Joerg

A girl's body ready for procreation requires initiation into these secrets. At least among conscientious Orlanthi. Modern religious groups may hold opinions to the contrary. But then the Orlanthi are just barbarians... Wet dreams are a lot less of an urgent matter, and if there are any manhood mysteries that aren't boasted about, what would those be?

I guess I wasn't clear... My question is not about a race for attracting uninitiated children to participate in the cult's adulthood rites (there may be a spoof scenario in this idea, though little more), but about a community's adulthood rites using a different model than the Initiation of Orlanth for the boys and however the first blood rites of Ernalda are named. Daka Fal is an option that I overlooked in Orlanthi society - Horned Man or Kolat would be a lot rarer. But would these rites instill the secrets of I Fought We Won? (There is nothing wrong with shamans or aspiring shamans being initiated to this secret - King Heort was a shaman himself.) Taking the spirit option to adulthood would take a boy out of his age peer group waiting for the next occasion to undergo the Initiation of Orlanth and Second Son rites. Theoretically, a child could also pop up at the temple of the deity calling it and do the three challenges to be heard by the chief priest for initiation, or something like that - exceptional children have their own ways into initiation, as the Household of Death history shows. Thinking of Duke Raus and his extended family (never named or even mentioned in Borderlands, but as an ancestor worshiper, I suppose he keeps some distant cousins etc. around to get extra participants in his Daka Fal rites) would need a rite of passage. Now Kostaddi is under Dara Happan rule, so the male adulthood rites might very well be those of Yelm the Rider (or whatever the sedentary form is called), but if Yelm isn't that plebeian that Kostaddi folk are allowed to use his rites, then some Daka Fal tradition has to step in. Does "chosen by the deity" already include initiation to the cult, or does it just mean that they are going to go to sunday school there for the next year to gather the necessary cult lore and customs to act as an initiate, whereupon they undergo the soul sacrifice that links them up to the deity?

Waha has a similar "minimal age/pedigree requirement for cult advancement" rule as Yu-Kargzant or Kargzant. If the tribe (or IMO rather clan) worships Yu-Kargzant anyway, there is little point for Kargzant to be patron of that age structure. This structure doesn't receive any sacrifice or other such magical bonus. The main question to me is whether that Yelm the Youth/Yelm the Rider status is an obligatory initiatory POW-sacrifice to the clan and/or tribal wyter (as I theorized about in the Dara Happan worship spin-off from the Vinga thread). Take a look at Nomad Gods' Spirits of Light (and also Moon) for a start, then look at the resulting births from Hon-eel's contest with the Most Reverend Horse Mother in the Sourcebook. GRoY and Fortunate Succession mention Vettebbe as the unbridled portion of Kargzant. The lack of the fire rune for priests of a Lightfore deity may be a tad over-stated if a Light Servant of Yelmalio can canonically (at least in RQ2/Classic) control small and medium salamanders. There may still be a taboo on fire-related spirit spells and a lack of other flame spells in the arsenal of divine magic, but having salamanders pretty much counts as having fire powers to me. The Sunspear magic may come only through allied magic (Lightfore Antirius gave it to his prophet Avivath, while Lightfore Kargzant had no such thing to offer to the contemporary Jenarong "dynasty" emperors). Kargzant does have Hyalor and Kushile as allied cults (effectively subcults). Shamans do not need to follow the Golden Bow even in Solar traditions. Don't forget the goats. Goats were the first herd animals picked up by the Starlight Wanderers who became one of the charioteer horse warlord groups of Gray and Dawn Age Dara Happa. I was not even sure that the Pentans herd sheep, but checking the Guide p. 363 confirms them, as it confirms the herding of reindeer. That's four types of meat and dairy animals for Eiritha to take care of, in addition to the horse as special meat and dairy animal outside of Eiritha's responsibility. Is Hippoi part of the Dendara cult? Hyalor and Kuschile are allies with the status of subcults of both Yu- and just Kargzant. Neither the FHQ nor the Most Reverend Horse Mother strike me as the typical wife role model for the horse tribes.

Are the maps licensed for use as-is, or is this a license to use them as the base for quite different maps? In other word, is this a license to use Gloranthan coordinates derived from that set of pdf pages to do more in terms of Gloranthan topography and thematic maps? As a resource for local level topography, the more recent maps with the GM screen have a lot more detail. If you want to describe any hamlet with a map, you'll be doing your own cartography. The AAA helps to keep things plausible, but it is a quite high flying eagle looking down on the world.

Complete agreement this far. If they did, how come we don't get to see them? The Golden Age map is the first to provide information that can be mapped. I agree that the God Learner heroquesters may have visited the Green Age, and may have caused havoc to the underlying structure of Glorantha by their actions there. While there appear to be methods to cross the Green Age without causing a major upheaval inserting oneself into a Green Age transitional moment (like in one possible path in the name--giving quest in Eleven Lights), it doesn't seem to fit the character of God Learner explorations to leave without leaving your mark. Green Age transitions are extremely powerful magic. They are hard (possibly impossible) to reproduce. The very existence of those maps (and the existence of a river and a high water mark) make that Green Age temporal coordinate a bit doubtful to me. I can agree to "before the Sunstop that is presented as the entirety of the Golden Age", but that doesn't necessarily mean the actual Green Age. The Golden Age is full of Green Age transitions, like the usurpation of Brightface Yelm starting the Sunstop (ending the cycle of day and night) or the death of the Emperor and the definition of the (second half of) the Sunpath. The death of Rashoran and the birth of the Devil may be Green Age transitions, too. Is it a separate age, or are these Green Age excursions just going to a part of the Golden Age so early that a lot of defining transitions still were there to be made? I know this is splitting hairs, but I have come to think of "Green Age" more like the transitions than an actual early mythic age. If the cult of Orlanth includes Larnste, then there is no period in Creation that is unavailable to cultists. True, it is a mystery cult inside the greater cult, but the same can be said about Imarja or possibly other aspects within Ernalda (allowing travel back to the youth of Asrelia as a maiden, for instance). Cultists of Waha have a hard time to go before the Greater Darkness on the experiences of their own deity alone, although occasional Age jumps aren't unheard of (like Vingkot receiving his uncureable Chaos wound in a battle that occurred long after his burial/discorporation). But then butchery is present already in the journey of the log walkers, and where there is a beast made into food, there is the butcher. If Waha has taken up that primeval mantle, then that mantle provides a path into the Green Age or Earliest Golden Age.

What other deities conduct adulthood rites among the Orlanthi? Argan Argar, Yelmalio, possibly Heler for fringe Orlanthi. Is there any serious competition for Ernalda for the female Side?

Illusion may be a means (there is another way of deception by presenting a selection of Truth, something that Lhankor Mhytes and Irrippians are masters of), but Disorder is the result. You can apply other runic applications to lying, too. Admittedly hard to explain with Stasis, obvious with Change, possible with Separation (Death), you may seed and grow lies (Fertility), it requires Harmony to find the resonance that makes your opposition follow your mislead... I can't help but think of Pamalt as being way too clever, too genre-savvy. But that is a trait he shares with Tada and Belintar. Or Prometheus. Tada isn't judged for his tricks, after all he received the final judgement at the claws of Ragnaglar. Although, even in death, he tricked his opponent by leaving his Grizzly Portions around. Belintar was accused of being a Trickster among others by the Volsaxi already at his arrival, and that judgement didn't change with his disappearance. A good portion of the Sartarite ancestors and the clans they created are with the Volsaxi on this issue. The Lunars are, after their experience at the Building Wall. Jar-eel's dismemberment exposed the transitory nature of Belintar's existence as the Godking - almost a parallel to Avanadpur. True, nothing of this applies to Pamalt yet. But consider - he brings his very own Rune into the game. That's a cheat if I ever saw one. Why, thank you. (No offense taken at all.) The cycle of conquest and struggle was the order of the period, and Pamalt broke it. Whatever conditions are brought to Pamalt, he imposes his own set of rules. BTW, I disagree with the implication in RQG that there is one half of the Power Runes that has mainly negative associations. We all love harmony? Listen to the second movement (Andante) of Haydn's Symphony #94 , an almost perfect presentation of eventless harmony (Bernstein does his utmost to give it dynamics) until that timpani strike in the 16th pulse of the theme, and you get a musical impression of how you play a trick and create disorder on a foundation of harmony. That's a trick in my ears. And the very slight moment of trickery puts it stamp on the entire opus - in German literature, nobody refers to the symphony by the number, but by the timpani strike. That doesn't even occur in the main movement. There are more tricks hidden in this work. One to my perception is that the symphony ends without the fourth and final movement, taking the dance number (the stately minuette classically used for the third movement) as the conclusion. Harmony on the inside, Disorder on the outside. Maybe it is me thinking in terms of thermodynamics, but this event creates a huge amount of universal entropy in the service of a local reduction of entropy. I don't want to persuade you of my point of view here, but I want to make you see where I am coming from. I am describing the means of these acts as tricks, and correctly so. That's the wisdom of the fool in Shakespeare's plays. It is the ugly mirror that needs to be held up to authority, as authority itself is a trick. Money is a trick. To take a real world example: Stock exchanges are Tricksters' paradises, and they succeed in persuading us (or at least our glorious leaders) that they are absolutely necessary for our survival while they increase their parasitism to a point where the host becomes an empty hull and its livelihood having been burnt for the pleasure and power trips of the few. It has been decreed unthinkable to consider alternatives. And so we keep sliding down on the sustainability spiral, with the only things rising are the parasites' profits, and temperature and sea levels. Prometheus. It's an archetype. See Haydn's symphony #94, above, or rather: listen to it. Contraryness and (well-dosed) dissonance is what creates great music. (That dissonance is addictive, you step up from slightly more complicated and disorderly stuff like this to ever more experimental stuff, like 20th century classical music or progressive rock, or metal.) Harmony is what creates pleasant, meaningless music. Prometheus again. Sure, this has gone a little meta. It is fun to describe the entirety of the Gloranthan body of myths as a series of tricks. And it works, as the nature of myths is both normative and disruptive, giving a moral lesson while baffling the audience. But I am quite serious in the requirement of dissonance and in the negative effect on the entire outside of the circle/ring/necklace/whatever. It is a great act of harmony to deflect an enemy to someone else? The Ritual of the Net is a huge trick, an ambush, and then the participants of the ambush get to observe (they mustn't look away) bondage snuff sex creating a new overlord monster - Time. (And little wonder that Eurmal couldn't hold on to his thread, he desperately needed at least one of his hands in his nether regions.)

It's called heroquesting in or through the Underworld, and if any individual has done so, it is Arkat.

Taking this over from the Vinga thread, as it really has left that topic: The Theyalan way of initiating most of the population into rune cults appears to be the extreme end of Glorantha's interaction with the Other Side, and not the average. (The Praxians for instance have a huge number of Daka Fal worshipers who don't really count as Rune Cult initiates.) RQ2 created a different expectation, and the presentation in RQG doesn't paddle back that much (introducing the existence of Malkioni in Dragon Pass in the rules). The old Cult of Yelm write-up reprinted in Cult Compendium has the Yelm the Youth initiatory stage which establishes an "initiate link" but grants no rune magic and hardly any spirit magic. Basically this creates a one-direction exchange of magic between the ruling deity and a vast swath of the population. How Dara Happan. But then, I am deeply biased against the Cult of Yelm, and have been so since my earliest encounter. This construct is found in one other cult in older editions of RQ - Aldrya's Children of the Forest. Both these subcults may just be outsized and greedy versions of the wyter in Orlanthi cults (a construct that was only explained in RQ terms in RQG). The wyter rules make the POW sacrifice optional and voluntary. These two cults demand it. I am not entirely clear about the extent of Yelm the Youth membership in Dara Happa (or the Grazelands). To me it sounds like a magical tribute that was imposed by the horse warlords to the entire (male) subject population, a tradition happily taken over by all successor dynasties, including the Sun Dragon and the Red Emperor. It is a pretty sweet deal for the Emperor (the chief priest of this wyter), after all. Starting with Lodril, a deity almost as important in the cities as in rural communities. (In the rural communities, the leadership role is added beyond that of the foreman.) There is a whole bunch of variations on Lodril, and there are a bunch of female deities attracting male worshipers, too - the enslibs, quite a few nurturers (minor grain and beasts goddesses), the rivers... There are a number of Yelm-variant and/or Son of Yelm male deities worshiped in both urban and rural Peloria, with the currently favorite son/aspect conflated into the main Yelm cult (e.g. Kargzant for the horse warlord period up to Eusibus, who took Shargash in that role, followed by Antirius for Khordavu and variants of Yelm afterwards (e.g. Yelm-Arraz) with the extreme exception of the Sun Dragon during the EWF. Important subservient cults are Buserian the bureaucrat and Enverinus the supervisor of sacrifice, perhaps more present in the cities but (too) present in the countryside, too. Non-Lodril- or Yelm-variant male deities are rarer. Like I said above, I am not sure whether all these Dara Happan yokels compulsively initiate to Yelm the Youth, but it would make a sense for the Dara Happan scheme to compel the entire population to support the emperor/imperial wyter. The entirety of female worship in Dara Happa is weirdly left hanging in relation to the (yelmic) Emperor. Almost left out. But then, Pelorian female mysteries are mysterious. There are things going on here, hinted at in Entekosiad, that put the entire Dara Happan surface culture into question - something the Lunar religion has done successfully while keeping the surface culture in place. But then, the Lunar Way seems to have usurped the Darsenite substratum in pretty much the same way that Brightface Yelm did in the first half of the Golden Age (as per Plentonic dating, and yes, contradicting the earliest of Plentonius' dates). Pelorians are described as opportunistic theists - switching their focal sacrifice to a different deity if the one they emphasized before fails to deliver. This is hard on the holy people who made the full monte POW commitment to that previous deity to get the Rune Magic (and wyter blessings) for that community, but easy on the barely committed masses. So yes, this is at its heart mass lay worship, gaining its magical oomph from the material wealth sacrifice in addition to layman MP gifts. Already the Praxians with about a third of their population following the Daka Fal way without any Rune Cult initiation at all have a significantly lower rate of Rune Magic-wielding initiates. (How common are the Daka Fal rune spells in their adherents? Ancestor worship works well with only the mediators wielding that rune magic, and other than Heal Wound, few of these have everyday purpose. Warding is nice to have, though. Does Dendara have this automatic "join me" function that Yelm the Youth offers? Is she important to families without a Yelmic patriarch (one beyond Yelm the Youth, including sons of Yelm)? For the rider cultures, definitely yes, although I find it hard to compare La-Ungariant to the pliable and largely innocent wife of the sedentary emperor. (Yes, she is a mother, but it is like a series of virgin births out of the blue... I don't see Dendara having much of a pregnancy magic vibe, relying on Oria for the nasty business of midwifing.) There is more to rural Dara Happa than weeders and Lodrili dry farming. Each of the satrapies with a population the size of Esrolia is several the area of Esrolia, with grasslands in between. (Not unlike Tanisor...) Civilization mainly extends along the rivers and canals (that double as source for irrigation, as the road network of Dara Happa appears to be negligible. Remember that conestoga raft in the first episode that was aired of Firefly? Replace the horses with oxen - possibly trudging along on a muddy path on the side of the canal, and you might have a typical Dara Happan transport. Rainfall in the Pelorian basin is poor. The area around Lake Aral might be a good comparison, both before and after the lake dried up. The Kalikos quests are in the process of drying the region up, they just haven't gone very far, yet. So there is plenty of space for sparse steppe, populated by antelopes and available to horse riders. Only they outstayed their welcome. Even cities in the middle of bogs and weeds have no problem to keep horse herds some distance away. Where there is game, there may be hunters. Probably fire-farming part of the steppe. Much like the brothers of the log. You might argue that there is Lodril (by another name) the hunter. Maybe that's the case, maybe the Earth Walkers like Gerendetho are remnants of the complementary culture of the ancient Darsenite female mysteries, maybe they are even more primeval (like e.g. Doblian's Arakang king bear). But yes, @Eff, do expound. Here if you want to tie in RQ rules aspects, over on the Glorantha forums if explicitely not.

Yes, basically everybody not an initiate of Orlanth is a lay member or associate of Orlanth, and basically everybody not an initiate of Ernalda is a lay member or associate of Ernalda. That means your assessment is correct already per Thunder Rebels. The Prince of Sartar comic shows that there are initiees who emerge from their adulthood rites as initiates of Orlanth or Ernalda. The initiation is a transformative experience and may very well make that "decision" for the magic they experienced in that rite.

How about this - both Amad and Bachad had lands / clans further west before 1611 but either lost these clans to other tribes or lost those clans' lands, being forced to accommodate them in more marginal terrain. Are you sure? I said as far as I remember. The Far Point never felt that inviting to me, for some reason I felt attracted to Wilmskirk when I wasn't involved in doing stuff for the Jonstown project of friends. I don't recall having seen any tribal distribution maps from before 1613. The only hints might be in "Military History of Dragon Pass", and that has the Far Point as a single entry. I doubt that the Tres would have been in a position to shelter the ducks. But then, for some ineffable reason, people want to see ducks everywhere, so they come up with excuses to have them. With Trollkin around, I don't see the narrative need. Alone is counted among the cities of Sartar, and is not a fortified tribal town like Runegate (which has walls and towers built by the royal dynasty anyway) or Red Cow. Among other things, this suggests that the nearby tribes (i.e. at least the Amad and Bachad) were somehow involved in the city ring and the election of the mayor. Alda-chur may be somewhat different in its participatory structure, but it has been the seat of a tribal confederation for longer than any city in Sartar. A lord of Alda-chur was a contender for the crown of Tarsh that finally went to Illaro, a generation before the arrival of Sartar. I know, I checked those sources. Sartar Rising: Barbarian Adventures was the first source to state this. The Dragon Pass gazetteer more or less copy-pasted that info, and S:KoH reprised it without much editing. The only argument I have against this is that the list of the 24 tribes of Sartar names the Maboder and the Tres in the same list. The Maboder ceased to exist in 1607. SR:BA was a source that presented Sartar in a way that I (and others) have always been critical of. Tribes (not clans) were either rebels or collaborators, were enslaved in ways that would have sent clans migrating away (e.g. to Nochet or Pavis County), or to disband. Some of those punitive methods are alleged to Fazzur's governmental era, post-Starbrow, yet for some reason the Kheldon came out of that relatively unscathed while the Aranwyth (who aren't mentioned in the rebellion) lost their magical sheep and got goats? The logistics of such a move are huge. They might be worth of a spoof scenario, really -- "10,000 goats Prax-wards", herding the life-stock from Garsting (or Kostaddi) across Balazar (or Vanch, Imther), Saird, Tarsh and the Far Point to the Aranwyth. Guarded by a unit of Lunar soldiery on a punishment mission for poor performance in the Sartar campaign, ideally one unsuited for a scouting and escort mission for a beast trek. The trek leaving behind a denuded swath of land only surpassed by the trollkin migration of the great trek from Ralios and the Elder Wilds to Dagori Inkarth, or the ravages of the Chaos Herd in the Nomad Gods boardgame (French edition). But back to Alone. IF the the original city would have been founded as an isolate from just Tarsh Exile refugees (including citizens of Bagnot), then they would surely have founded a tribe - much like the Runegate Triaty did. We might call this the Alone tribe, or it may have been an earlier form of the Tres. Put about a thousand or more Orlanthi from inhomogeneous origin together, and there will be a tribe. Terasarin founded the city in 1583, so it had 28 years of history prior to the Righteous Wind rebellion against Harvar. The city lies on a cul-de-sac without any sensible trade path except Joh Mith's secret route across the Rockwoods east of Greatway. Troll trade probably goes via the Torkani (like e.g. Bee Tribe produce), or is handled by the trolls themselves via Boldhome. This leaves artisans as the main source of economy for this new city, as per the gazetteer. The city needs a population of a few thousand farmers to feed itself. Now about 600 of these may live inside the city walls, but archaeologists suggest that a 1.5 hour walk between the city and the fields makes this economically unviable (at least that's a statement I found for the Tripolye copper age culture which had mega-settlements in a very fertile plain). Even if the immediate area around the city is that highly fertile, food production for the city demands food being grown somewhat further away. And the terrain makes transport to the city harder than a flat land like around Nochet would provide. So, if the city of Alone was to be functional without support of the Amad or Bachad, it would have had to have a tribe of about 2000 people or more. Much of this population may have been killed or carried away into slavery by Harvar and his minions, and have been re-populated by Far Point dissidents escaping the same fate. But much of Alone's artisan population would have been carried away into slavery, toiling away in places like Tarsh or Sylila. Or possibly bought by Esrolians or Grazelanders. Having such an enslaved expat population provides scenario hooks in itself. I would move their territory slightly further west than it is now, with eastern areas which used to be marginal pasture now are taken under the plow. Having clans forcibly relocate or change allegiance gives you a very similar starting situation. As for the Tres, it is up to you whether they collected entire clans or just smaller groups of dissidents/likely targets for assassination/harrassment. My solution would be to have the Tres as the tribal construct for the Tarshite immigrants - especially those doing agriculture a little further away from the city walls, becoming decimated in Harvar's pogromes and a welcome receptible for Far Point dissidents.

True, the Kachasti (or Kachisti for the Genertelan ones, as per God Learner maps and comments) spread out into Hykimi lands in the Golden Age. According to the God Learner map on p.683 in the Guide, the late Golden Age. The commensurate maps in the Sourcebook depict the earliest arrival of Neliom in the northwest and some Waertagi dragonships there, or fail to show Brithos at all but have Luathela in the Lesser Darkness (post-Flood) map. This leaves the mythic maps from Revealed Mythologies for the west, which suffer from their disjunction with the Monomyth, providing the Actions instead. The PDF has square color maps where my print edition still has hand-drawn triangular maps drawn by Greg, with a fair bit of extra information. Most Hykimi have (or have been associated with) ties to some elemental rune. Occasionally more than one. Earth as the mother of the land based beasts by Hykim, Storm as the founder of most mammals, Sky for birds, Earth for lizards and snakes. There are three advanced descendants of Hykimi origins in western Genertela: the Pendali (related to the Basmoli), the Enjoreli (related to the Tawari) and the Enerali (related to the Galanini, who may themselves only be borderline Hykimi hsunchen). Some of the Serpent Brotherhood beast folk are pretty sophisticated, too, including the Pralori, the Telmori and possibly the southern branch of the Rathori (Resanti?) from whom Jonat claims his descent. I am on board with the suggestion that the ones who sparked the feats of civilization like temple cities may have been the Kachasti.

No need - there is an island off the shore of Vithalash which has a giant Walktapus sleeping beneath the waves. The island shares the name of a ruin on Pohnpei... Whichever evil star(s) spawned that one probably were cast out of the sky along with the Sky Terror. (There are also Deep Ones beneath the Kahar Sea.) Missing Lands mentions that the (sapient) sperm whales have some sapient opposition by giant cephalopods. Not that surprising given the abundance of intelligent fish - even at a rate of one in a million, intelligent fish may outnumber every other intelligent life forms of the seas grouped together. On the other hand, sharks are notorious for their toothy smiles. Their curiosity makes them bite any object that somehow awakens their interest. A possible candidate for a Trickster of the Seas. Given their bleak afterlife prospects, dour acknowledgement of fate sounds like a Triolini trait. The Keet Migration myth may be the response to the trick the keet sage Kerendak played absentmindedly on Endaralath, making him too light to rejoin his home body of water. Missing Lands p.20 knows Endaralath as the Sea King of the Togaron Seas, with two spouses - Ermanthver and Sshorg. Apparently, the curse of lightness was lifted, as Endaralath is reported to swim around with his "court" of Ludoch and other subjects in the Sshorg current. This makes Endaralath's experience of separation from the Ocean different from Heler's. A species may have several ancestors. Both these versions and the Varchulanga origin aren't mutually exclusive except for some first generation individuals. Also, given the biological sex flexibility of both Hsunchen and Water deities, the darkness entity coupling with Tholaina may very well have been Molakka. In case of external fertilization, the question which partner provided sperm and which one provided the eggs may be philosophical rather than practical, too.

Much like with other females who don't join Ernalda but some other deity (like Chalana Arroy or Lhankor Mhy or Issaries), the adulthood rites won't result in Ernalda initiation even if the rites are Ernaldan in nature, but the new adult will be in a limbo between adulthood initiation (can and will be taught spirit magic) and cultic initiation (access to Rune Magic). Male initiation with the goal of joining another cult than Orlanth will go through the Second Son rite but won't emerge as an initate of Orlanth. But then, many a future initiate of Orlanth may not receive the cultic initiation at his adulthood rite but might have to undergo another Orlanth rite to assert initiatehood. In RQG terms, a character emerging from the adulthood rites with runes that don't support cult membership with Ernalda (yet) will be in the non-initiated adult group. I don't see any problem with a vingan-gendered person still pursuing some Ernaldan speciality cult (e.g. as low entertainer, potter, weaver) as initiate. The Rattling Wind from the upcoming Pegasus Plateau has a (biologically) male Ernaldan NPC. Unmarried, possibly a-sexual or homo-sexual. (Although that may be over-interpreting the author's intentions, giving a number of slight Glorantha glitches in the alpha-release for the We All Are Us memorial scenario.) It happens to male and female gendered individuals, too. Humakti usually aren't agender. The Wooden Sword's Naimless/the nameless Humakti is a mother (of an invisible child). Not fulfilling the social role of a mother, of course - that's what the bloodline is for, even after separation from the clan - but still the biological mother, and probably has female gender. If Naimless is vingan by gender (though not cult), she seems to prefer or at least accept biological males as sexual partners. Sexual orientation and gender identification can be separate things. Especially when orientation isn't binary. Londra of Londros may be vingan by gender. She is described as biologically female, but might have asexual orientation. Sexual orientation of the various genders comes with a certain load of expectations, but when it isn't exactly binary, the exceptions to the expectations aren't that remarkable.

There is the Kraken, champion of the Sea forces, in Sandy's Gods War, and fought by Harrek in Prince of Sartar. The Jrusteli systematic may have placed cephalopods as mollusks (darkness animals) or as sea-spawn. If sea-spawn, they could be descended from Tholaina (daughter of Triolina) or from Varchulanga. The Kraken (singular) mentioned above is a spawn of Varchulanga and presumably Drospoly. The elephant seal in Anaxial's Roster (with ivory tusks and a manipulatory trunk like the pachyderms) has a Trickster-esque backstory.

Good luck with that! There are more neighbors to take into consideration - a dragonewt nest city half a day's walk from the city, and the Chaos from the Hollow (that luckily has to cross troll country to get there). Occasional giants (keep those spiked trap houses in shape!) and other monsters (like unsupervised insect herds of the aforementioned trolls). The presence of the "newts is probably the best argument why few of the neighboring Far Pointers sent their herds here. The 'newts might take their unscheduled tribute from the herds now and then, but that may still be preferable to the Lunars taking the herd as unscheduled tribute. As far as I remember, the Amad, Bachad and Tres were present for the founding of Alone. They may have held some land and/or clans further west of their current lands. The land consists of forested hills, with only recently cleared valley bottoms. There may have been trollking - likely feral ones - browsing on this land before the arrival of the humans. Since the trollkin likely retreated towards the Indigo Mountains, the Redstone troll hunters don't really have cause for complaints. I first encountered the Dinacoli via the Jonstown project of Ingo Tschinke, even slightly before King of Sartar appeared on my radar. I did some research into them as part of my research that went into Heroes of Wisdom, and at Convulsion 94 I managed to get back feedback from Greg that they were Yelmalio rather than Elmal-worshipping Orlanthi from the north - a fact that I worked into my cattle raid/dragonewt RQ3 scenario that was published in Free INT and Tradetalk (also credited to Ingo). I wrote that scenario under the assumption that the Dinacoli were anything but hoplites in their worship of Yelmalio. The open plains of their terrain (the Donalf flats) lend themselves to horse-back herding of cattle (and possibly other herds). Their lands were right in the path of the Telmori migration that had ended a few years before Sartar's intercession in the Telmori wars. I assume that that arrival may have led to a couple of re-locations of clans in that area. The Woods of the Dead might be a Dinacoli-made problem, or Brangbane may have become a Dinacoli by adoption. i am not entirely clear whether Sartar's transformation magic created that monster from a different kind of human species monster, or whether that story is just about a possession by the much older evil from the Woods of the Dead. The background given for the Amad and Bachad and Tres tribes in Sartar: Kingdom of Heroes (and Barbarian Adventures and Dragon Pass: Land of Thunder before that) makes it sound like the city of Alone had no tribal support at all at the time Terasarin built it for Tarsh Exile allies. I don't quite trust those conclusions. If DP:LoD is correct, Harvar slaughtered (or sold into slavery) about half the Tarsh Exile population of Alone, and all the tribal (i.e. Amad and Bachad) Far Point inhabitants. The concept of Alone starting out in a Hidden Valley sounds like a romantic remembrance to the start of Bagnot and Arim's Kingdom, and might be something like a quest of the inhabitants to establish themselves and their identity. DP:LoD names a couple of inhabitants of Alone, but fails to mention Griselda's kin. Many of whom were paraded or at least reported to Olaf Dickin's Son in Pavis... This means that Griselda speaks Tarshite as her native language, with Heortling only her second (or third/fourth language, alongside Tradetalk and Darktongue). The Torkani would have respected trollkin ranges, the displaced Far Pointers probably would not. Land previously haunted by feral trollkin is likely to have patches denuded of vegetation - possibly an easy start to have some agriculture or pasture after taking it over. Canonical material: Troll Pak, especially the Dagori Inkarth map of the RQ2 version. The only Master Map quality map published for any part of Sartar. At least until we are going to see the RQG starter pack. The RQ3 version of that map is somewhat distorted, but that is a general problem with RQ3 era maps of Genertela that weren't reprints of RQ2 era maps. Possibly some incidental mention of the Alone tribes, and a description of the Vale of Flowers to the north. RQ2 Companion has the obscure fragment "The Harlot of Alone", without much concrete information, but possibly a mood piece for the aftermath of Harvar's counterstrike against the Cold Wind rebellion. Previously published in one of the earliest Wyrm's Footprints. HQ1 Dragon Pass: Land of Thunder. Canonicity depending on the source given for the entries. Repeats the tribal descriptions from Sartar Rising:Barbarian Adventures and expands on the locations. Thunder Rebels has even iless on this corner of Sartar. Non-canonical: The Griselda stories involving her (surviving) family members. I haven't checked the scenario hooks of Snake Pipe Hollow for Alone references. If there are any, they won't give you much info, but possibly something unmentioned in the previously listed sources.

Temporarily: Grab a weapon, dye your hair, and declare yourself at the Ernalda shrine/temple as on a sabbatical. Then join the warband. By initiation? Trickier. As a femally plumbed child, your adulthood initiation was in all likelihood a private ceremony that had to do with your first bleeding. That means that you didn't quite get the Evil Uncles experience the other boys got. You may apply for cultic initiation into Orlanth, and might join the boys when they continue onward to their very private meeting with the Second Son. On your return, you'll be an initiate of Orlanth, and in all likelihood of Vinga as well. There are no guidelines how a character lacking either sort of plumbing is initiated to adulthood. I suppose that bearded uncle who presides over the Orlanth rites might be a target for persuasion by a tomboy, too. She probably will be already an adult (see above). Get some Storm magic, and then you can look out for other red-haired women and hope that one of them will have learned about the handshake and whom to ask for deeper mysteries. Possibly someone from outside of your clan. Nothing wrong with having testicles if you have a womb to accompany them? Or not having a womb when you also lack testicles?

Dozens of sketches of Gloranthan warriors or soldiers, with textual context (although in many cases that context needs to be looked up elsewhere in the document). "... and this is how they look like." Not indexed (yet). An army listing for the units of the Dragon Pass boardgame and a multitude of units from adjacent areas that haven't been put into a Dragon Pass game yet. Trivia for many a unit your characters may encounter or even be offered to join.

Depends what you mean by "neither role"? A mythical role that is completely asexual - probably to the utter frustration of the Trickster in his Seductress aspect. While Humakt comes close, the consistent use of the male pronoun suggests that somewhere there dangles another kind of sword. Apart from the Orlanth and to a lesser degree Lhankor Mhy, the Lightbringers aren't very gendered. Eurmal seduces just about any encounter he feels like, whether the Underworld guardian Sinjota or the son of the Only Old One. The Issaries roles Harst, Garzeen and Goldentongue are presented as male, and only Etyries is presented as female. Garzeen even is sent on an impossible groom quest (which he apparently fails to complete, being the middle son). Chalana is the mother of Arroin. But their roles in society are open to either reproductive sex aspect and any gender. Any gender is different from neutral gender. I was wondering about that, hence my question. There must be such a myth and such a role, since the biological sex and the gender exists in Glorantha. I myth, therefore I am.

I wouldn't say "cannot", and instead say "mostly not". After all, Jeff said "Orlanthi would understand most Vinga cultists as "biological female"" (emphasis mine). Yes. There is no mention whether and how a hermaphrodite or a (born) neuter can join either Vinga or Nandan, or identify as their gender. Are there any temples to VInga? Maybe there is an all-(biologically)female warband with a Storm temple of their own somewhere in Glorantha, but I have no idea where to look for it. Not in Kheldon or Colymar lands despite their Vingan queens. A Nandan on a revenge trip might die her hair red. But that is approaching a Shakespeare actor (male, of course) playing a female character posing as her brother persuaded to wear drag. It takes a very attentive audience to keep track of this... Quests, interactions with Eurmal. Possibly an involuntary biological sex change or exchange halfway into the quest... But like I said, too many flips and flops and the point of being Vingan will be gone with the wind. In that case, the player should choose a biologically female character and munchkin away. The character may still grow her own moustache.

The same Yelmalian that finally bit it cut down or hacked apart two victims before turning his attention to Biturian. I don't think those two "happened to die". Biturian returned from the doorstep of death by the sacrifice of his ally windwhistler. But he may just have been a little over-enthusiastic in a friendly bout? A Yelmalian using a fire elemental? Yes, the cult description n Cult of Prax gives Light Priests access to small and medium salamanders. I'm baffled.

Are you commenting on the Pavis Survivors tribe out in the chaparral, or are you addressing the semi-sedenary lords of Zebra Fort here? I would never have assumed that a military unit carries along all the unique breeding stock of their mounts. While they are likely to have a herd of remounts and some supernumerary breeding studs along to keep them supplied with cavalry zebras, the military unit is a mercenary outfit rather than a tribe. The Zebra Riders are a weird mix of Pure Horse Folk traditions, inheritances of their time as warrior nobility of Old Pavis, and life as a Praxian tribe raiding herds from the Covenant and trading with the Pol Joni for their brood mares for cavalry zebras. During the Inhuman Occupation they may have made deals with the Marcher Barons for brood mares. Some of that might still be on-going, despite the much greater role the Pol Joni horses play in their breeding. Zebra Fort in Pavis has seen significant updates in its fortifications under Cyrilius Harmonius, and is a choice piece of real estate in the Rubble, with a good-sized population. Apart from the strong zebra rider inheritance shared by many Old Pavisites dating back to the Imperial Age, the inhabitants had almost three generations of Zebra Rider admixture (from a privileged/noble position), increasing zebra rider inheritance and identification even among those families that were sedentary inhabitants of Zebra Fort when Dorasar arrived. The Lunar invasion sent the Zebra Fort nobility tied to Olgkarth out of the Rubble/into hiding, but not the entirety of the local zebra breeders and their agricultural and horse breeder allies. At the time of Argrath's conquest, the resident horse breeders may have camouflaged their brood mares (and the occasional horse stallion to maintain those brood mare lines) with stripes to save them from Praxian zealots. We know from the Kraken seminar that key non-Lunar strongholds in the Rubble get new overlords selected by Argrath, with the example of a (female?) Alkothi holding the title (and apparently also the power) of the Real City. I find it unlikely to assume that Zebra Fort would escape such a fate, but there is a distinct possibility that there was a sufficiently influential Zebra Rider among the White Bull host who may have called dibs on that ancestral stronghold. Only Pavis: Gate to Adventure made it clear that Hargran the Dirty was a not random bandit from outside of the Zebra Tribe but a Zebra Tribe bandit who saw his chance to use the Lunars to return to his birthplace as a ruler. No - the name "Pavis Royal Guard" apparently originates with Hargran's claim to be the King of Old Pavis. The previous institution called themselves the "Pavis Survivors", and probably joined the nomadic branch of the Zebra Tribe during their exile, or the Pol Joni that their great-grandfathers hid amongst. IMO those of the PRG who value survival over previous (Lunar) ties agree to become part of Argrath's core followers. Whether Hargran still leads them is another question, but I am fairly convinced that many of the Lunar-friendly recruits to his Royal Guard now transfer that Royal Guard loyalty to the new King of Pavis. The non-native Zebra riders are likely to be among the unit that leaves. Any children they may have left at the fort grow up as members of the sedentary part of the Zebra Tribe. The Kyreming lineage of Opili's Fort possibly fell already to Joras Toran, or if some managed to survive hiding, the Kaggroka Clan will have eaten them later. The Real City receives an Alkothi female as overseer. Now there is an NPC waiting to be published...

Not all adventures need to invoke the combat rules or agility skills. Sure, your players of Humakt and Yelmalio initiates will cry "foul play", but they do hog quite a lot of spotlight in a normal session with combat. Ok, let them have a duel.

From this, I take that people who have only the "biologically male" flag activated cannot be Vingans, and that people who have only the "biologically female" flag activated cannot be Nandans. That still leaves the rare cases of people who have both (herm) or neither (ba, to use the terms of Bujold's Vorkosigan Saga) flag active. Either are androgynes, one sort doubly functional without any magic, the other doubly non-functional and requring magic to act reproductively in either role. Then we have the biological and social roles of "father" and "mother". Nandans can become biological mothers under the right (magical) circumstances, and can fill the social role easily. Vingans can take the social role of father or husband easily, but there are no myths of Vinga impregnating another woman. (Why not? Or is it "Not yet"?) Then we have sex-changing magic (looking at but not limited to Eurmal) or nature (Heler). Helering gender can take any social role except for neither. Is there any deity for the neither role? She doesn't have the mother role any more (where high ranking cultists have to sacrifice their baby boys)?

Of the sons of Yelm listed in the Cult Compendium write-up, Golden Bow feels the most like Kargzant, althouh Hastatus and Sagittus probably are Lightfore deities, too. Golden Bow and Sagittus even provide the same rune spell to their father. That write-up probably was produced in preparation for the RQ3 Gods of Glorantha box, and then skipped along with 24 other Rune Owner long cult write-ups for the short "mechanical facts only" version that was printed by AH. Many of the local deity names are still conforming to the Gods of Light nomenclature. We don't see Tolat/Jagrekriand either.