Joerg

I never touched that rule, but then in all likelihood my RQ3 or RQG games hardly ever violated it either. (I have yet to play RQ2 RAW...) But then, create a sufficiently big magic point matrix, and that's your source. You can refill it from various sources. Besides INT (or nowadays CHA), available POW usually was the limiting factor for spellcasting. Even if you had a matrix or crystal, someone had to fill it, and my games didn't have spirit farms.

Yes. You can boost any kind of spell, with no upper limit for the extra magic points, but those points will only overcome countermagic and similar effects and won't add to the spell's intensity/effect. This is how I read the Countermagic effects: To get past a Shield 2, you need a spell of a total of 5 or more MP. To get past a Countermagic 4, you need 6 or more MP. That fuzzy extra MP is the weak bonus the spirit spell gives over the more "permanent" rune spell side effects, at the price of faltering in the face of the first spell strong enough to get through. The topic of stacking Countermagic on top of Shield or Berserk or similar spells with Countermagic side effects was discussed exhaustively (and not entirely conclusively) a good while ago.

A spirit (or ghost) bound into a beast or other such monster (like a zombie) becomes embodied. RQG has rules for that, and I suppose those were inherited from RQ2. A creature is not an object or a place. There is nothing to stop you from giving the object the ghost is bound into to the zombie, or even integrate it into its body, but then the ghost won't be bound into the body of the zombie but into that object. Creating a zombie takes quite a bit of magical effort and resources. Binding the ghost into a herd-man is a lot less effort and gives you that entity in a new (and possibly more strapping) body.

Basically, if it is your job to provide food or to increase the herd or to harvest grain, and you manage to outdo your plan target/reasonably expected outcome, you will be entitled to a share of that extra outcome. If you breed an especially fine bull, you will get priority stud rights (along with other peoples' priority rights, that is). Basically, when given a job by the chief or a similar authority, that job-giving authority is entitled to the loot or otherwise success of the task. A hunter sent to make meat for the clan will be expected to bring meat equivalent to the time he is away. Herders on the transhumant pastures are entitled to the milk or at least the whey from cheese-making, as there is no sensible way to bring that stuff back to the village. But then, it will have been figured into their foodstuff allocation for that time already. A free person can proclaim their own tasks, outside of "work for the clan", and call in favors to gain some support for this task (e.g. a steed, camp gear, armor, weapons). That way, the person acts as the task-giver, and has a claim to the profits, and a responsibility for the cost and risk of that undertaking. (Which may mean weregeld to be paid...)

I don't think that clan wyters have an uplink to tribal or national wyters (except when the clan holds rites/sacrifices especially dedicated to the tribe or the nation). The clan wyter usually serves as the conduit of the sacrificed magic to whichever deity (or deities) the rite addresses. If you live in a city, you will attend rites where you sacrifice to the city wyter. When you visit a temple, you are expected to sacrifice some magic to the temple wyter. The tribal wyter is in the end just a special case of a temple wyter. As part of a hero band or war band, you will sacrifice to that band's wyter. The smaller your band, the bigger your sacrifice... Similar if you join a warrior society or similar secret society. A well socialized character may have half a dozen wyters he may give regular sacrifice. I am not entirely sure that a POW sacrifice is required to become a member of a ship's crew or a warband. Lay members who contribute magic are usually welcome.

There is also the question whether you haul your catch in to the village, or whether you stick it out in your hunting hideout (or possibly lodge) far away from your clan, and consume it over a week or two, or barter some of it away for a new supply of arrow-tips and glue from a settlement nearby that is not part of your clan. Hunters will turn their prey into pemmican or jerky or venison, and venison includes aging the meat for a while, giving them the opportunity to amass quite a bit of meat, hides, horn and special parts before making their trek back to the clan. You are aware that "elk-hunting" means red deer? But WRT moose hunting, don't you have to buy a license to shoot a moose first? But I am thankful to see a discussion on personal property and clan loans and how the individuals who leave "cash in" their previous efforts when they leave their former workplace to the clan - tilled fields, herds brought through the winter, hay, construction (house, outbuildings, fences...). For a real world example, what to people leaving a kibbuz get?

Binding a spirit renders it unable to initiate spirit combat. You'll have to release spirits in crystals or matrices, but you can do so giving them the command to do their job and return to the binding. It is possible to enchant a zombie to have spirit binding enchantments, but given the perishable nature of zombies, this doesn't strike me as a good strategy. A jolanti, on the other hand, would be fine. There is a creature similar to this on the Cradle - Blorn the Statue, animated by the spirit of Urrgh the Ugly.

Actually, the clans usually don't have a hall in the city, but their tribes have. Individuals from the clan will be living in the city, but their status in relation to the clan is vague as they can be at best semi-active in the worship of the clan wyter-centered rites. As one of the constituent tribes to the Jonstwn ring. The tribal hall will be the first place for any clansman or -woman of the Dolutha as well as the Red Cow to gravitate to, if only because they have no idea how and where to find those Cinsina from their own clans. Once a clanperson becomes a permanent resident of the city, she can join a guild (an urban clan based on occupation) or remain a follower of the tribe with the clan identity still at their birth/marriage clan, though represented through the tribe. If you live in the city, you miss most of the holy days of your clan as you are likely to attend the rites in your city. The role of the Sartarite tribe in the religious life of the clansfolk has never been described that well. The concept of the tribal Rex temple as a major economical force with a significant number of tenants in itself leaves the question whether those tenants are directly affiliated to the tribe and not to some clan, or whether the tribal tenants are external (royal) tenants distributed over the constituent clans of the tribe, or whether the tribal temple has no tenants but officers inside their respective clans with clan tenants to take care of their material needs. There is also the question what happens when a tribal king retires or dies. His personal retainers may be orphaned by this, requiring a new leader they can pledge their allegiance to, or they can follow their king (into retirement or death). The new king may wish to retain some of his predecessor's aides and officers, and will seek to replace others who have ties to the new king's opponents inside the tribe. Assuming that an individual or the individual with spouse and children decides to leave the clan for the tribal city, what property may the individual carry off to the city? How much is handing over a well-kept field or garden in terms of gaining some starting wealth to establish oneself in the city and its quite different economy? Do the city dwellers of a tribe count as direct followers of the tribal king`? Would they form a quasi-clan? What about tribal folk holding the manor or some other homes in Boldhome? What about some folk establishing themselves in Karse or Nochet?

The often toted "nordic" theme is a case of a ready set of hammers to screw in this lightbulb... The Alt Right are violent, use runes (e.g. Beast), aren't particularly literate, and worship Stormy Daniels with a prominent Trickster... Some have orange skin. Picts or it didn't happen? That blue pigment cabbage apparently invaded from Anatolia alongside agriculture, according to the German language Wikipedia. (English Wikipedia starts with woad in Britain... I begin to see the cultural problem.) Woad seems to act as an astringent, reducing the bleeding from minor cuts. Nordic people don't seem to have painted themselves with that stuff. The few weeks of summer are too short to develop a culture of wearing body paint, and the mosquitoes quell any urge to go sky-clad quickly. Funny, that - the myths about shield maidens appear to be as truthful as the reports on the amazons on the Black Sea. Nordic society appears to have had no taboo against females taking up arms, but there are about as many woman warriors in the Sagas as there are warrior princesses in Harem Nights or Mulan. It is funny, too, that the condemned source of patriarchalism - the Pontic Steppe horse riders - had warrior princess burials. With the tribal tats that Sartarites feature. Funnily, I froth from my lips about the "land-locked Myceneans" - that's damn close to land-locked Minoans or land-locked Polynesians. The Hittites don't evoke much in terms of "this is their signature look" - mostly nude guys with shields, or some non-descript partial armor. Three-man chariot teams, with driver, tank (shield-holder) and (presumably noble) missileer. Altogether a Dara Happan vibe for me. Transhumant herding and warrior farmers? I don't quite see that, although Anatolia has the topography for that. Cattle raids? So they only have the five Lightbringer cults, Humakt, and Ernalda? Maybe Yinkin and Yelmalio on the side? Already Odayla gets blurry at the borders...

The Amber Road I was talking about is the Copper Age or older route that provided amber from the cold north to places like Egypt. Probably the luxury good that gave the Myceneans something the Minoans and those beyond would desire. The Unetice folk of Nebra disk fame were intermediaries on this route, as were the Carpathian/Danubian folk who managed to maintain the continental Bronze trade when the Mediterranean and the Fertile Crescent underwent a total close-down of their trade routes. The salt trade is woefully under-developed in Glorantha, and drowned aldryami (to produce amber) are ubiquitious - all of the dry side of the cube was once covered by sprawling greenery, and two thirds of that are now submerged. But then the Spondilus trade into the continent or the production of Wampum in North America, or the Kauri shell all show a weird appreciation on mollusc-based wealth and luxuries throughout the world. What's up with that? The wonderful clichéed imagery of the Silk Road across the Steppes does of course combine Fantasy China with Fantasy Persia... Cultural appropriation and all that. Those are at least grown (and built) to exist in wave action. The Hittites with their strictly continental empire are one of the few Bronze Age cultures where we don't have to ignore their heavy reliance on naval trade and transport. Imagine Germany without Autobahn. Go, hit tights? That's sexual harrassment, man. The Hittites spoke a language related to Armenian or Iranian and whatever cultures were active on the Pontic Steppe at the time. Do we have any information on the Mitanni language? Their pattern of expansion and conquest suggests that they too came from the Pontic Steppe.

Literally, it means something like "grumbler" or "mutterer". Having been there since before the Breaking of the World is part of that, too, but the spirit of contrariness is implicit in the term

We are dealing with a world where the deities take an interest and push their favorite avatars into the limelight. Of course there will be a limit to elected positions. Tribal kings are elected by the tribal moot, a body more sizeable than most urban populations. The Grandmothers in Esrolia are a lot more civilized than the Sartarite kings and mayors, but they are savage despots and autocrats, elected only if the previous Grandmother passes away without having arranged her succession, and by a small gremium of eligible successors. Even Vingkotling dynasties relying on a descent from the Founder are voted into their job, by both the populace (through acclamation, or withholding that as a form of veto) and by the gods (see the rocky start of Salinarg's Princeship). On the contrary, Orlanthi exposure to this violence made them think up organizations like the Unity Council or the Ring of Orlanthland. There are Other Ways that are integral to Orlanthi society. Orlanth probably has married in a more diverse group of follwers to his camp than Ernalda ever had to her throne. It is Orlanth who brings in the Lightbringers, few of which have a working relationship with Ernalda. Both Elmal and Heler may have been wooing Ernalda before encountering and befriending Orlanth across a battlefield or duel ground, but Orlanth doesn't need any uxorial prompting to invite them to his tribe. That's what makes Yelm's and Malkion's regimes so much more civilized than Ernalda's queendom?

I fail to see "nordic" elements in the pass as much as I profess an almost complete absence of hints of Mediterranean things to be seen in the Pass. The only things that are necessarily part of Asia Minor in the Pass are coinage and alphabetic script. Everything else is window-dressing to countermand badly informed associations. Even Step Pyramids. The Silk Road is likely to be better known than the Amber Road or the various Salt Roads which describe the trade across Dragon Pass probably better. The greater Danube region offers just about everything in terms of archeological finds that defines their material culture and life-style. For environmental and additional cultural influences, pre-Columbian America offers a wealth of prospects, but the agriculture of Glorantha is decidedly Old World, and apart from the rice cultivation everywhere outside of the greater Pass region, there is nothing in Genertela that isn't found in Old Europe, too. Admittedly often brought by new waves of immigration or conquest. Primary production (i.e. how people feed themselves) is an essential driving force in the shape of their cultures. Ignoring those factors for a "rule of cool" might enrichen your personal game for a while, but I find that highly detrimental to the integrity of the setting. Sometimes, the over-reliance on the Mediterranean parallels is worse than North or Baltic Sea equivalents. Triremes as a navy using Dormal's Opening are about as sensible as Formula One cars for Uber taxis. The Homeward Ocean is about as clement as the Biscaya or the Pacific off California. If you can surf the waves, there is no way an Aegean trireme will be able to make more than a day trip into those waters, Ben Hur be damned.

"Blind Cave Oxen" is my association whenever I read some claim that this or that publication is to be no longer considered useful for extracting Glorantha information. Even some worst case personal interpretations and additions like in HW Glorantha-Introduction to the Hero Wars and Blood over Gold, or some of my own rather under-informed Aeolian writings. Glorantha has always been a work in progress, and progress comes with false starts which then need to be retroactively corrected or re-fitted. Some high and mighty disdain for fan-published or too loosely licensed publications may go too far. I wore the hat of a fact checker for Gloranthan canon for about a decade while I assembled a collection of sources and source quotes of the then far distributed lore. Unlike the overly dogmatic approach of the Glorantha Wikia which has seen a cleansing of articles that possibly beats the book burnings of the Third Reich, I think that a - suitably marked up - presentation of previous descriptions gives a much better service to all those people who stumble across some oldtimer's opinion informed on older sources or played campaigns. There are problems with every rules-set used for describing Glorantha, and with every publication made for it. (Just today I noticed two minor factual mistakes in the Guide, presumed to be our most sacrosanct document...) Then there are cases where people disregard the important maxim "parallels aren't", courtesy of Nick Brooke in the last decade of the last millennium. Just because Loskalm is described with terms paralleling Platon's Republic doesn't mean in any way that the state that evolve in the shelter of the Ban is a 1:1 carbon copy of the few sentences Platon puts into the mouths of Socrates and his opponents in the "Politeia" dialogues. (Platon fails to provide a concise and organized proposal for that ideal republic in those dialogues, preferring to guide and tease the readers in a similar way his protagonist Socrates does in the dialogues.) The biggest salvage job ticket that I see right now is the Malkioni material in pre-Guide publications. The new canon avoids terms like "church", "knight", "bishop", "saint". Except where those terms keep creeping back into the canon, or weren't completely excised. Both Revealed Mythologies and Middle Sea Empire spend a significant amount on their descriptions of the Malkioni on the development of the church. Even just a replacement of that term using a thesaurus will take a lot of work and insight, changing the reader's impression away from Late Roman or Dark Ages Christianity or more recent schisms. The Abiding Book is the magical equivalent to the political expediency that drove Irenaeus copy-editing of the gospels and that directed the Nicaean council. It avoids the person of a prophet hearing the whispers of the omnipotent god and writing them down in verses. Both these parallels point to the monotheistic world religions of our world and may cause similarly unwanted associations as do comparisons to Roman Iron Age, the Roman Empire, the East Roman Empire, Ireland, Anglo-Saxon Britain (including Arthurian), or China. (Not to mention the unforgivable crime of cultural appropriation...) Are there people out there intending to ruin your Glorantha experience? Possibly yes. But for all my occasional disagreements about presentation of facts by the current publishers of Glorantha these are people who put their livelihood into the survival of our shared hobby, and the last thing Jeff and the rest of the crew want is to alienate the Tribe.

I know I am a grognard, no need to give you the permission to call me one. Still, the Four Worlds and their collision pre-existing the Shattering of the World make a better story to me. The fault lines of the Breaking of the World (the bottomless trenches of the Doom Currents) follow roughly the ancient borders of the pre-collision Four Worlds, with the southwestern trench slanted to the side rather than vertical, and about to be pulled shut by the Somelz project of the Mostali at the Capstan of Jrustela. So yes, the Shattering of the Spike undid some of the previous unification of the worlds. But it takes a whole lot of useful material e.g. in Revealed Mythologies but also elsewhere into the shredder to claim that there were no such separate realms beforehand. Too much of a retcon for me.

IMO that's because (a) Hyalor (and his comrade Kuschile) only came among the Nivorah refugees as a heroic teacher, possibly with a small band of followers from the Garden. Probably riding Goldeneye Hyal horses rather than the seredae of Gamara. From this small separate group, Beren's Elmali and the Vuranostrum kernel for the future Pure Horse Folk of Prax probably were splinter groups.

Orlanthi tribes in a city may be a bit closer to Jets vs. Sharks than they are to Capulets vs. Montagues, but West Side Story is Romeo and Juliet nonetheless. The tribal city confederations of Sartar create sufficient stability that there was just one case of Brexit - the Dinacoli left the Jonstown confederation in 1613 to join up with Alda-chur. The destruction of the Maboder in 1607, that of the Kultain 1619 and the replacement of the Dundealos by the Enstalos are the only other recorded changes in tribal composition of the cities in Sartar. Nochet with its Enfranchised Houses and the numerous lesser client houses and clients' client houses is just a slightly less egalitarian assortment of clans in tribes, with multiple clienthood possible if I take Harald's (aka @jajagappa) Nochet campaign notes on rpg-geek and surrounding discussions as an alpha-version of what the Nochet Book will bring. Tribalism inside cities, city-states or states with lots of bureaucratic deep state isn't anything unusual. Orlanthi cities have a mayor, the elected leader of the city ring (on which there usually are the tribal kings of the constituent tribes, the guild leader, and high priests of the most important temples in the city). Since the constituent tribes often prefer not to elect one of the other tribal kings, the guild representatives may get a greater share in mayorhod than the kings.

Lokamayadon's quest to reach the High Storm Tarumath may be the closest any quester may have come to achieve that. I don't think that the God Learners would have done much of that - they were after the runic attributes and powers of the deities and couldn't care less for their personalities or preferences. A few Storm Gods allowed themselves to be tamed, but usually for the promise of marital bliss (by Sea or Earth goddesses). Aerlit even sired the prophet of Logic, and Kahar achieved Stillness in his meditative quest to get the hand and body of Harantara. A number of "aspects of Sedenya" likely underwent some editing to do away with overly Yelmic traits, e.g. Davu. Mr. Bombastic, aka Lover Lover? More appropriate for Tolat on Trowjang. The Godunya Rune is manifested in his bridges, acting both as mundane bridges for his mortal subjects and as the Kralori version of Dragonewt Roads for the eastern 'Newts and sufficiently enlightened draconic sages. There doesn't seem to be a dragonewt-rune-like ensemble of structures in Kralorela, the three (big) dragonewt cities of the islands off the Genertelan Mainland don't align in any recognizable runic pattern (any more?), and we have no information whether they are connected by magical roads other than the Bridge reaching the northern one. There is no evidence for earlier dragon emperors having made use of this geographical pattern, and it is unclear whether Yanoor or Shang-Hsa MHNBC used the symbol. RQ3 Gods of Glorantha gave it to the Immanent Masters as well as to Godunya. Godunya had visited the EWF - possibly early enough to meet Obduran the Flyer. He fairly certainly visited and used the dragonewt roads of the Pass and was aware of their pattern. The Immanent Masters are attested for the EWF, and Isgangdrang's personal "accelerated dragon worship" appears to have been a variation thereof. The God Learners were familiar with dragonewts from Ryzel in Maniria (then Slontos). They probably knew the dragonewt rune, and Gilam D'Estau might have used his limited insight into the Dragonewt or even just the Beast rune to subvert Yanoor's empire. The Beast Rune was described as depicting a dragon's scale. (Even though it looks like Truth inside Law upside down.) That's Dara Happan society, or rather Yelmic society, which admittedly spread out over all of civilized Peloria, but Dendara appears to have played a role in Darsen and Pelanda outside of Yelmic context as well. The celestial wife of Yelm certainly goes well with Light and Harmony. Her planet (or orb) rose up from below - it isn't clear whether the other (city) orbs of Dara Happa (as shown in the Copper Tablets) rose from the city towers (much like Yelm did, helplessly, when Oslira came) or whether they descended from their father Yelm much like the Three Brothers (of Fire: Lodril, Yelm, Dayzatar) had done. It is known for subcult entities to change or add runes compared to the main deity. That doesn't mean they have no trace of the rune that they don't display, it just says that this runic association is not one of the primary ones. If he was acculturated at Genert's court, his conduct must have been pretty scandalous to those taking the Dara Happan court for their definition of civilized behavior. I think that his people were the original Hyalorings, the horse cavalry serving the Earth God. Possibly avilry and griffin riders, too. At some time, they must have offended the Founders of the Animal Nomads of the southern (core) part of Genert's Garden. Spurning Eiritha? This might even be behind Storm Bull's absence from the Battle of Earthfall. We never got an explanation for that. The enmity might have extended to Tada, or may have exempted him. Morphologically, I find it hard to derive the equilateral triangle from the square or vice versa. If you take four dragonewt runes and arrange them so that their bases fit into a square, a Godunya rune with an extra star inscribed would result, but that's the closest transformation geometry offers. Numerologically, you go from 3 sides 1 bar in the Dragonewt Rune to 4 sides 2 bars in the Godunya or Dragon Rune. The logical next steps would be 5 sides 3 bars (aka a Fate Rune inside a pentangon) and 6 sides 4 bars (or in other words an 8-ray asterisk - the symbol of Pole Star in the center of the firmament - inside a hexagon). That sequence could be part of the draconic devolution sequence, from Orxili (hexagon) to the Ancestral Dragons (pentagon) to the True Dragons (diamond) to the netenic dragons aka Dragonewts (triangle). Much like Moon and Chaos, too. When I waffled about subcults replacing runes of the superior deity, I thought that the subcults of an owner of a rune should always have that owned rune of the superior. Thus, no subcults or aspects of Ernalda without Earth, no subcults or aspects of Orlanth without Storm, no subcults or aspects of Yelm without Fire, none of Humakt without Death, none of Issaries without Communication...) Yamsur was there for Earthfall, and perished in that battle (and was lucky that his name is remembered). This doesn't leave much room for a previous martyrdom. What does Six Ages have to say about that martyrdom? I understand Six Ages to play before Earthfall, or at best having Earthfall some time during the storyline. The Glacier came before the invasion of Wakboth.

Pretty much in the same way that Esrola is the long form of Esra, the corresponding plant goddess of barley. Esrolia has had millennia of cultivating Einkorn wheat, so I expect there to be cultivars closer to more modern wheats. It would still be different from Emmer or Dinkel (spelt) Wheat, and probably a lot less primitive than aboriginal einkorn. In our planet's prehistory, einkorn wheat was selectively bred even before people started farming because only the richer grains would be carried elseplace. Wheat cultivation from those beginnings to the onset of the Bronze Age was twice than the onset of the Bronze Age to now. Egyptian wheat exports probably went to Minoan Crete already. Mediterranean Africa fed Rome and probably the Greek and Phoenician colonies before it shortly after the onset of the Iron Age. I never saw Esrolia as a barley-exporting place, to be honest - if you ship a cereal overseas, it is usually wheat or rice (the only old transport route for rye that I have heard about was up the Norwegian coast in trade for dried cod). Barley exports are usually in barrels, in liquid form.

Fine. Such specialization happens mostly in urban centers or at industrial places (major salt mines for instance). As the rural Pelorians or the rural Orlanthi go, there isn't that great a difference in specialization. Overall accounting might be stricter in Dara Happa, and areas with water regulation will have additional overseers, though as often from the ranks of the local population with a farmer job on the side. The degree of urbanisation in Sartar or Esrolia is no less than in Dara Happa. Places like Aggar or Brolia differ, of course, but also from one another. For comparison, the rural provinces of "civilized" Tanisor have half the urbanisation of Sartar in 1621, only the coastal lands of the Quinpolic League come close, owing to the fact that the primary production from fishing can be city-based (unlike similar scale agriculture or herding). Most of the Lunar satrapies have only 3/4 the urbanisation of Old Sartar (20%, although that includes the Lunar population of the New Temple - substracting that from the totals, there are still one in six Sartarites from the cities). Exactly. With the Gods War culminating in the (Greater) Darkness (which should be the normal interpretation), your post-Gods War Storm Age would follow that sequence of seasons. And it is not that wrong to name the Gray Age the resurgence of the Storm people - the majority of the humans in the Unity Council are Heortlings, with Esrolians significantly fewer than the sum the Heortlings, and most other human populations significantly smaller than most Heortling groups. There are still plenty divine activities in the Greater Darkness. Sky River Titan at Snake Pipe Hollow and into Magasta's Pool (which appears only now), the victory over Sky Terror and the Lightbringer's Quest for Orlanth, the end of the Artmali (who may have resurged a bit after the Vadeli had been drowned), Pamalt's victory over Vovisibor, the migration of the Men-and-a-Half, Storm Bull and the Block, ... True, there are a lot fewer battles between non-Chaos enemies in this period, or at least we don't learn about them. The Dara Happans have Shargash destroying the world (and enemy gods) for its renewal. The end of the Vingkotling aggressions may have contributed to the onset of cooperation that led to Unity Battle and Unity Council.

I say it is connected, possibly in a detrimental way. As soon as she intrudes into the Illaro dynasty rites, Sorana Tor loses the prestige as the bringer of sovereignty, and the FHQ grabs at the opportunity and establishes herself (and her matrilineal offspring) in that role. The cult of Maran Gor has used this "blood for fertility" rite in Dragon Pass for time immemorial. Even if you lost a battle at home, the next harvest would be bountiful so you could start to rebuild.

If they are auto-calculating spread-sheets, possibly yes, but mere scratches of symbols of Order on parchment or pulped aldryami are probably not enough to trigger Bull senses. Does your berserk go crazy if you attach a piece of cloth with a charcoal image of the Chaos rune to his backside, without him noticing? (Once he notices, better run...)

Peloria with its north-running central river is a bit like the Mississippi Valley rotated south to north. Do the Eolians really herd the reindeer, or are they more like the Lulesami in Viking times, following the herds in a nomadic hunters' cycle? Jeff has been acculturated to rye-bread land Germany for quite a while now... There are few countries that produce a decent wheat bread - France, obviously, and at least Juteland in Denmark. US hamburger and hot-dog buns are at the bottom of what the art of bakery may produce, alongside with all those other breads that are already stale when taken out of the oven (looking at Northern Norway, here, a country which convinced me to bake my own bread while I worked there...). I shudder at the thought of having those bakers use rye... I was raised on gray bread - half wheat, half rye. Yummy while fresh from the oven, ok after a day, cardboard afterwards. Even with chemical additives keeping moisture up, the taste deterioration remains. That, or full grain rye bread, which goes well with lightly flavored cheeses. Esrolia works well for other cereals. I am not convinced that the Loess soil that you find south of Peloria is that well suited for rice, anyway. You wouldn't have wanted rice paddies during the Flood Age. They are basically an invitation for neighboring bodies of water to go where you grow your food. Is there any rice grown in the Nile Delta? Similar conditions to the Esrolian mesopotamia. One reason that rice growing didn't spread quickly may have been the preparation time for the wet fields - Esrolian irrigation is designed to keep the earth moist, not to drown the entire field. Hence you will have furrows for the water to distribute, but not necessarily on level ground - these furrows work better if the field is slanting somewhat so that the lower part receives some of the water let in above, too. Slontos was as suited for rice, but had millet. (No wonder they did the Goddess Switch there...) 1622, first contact with Argrath and Harrek? Are they different from Kralori ones? Are those Fire Chilis an originally Caladraland product? Potatoes are originally a highland plant, and while the moon itself may have counted as highland, Zamokil doesn't really. As a nightshade plant, the proximity of the Enmal mountains as a guarantor for heat might work well enough, and without frost, the tubers will provide prolific expansion of the stuff. I have Turinamba in my garden, introduced as decorative plant. Now it is a pest. The tubers get toxic easily when exposed to sunlight, too. Not that trolls would worry about that. The toxins act as allergen in smaller amounts, too - a reason why I avoid any potato products that aren't thoroughly processed. Better acroleine than solanine. Using the Latin root for drinking as in "potable", I suppose. If not potato, what other pre-Hon-eel ersatz starch did they bake into the bread? Turnips (the kind Beat-Pot had to peel)? In the famines and ice winters after the great wars (both of them), rutabaga was used to extend just about any food in Germany, which quickly put it off the ingredients except for where I live. (I'll be having rutabaga mash tonight, again. Holstein-style, with plenty carrots and some beef, which may be Holstein, too.) (Which reminds me of the unfinished waffling about cattle I promised some time ago...) The turinamba I mentioned before might be a fitting replacement - a sunflower-like fruit stand, and edible (if smaller) tubers below. Where I live, bread is supposed to have a flavor... Black whole grain bread goes well with curd and herbs, too. Good to have such feedback ever once in a while.

You should rephrase that last sentence to "during a very high tide only the driest spots..." or otherwise "are covered by water" rather than "remain above". Not the best analogy, really - her strength gives out but she reaches Pole Star anyway? That's not concurrent to my experience of walking uphill... I guess that the Loper people and their Teshnan descendants have a myth about her driving or leading a herd of sea beasts up the Celestial River, and the more beasts she has in that herd, the longer the trek up to Pole Star will take. Choralinthor lies roughly in the same direction as Magasta's Pool. Now we all know that Magasta's Pool really encapsulates the Void through which Chaos invaded after the Spike had been destroyed under the concerted attacks of High King Elf (who axed the shaft at its basement), Zzabur (who had sent the Breaking of the World) and the implosion of the Chaos invaders upon contact with the pure Law below the Celestial Palace. That void is still there, and whenever the red glow faces towards Magasta's Pool, it gets attracted and is lifted up, drawing the Pool and all the waters rushing towards it upwards. Thus, the Red Goddess has no powers over the waters of the world, but her cycle affects the work of Magasta to keep the Void sealed. Ho hum. Even with the ascendance and drop of the Void within Magasta's Pool, I am unwilling to accept that this tidal cycle is the dominating one in Glorantha. That of the Blue Streak has been dominant for all of History and even before, probably since the Ritual of the Net. The following sentence puts this right. I would suggest to change the order of these sentences. Enter two further factors that may contribute to the severeness of tides - Storm (mostly local storms, as the usual Great Orlanth wind direction north of the Pool is westerly and doesn't affect the southward coasts), and the big "Tidal Waves" allied to the Waertagi, like Sog. Yet another factor might be the respiration of the Vent, which may raise or lower the surrounding land by a few feet at its extremes. When all these factors combine, a Rungholt/Dunwich event of the second Marcellus Flood might be triggered. (In Seapolis, the population might take shelter under the waves for the duration of such events.) Harrek has been to Maslo, although he doesn't seem to have raided the Maslo Sea where the Master of the Tides dwells. The Wolf Pirates appear to sail in and out unmolested by the local Ludoch merfolk. It is possible that the Kethaelan ones have contact with (undocumented, but extremely likely) Ludoch around the Threestep Isles. Alternatively, they might have contacts to the Sea Trolls and their instinctual awareness of the dark goddess of the tides. And their Dormal openers will most likely start the ritual of Opening as soon as they make landfall. (Even if that isn't strictly required after the rise of the Boat Planet in 1624.) The Merfolk appreciate those high tides as well, as it allows them to comb the usually dry lands for stuff otherwise only available in trade (much like the local Pelaskites do to comb the mudflats for shells and crabs at low tide). The Rightarmer and Leftarmer fisherfolk are likely to use permanent fish fences to catch fish that have strayed into shallower "valleys" of their islands, caught in the outward rush of the falling tide. Coastal fishing boats will remain ashore if the tide is still on the rise on Freezeday as the riptide when the Blue Streak finally appears threatens to pull all vessels out into the Closing. They might even have different ones for zones of differently high tides... I wonder whether the 8-day cycle of the Boat Planet interferes in any way with the tides, or the Tidal Waves.

An artifact of unknown provenance and without any dating. Given the tendency that deadly dungeons accumulate treasure in the form of magical artifacts brought by the explorers who succumb to the traps and denizens, I don't think that the item has been in the Machine Ruins that long. The Flood in the Storm Age standing waves arching high above formerly dry land. Like the First River, this is an invasion of active water, not content to sit passively in puddles but with towering slopes of water rising above the neighboring lands, leaving only the mountaintops or the treetops of the Redwood above the water. In effect, two glaciers of liquid water. Annilla's attractive powers might have helped, but they wouldn't have contributed cyclical tides. (And ironically, Mernita is depicted as a dry island in the Oslir Sea on the Flood Age map of the Guide) That map also shows the Trembling Shore with its disputed lands far to the south of Kero Fin. Sevid is roughly Esrolia and edges of Arstola. There is no Choralinthor Bay yet - Choralinthor is the love child of Faralinthor and Esrola, and Faralinthor is the rather peaceful successor to Slarelos, cut off from the oceans. I understand the Ingareens to have arrived on Waertagi ships. I am not entirely certain whether the Waetagi sailed the Slarelos Sea, so I date that arrival to after the Breaking of the World by Zzabur's Great Spell which pulverized the Spike. The Breaking of the World and Magasta forming his pool is also the prerequisite for the tidal cycle of Annilla. We already have the Third Eye Blue folk with a tattoo on their brow, and as goat herders the "molester of goats" thingy in one of those Lythande stories would be culturally appropriate, too. I am open to suggestions that tie the TEB with Annilla.