Joerg

Planetary Sons? I suppose that Dara Happan court ceremonial will have circular parades which may be understood as dance. The rites planned for the inauguration of the New Lunar Temple had a celestial dance, What would conversation with the bride or groom to be have to do with a Dara Happan Yelmic marriage, or its proposal? Not really. It's the act of a peasant. Being caught at that may bring demotion or sideways promotion to "interesting" offices, like the Dorastan census. (Jaxarte got off lightly.) Is your use of "Yelmish" rather than "Yelmic" indicating anything? Superior physical abilities for the price of a slight eating disorder? It isn't a bastard if the mother is (or becomes, within pregnancy) a regular concubine of the father (or other groom). All of that doesn't take into account that the powerful Yelmic families have embraced the Lunar Way. There may be purists around, but Argenteus behaves like the epitome of a Dara Happan noble. If only by virtue of his office.

In other words, these things are not a thing a wise person would stir up.

IMO the Viking, Medieval, or Irish parallels were always more in the eyes of the beholders than in the products themselves. I haven't seen much application of Hallstatt or Nordic Bronze Age in the "Celtic" offerings, everybody speaking English seems to think Celtic means Hibernian. Unlike the French, whose school-books apparently have phrases like "our Celtic ancestors" (which I have seen mentioned as a problematic issue for the big minority with non-European roots). My own notion of Dragon Pass is the Noricum prior to the Romans. The only pitch for "Nordic Orlanthi" was that for RQ3 there was a wonderful campaign book written by Greg Stafford, applied to the Viking culture. Except for one adventure on a longship, most of that campaign would have made an excellent clan-based campaign in Orlanthi lands. If anybody has sources for the Vedic normal person (as opposed to the demigod protagonists), please share those. Are there normal farmers or herders in the Vedas? Anything of their housing, social interaction, marriage customs? Dress and weaponry probably would be covered by Osprey books.

Tribes used to be optional during the Resettlement of Dragon Pass. There were groups traveling in mini-tribes, triaties which were mainly for marriage purposes. Tribal association was the major theme and source of conflict in the first century of the renewed human presence. Warfare did alter some clan allegiance, though, and clans were divorced from their tribes and included in other tribes. There are clans that disappeared. Lunar decree moved more than a dozen clans following the Starbrow Rebellion. Did that alter their marriage patterns immediately? There will be clans that are marriage partners by convenience. Exclusive arrangements as in the Runegate Triaty in the early centuries seem to be a thing of the past as pollitical marriage to cement alliances of peace treaties are one of the few non-warlike instruments Heortling politics know. Keep in mind that you are giving away your own kin. They are going to become protective parents in their new clans, and are going to act in the best interest of their children. Among the male dominated Heortlings this creates a network where the Ernaldan ways are tightly interwoven beyond clan boundaries, and even tribal boundaries. Ernaldan magics will be similar in most clans. Likewise temporary marriages create children in other clans which may invoke protective parental instincts. Marriages are the subject of inter-clan negotiations and do take into account bloodline dynamics. The grandmother cultists are traditionally in charge of breeding their offspring, avoiding in-breeding where not magically asked for. General negotiations are initiated by the clan trading expeditions. A speaker to the ancestors may be involved, too. It would be a common praxis for the clan trader to be accompanied by a few marriage candidates so that there can be meetings between future marriage partners, although I suspect that it would be the young men who are supposed to bring in wives who get paraded to their potential in-laws, something like a test-bed to learn about their ways in unguarded moments. And it is always nice to have an excuse for feasting. While it is theoretically possible for individuals or even bloodlines to go against the expressed wishes of the clan ring or chief, but those institutions do have their ways to make their disapproval felt, like re-assigning clan-owned herd or land. It helps if you have some backing with another authority in such cases (tribal, greater temple). That said, "Nobody can make you do anything" and "Follow chosen leaders" (chosen by you, for this decision), so the individuals involved do have the right to say no. But "no" doesn't always mean "no" in such cases, pressure can be quite intense on the individual to overcome personal misgivings. Or marriages are made to create new alliances, or treaties, or to cement those. It is a bit of tough luck if your generation is the one to end a long-standing grudge by being married off to your old antagonists, and it is worse for those marrying out, having to face not just the grudges of the living but also of the ancestors of said clan. These stories remain yet untold, also as scenario seeds, although I am working on some. Oh, yes, status is important. Becoming a political "sacrificial" bride may be accompanied by a rise in status. With the concept of semi-free cottar tenants, I wonder how their marriages are affected. Who will have what say in their interactions? Romantic marriages are well-known among the Heortlings. The involved couple need to build up allies and make convincing arguments how their marriage will further the benefits for all clans involved (including potential other clans having approved of one of the couple as a marriage candidate). Again, this is a plot-hook bonanza even for couples that don't go into complete rebellion. Proven worth, and bringing back some kids... yes. Although having children outside of wedlock is a common occurrance and perfectly fine if you aren't currently married, or if it happened during a religious rite. By default, such children belong to the mother's clan. Which may even be the clan of her former marriage, where she continues to live to remain with her children after being widowed or her husband being exiled. Exile would be a suspension of marriage, I believe. It is fine and admirable for couples to continue to obey their marriage vows during exile, but not mandatory IMO.

That seems to be the theory - isolationism is good for you, while cosmopolitanism is bad (just look at the God Learners or the Lunar Empire). Who needs trade or cultural exchange? They have nothing that we want! The Fronelan experience yielded mixed results. Loskalm did thrive, many a prosperous trade city on the Janube did end up without any hinterland and vastly over-populated as the Ban struck, and emerged in ruins with degenerate survivors. Not to mention the Kingdom that emerged from the Black Forest. There are few cultures that don't appreciate their neighbours' possessions, acquired through trading or raiding.

No idea what you're talking about... 😇 While all the things you said there may be true, where is the problem in the gaming context? Accessing the resource takes a travel, so you and your friends go there, things happen, and you may get what you need. There is nothing to stop anybody to purchase some votive images, cast Sanctify and perform a sacrifice. In Apple Lane, you even have a dedicated building for that. The list of Dawn survival sites (around Dragon Pass) does mention Karse and Nochet and their wall status in the appendices of the Guide, and there is a draft version in History of the Heortling Peoples. Info on Nochet's fortifications throughout the ages is in Esrolia: Land of 10k Goddesses. Giants or unspecified others as contract buildes (Aedin from Aedin's Wall, for instance, or the giant who connected the Storm Mountains with the Quivin peaks according to Dragon Pass:Land of Thunder, the Gazetteer for Kerofinela, or just boring Mostali) are a possibility. Are there any places where Lodril was not subdued in some form or another (by some name or another) and perform some great feat of construction? If herds can have a wyter, then a sufficiently high number of germs or viruses to cause symptoms or to infect others can have a spirit of disease... Personally, I can do without microbes, and I am fine with miasmas, humours, chi balance and similar concepts from historical and traditional healing lore. Putrefaction is a Darkness power - a transformation through partial or complete consumption of the educt. Most info you will find on them will likely be me blathering about them here or on the digests. But I recall that there were community resource rules in HQ1, and I think those were what Jeff revisited when we played that Melib game at Kraken. Greg did it somewhat differently, he had us assign the tribal abilities to the tasks at hand. Feeding the tribe was always one of the top priorities, but there were other priorities, too, like digging up an ancient artifact. At one time I gamed the system, letting my Mistress Race (equivalent) grandmother quest to keep the tribe fed while sending all the other tribal abilities to chip away at an extended contest about digging IIRC. I wish I could remember who sat in on that game with the Blue Moon trolls. I can name many of the players in the Melib game. When it comes to metals, knowing where and how a deity died or lost a limb will point you towards a motherlode of godsbone... and if a deposit is depleted, you might quest to add another limb torn off in a certain battle, and may find that second deposit afterwards. Or you might rescue the body of a slain deity and deprive a rival or enemy of the resources mined from that deity's remains. As far as I can tell, most of northeastern Sartar has limestone as bedrock, which would be available at canyons or cliffsides for quarrying. Or you could mine for the rock - IIRC the Romans did mine for tuff rock, in some places under the cities.

There are gods of the near underground. In Dara Happa that's Lodril, in the Holy Country Veskarthen or Caladra have been cited. Veskarthen is a craft god and architect's god, too - he created the Obsidian Palace when chained by Argan Argar. Sorcery. A lot about architecture and mining is knowledge, and Lhankor Mhy has that (or indeed all) knowledge, and the sorcery to do this. Whether his temples have it, or how much of that they have, is another question. Dowsing for minerals or metal nuggets (the common form of metal mining in Glorantha, except by the dwarves who know about smelting - transmuting ores into metals, not liquidifying metal, that's melting, something completely different, which may nonetheless occur under smelting conditions) can use knowledge, too (read Georg Agricola's 16th century books on mining), or you could use detection magic - both the province of LM; or divination to an underground deity (Asrelia, Esrola, Veskarthen, Caladra, local mountain deities... or LM who knows what they know). Most Neolithic, Copper- and Bronze Age mining I found reports on used methods well known from Gold washing. Dig up the dirt, separate off the stuff you don't want with the aid of local water and motion, then collect your finds. Depending on the size of the nuggets or bone splinters you find, you can melt the stuff (losing much of the special properties of gods' bones) or weld them together (retaining quite a bit of that) for your next step. Both these processes are the province of Gustbran, although Lhankor Mhy sorcery may be as helpful. Apostate Copper and Bronze Mostali have their own knowledge which even Lhankor Mhy may not be privy of, or not allowed to share. Wherever deities were maimed or killed in the Gods War you have a chance to find splinters of Gods' Bones. Dead Volcanoes are a good source for brass, usually without much of a god's bone structure, but fine for normal implements. These are the main exception where you want to go underground for your metal mining. Most deposits will be secondary deposits as the "motherlodes" (body parts, corpses) were ravaged in the Gods War, and the detritus distributed by the forces of erosion (Storm and Water, mainly, with corroding Darkness doing prep work) and tectonics (whatever made the earth shake). Sedimentation will have played a role, but I tend to think of it more like sea entities creating or excreting Mother-of-Pearl-like layers of sediment over or inside detritus than conventional sedimentation. The latter only started after Sky River Titan called on the rivers of the world to change course and to lend their collective energies to Magasta's whirlpool, after the implosion of the Spike (caused by: High King Elf - Zzabur - the invading Chaos horde - name your foe, possibly some other not from this list). Latsom or Stone - the Mostali revere a prima materia that was "vibrantly alive" (if slowly so), matter infused with magical energy. The great bodies of True Dragons or Elder Giants may be similar to that, as is the matter of the Red and Blue Moons (whose special properties we know quite a bit about). Grower drawing out the magical energy from the stone into soil, and from there into the plants, and sending High King Elf to end the Mostali reversing that process, axing the root of the Spike. This was after Death had introduced a balance of Life and Death that was closer to a zero-sum closed system than the previous age of freely available Creation. I agree that it is more a philosophical concept, but one with manifest material reality. IMO most Mostali magic is the anti-thesis of Tap: Endow. They put magical energy into matter, and have leaned to direct the results they are getting from that. RQ simulates that by requiring permanend POW to cast many Mostali sorceries. Stone is the ideal result of matter endowed to its fill. And Adamant is taking that matter and putting it to a purpose. Gustbran (or Thunder Rebels mentions of his less known brothers as aspect of Gustbran) is the god of pyrotechnology, including pottery, chalk-burning, large-scale baking, tempering of flint and similar for knapping, steam-treating lumber, and metalworking. Gadblad is a dark alternative for brute force metalworking. Humakt knows everything about honing a blade. Any knowledge-based craft will profit from at least Lhankor Mhy lay membership. If you want to tunnel into rock or bring a hillside down, fire is your most effective tool - forget pick axes or chisels. Acids may add to that efficiency. The Iron Age mines in Iberia which led to the Romans removing an entire mountain and Hannibal's Crossing of the Alps a mountainside using fire and vinegar against limestone. Calcinated limestone was used for Terrazzo floors in Göbekli Tepe (a pre-metal settlement except for a cold-hammered macehead of native copper), showcasing the importance of Gustbran (or maybe a lesser brother of his worshiped through his cult) for architecture. Greg's notes on architecture in Glorantha also mention concrete, not just used by the dwarves but also by the Kadeniti builders of ancient Danmalastan. There are references to concrete in Entekosiad, too, indicating an exchange between the Turosi Pelandans and western knowledge. Turos/Lodril/Veskarthen is the provider of volcanic Pozzolan tuff that can be heated into cement. Masons and miners (whether tunneling or secondary deposit mining) will want tools, too, another pointer towards Gustbran. Orlanth, Argan Argar, Yelmalio, Veskarthan and Heler (or aspects/heroes of them) all are everyman deities in their respective cultures, usually wed to Ernalda or a daughter/sister of hers. All have crafts associated with them. Do you want to gold-plate something? Ask at a Sun Dome Temple. Want to construct a dome? Like a Sun Dome? I think you are approaching this from the wrong end. Sartar introduced the concept of a confederation not based on a single charismatic leader, but on a common interest or goal, manifest as a city where each member tribe had an equal say. The wyters for these confederations did not start out as their name-giving founders - these guys started out as the first chief priests of those wyters. Only after their deaths they were somehow merged with the previous wyter entity which was in all likelihood the genius loci of the respective city sites. The cities bring a new form of clan directly reporting to the confederation, the guild or guilds of the city. Guild citizens make up about 30-60% of the citizenship, depending on the investment of the surrounding tribes in terms of manpower to the city. The tribal contingents in a city form a quasi-clan, too, with a legal balancing act between birth (or marriage) clan and tribal manor as their legal backbone. These people become free tenants of the respective tribal temples, or more exactly, the city branch of these temples. Finally, the cities may be the seat of special temples (Lhankor Mhy, Chalana Arroy, Issaries, Humakt, Yelmalio) whose resident membership may result in citizenship, too. A citizen of Jonstown could be a tribal citizen (but doesn't have to be), could be a guild citizen (and tribal, but that's not necessary or the rule), could be a special temple citizen, but should be at least one of these, and will be registered both with the city wyter as a whole and with his lower level citizenship wyters. A clan-based or triaty-based small city like Clearwine or Runegate does not have a guild, but it does have temple citizenship as an alternative or addition to clan citizenship. The word you are looking for is "Change". Sartar comes from Heortland, which has an unbroken history of cities and urban citizenship since the middle of the Dawn Age, with guilds, and Sartar was familiar with that, and his companion Wilms even more so. The ancestors of the Quivini may have known that concept, too, but there were six to eight generations between them leaving Kethaela and the coming of Sartar, leaving the majority of the Quivini with a profound ignorance on these forms of organisation. Wilmskirk was built without dwarven help (but with the help of Kethaelan friends of Wilms joining the tribal population of that city, bolstering its guild). Quarrying and masonry became the new way to wealth for many a stick-picker or cottar as the royal roads required maintenance, and the new roads and building projects of the Princes did so, too. Saronil opened up an influx of Sairdite building traditions from urban Tarsh, and he befriended the dwarves there, too, learning about building of towers beyond the techniques already known to Wilms and his cult. It wouldn't surprise me to learn that Wilms was an initiate of Lhankor Mhy rather than some specialized craft god. There may be such a thing as specialized craft gods - spirit cults associated to the guild wyters, but connecting beyond individual city confederations. These may also be subcults of the deities mentioned above, or of Lhankor Mhy, meaning that you'll find a shrine and a god-talker or associate priest maintaining the shrine somewhere in the city. All of these names were really names or titles of the deity (or aspect) in question. The only problematic forms in Thunder Rebels are the Allfather/Allmother ones that have no RQG equivalent for such an aspect. I get the impression that the ancestors of the Orlanthi (possibly the Tada-shi of the lands west of Prax) were accomplished masons and well-versed in polygonal irregular rock architecture requiring a shaping skill that was mostly lost during the Gods War. The Vingkotling Hill Forts, Karse, and significant parts of the Nochet Walls apparently use this earthquake-proof architecture and have withstood even Veskarthen's Desolation. You'll find this kind of architecture in many a real world ancient building, usually accompanied by the adjective "cyclopean". Same in Glorantha. In the real world, we can only marvel at such structures in meso-America, Inka structures, Polynesia, or the Old World. You'll find plenty of these in websites associated with Atlantis or similar pseudo-historical themes. Experimental archaeologists are still struggling to find ingenious ways to reproduce that kind of masonry. In the Gloranthan Godtime, we have access to methods that may reach from singing to living matter (a lesser variation of the dwarven Adamant method I postulated above) to magical separation or similar. Indeed, the EWF architecture apparently was able to awaken draconic energies in matter and reproduce some of those Godtime skills, and certainly the EWF architecture added to the nigh-indestructible remains of Vingkotling and earlier architecture. Rural backwater hillbilly clans like the Varmandi, or purposely "primitive" ones like the Annmagarn whose life-style is adapted to the compact with the lady of the Colymar Wilds, Tarndisi, are quite remote from that. The clans with a presence in Clearwine are clearly exposed to Nochet-style masonry, and I suspect a good portion of the hereditary priestess families of the Clearwine temple hail from Esrolia since before the coming of Sartar. The Colymar are the biggest exception to the Sartarite tribes with their lack of city confederation membership. The Lismelder have the same status thanks to the Colymar insisting on honoring their pact with Tarndisi over the new offer of Sartar. Duck Point doesn't seem to have a confederation wyter other than the Duck tribal wyter (which they may not have had prior to the coming of Sartar, being an integrated part of Beast Valley instead). The more remote tribes like the Torkani or the Dundealos may not interact with their cities that much, and be of similar sophistication as the rural Colymar in terms of architecture. The cult of Wilms also provides the necessary knowledge for the road workers of Sartar, distributed among the city confederations - possibly as a separate guild allowing also non-residents of the cities a membership. I have no idea how Jeff is going to mention the upkeep of the royal roads in the upcoming Jonstown description, and there may be no mention of this in that product (which is aimed at new GMs of RQG rather than old grognards). Sorcerers would call these spirits or natural principles associated with the elements. Think of micro-organisms as colony entities that can be approached like spirits. That soothes my personal sciency cravings when dealing with these aspects of Glorantha. In case of doubt, ask me on Wind Words. I think I did a recent rant elsethread that your cult needn't reflect your everyday occupation one on one. Rinse and repeat here. I don't see much evidence for architectural magic taking up a major slot in the Great Argrath Campaign. We know from Argrath Saga that there will be a new type of temple built by the prince of that name, and that may become an assignment to player character followers of his. As the king of Pavis, he does have access to masons with two cults behind them, both sorcerous. One problem lay in the Thunder Rebels style to name that specialisation more prominently than the main cult of that cultist. "Initiate of Destor" rather than "Initiate of Orlanth, of the Adventurous subcult". And had them already going into the Gbaji Wars, I suppose. The Second Council or High Council of Genertela was already a fairly advanced civilization, and brought a wave of civilization and magical experimentation that has been retroactively confused with the EWF. The wyrm species is a result of Second Council experimentation, well before the Osentalka project, and probably before the move to Dorastor, possibly concluded with magic found there. The cities were in all likelihood ruled by priests of their respective main temples, if you look at the composition of the Council of Orlanthland. These urban lords became loathe to bow to a High King after Arkat had liberated their lands, and when Hardros Hardslaughter liberated them from Arkat's Command for good, they made him a Great Living Hero (the object of a cult) rather than their High King. It was that structure that was infiltrated by Obduran the Flyer around 750 (out of memory, look up the exact dates in the Guide or History of the Heortling Peoples or Heortling Mythology if you want). If you mean the Heortland plateau, yes. The Hendriki had two, maybe three cities: Ililbervor aka Whitewall, their sacred royal seat; Smithstone, their commercial center, and possibly Jansholm. Old Karse was a Pelaskite city with cyclopean walls with Heortling immigration, and New Karse was a Heortling city with a strong Pelaskite complement and (at least IMG) an appendix of wharves exclusively inhabited by the fisherfolk. The exact date of the move from Old Karse to New Karse is still under investigation. Urban Heortland (most recently "Malkonwal") may have been created by immigrants from Dragon Pass, Esrolia, and Esvular as well as Pelaskites moving to their markets. Look at the Foreigner Laws of Aventus dealing with these non-Hendriki. The Hendriki themselves seem to have been to the rest of Heortland what the Black Spear clan of the Colymar is to the rest of the tribe - a much less settled down, somewhat holier group with rather special magic that endowed them with special authority. This apartness with special magic and their unbroken allegiance to the Only Old One (despite the Tax Slaughter) appears to be the main reason why they did not suffer the fate of the Old Day Traditionalists in Aggar under the leadership of Isgangdrang. The Tada-shi ancestresses of the Vingkotlings came from an urban civilization as well. The Oases of Prax are a sorry remnant, full of amnesia about their former greatness. Old Pavis borrowed from this tradition, AFAIK, and there may be more to unearth for intrepid heroquesters once Argrath is looking elsewhere. Orlanthi society may not be that urbanized, although the other main core groups of urban Orlanthi like the Enerali and the Enjoreli/Tawari apparently were in a similar way to the Vingkotlings and their Heortling descendants. The Skanthi and the Hendriki may be outliers of the Heortling norm. Heck, the Entruli were urbanized - they had the magical city of Herilia, now trapped under the waves and known as Erenplose, under the Mournsea since long before the Dawn. Probably half or more of the Heortlings, and possibly significantly more of other brands of Orlanthi, are hillbillies out in the hicks, without any urban sophistication or much of such contact. But that is true about every urban civilization in the high cultures of the Bronze Age, Iron Age, or classical period. I think he was an innovator of the Heortling and Hendriki traditions of the resettlers of Dragon Pass, and of course of the sacred Kingship of Dragon Pass, too. This kind of topic does not look like it will sell to the RQG or even HQG mainstream audience of Gloranthaphiles. With the Jonstown Compendium and Martin Helsdon's glowing example of how such nerdy specialities may be served in a big way, there is nothing to stop anybody, or any group of collaborators (nudge, nudge, wink wink) from producing such material. Things like that can be rather sweet topics, if you listen to Ludo's (@lordabdul) contribution to Episode 3 of Wind Words (link in the signature). Greg Stafford demonstrated with that "Troll tribes of Blue Moon Plateau" improvised scenario all those years ago at Tentacles how resource management and mythical exploration can go hand in hand. @Jeff did a similar thing a few years ago with native Melibites facing reborn Zaranistangi demigods a little under four years ago at Kraken. Depending on where you look, that is very true. Clay bricks - in sufficiently hot and dry places even unburnt ones - are a suitable replacement for masonry, and their standardized size may even be an advantage. You don't have quarries with suitable material everywhere. There have been magnificent edifices build of wood, with chalked exterior, hardly distinguishable from masonry. These tend to leave a lot less in the way of archaeological evidence, unless there is a lucky (for the archaeologists, that is) catastrophe preserving some of that. The city of Biskupin is an example of a European Bronze Age community using such architecture. Bronze Age with quite a lot of sophistication happened away from the Fertile Crescent, too. The Battle of Tollense Ford had a death toll greater than the total participants of many a battle in Anglo-Saxon England. This must have been a clash of empires. We have no idea where exactly those empires were located, but the invaders came from all over central and southern Germany according to their teeth. The same region the presumed architect of the later stage Stone Henge came from a millennium or so earlier. Talking about a feat of masonry there, though. Not sure how much the Valhalla pastiche of Aedin's Wall still is part of the canonical Heortling information, but there is a possibility that master builders were invited from elsewhere. Genert's Court would have been a potential source, or Tada's. Maybe even Tada himself - he died only on the onset of the Greater Darkness, after Earthfall, and may even have been an unacknowledged participant of the Unity Battle, without a people to remember him. As far as I can make out from the maps in recent publications, it is only one canonical basic template, and the square enclosure with longhouse and outbuildings remains as a valid alternative. It is included in Martin Helsdon's other background book on JTC. You can use that cow dung in clay plaster, too, if you don't have access to lots of calcinated limestone. That plaster can be applied to masonry, drystone walls, or blockhouses just as it can be applied to wattle-and-daub. It beats normal chalked walls in hot as well as temperate climate for indoors climate, as far as I experienced. Yes. Whitewall is one of the ancient Vingkotling hillforts - not as ancient as Korolstead or Ulaninstead, as the Star Captain Garan only appeared after Vingkot's death, nine generations into the descendants of Jorganos (which may be quite a few more generations of normal Vingkotlings without as powerful demigod bloodlines). The Garanvuli were one of the "urban" Heortling tribes at the Dawn, but they lost their leaders and much population holding out against the Footprint, despite Kitori assistance. By the time of the Battle of Night and Day, the Garanvuli tribe had disbanded. When Palangio came, there was no tribal king to punish for resistance against the Bright Empire, and Hendrik's hidden band escaped attention for most of the Bright Empire's occupation of Kethaela. The Hendriki were the successors of the Garanvuli, centered on their holy vagrant kings who had the magics of Larnste, which did not lend itself to urban leadership. (Although Sartar, one of their tradition, managed to overcome that limitation, and others, too.) During the Gbaji Wars, their lands (or at least the less hidden fringes) were settled by refugees from all over the Heortling lands, and other neighbors, which is how their King Aventus came to acknowledge the situation using the Foreigner Laws. The position of mayor may very well be known in Heortland and Esrolia - it is the chief official of the city, an administrator and possibly head of the bureaucrats/scribes maintained by the city. With regard to the city militia, possibly as much a quartermaster as a warleader, with the ability to deputize either or even both these functions, IMO. Yes, you sacrifice to the deity for the task at hand. That needn't be the deity you are initiated to.

Tax farmers tend to be people trying to enrich themselves by paying a certain area's taxes on time to the authorities 6 recouping that expense by pressing out as much tax money as possible. They usually have hired muscle in addition to official Lunar authorities, but with those gone, hireling thugs are maybe as good as a Lunar garrison. There is one example of a nice tax farmer who got screwed by Fazzur,

There are varying degrees of alienness to the Waertagi. Some are indistinguishable from other humans with bluish or greenish skin color. There are Waertagi born from unions with merfolk that have gills and can remain under water indeterminately. The story in Missing Lands does suggest at least some details about the Waertagi who weathered out the Closing on artificial islands.

If you want a "noble undead" with the usual weaknesses, it seems these are covered. There have been a few other forms of undead people with different Underworld and possibly Chaos powers which retained much of their former personality or intellect. Top of the grade are probably Delecti and Brangbane, both receiving some love in Wyrm's Footnotes 15, the latter also in (spoilers to keep Biill from getting unhappy) .

Possibly as a set of grimoires belonging to one of the techniques (Evocation, Necromancy etc.) and then the spells as break-out abilities from that. For the rest, here's how I would use Nethack items in a Questworlds environment. If you need to simulate the "fire and forget" nature of those spells (Gloranthan Rune Magic has the same, and doesn't bother), you could impose a cumulative penalty of -10 to the ability, which could be negated by preparing a certain number of spells from the book each morning. The level of the spell might be used as sort of a penalty on preparing those spells to simulate you have less spell slots for those powerful spells, again if you see fit to follow D&D that closely. You still want them to be cast at full mastery when it comes to contests with enemy magic. Any magic item is an ability. A +n sword in D&D would be an ability to augment your attack ability with, and might be a stand-alone skill, or a breakout from your sword or combat ability. It might impose the additional ability to harm entities immune to ordinary damage, and armor to withstand enemy damage. The problem is how you use both in the same combat roll, if you make the entire combat a single roll. Maybe use the weapon bonus on a success, the armor bonus on a failure? Tricky. Similar with rings and amulets. Some of these may have a chance to burn out on activation, e.g. on a fumble. More fragile ones on a failure, but still taking some weaker success. One-use or charged items like potions, wands and scrolls may be used like ammunition to a basic skill "quaff potion", "activate wand" or "read scroll" to take effect in a largely unopposed situation (I'd use an "activate wand" ability for targeting said wand, when required). When you need to measure the item's effect against say the consequences of a spell or poison or whatever, each such item could be deemed a normal success by its maker to give it an ability ranking to do its stuff once. Your character rolls for the activation, then the activated item rolls with its maker's success against the resistance. I have played in a game where such made items were rolled individually. In case of doubt, you can roll for the maker's success level at the time the player uses the item.

Yeah. I tend to think that he got these from Thed or Malia before they went horseshit crazy.

Greg was adamant on that. But then, stories like "The Smell of A Rat" or are not that dissimilar from STDs.

Cottar is a different expression from semi-free, at least when it comes to having a vote in the clan moot. Cottars and Stickpickers have to struggle mightily to obtain (or to hang on to) the armament requirements that give them a voting right in the moot. That economic reality makes Orlanthi clans a republic, but not anything resembling a modern democracy. (Although some modern-day democracies - as opposed to modern democracies - put up huge deterrents to certain elements of their population keeping them from participating in a vote, too. Or make it extremely hard to obtain citizenship.) They may take such items to a vote as a loan by a patron who wants their vote on a certain subject in their favor, leaving them free to cast their votes on other issues at hand at the moot. This might be a rather common occurrance in clan or tribal politics. There will be quite a few free men with the standards of living of a Cottar but without being in a tenant relationship to the temple or some Thane or rich Carl. And there will be people with full Carl status but hardly any agricultural activity or possession, unless they have tenants doing that job for them. A clan's master potter may own a plow and a team, but leave it and tending to the oxen to his tenants rather than doing that himself. There is a possibility that urban citizens maintain ownership over a plow and a team of oxen in the same way, taking a certain rent from that, possibly as a loan rather than as a patron-to-tenant relationship. In such a relationship, giving back the loaned items between periods when they need to be used will free you from all obligations, so you can remain a free person while still eking on by a cottar's standard of living.

Looks like dating in Glorantha brings quite a few extra considerations and pitfalls... no STDs, though.

But then, isn't a divination a plot hole element allowing for a deus ex machina interference? Look into the concept of failing forward, at a cost to the player characters. There may be side effects of at times gigantic proportions. "If you cross the river, a mighty empire will fall." The prophecy doesn't say whose empire, and neither does it say when, only that there will be a (however tenuous) causal or narrative connection between the prophecized activity and the eventual outcome. Phrasing the divination in a way that incites the kind of activity by the player characters that the GM wants without railroading the subsequent events requires a lot of skill and experience. Something the author of a module cannot give much help on unless the module requires to be run with at least some pre-generated characters (be it as companions for the player characters, or as side characters of the players, or as the main characters of some players for this scenario). You might even have recurring guest players to your gaming table bringing in such pre-generated characters, alongside the usual cast of your serialized story. Or you may have a designated co-GM for running such plot-bearers without hogging all the spotlight (another difficult balancing act). A very experienced or very confident GM can try to do this all on his own, but there are all manner of GM pitfalls involved - railroading, Mary-Sues, high-handed Deus ex Machina, or making all the contributions of the player characters pointless in the end (the Raiders of the Lost Ark syndrom according to Amy Farrah Fowler in the Big Bang Theory), singling out a subset of players to do stuff while the rest just follows as eye-witnesses or luggage-carriers. There are quite a few stories worth telling, and in an RPG context that means playing, which require a certain dose of the GM pitfalls mentioned above. Or you might want to introduce them as a flash-back to a fast-forward, which is another high-handed GM technique which takes some agency from the players. But then so does creating a plot hook that cannot be avoided, even if your players go seriously about the refusal to heed the call to the quest as per Campbell. Often, a Divination will just reveal some information from the past or the present of the act of Divination, making it little different from a library roll or a Lhankor Mhy Reconstruction spell. Those cases are easy. You may penalize divinations looking into a future with respect to the amount of information you give. ""How can I (meaning the player character) achieve such a thing" is easier to answer than "How will I achieve such a thing," and "will I achieve my thing by doing this" needs to be answered in the vague. If "my thing" is "Will I personally cause the death of Argrath", the answer may well be a no, or it may be a "Yes, but .. He'll Be Back." And it is not satisfactory at all if that same player character dies of a fumbled ride roll in the next scene...

Yes - the same complaint as in the Yelmalio vs Humakt debate. The quality of the land is sort of included in the definition of a hide. A sustainable hide can be plowed by one man and ox team in a season. A good hide can be plowed using the same resources in a few weeks. With Heortling agricultural activities so spread out over different activities, a stead completely concentrating on agricultural activities may easily be able to feed two steads from a completely managed hide. Work on apple orchards happens mainly in Storm Season (pruning of last years watery shots) and Earth Season (harvest), with the meantime allowing use of that land as pasture, or possibly for hay making. Hay making is an often underestimated job, and one of the earliest harvesting activities in the agricultural year. As soon as the spring rains subside, you have the first chance to bring in hay as winter fodder, and by a happy chance you are just about done with spring plowing and sowing and not quite at the height of hacking away the weeds that compete with your crops. You can collect those weeds and feed them to your swine or milk beasts or fowl kept at the steadhouse, too, reserving more nearby pasture for hay-making. If you are a herding farmer, the amount of hay you bring in decides about the herd size you can bring through the next winter. So even if your main wealth is under the control of the clan herders on the high pastures, possibly a days march or three from your stead, those of your household who remain at the stead will be busy bringing in the first hay harvests. It is perfectly possible that a good portion of a cottar tenant's rent with a workshop on your stead, or your stead plot in the clan town, may be paid with hay if your family are predominantly ranchers. Tending legumes, or cash crops like flax (whether for linseed or for linen) or woad, also extends your time on the fields, if your farming activity spreads out widely. In a situation where both the GM and (at least the majority of) the players are willing to invest time and gaming effort into these things, the economic simulation can satisfy all three of the NGS needs. You can send your players on a trading expedition or even a heroquest to obtain new or the best possible seeds, and receive a lasting bonus on your crop rolls. You can make this a game of resource allocation - manpower, seedstock, loans, magic - and roll separately for each of your partial businesses, including any cottage industry going on on your stead, like e.g. fletchery, brewing, herbalism, dyeing, weaving, woodcarving, pottery, or performance art. That way, you can also use the defining skills of your fellow stead members and have those contribute to the success of the household. Including your tenants, as (vaguely) proposed for the Thane of Apple Lane (which e.g. ignores hay making as a form of providing rent in addition to the apple harvest and cider processing, possibly requiring the services of a resident cooper or specialist potter). Assign a portion of your assets, roll for the result and multiply it by the fraction of your assets invested (possibly extended by loans for that particular endeavour, whose terms will be deducted from the yield). Some activity will require access to communally owned facilities, like a baking house, or a communal kiln. Some will be resource-management (lumber rights, transporting lumber in from more distant sources, access to clay pits or minerals for glazing, access to nuggets of metal, access to charcoal, access to limestone for calcinated chalk which goes into mortar, paint jobs, or soil improvement, access to a quarry...) Maybe something like this should be made available as a small stand-alone set-up for the Jonstown Compendium. I suppose this needs to be a community project since most of us won't be that familiar with the day-to-day life and the economy of a neolithic or Bronze Age community, whether rural or urban. I know that I have overlooked plenty of activities that contribute to a steads income - basket weaving, flint-knapping (even in a metal-using culture), or all manner of urban or specialist services which may persuade a noble or community leader to keep a person on full or half retainer for those services. (Half retainer meaning that that individual would be expected run a farm, or at least what amounts to a tenant's farm, on the side of their speciality.)

I agree - gritty simulation with attention to details is where RQ comes from. But roleplaying in Sartar or Prax has become something of an ovarian wool lactation sow, with a target audience including players of and GMs for happy-go-lucky mercenary wanderers, farm-owning weekend heroes and epic movers and shakers with the same rules set. I remember looking at White Wolf's World of Darkness character creation, and deciding to put all my available points that weren't required for character definition into background abilities that could only be acquired in that step of the game. The result were initally under-powered but well-equipped and -connected characters that may receive a little less spotlight initially but would be useful to the party at every second turn of events. Skills like farming or craft or production skills that take a significant part of a season (including training others) are like such back-ground abilities. They rarely come into the dramatic scenes that make some of the visceral excitement of playing RuneQuest, but if you are going for a long run game without dancing to the whims of a sponsor like Duke Raus, you cannot do without such skills. So, in the end this is a question of customer satisfaction, with both the designers of the game, the scenarios, and the GMs presenting them to their players being in the vendor situation. What are the expectations of the players as a group, and as individuals? Why does the player whose character is keeping the group in food and equipment have to be penalized in the dramatic scenes? Why does the player whose character takes all the risk in the dramatic scenes have to be penalized in those house-keeping issues? How to find a good balance? The question how much magic enters this is just an extension of that. Your Sword of Humakt will be hard put to provide assistance to the farming activities, or to provide income from crafting, but then she will pass on almost all of her income to her temple or quartermaster and expect to be kept in food and style by that organisation. Your earth cultist may be obsessed with these things, as they are both their opportunity to shine and hogging a good portion of their magical abilities. So yes, Bless Crops is the farmer's Sword Trance. And worse, it has geometric growth - applying a few points for extra hides will change the rune point economy significantly. After a 100% skill increase, each further rune point replaces another holy person's efforts, making that character an economic powerhouse for the community. Doing so may be the temple duty, though, and those rune points are definitely not available for adventuring in that time. But then, maybe the character won't be available for adventuring in Sea and Earth Season, and one might encourage players of such characters to have a side character to use in such circumstances? Troupe play, anyone? Same with Bless Animal, and diametrically opposed with Bless Pregnancy - blocking a significant amount of rune magic for the duration of that pregnancy. But then, that's what the rules and narrative conventions have invented side-kicks and followers for. If you look at the RQ3 Vikings campaign, the small family had one brother specialized on farming, the other on herding, and both suffering from lacking the martial ability to withstand the greed of the larger family. This can become the motivation behind a campaign, if the players buy into that. If they don't, it can become the hindrance that prevents a campaign from taking off. Narrative - Gamist - Simulationist (I think the Forge coined and loaded these terms)

If you regard the outcome of the game as a narration, over-generous or too strict handling of these abilities will create plot holes and precendences that you are going to be saddled with in your next scene already as the narrator. Alongside with the narrative techniques of the pass-fail cycle, there is also something like a spotlight cycle to keep in mind. Which is harder to maintain if the plot hook that creates the scene or scenario is anchored in a specific player character. But then, this has strayed from the original topic of this thread, and might find a better home in a different thread.

In the rural clans, I think that buildings are owned by a free household in the sense that they are allotted to the holders of the plot of land. Yes, there will be many hands involved in raising a house - but think of it as something like barn-raising, an activity hosted by the future inhabitants, "feasting" the helpers who pay forward to when they need everybody's help in raising or re-building their own house. The rural US has (or used to have) the tradition of a barn raising, the spirit of which may have been sacrificed to neo-liberalism in urban communities. A tenant household may not own the building, and the obligation to keep it intact may be part of the rent activity to deliver, and in a big part to the rent-giver to organize. (That is feasting the helpers, providing the building material, ... or deducting that from the rent owed). In the confederation cities, the city plots are owned by the tribes, the major temples, or by the guilds. If you are a master of a guild, you are "an owner" of the guild with dominion over the guild plot your work shop is occupying. Without someone ranked as a master of that guild, your family will only be a tenant of that house. If you are a tribal citizen of the city, some of the rules may be similar to those of guilds, some may be closer to rural. Many a craftsperson will be a tribal citizen inhabiting a tribal house, expected to give rent for the use of that plot. Upkeep of the building or replacing a decrepit building with a new one serving the purpose of the occupant is where things get murky and interesting. Who provides the building material and feeds and pays the work force? Occupying that plot will be worth a rent to the tribe, but your presence and office may in return create an obligation of the tribe to your household, and cancel out that rent, or even over-compensate for it. Temples are similar to tribes and guilds in their role as land owners. I see urban plots with houses as something like a leasehold to the tribe or guild if you are a full (ranking) member of said group. If you aren't, then you are a tenant inhabiting tribal or guild property. Land ownership comes with duties - like upkeep and at times extension of the city walls, roads, water works, sewers (if present), upkeep of the constabulary and guards, the city officials (at least the portion that is not provided by the confederated tribes), etc., and in the end the tenants are going to be the ones who provide that. Rural towns (including almost urban ones like Clearwine and Runegate) are somewhere in between. The main stead buildings may be inside a town (or even city) confines, and so will be some paddocks and garden plots. There are towns with generous open space inside the confines, and there are towns as densely built up as Nochet. If we go with square(ish) enclosed areas as the standard plot in Heortling cities, these enclosures may see some fowl, possibly stables, possibly gardens or potted plants or fruit trees or vines on the walls and overhead, possibly in a verdant abundance. And quite likely on the outer walls facing the roads as well. A stroll through the alleys of Clearwine may almost feel like walking through a vineyard, and I suppose that the local cuisine will make extensive use of wine leaves. You will recognize newly erected buildings by the absence of vines on the walls. This greenery in town may play a certain role in the income of the inhabitants as food, or food supplement. Or as fodder. Pigs and chicken will feed on the discards from beets, plant stems, etc. before the rest will become compost, alongside with the dung and nightsoil produced by the inhabitants. That may see management, too, possibly by tenants of the earth temple(s). Ownership over the building/plot may decide over who has (or is paying for) such duties. (Not that different from funding public schools from property taxes.) Ownership always comes with obligations. So does tenancy. Even squatters will be faced with some of that.

Making sure that your seeds take and survive against all the competion (the Wild) is determining the amount you can harvest from any cereal, legume or other vegetable. With perennial crop plants like apple trees or vines the amount and timing of pruning may decide about the quality of your harvest, along with such factors as the amount of water available. My house comes with three (old, rather high and big) apple trees which manage to keep me and those of my family and any neighbors and colleagues who want some in apples throughout the cold half of the year in a normal year. In years of drought (like in 2018) the yield was a small fraction of the normal harvest, with individual fruit being a quarter or less of their normal size. I might have been able to secure a better harvest had I irrigated those trees, but that would have been a rather irresponsible and self-centered activity that summer (if you want a Greek word for that, the action of an idiot). The end-of--the-year turnover is not a farming simulation. The applicability of the farming skill then is sort of limited in most adventuring situations, similar to skills like horse training or falconry, alchemy or cobbling. So why do the designers or the players want that skill on their character sheet? What does it take to raise it, and to make it useful for the player and player character? How interested are you as a GM and your group as players in simulating this? Are there some players who keen on goin all in on this and others just bored to their bones with such stuff?

Well, it happened to make me wonder about its implications and applicability when I was faced with it. It was listed as a feat in HQ1, which means you had to be a devotee to use it actively. So, how do you use this ability passively as an augment? To what ability - the rune itself? Do you need an ability like Fast Runner? Does the Vingan need to be in a position where the treetops are just a step away (e.g. up high in the branches of a tree), does she need a running start across more conventional territory, or can she leap up the trees from the stand (which is a feat that made Hofstaring gain his name Treeleaper, so probably not). How can she stop running while still in the treetops? Will the canopy offer her a foothold independent of individual branches, or do we get Kung-fu style occasional footholds on suitable branches that happen to be where needed? Is this a contest against the trees involved (can tree spirits oppose it?) or does this obligate the collective entity of the trees to provide those footholds? How can you nearly succeed in this without breaking your neck or a couple of limbs? (mainly your own, but also the tree's where you fail)

One expression of official imperial authority may be the tax farmer (or the tax farmer's agents) in the town. This may be a native of the place. (Probably not a member of Griselda's extended family, unless they have waxed especially creative in their schemes.)

100 slaves are quite a lot, but then, there used to be the Lunar slave manor in or right next to Ernaldori lands, and not actively enslaving others doesn't automatically mean that you manumit everybody formerly belonging to the Lunar landlords of that manor - at least not, until some debt is paid off. "Don't own" is a bit of a misnomer, as the clan temple or the tribal temple claim ultimate ownership to all the land.. Semi-free means that you are entitled only to half the harvest or other income from your work, the rest is going to some other party as rent - usually the temple, sometimes directly to a local official or a local steadholder. If you are from a Carl (or in Blandistan terminology, "free" or "wealthy free" household), your household holds one or two hides of arable land (and/or orchard, vineyard, nearby pasture) that your household has the responsibility to till and harvest. Your taxes are paid from that. The cattle, sheep, pigs and possibly steeds (donkey, horse, Praxian steed) and fowl may be different. Your household will have been assigned the care of a certain number of cows, oxen, maybe a breedin bull or two and a few bullocks, by the clan temple or (indirectly, through assignment by the clan chief) by the tribal temple. As the beasts go through their generations, some of these may be asked as a dividend to serve as sacrificial beasts, or to be used as payment for some trade or some tiribute obligation the clan (temple, ring) may have to make good for. Some of the cattle may be directly owned by the household and normally exempt from taxation claims, and some of it may be personally owned by an individual. As for sheep, the situation looks like it is similar, while riding steeds and beasts of burden (horse, Praxian beast, donkey, mule) may be personal, household or tribal property. This has been discussed already a quarter of a century ago: https://glorantha.steff.in/digests/GloranthaDigest/vol01/1028.html https://glorantha.steff.in/digests/GloranthaDigest/vol02/0593.html And kept turning up, often in posts by the Seattle Farmers Collective. https://glorantha.steff.in/digests/GloranthaDigest/vol04/3928.html There was also the occasional comment by Greg on the topic, like https://glorantha.steff.in/digests/WorldofGlorantha/2007/2031.html But still, this keeps cropping up in our discussions, as the economics behind that are somewhat different from our monetized society with predominantly personal property. Such problems aren't unknown in the real world - inheritance of a business or property built up by an entrepeneur to several heirs may result in a collectively owned business with a board of directors, or it may go to mainly one of the heirs along with an obligation to pay off the other potential heirs with some of the proceeds. Such as a dowry, or the modern equivalent thereof (like a security for a business loan or a mortgage).

None of the five original clans should be slave holders, as they are Hendriki. Neither the Annmagarn, by extension. No idea about the adopted triaties (Runegate and Tree Brothers - Namolding and Lysang and what became the Antorling) or the clans without any previous tribal association (Hiording, Varmandi, Enjossi, and the extinct Jenstali and Karandoli). The Colymar acquisitions in the Taral and Zarran Wars went after geographical continuity rather than ideology. Why else invite the Elmali into the tribe? Breaking up the slave-ownership by tribes doesn't makes sense looking at the migration histories. It may make a difference if slaves are owned by the tribal temple alongside cattle and sheep. I don't think the Colymar tribe as a whole and as an owner of chattle property has slaves. Certain clans may have them. (In fact, the Hiording swan maiden back-story lifted from Wayland's Saga smacks of a form of slavery.) Three times in Colymar history, a broken clan was revived adopting new leaders from the original five clans - the Taraling, Antorling and Karandoli all were re-formed that way. I don't see those clans approving of slavery, either, although the Taralings under Blackmor may have differed. The Seven Brothers clan is a bit of a mystery.