indlas Somer) do. That and the Malkioni idea of noble body perfection go along to create a vibe we don't associate with medieval chivalry, rather with temple dancers from India. A much needed counterpoint to the stodginess emanating from Segurane in the shape of Rokar's teachings (based on humans censoring the written word of the Invisible God in the best traditions of Malkioneranism). For the rural population, my old suggestion for a villager game needs only a few tweaks - no hereditary sorcerers (although the southwestern provinces still have those families, now demoted to worker population, who were hereditary zzaburi, and who might hide away their writings whenever the watchers look), and removing any suggestion that a talar caste member might desire any villager person, no matter how physically perfect they may turn out. Perhaps less marital fidelity than the Orlanthi. Or more festivals to the Green Lady - same result, really. HQ1 brought up ritual blessings for the hoi polloi among the Malkioni. Readings (or recitations) of Malkioni scripture while invoking the ancestral powers of Earth, Storm, Sea and Fire may not grant much in terms of individual magic, but might enable something like practical blessings from a wyter. The Theyalan "it is me who channels the deity" is not universal in Glorantha. The Pelorian theists appear to have a much lower rate of direct initiation into the cult secrets that give access to rune magics, and weirdly a lot of the rites for all manner of "lower deities" are managed by the lesser Yelmic priesthood rather than holy people from those cults. The Malkioni ways might be similar to this. The concept of the chain of veneration where magical energy from the services to the Invisible God (and other supernatural entities) are managed by the wizards who receive a decent portion from that as temporarily available magical power may even go all the way down to the Ancestor Worship that already Cults of Prax told us about for the Westerners. Ancestor worship where the ancestors were like gods (the Paseren of Danmalastan) should play a great role in Malkioni society. Spirit magic would be ancestral, in many cases. The Horali Beast Societies can be as much Daka Fal as they are Hsunchen.

The Brown Sea is a sea covering parts of the lands called Somelz in the later part of the Storm Age, an area of Mostali domination that devastated whichever lifeforms that happened to be there at the start of the project. The square land of Somelz was broken up in the Breaking of the World, but due to the special nature of the Magnetic Mountain not by a vertical trench like under the three Doom Currents, but more like a chip hewn off of the surface, causing Slon to glide off into the west. The dwarf reclamation project has started to pull back this part of the split earth cube into its original position, which is going to swallow up and destroy the Sea of Worms and the two swamps separating Slon from continental Pamaltela, and parts of the realm claimed by Terthinus. The same project will elevate the sea bottom of the Brown Sea, and recreate Somelz. Other such measures on the dry land are just now carried into the western parts of coastal Umathela and the Enkloso forest. West of the Brown Sea comes Banthe Sea, which receives a current from the Hudaro Ocean on the western border of the Inner World (inside Luathela, west of Jrustela). Beyond that comes the infinite expanse of Sramak's River and the edge of the Sky Dome, where the waters collect that run up the Celestial River. (It is not known whether that scooping up of water has slowed the rotation of the Sky Dome.) The Godtime maps show an archipelago of the Heron Hegemony in these parts. There might be echoes of that waiting to be discovered, although the very straight western shore of Slon suggests that this is indeed the sharp end of the Earth Cube, and any islands or other solid ground outside of this would be floating on the water -or sitting on coral-like outgrowths of the earth cube, o of the Underworld sky bowl.

At first glimpse the degree of urbanisation in Sartar does appear to be untenably high. Boldhome probably would be in an untenable position without the royal highway expanding the isochrones (lines with equal travel time to the market) far out into Killard Vale. While the city area itself has a few areas actually under the plow, it probably lacks the rural population that the tribal confederation cities and even more so the Colymar towns have. Clearwine and Runegate are counted into the urban population, but probably half or more of the population are actually engaged in agriculture or horticulture as their main occupation. Possibly up to a third of the populations of Wilmskirk, Jonstown and Swenstown will pursue activities on fields, pastures or orchards/vinyards nearby, likewise profiting from the royal highways easing access to slightly more remote areas. Bulk transport of grain into the cities is a rather normal phenomenon anywhere, and while waterways are a natural choice for bulk transport, few waterways will allow direct access to the markets or storage silos. Grain is the main bulk food that limits urban population, and in order to judge feasibility, one may have to look at the grain distribution in Sartar. I would assume that the Earth temples play the dominant role in this. After harvesting and threshing the grain, some may be re-distributed for winter seeding (provided that this technique is usted - winter seeding has the least loss in seed material as the seed already winters as a grass, as opposed ot summer seeding which means that vermin and mold have all of winter to get at the storese of seedstock, reducing quantity and possibly quality). Seed storage for summer seed probably is part of the economic function of earth temples. Stocking up grains for food is the other most important part. What containers or special buildings do the Heortlings use for grain storage and transportation? My knowledge about grain storage is mainly anecdotal. The harvested and threshed grain needs to be dry to be left more or less unattended in storage. Blocking access from mice or rats is pretty hard (although a warding for the storage place would protect against more than simple vermin). Sealed containers need to be absolutely dry to avoid mold. Grain transport by ship in Hanseatic times required a constant aeration and re-shoveling of the cargo to avoid mold setting in. The grain was transported openly in the hold. The dust from moving dry grain can be explosive. Modern grain silos have vents designed to minimize damage from dust explosions - without those, an exploding grain silo could devastate the surrounding area for hundreds of meters. Pithoi (ceramic storage bins) appear to have been a standard technology in Mediterranean cultures, and amphorae are known cargo containers for just about anything handled by Greek and Roman merchant vessels, and probably also in road traffic. Christian travelers to Egypt in the Roman Empire and Arab historians would accept the pyramids of Giza as plausible remains of the granaries of Joseph. The same Wikipedia article also shows contemporay Egyptian depictions of granaries: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph's_Granaries#/media/File:Egyptian_Granary_Thebes.jpg

Well done...

Liaison officer to Gagix Twobarb The one held in her arms...

While I like this proposal, in practice most one-use spells take 3 rune power (Resurrect, Sever Spirit outside their primary cult, Seal Soul). Obviously, the caster must have three rune points in total to make this spell work, but when sacrificing for one of these spell, does the caster have to sacrifice 3 rune points at once? That is going to be hard on the POW requirement for god-talkers and priests, and hard on their CHA-limit, too. If the spell just takes one special rune point, two rune points from the normal rune power pool are going to be lost. Are these gone for good, or can those be regained like points lost to priestly Divine Intervention?

The presence of Vadeli on both sides of the Nidan Mountains is well known. The destruction of Mt. Lodril (creating the Citadel of Brass in Sog City) and the creation of the Janube Sea, Sweet Sea and ultimately the Poralistor was a cooperation of Brithini (or their local representatives, the Kachisti) and the Waertagi. The Kachisti got overthrown by the Vadeli, whose sorcerers happen to be blue-skinned, too. A different hue of blue. We don't know whether the Vadeli also got to rule over the Waertagi, whether the Poralistor expansion was a consequence of the Vadeli taking over, with the Waertagi either fleeing from these wrong overlords or acting on their orders.. There is no YarGan-like monster deity anywhere else the Waertagi showed up.