Joerg

After the Theyalan missionaries arrive, they may introduce the plow, but farming at the Dawn is what the source says: So yes, horticulture is a fair term for this kind of tilling the soil, but this goes way beyond hunting and gathering only and is definitely not a Hsunchen way of life.. I have been bitten by such generous misplaced labels before. Badly positioned labels have caused wrong assumptions before (e.g. displacing the Balmyr from the neighborhood of the Enjossi clan). Details about the distribution of the tribes are mere speculation, but as far as I am concerned, the Vustri live rather further up the Doskior. The Korioni appear to occupy the lowlands of the upper Tanier and the lands north of Lake Felster. The lower Tanier, the south of Lake Felster and the shores of Lake Ehilmkae appear to be the Utoni lands, with the Fornoari west of these two tribes, and the Vustri to the east. I am not sure whether Galin and Helby would be Utoni, Korioni, or Vustri territory. Given the location of Naskorion, I am inclined to place the Vustri away from Lake Felster, but Helby might have been part of their territory if they were the first Enerali to meet missionaries from the south. Place names are usually a good indicator about habitats. But then Naskorion may have been claimed by the Korioni in the aftermath of the Battle of Zebrawood. Vustria may have received that name after the Vustri lost territory to the Korioni and Utoni (or clans that remained got assimilated into those two tribes). But you put the Mraloti into their lands, which is a peeve I seem to share with Peter. Wolf Hsunchen and pastoralism cannot co-exist peacefully unless the hunting is better than excellent. The arrival of the Telmori tribe in eastern Kerofinela kept several tribes fighting for their survival - Dinacoli, Malani, Sanchali (later the Cinsina), Maboder, Torkani, Culbrea, Kheldon and Aranwyth. Each of those tribes was as numerous as the Telmori. Granted, those were cursed Telmori, so the situation was different from prior to the Gbaji Wars, but the Orlanthi of Brolia are pastoralists cum hunter gatherers, and need as much range as the Telmori. Eleven Beasts Alliance: It is an anachronism, though. You wouldn't write "USA" for the Seven Years War colonies in North America, either. When I first read about the Eleven Beasts Battle in the Broken Council Guidebook, the assumption was that some of those beasts were Praxian mercenaries on the side of the Council. There are ten extant Fronelan Hsunchen tribes mentioned in the Guide, without the Tawari (who are said to have received the aid of the Eleven Beasts Alliance), Telmori and Noyalings, so there may have been a sufficient number of different Hsunchen beasts available in the Dawn Age. It was too warm to be a taiga, although the Darkness and the massive glaciation may have led to taiga-like forestation even in the sleeping elf forests. Broken Council Guidebook It does have a similar amount of speculative creation as has the "Life of Moonson" background with the first edition of the Rough Guide to Glamour. The ice breakers and some of the army branches and characters still retain that spirit of joyful expansion of the canon in MGF ways. I was surprised that the Alekki made it into the Guide. The Bemuri are another assumption of the Broken Council guidebook, and as far as I can tell not originally part of the Hsunchen list. The usual convention for Hsunchen is that one species has one ancestral beast god, and having a Bemur alongside a Tawar as the Hsunchen Bull God seems weird, unless the cattle was notably different from the Fronelan ones. Bemur might have been a son of Tawar with his own distinct beasts, but even then, the Rathori subgroups still are recognized as Rathori by everybody else. I am with Peter, here. Tawari is the mother tribe, the Enjoreli are a local expression of that tribe, possibly having left the Hsunchen pure way for the sin of agriculture/horticulture. A city like Croesia suggests an urban culture at least equivalent to that of the Pendali. As far as I can make out, that's the only such mention. The claim in the document is that the land was called Srotolin at the time of Arkat's arrival. This might refer to parts of Arolanit on the Nidan River that had been conquered by tribes belonging to the Council. The Seshnelan Kings documents always speak of Arolanit. I made one of my (original purchase in print, then pdf, then one or two kickstarter-rewards...) legal pdfs searchable. PDF-XChange Viewer has an OCR function, but that has problems with italics, so I had to extract the text into a text processor and correct those manually. There is no mention of Srotolin there (and neither in the Kings of Seshnela html documents that used to be on glorantha.com, of which the second is the text that was annotated in MSE).

Poe's "Pym" might be usable e.g. in the Jules Verne or Charles Romyn Dake context. This is a Lost World style adventure, and while Lovecraft was inspired by it, he hardly was the only one. And if you do need the Mythos context, you can publish under the Cthulhu community content. Not everything published there needs to have direct Mythos content, either - vaguely mysterious or even perfectly explainable with our science can be used in a Cthulhu campaign. If the gibbering madness isn't guaranteed in each and every scenario, it can be more devastating when it comes.

Safelster in the First Age tells us that the Enerali practiced mixed hunter-gathering and neolithic farming. Which more or less it what the Heortlings do coming out of the Greater Darkness into the Silver Age. All of the major inventions of farming are from the Neolithic and carry over all the way into the Iron Age and beyond. Neolithic housing north of the Alps is more or less identical to Viking Age housing (including the variety of building styles). The main cultural disadvantage of the Enerali is the absence or scarcity of tool metals. Having cities or mega-villages is sufficiently impressive in its own right, as far as I am concerned. It doesn't need Kadeniti-style opus caementicium walls to impress. As an Aerlitsson, rather a half-brother. Much like Umath and Lodril/Veskarthen, or Vingkot and Barntar. I find it rather peculiar that Aerlit has not received much of a family tree. A Kolating who rode/flew with the Vadrudi? Or a black sheep Vadrus-son? At different points of history, yes. Which ones would have reached Hrelar Amali first? What made you put Srotolin in Arolanit? All the sources about the Srotolinae of the Second Age place them in the upper Tanier Valley, north of the (modern) city of Tinaros. The exact spelling of Srotolin is used only once, in the weird inverted "Arkat the Liberator" pamphlet from Tortun that talks about Gbaji coming from Brithos. The context there makes it clear that the militarily able men of Ralios including those of Srotolin are away in Seshnela when krjalki enter from Kartolin and raze the land of Srotolin they left behind. IMO the Pralori range was extending to both sides of the Tarinwood IMO. Both Tanisor and northern Ramalia and western Maniria were under their sway, and unless they had free passage through Tarinwood proper, that would mean to me that they also would have controlled the foothills north of the Tarin mountains, south of Safelster proper (as far north as Daran). Were the Mraloti already present this far south at the Dawn Age? The Entruli would have been sufficient as boar worshipers there. As to the lakes, I think that Bakan Lake or Lake Nralar (that name is a suspicious duplicate of Gerlant's son) in the upper Tanier Valley, probably in or south of the Srotolinae lands of Utik and Frilan in the Second Age. According to Safelster in the First Age, the Vustri would have resided on the Doskior, about where you put the "Ser- Be-" of the Serpent Beasts (who really were everywhere where there weren't uz or Enerali). Somewhere closer to Vustria. North of the Nidan Mountains, I don't think that the Eleven Beasts Alliance was a thing at the Dawn. I'd be inclined to swap your lettering of Enjoreli and Tawari, as the latter have ties to the Kereusi of the Sweet Sea area as well. Having the Telmori in Brolia and Charg makes some sense, but puts a question mark to the presence of Orlanthi Hill Barbarian anywhere nearby.

As far as I can tell all cities ending on -al were Malkioni at the Dawn. They may have been badly depleted in terms of population, but they were targeted by the Pendali in the war. You're right - I was thinking about Damolsten. The Lightbringer missionaries came from the former Vingkotling, now Heortling tribes, and their allies. The temple city of Ezel may have been involved, but I doubt that Nochet contributed much after the incident between Desaventus son of Heort and the lovers of Imajarin over the (apparently consented) abduction of Ondurisa. The very stunt that ended the life of Sarotar 1500 years later. Korolstead looks like it would have been the royal stead under King Heort's successors, and probably was the main seat of roving King Heort. I think that the Lightbringer missionaries who arrived in Ralios were not Dorastans (who in turn were Heortlings who just chanced upon the remnants of the Feldichi culture, and somehow transformed from former Vingkotling cattle raiders and plunderers into a sophisticated urban society in less than two generations), but folk from Kerofinela, Kethaela and the Elder Wilds. Not from Saird, which was in a sorry state thanks to the Shadzorings of Alkoth and the horse warlords. Alternatively, the descendants of Lighbringers who had come to the tribes of Maniria and Slontos took up the duty of their parents and went onward to new, still benighted neighbors further west and north. The Enerali of Tanisor and Safelster and the Slontans all suffered from the hegemony of the Pralori, and one of the boons the Lightbringers brought was magic to counter the Serpent Brotherhood shamans of the Pralori. (This sort of makes me wonder whether one weapon in the arsenal of the Serpent Brotherhood shamans may have been spirits or ghosts of Kachisti disembodied by the Vadeli in their uprising. That would make for another way of cultural influence....) And there was cattle in Tanisor, too, or water buffalos. The question is whether the Enerali used them for plowing. Somehow, Tanisor and Safelster are a rice-growing civilization. I would expect that to have been inherited from a local chthonic culture, which may have been assimilated by the Hrelar Amali culture of King Dan. The practice may have had regressed to a cult secret that had to be re-discovered from walking with the goddesses, as I doubt that the Greater Darkness gave much opportunity to practice rice farming. From all accounts, it looks unlikely that Brithela was a rice-growing civilization, and neither Arolanit nor Akem look like they had rice. The colonial fad for Kralori and Eest during the Middle Sea Empire may have brought in new varieties of rice along with their goddesses, but I don't think that it started the rice growing activities in Safelster. All Malkioni colonies prior to the Abiding Book experienced cycles of glory and of abject survival in the face of external foes, it seems. The end of the Serpent King dynasty brought about another dangerous struggle with the remaining unconquered Pendali and their Serpent Brotherhood and Enerali allies. Brithos did not lend a helping hand before the expedition to save Arolanit from the (not-so) Bright Empire allies of Tanisor. Other than that intervention, all that Brithos did was send out waves of dissidents as Zzabur purged another aspect of his followers.

If you are talking about clearing the earth for planting stuff, yes. But no, fire farming is how the Australian immigrants shaped the outback for at least 50,000 years. And they are generally assumed to be quite in tune with their land. It has nothing to do with agriculture or horticulture. It has everything to do with creating fresh green for herbivorous prey. Fire farming appears to have been used in England prior to the immigration of the first Neolithic farmers, for instance. It might have been a necessary technology inside the Greatwood to maintain a sustainable population of sizable prey (roe deer and upward) and for it to move outside the impenetrable growth of the aldryami forests. Other than their horses, what indications for pastoralism may have been there? One thing that all "hill barbarians" or storm people have in common is pastoralism and some dairy economy. Seshnegi in the sense of Brithini exiles? Probably not. Hypothetical Seshnegi as in a prior, earth worshiping human population which adopted the Pendali as protectors? Possibly. If those may have had Kachisti ancestry? Maybe in that case, too. Hrestol's murder of the ancestress of the Pendali kings definitely harmed any claim they had to the sovereignty over the land. It is true, without Froalar getting the greater land goddess Seshna on his side, even with the weakening Hrestol had inflicted on the Pendali, the war would have taken a lot longer, and might still have had the opposite outcome. The Malkioni at the Dawn had only very few coastal cities with walls to that standard - Neleoswal and Frowal, possibly Laurmal, and some of the Arolanit cities. The lesser cities away from the coast were hardly worth the title city, IMO. At least not by the standards of the original colonies. Those Pendali villages were cities the same size as most of the original cities of the Malkioni in the Silver Empire. Places like Damolsket are clearly autochthonous cities, yet they become Malkioni citiies effectively by conquest or capitulation, no major building efforts that we know of. I know that Greg paddled back a lot from his earlier history of the Pendali, but that was more back-paddling than the history of the place warrants, IMO. But then, the keepers of canon probably will side with you on this issue. Frowal might have surpassed the 1000 slightly, Neleoswal may have been struggling with that, but both cities had countryside settlements to bolster those numbers - settlements in all likelihood non-existent at the end of the Greater Darkness and the transition into the quasi-time of the Gray Age. Not that the westerners didn't have sort of a quasi-Time earlier. Zzabur had a time-keeping device already during Godtime. The Heortlings had more survival centers than the Enerali, and probably closer together and at least in sum more populous. Whether they were any wealthier or more sophisticated during the Silver Age I cannot say. They did come into conflict with Nochet already in the later parts of King Heort's reign. Theyalan magic was superior to the native Enerali magic, as in receiving better magic from the gods. Some of the gods received an upgrade by identifying them with Orlanthi deities. Their agriculture may have been superior to the non-plowing agriculture any civilization without bovine draft beasts can achieve. But what importance does cattle have in Ralios, and which Dawn Age groups would have had any? True for the Gods Age up to the Greater Darkness, but less true for the Silver or Grey Age. The northern enclaves profited from the revelations of Hrestol at least as much as did Seshnela. The Akem states appear to have gone into survival without any pagan goddess of the land holding their hands. By the time the Seshnegi had become the Silver Empire, they had largely overcome their attachment to the Temple of Seshna, too.

At the onset of the Grey Age/Silver Age, they appear to have been hunter-gatherers or (possibly nmadic, low maintenance) horticulturalists. I believe that fire farming is a wide-spread Hsunchen (and Doraddi) technology to aid them in their hunting and gathering, and minimal nomadic horticulture may be unavoidable when gathering wild grains. Especially if these grains have divinely granted nutrition value to spare even before human horticulturalists start selectively breeding it for high nutritional value. Neither do I, all I have seen on them is in the Guide. The Broken Council Guidebook whose authors drew on unpublished manuscripts doesn't go into detail about the bull people of the Janubian lands and surroundings, either. The best mention is the Battle of Eleven Beasts. Everything else is speculation. About 25 years ago, there was some speculation about Urlanthi, early pastoralists emerging from hunter-gatherer populations mingling with lesser gods and demigods descending from the Spike. Not quite correct. The ruling family of the Pendali was descended from the sons of Pendal, and possibly a good number of the nobility, but the majority of the lion people may very well have been Basmoli without any ancestry from Seshna to start with. Pendal was a Silver Age character. Unless only descendants of Pendal were allowed to father children, there is no possibility that all Basmoli would be descended from Pendal. When and how the Basmoli became dominant in Seshnela isn't clear. There seems to be an older chthonic culture there, possibly human, possibly non-human. If human, that culture would likely have been horticulturalists similar to the Tada-shi, and may have accepted the Basmoli as their rulers and protectors. I don't see how two generations of descent from Ifftala (Ifttala?), the daughter of Seshna and ancestress of the Pendali nobility, would lead to a hunter-gatherer culture constructing cities that the Malkioni of Seshneg would seamlessly integrate into their own culture in the century after the dawn. Yes. The parallel is undeniable. We know that they are related to the Tawari who are encountered as Hykimi or Serpent Beast Brotherhood people by the Second Council and/or the Bright Empire. King Dromal and his boar companion suggest some sort of chthonic civilization in Fronela possibly preceding the Kachisti dominion over the lands on both sides of the (then still very low) Nidan Mountains, possibly immigrating only after the Vadeli ended that dominion, as a refugee from the expansion of Endernef into Zerendel. I like the theory of Dromal and Dronar being brothers, sons to Kala, a land goddess of Brithela. One of the brothers leads the rest of the indigenous chthonic population into the caste system of the Kingdom of Logic established by Malkion the Founder, the other emigrates to Fronela and creates a chthonic proto-urban society there. The Enjoreli may have adopted their sedentary and most likely agricultural ways either from a chthonic King Dromal and his proto-urban society, or otherwise from the dronars in the Kachisti ranks. (A similar origin of the chthonic horticulturalists or agriculturalists among the Enerali and Pendali is possible, too.) Everything points to a founder by the name of Enjorel who either is born from or married to a land goddess of Fronela. But all of that is speculation, which means you are right - the Enjoreli origin is unknown. Do we know that for sure? I agree that plowing with horses is extremely unlikely. And while I postulate Kachisti ancestors for the vast majority of the Hykimi of the Great Forest and its outskirts who survive the Greater Darkness, that doesn't mean that those ancestors would have kept practicing the agriculture (or whatever means of primary production the Dronar caste of Brithela practiced) after the Vadeli destroyed their dominion. Still, some carry-over from the Kingdom of Logic or its predecessors via the Kachisti is possible, and may have been re-cultivated in the Silver Age as King Dan restored some measure of civilization around Hrelar Amali. The Enerali were the rulers of the land, but the presence of the Ancient Beasts Society in southwestern Safelster suggests that the Safelstrans have their share in other ancestry as well. So were the Malkioni of Frowal and Neleoswal, and in Arolanit. For all of these, the Darkness ended with the Gray Age - they did not need any Theyalan Awakeners to get out of the slump of Greater Darkness trauma. Instead, the leadership of the Pendali, Enerali and presumable Enjoreli restarted human civilisation already in the Gray Age. In Frowal, Froalar and his family led the Malkioni out of the Greater Darkness. The disease Xemela fought may have occurred in the Gray Age rather than the Greater Darkness. But all the now western countries emerged from the Greater Darkness before the Dawn, as far as I know.

Pendali, Enerali and Enjoreli are three "Hykimi" nations that had cities, agriculture, yet still a strong beast totem connection, and at least the Pendali had shape-changers in their ranks (possibly a pure nobility - though not the royal lineage - untainted by the lures of the earth goddesses). The situation with the bull peoples of Fronela is very unclear with regard to whether they were hunter-gatherers following the herds (i.e. Hsunchen), pastoralists analogous to the Bison Riders of Prax, or agriculturalists cum pastoralists (as the Bisosae appear to have been, or to have become). A holy caste of nomadic horse riders led by queens is possible, though they are as likely to be tribute-taking horse pastoralists as they are to be tribute-taking hunter gatherers. The later Galanini might have been re-invigorated by contact with the Grazer group that disappeared beyond Esrolia.

Argan Argar's rival for the hand of Esrola (Asrelia?) was Veskarthan of the Deep. The establishment of the Shadow Plateau and Obsidian Palace on the stump of Veskarthan's Mountain and the Footprint Myth probably predates the Flood. Faralinthor presumably came with the Flood as part of the Hancheros Sea, but protected Esrola while the two standing waves of the Aroka Sea and the Madadan Sea bracketed the Vingkotling lands. After Orlanth had defeated the standing waves, Faralinthor and his son Choralinthor possibly was protected from Orlanth's reconquista by Esrola's intervention. That didn't help much against the rage of Vadrus, though. Argan Argar was wandering the lands, then, aiding the uz of Halikiv and straying all the way into Peloria (Yolp) and Fronela. If he fought the Flood, we have no stories about that, but those may have come from Halikiv or Yolp or further along the Rockwoods rather than Kethaela.

I would expect the Kitori to speak a dialect of Heortling thick with elements of Darktongue, possibly a hybrid of those. Pure (though probably accented) Darktongue and accented Heortling are probable, too. As to Tradetalk, back when Issaries still had the Trade/Communication/Equal Exchange rune in RQ3, someone asked why he had only one of these, and the semi-serious answer was that he traded the other away, probably to Argan Argar. At the onset of the Second Age, the people in Heortland came from several ethnicities, as listed in the Foreigner Laws of Aventus (History of the Heortling Peoples p.72) : - Hendriki (Heortlings) - Heortling immigrants from the former Orgovaltes lands, and further north, possibly retreating from the early Bright Empire, possibly evacuating the war zone after Arkat's arrival - Pelaskite coastal fisherfolk, spread out from their dawn survival site at Old Karse (not counted among the foreigners?) - Pelaskite coast*al people from the Rightarm Isles - Esrolian immigrants across the Mirrorsea (coastal) - Esvulari expanding northwards - the inhabitants of the Zarur Wilds The Kitori Shadowlords would visit all of these groups for the ancient Shadow Tribute, and be able to converse with them easily. Quite a few Darktongue terms will have entered the Heortling language in these exchanges. The Esrolian and possible Pelaskite elements in the language probably diminished to loan words or occasional alternative terms (think Danish influence on the Northumbrian dialects).

The lakes in Ralios have changed over time - the Sodal Marsh used to be a nice lake (Eilmkae, I suppose - Bakeel Lake still remains as a reminder what once was there), and another lake along the upper Tanier has disappeared since the Dawn. I don't have any map sources for that, though, only the mention in the https://www.glorantha.com/docs/the-enerali-circa-130-st/:

That's not how I understood the Illaro dynasty - IMO it is the king who is the sacrifice, although the king can survive the sacrifice by overcoming his magical executioner and providing that entity as a sacrifice. Illaro managed to do that twice. His successors didn't.

Which means that the destruction of the two Lunar-friendly phratries is limited to those of their clans making contact with Prax during the armistice, leaving a good portion of them untouched by this development?

This reads like an Arkat-friendly source. "evil cult" I would ask for a text written from the Dorastan perspective. This is propaganda of the victors disguised as history. Safelster has never been all forested, and neither the Tanier Valley. At best, this area would have been a savannah (like ancient Prax). "After the forces of the council had sent the leader of the godless rebels into his well-earned hell, for four years they campaigned to reclaim lost lands, sending a few punitive expeditions against the western atheists." History of the Heortling Peoples p.97 disagrees with that statement. Apparently Palangio spent four years after his victory over Arkat to enter Erenplose, and after he finally succeeded, he went high into the (presumably Mislari, possibly Nidan) mountains and returns with the Iron Vrok. The text in the Troll Gods Jonstown Compendium excerpt about his ritual of Rebirth talks about six companions undergoing the treatment with Arkat.

Sure, keep us informed. And I imagine that we might want to compare notes or talk shop about producing a podcast sometime in the future. Issaries' whispers and HeroQuest Glorantha? As the person tasked with our show notes, I know how much work goes into the transcripts. A complete transcript is an annoying thing to do, and to translate that into another language... no thank you.

All Brithini expect their zzaburi to resurrect them in case of death by accident, disease, or combat, though not old age. This suggests that their identity lingers long enough for the sorcerers to undertake that spell. As we have learned that casting a sorcery spell may take quite a while, an instant disappearance is off the table. There is the Vadeli uprising against the Kachisti of Gennerela (modern Fronela and Fornoar) which started by exhausting the Kachisti zzaburi by committing a mass suicide which their captors/guardians were somehow obliged to undo, and managed to undo before the Nidan mountain chain erupted. It isn't clear how or why the zzaburi have such spells.

Are you going to deal with the Lake Felster and riverine navies?

You might want to add the immortal emperors of the Lunar Empire and Kralorela. I am not aware of Godunya having much of a harem, but we know that at least one earlier emperor was married. Maintaining a harem might be a traditional duty of Kralori emperors even though they are bhodisatva-like dragons. The Red Emperor has spread his divinity left and right, and his offspring pervades the upper crust of the Empire. I wonder whether Tarsh is going to become a satrapy once Phargentes II becomes emperor and re-takes his father's kingdom. Other than not being adjacent to the other satrapies, that barbarian kingdom isn't that different from Sylila. The rest of Saird may well be divided up between the then two barbarian satrapies. At least until the end of Argrath's LBQ and the subsequent deeper quest.

I would stat out a few individuals using the RQ3 stats. Any differences from a future product detailing them can be down to individual peculiarities, the influence of Dorastan Chaos, or just lack of better info. I would think that Seseine still is the Chaos deity of seduction, and that Succubi would be her servants, but some might be more of a vampiric origin. Then there is the Lamia(e) in the Zola Fel valley, IIRC.

Sure. I probably would let the mist extend significantly further, being fuzzy, but only providing a completely impenetrable mist in the 2m sphere of the target, and making that harder to pinpoint than just "the center of that wisp of mist"..

I have an old RQ3 scenario where players are performing a pilgrimage/this world HQ to a drusy where a droplet of storm god blood had fallen into a son of Veskarthan's magma. The drusy is spacious enough for two or three people to stand in, and has several openings that let in the wind, and the occasional pilgrim.

For Element Runes, I would assume 100 to 120% in the cult runes. For Power Runes, even 60% is a realistic value in a second Power Rune associated with the cult. Thus theoretically a Sword of Humakt could have 90% in Truth and 60% in Death. I agree that such a rune distribution is quite unlikely, but it isn't impossible. Going with 95% for one rune and 75% for the other would be more likely. That is the curse of the opposed trait treatment of the Power Runes, and all the cults lacking Element runes, in RQG. Either you play a bad and often silly caricature of a human being (on the level of the HW/HQ1 disciples which were suggested for retirement), or your rune lord is severely lacking in magical advantage. What happens if a Rune Lord of a Power Runes only cult falls below 90% in both Power Runes due to fumbled inspiration? Does the consecration still work, or are her magical powers limited to those of an initiate starting with that rune loss? And what about taking damage to CHA e.g. from a disease?)

Full agreement, and I edited my post to make clear what I was talking about. The interior plates of Genertela Box were a mixed bunch in representing the text, and the Fronelan one was clearly off the look and feel I expected. I said so in some of my earliest online comments on Glorantha, and offered Late (Western) Roman Empire/early Dark Ages as better sources for Malkioni knights. Oops, Men-of-All. On the whole, I like the interior artwork in the French edition of Genertela: Crucible of the Hero Wars. Starting with the packaging as a hardcover book. Some of the illustrations were and still are impossible for the US market even though they conform a European PG 13 or at least 16, but the Chaos issue of Tales of the Reaching Moon had the same problem with its cover. Glorantha Bestiary had quite good original art. It took me quite a while (as in months) to identify the character on the cover as a Morokanth, though. The boxed sets period of Avalon Hill was fine until they ran out of art from RQ2 to recycle. Troll Gods was the first product hit by this unwillingness of Avalon Hill to commission real new art, condemning their poor in-house graphic designer to fill those empty pages. At that time, fan artwork had not yet reached the erudition that Tales of the Reaching Moon artwork picked up around issues 5 or 6. I don't think that the depictions of aldryami in AH RQ3 were any good. Other than the "page 3" dryad greeting spring in Gods of Glorantha, as nymphs (other than hags) take the appearance of an idealized female of the observer's species. (I wonder how they look to alryami...) But then, the ones in Griffin Mountain or in the independent publications for RQ2 showed classical European elves rather than aldryami, too. The Dobyski one in Elder Secrets at least tried to convey some plant-appearance. But then, the same complaint goes for the aldryami miniature in Sandy's Gods War. My least favorite of all the pieces. (The badly over-stretched poses of the broo and storm mortals aren't that attractive to me, either, and the mermaids could have a lot less H.C. Andersen, too.) I still love the style of the King of Dragon Pass artwork, even though the skin tones are way too pale to conform to my understanding of Orlanthi and Praxians. But then, my original concept of Alpine and Danubian Celts (and precursors) would have been too pale-skinned and not varied enough in tones of skin, too. But then I learned a lot about skin coloration of both Gloranthans and the first Homo Sapiens Sapiens in Europe since. A complete collection of Glorantha art published in any print document probably still would be less than a single volume of the Guide, even with the most atrocious or unskilled ones included, and the artwork commissioned by David Dunham for his video games probably filling a good hardcover if ever put into print (beyond the few scenes that made it into HeroQuest products). I rank the French standards fairly high, and want to point to another great contribution of Gloranthan artwork in La Toile D'Arachne Solara by Jean-Paul Lhuillier, an A3 format fanzine that saw two issues around 1994. The artwork for the German RuneQuest 3 is sparse, and that "professionally" published in license is not Gloranthan at all. The efforts of the Chaos society were a lot better than that. We soon tapped into the international pool of artists for our fan publications, which means you will find Dan Barker (e.g. his great pair of Dragonewt warriors that even received a fake Tales cover) or Dario Corallo on our later products.

Is your scribe a Lhankor Mhy worshiper (even lay members count), or does he have a Malkioni background? You could have a skill "God Learner history" which may cover some of the Vadeli and Artmali lore, too. Otherwise, Lore "Vadeli Culture" might give you insight into their history, and that of their opponents.

That image actually appeared in the English language original of Hero Wars, p.240. Leafing through my copy (one of the few HW books unavailable from the Vault) I found a couple of other images that are well worth bringing back, and others that may be decidedly un-canonical yet still quite cool. I wonder where your vision came from, then. RQ2? When I joined the German RQ community, there were quite a number of RQ2 die-hards on the conventions, with notions about Glorantha that were quite alien to me. My understanding of Glorantha came from RQ3 Genertela Box, RQ3 Gods of Glorantha, and then subsequently (RQ3) Troll Pak and slow access to RQ2 material. I got to read the Pavis Box and Cults of Prax material just before I came across Sun County, King of Sartar, and the Tales of the Reaching Moon articles. I bought RQ2 Companion at a German convention, and that started me into playing in Glorantha, in Heortland. Many of the assumptions of people who had a different entry into the setting keep surprising me. That said, I had some insight into Hero Wars while things were prepared for publication. I first met Greg at Convulsion 1994 and then several times at other conventions, and by 1998 Greg had an idea who this obnoxious German was, and so did the online community. There are some things where I wish I had had more input, too. My idea about the Sartarites had shifted from continental Danubian/eastern Alpine Gauls (to avoid the term Celts) towards a mixture of King of Sartar (Greg's anthology), Pavis Box and Trollpak (the only RQ2 publications giving information on Sartar that went beyond Apple Lane and the hiring scene in Snake Pipe Hollow), then heavily influenced by Digest discussions. David Dunham's King of Dragon Pass computer game provided the next major re-assessment of the Orlanthi of Sartar. Then I came across Penny Love's novel The Widow's Tale, and @Runeblogger describes my initial reaction to the novel quite accurately. There wasn't that much of tolerable interior RQ3 art in the boxed sets anyways. The covers of the Avalon Hill RQ3 boxes were all quite acceptable. The interior illustrations of Gods of Glorantha and Genertela Box were at times bewildering. One of my first comments on Glorantha being different from how RQ3 products described it was about the knight in the Fronela chapter, and how I thought knights in Glorantha should be imagined, going pre- or onset Dark Ages/Late Western Roman Empire at best rather than late Middle Ages or (Italian early) Renaissance. Did you have any problems with the RQ3 Renaissance artwork in Sun County, River of Cradles, Dorastor (admittedly with a weird cover until you realize that it is a depiction of Gloranthan artwork), Shadows on the Borderlands, Strangers in Prax?