Joerg

The big issue with reaction drive spacecraft completely relying on internal energy sources. The technology of M-Space clearly has soft SF gimmicks like artificial gravity and as a consequence to that opens to concepts like inertial dampeners, reactionless drives (or rather the dark matter equivalent of atmospheric drives*), or photonic drives. I feel that the request is similar to a game about modern navy warfare to provide the logistics for trireme sailing. What kind of chemical fuel were you thinking about, anyway? The best reaction mass to mass and volume ratio comes with metallic hydrogen. Oxygen as reaction partner has rather bad performance as reaction mass, as has the ensuing H2O molecules or the OH radical (or molecule ion). You get the best force out of your hydrogen by shooting out the protons and electrons separately along linear accelerators. The trouble with metallic hydrogen is that you want to keep it really cool, and in a place where unplanned sudden expansion won't explode all of your ship. (Only fusion plasma and anti-matter containment are worse in this regard...) For fluid media, bags of graphene might be sufficient to keep the stuff together at reasonable pressure, and they might be compressed with the help of magnets distributed over the membrane that allow to compress the bubble. These would require either maintenance drones or some multi layer concept to deal with micrometeorite impacts or similar punctures. Another possibility for in-system maneuvering are tugs rendezvousing with your FTL ship, providing a form of tether and all the fuel for deceleration or acceleration, allowing your ship to retain that precious reaction mass for systems lacking such services. Other passive drives or wireless energy transfer would address a lot of fuel concerns, too. *If the dark matter in the aggregation disk consists of point sources of gravity, those point sources could be targeted by artificial gravitation, and provide the medium/reaction mass against this the ship's actio=reactio push or pull. Without artificial gravity, deck plans only make sense Expanse-style, with vertical ship designs. Rotating habitat rings need to slow down for course alterations and don't make sense for warships (sorry, Babylon 5 Terran Fleet) due to gyro effects (unless brutally used as gyros, which makes them unusable as habitats, at least during maneuvering).

October 10 will see a (free) preview on the Pegasus Plateau scenario book as part of the We All Are Us memorial rpg initiative to honor Greg Stafford. I never understood the over-reliance on fully developed adventures. A good sandbox approach with encounters to pick offers me a lot more playability than a bunch of pretty linear scenarios with in the end the same encounters, only slightly different context. No plan survives contact with the enemy, and no scenario as written survives contact with the players. When writing a scenario for other people to GM, I hem and haw to cover a couple of the most likely consequences of a scenario obstacle, fully aware that any poor GM having to manage me as a player in that situation is going to face yet another approach. And that doesn't cover players letting their characters do things way outside of the character's cultural and personal behavioral norms or patterns (or sticking to the situationally inappropriate ones).

Chemical rockets can be used as on-board attitude drives for passive propulsion (solar sails, probably powered by laser light, in case of doubt created by using the photosphere of a star as laser medium), but electrical drives (whether plasma or ion) are vastly superior for prolonged periods of acceleration or deceleration. The equivalent of a railgun for high velocity plasma is little different from chemical thrusters. A one component plasma (or ion cloud) is easier to produce and to maintain than a mixture of chemical educts and products. Flames are messy (I use them e.g. in atomic absorption spectroscopy, under very regulated conditions, and they still cause trouble). Hot flames are messier. Fuel and reaction mass tanks are cargo modules with piping. M-Space has no rules for external cargo pods (like massive fuel tanks for planetary take-offs that can be dumped once outside of the worst of the gravity well), but there is no conceptual reason not to allow them. Fuel and/or reaction mass consumption isn't part of the M-Space ship design. The design system is there to provide some abstract concept about designing a major stage for a space opera game. The result is for providing a consensus among the players about the dimensions and capabilities of their spacecraft. And yes, I wing a lot of it all the time, much like I wing e.g. horse stats.

Not quite - putrefaction is connected to massive emission of gas and liquefication of tissue when applied to carcasses, or in alchemical context the process of Nigrado or blackening, again under release of (usually noxious) gases. Lactic acid formation is a (reversible itn life organisms) reaction of sugars leading to an acidification which creates a milieu harmful to other processes, without any gaseous side products (unlike e.g. alcoholic fermentation which produces carbon dioxide, and worse processes on proteins leaving behind amines - the archetypical "fishy" smell of old fish - or ammoniac, or the foul egg stench of hydrogen sulphide). Targeting only carbohydrates and leaving the protein largely intact (some hydrolysis of the peptides will occurr at the acidification, making subsequent digestion easier much like cooking would do), this sort of fermentation reduces the energy in the food only minimally - in our world, using chemistry and biochemistry to explain things. I just finished reading Ben Aaronovitch's "The October Man", featuring an incident with (unnaturally enhanced) "noble rot", a fungal infestation of grapes leading to premature fermentation of the starch and a better sugar (and hence alcohol) yield of the grapes so afflicted (provided you manage to harvest the grapes after the optimal exposure). Directed fermentation by selected agents is common in cheese-making, whether the outer mold of Camembert, the blue veiny molds of Roquefort and other such "noble mold" cheese preparations. (I would agree that a couple of cheeses do use putrefaction to arrive at their characteristics. But then, Terry Pratchett's Tiffany Aching novels have Horace, a cannibalistic loaf of Lancre Blue cheese which became a honorary Nac Mac Feegle...) Other dairy applications are the bacterial agents resulting in yogurt, kefir or junket, or just the precipitation of curd with rennet or acids. Sour conservation of meat and fish over a limited period leads to meals like Bismarck herring and pickled pork (Sauerfleisch, a northern German culinary abomination). The salt-selected fermentation of herring leading to garum and salt herring (spekesild, Matjes), the anaerobic fermentation of auks in sealskin to kiviak, and a traditional Norwegian christmas eve involves the consumption of lutefisk (alkali-treated stockfish). Curing with smoke (both hot and cold) or salt or simply drying is a way to avoid putrefication, and I guess freeze-drying is an option too in extreme winter (it is considered a degradation of food in your home freezer, but while it affects taste and texture, it doesn't affect the nutritional value and makes putrefaction less likely, so could be a desired effect) - not jerky, but rather a similar gelatinous mess when re-hydrated as is lutefisk. Pemmican is basically the precursor of sausage. Yeah. Branding or uncautious skin contact with (just below glowing) hot metal, ceramics or glass will spread the same aroma as does Schnitzel in the skillet. (But then middling high concentrations of hydrogen sulphide - just below acute toxicity when you stop smelling the stuff - has similar associations.) Interestingly, Mal(l)ia is a darkness entity and not chaotic in or by herself, except through association. She is the midwife of the Devil, not its mother. Venoms and poisons aren't a Darkness exclusive - Water has its fair share of that, and so does Earth. Venomous birds or mammals are rare, although poisonous organs are common (e.g. bears' or other carnivores' livers tend to hold too many metabolites of proteins for human consumption). Chaos and Darkness coexist relatively relaxedly. Cave trolls and sea trolls may regenerate less spectacularly than walktapi, but the difference is one of degrees. Zorak Zorak is as efficient against Chaos as he is against about any other (hated) opponent, because he is so damn similar to Chaos. Trolls hate the Chaos which afflicts them with the same fervor as they hate the Fire that affects them. Broos impregnating their trollkin are a menace, and thus deserve to be eaten. Diseased stuff can be cleansed - or rather destroyed without heath hazard (by trolls) by eating, or by dissolving it in gorp. If swallowed (and flushed) fast enough, small amount of gorp can be eaten, and probably re-formed into Darkness while passing through the rock gizzard. It isn't pleasant food, however, and overdoing it may result in corrosive diarrhea and sore esophagus. In other words, a food for cave trolls. Re: Karrg's Sons requirement eating a relative: can this be a cave troll somehow fathered by the uzko? It would be little trouble to harvest an arm and a leg each season...

It's tricky. At the start of my career discussing Glorantha I asked Sandy Petersen (aim high) whether the Animal Nomads weren't just either Storm People (after all, descendants of the Storm Bull after his Downland migration) or alternatively a form of Hsunchen. I was told that neither was the case, although I reserve some potential for disagreement on both counts. Apparently the Animal Nomad two-legs intellect was on a level of the minotaurs prior to Waha's Covenant. But then, non-Orlanthi have made similar observations on Hill Barbarians (at least prior to wide-spread Ernalda worship). Under the old Three Separate Worlds dogma, Hsunchen were strictly animists. Spirit traditions are ok, worship of deities is a deal breaker. And under this dogma, the Heortling Deer was a divine animal, just like Yinkin had been forced to choose between his parents' orientations, and he had thrown in on his brother's theism, causing additional enmity with the Bad Dogs and other Hykimi spirits. Another such "definitely not Hsunchen" animal (despite the myth of shape-changing from human to beast) is the Purendi or white-tail deer of Orogeria and Kenstrata. I take the deer people to be descendants of Tara/Velhara, and thereby another group of maternal kin to Orlanth. The Greater Darkness was an era corrupted by Chaos, and I find the RQ2 version of the bearwalker/boarwalker/tigerwalker shapeshifter with <a slight touch of Chaos / a stronger feature of creative energy than others have> quite fitting for a survival sin. When in beast form, apparently it isn't cannibalism (compare the relief expressed by Orogeria and Kenstrata upon the Purendi relevation in Entekosiad).

Those merchants were as hard-bitten as Trump and his cronies. Tax and tariff evasion and a convicted patriarch in this family:

Yes, and reaction drives are common, but chemical rocket drives are extremely rare as they have bad exhaust temperatures/velocities compared to plasma - whether electromagnetically, direct fusion exhaust, or other such means. Then there are ion drives, gouvod for long term acceleration at low thrust rates, like system insertions to aid solar sail braking, or possibly braking by collecting solar wind with a buzzard ramjet. Maneuver drives using chemical drives or "going teakettle" exhausting e.g. superheated steam or a hot flame might be useful in those applications, but the reaction mass to acceleration ratio is simply abysmal. For a setting of my own, I have been looking at a slower-than-light application of the Alcubierre drive, using the warp-tunnel effect to "accelerate" to stellar speeds with manageable/survivable inertial accelerations.

The "l" in "lings" doesn't have to be a diminutive - it also can serve as a "-like-", much like -oid modifies -id in adjectives (e.g. humanoid). And some syllable closings don't lend themselves to direct addition of -ing. There is nothing diminutive in the German term "Wüstling", or in Tolkien's use of "Easterling". Heort himself was a shaman. His personal rune (in Thunder Rebels) symbolifies the antlers of his white deer ancestry (which isn't Hsunchen, but similar). I wonder whether his crown was antlered that way, too (shades of GoT...)

My Yiddish thinks this means an Alpine pub Yes, a masters degree in economy makes you a "Wirt" in German (usually Betriebswirt). Lots of lame puns in that, including the "wer nichts wird wird Wirt". The source you quoted was for mesolithic hunters, but then there is a continuity of technology from the meso- and neolithic all the way into modern times. Lactobacillus is the same organism responsible for solid soured milk (hence its name) and Sauerkraut (and other silage). This is one of several fermentation technologies that have been in use for quite some time. With a steady source of significant amounts of snow, I think that ice cellars are pretty common in Sartar. Ice broken off ponds is denser and will keep longer. Mythically, it is slightly weird to use certain aspects of Darkness (cold, fermentation) to ward off other aspects of it (putrefication).

As long as there remain open (snow free) patches of pasture, keeping the cattle outside saves on the hay. The real world example of transhumance that I am most familiar with is that of the "Almwirtschaft" of the high pastures of the Alp slopes and foothills, and Jeff is quite familiar with that region, too. In case of those highest pasture, you need to get the cattle down before they get trapped by early deep snows, but looking at the Varmandi clan lands, the hills there are significantly lower than the main Quivini peaks, allowing to keep the herds on the distant pasture a little longer. Looking at the herder portraits, I would move the scenario to late Earth Season. I wouldn't wish being caught in the onset of early snows wearing the Bronze Age equivalent of a tank top tunic (p.95)... not even wearing a linothorax (all the time?) with a heavy woolen blanket as a coat. It makes sense to postpone slaughter to the really cold days, makes preserving the meat a lot easier, and there will be some residual pasture near the village after the last hay-making to sustain the beasts that won't be carried through the winter.

The cult of Odayla provides similar shape-shifting rune spells as does the Cult of Telmor, but it takes 8 rune points or so to undergo a full shapeshift, which still feels quite broken to me when comparing it to the shape-shifting availability in HQG. The other (RQ2 canon) shapeshifter is a person touched by Chaos, able to shift shape with a lot less magical effort, but constantly on the lookout for hyper-sensitive Storm Bull initiates or rune lords. The Chaos taint is probably less than that of the Telmori (which started as a gift by Nysalor which then was re-inforced by Talor's curse), but still there, and a magical stigma. There are a few Orlanth myths about shape-shifting - one about the Hidden Kings, heirs of the last King of the Vingkotlings Rastagar who survived in the Greater Darkness by taking beast shape - wolves, IIRC, hunting other beast-shaped humans hiding in the wilderness. King Heort came from a lineage of Deer shapeshifters, the White or Heortling Deer, and there is a 85% chance or better for every living Heortling to be somehow descended from Heort (though not necessarily on the male lineage, that is supposed to have died out, although some unacknowledged child may have continued the male lineages without anybody knowing about it). Another notable shape-shifting Orlanthi noble is Greymane from Maniria, and someone from his lineage could be a were-lion throwback. There are descendants of Sartar among the Telmori, actually the closest royal kin Argrath has according to his declaration to the Colymar. But they wouldn't be worshipers of Orlanth. I think I would go with the RQ2 concept, awakened by a magical incident - possibly in the back-story, but possibly not entirely under the control of the character yet. One of several beast ancestries - bear, alynx, lion, white deer, possibly wolf (possibly a Kodigvari or Telmori inheritance). The Chaos taint will be a problem at times.

Yes, I knew I had read that, but couldn't remember where without re-building my old index. I don't think that any of the existing 25 or so long cult formats for the rune owners and the few extras for Praxian, Chaos and Troll deities would change much. Getting the other ones will be a lot more interesting than textual comparison between say seven versions of the Kyger Litor cult write-up for RQ. Has anybody read the Elder Secrets version front to back, word by word, after the RQ3 Troll Pak and Troll Gods versions? Sure. And while it remains unpublished to the general public, it doesn't count as a source you can refer to yet, unless providing a substantial quote (which isn't really what I want to ask for). And while Dave apparently managed to get his hands on a copy, I haven't so far. Do we get a new Prosopaedia? I managed to get a glimpse at one quite extensive version a few years back, and while the Prosopaedia doesn't provide extensive myths, it does provide a good elevator pitch for a whole lot of named deities in Glorantha that I would like to see again. Speaking of material I don't have yet, I originally hoped to be able to run scenarios from Smoking Ruins on our local RQG weekend halfway between Kiel and Lübeck, but with the memorial Rattling Wind scenario arriving just in time, I'll probably run that (and pour a good shot for the occasion). (And a week later, have a few more at the Kraken.)

Nice image, memories of Griffin Mountain, although the scenery suggests a ridge in Dragon Pass - Starfire or Dragonspine.

Duplicate post.

You should have given the source for that, David - the old Prosopaedia, also found at https://www.glorantha.com/docs/uleria/. Her temples have three entrances, only one of which is for people entering for lust. Her offering herself to the Boggles was not a carnal act - it was an act of unconditional love, paralleled only in Teelo Estara's/Sedenya's encounter with Blaskarth (as the coded text with that strange Lunar demigod symbols font hides).

The Midwinter festival doesn't have to happen exactly on the solstice, as our own date for Christmas (inherited from Sol Invictus) shows. There is no myth about Yelm regaining strength at the peak of the Darkness, though. There may be some myths about the living Cold Sun recovering, though - so we have to look at Elmal/Yelmalio or Kargzant or Shargash/Tolat. Neither Orlanth nor Ernalda have anything to add to a Darkness recovery myth. We have to look at the Grey Age demigods and heroes for those actions. Now Heort's I Fought We Won myth is already used in the Initiation rites, and his other myths (like finding and unfreezing Ivarne) haven't seen much attention. Maybe it is time to look into that.

The cultures associated with the Orlanthi are from Western and Central Europe, and often southernmost Central Europe (Danubian region in Germany). Where I live (Viking land north of most of Germany), it is equally far to the tip of Sicily as it is to the North Cape. England and Wales are fairly southerly, and southern England (even some places in southern Scotland) has palms linining the beach roads. Northern Europe starts around Oslo (or IMO rather Møre-Romsdal), Stockholm, Helsinki. Castle Stahleck is smack-dab inside the wine-growing region of Europe. The Champagne is where the Channel is narrowest, and well known for its sparkly wine. At my workplace, I need to prepare the first grape harvest... The oldest beer recipe we have is from Mesopotamia. (It uses grapes for yeast cultures.) The Romans and Phoenicians were Barbarians ("stammerers"), so were the Illyrian and Celts who encroached and occasionally violated Greek settled space. Enter reverently and respectfully take some loot from the rich nobles, leaving all the churches intact, only taking a few relics for their own worship. It takes civilized people on a rampage to destroy cities, which is why I think that the Sea People who leveled Ugarit were Myceneans. Probably they wear some pottery burning incense, to make up for the fact that they avoid washing with water. The waste heat gathers nicely below those ponchos. The half-citizens with their mini-skirts have it hard, but compare the Caledonians. (A devout fire worshiper should use a series of ever lighter oils, and remove residual ones with flame, IMO.)

Inora's moter is Kero Fin. No Darkness there...

That's too little Darkness-ancestry for me. Inora is a spirit (or deity) of Darkness.

Since this is Glorantha, elevation is quite sure not to follow the barometric formula for temperature. (Which is a bit of a pity - having that 800 m high island outside of my window at Drag i Tysfjord was a cheap outside thermometer in spring and autumn, as the frost border elevation was easy to determine on clear days.) The mythic reason for convection in Glorantha is a bit unclear, but warm stuff seeking to rejoin the eternal fire of the sky sounds about right, and cold stuff being attracted by the ultimate Dark at the bottom of the world fits, too. Mountaintops are cold because: They are the home of Inora (presumably the daughter of Himile, half-sister to Orlanth, Yinkin, Tara/Velhara and Quivin) They are adjacent to the Middle Air, and Sky has been weakened here (The white top of the Spike on the other hand appears to have been caused by the purest of flames and the matching forest.) Dragon Pass still has strong maritime influence, and Rozgali is a fairly warm current, at least the equal of the Gulf Stream off western Europe. Even with a predominantly northerly wind, there is a good chance for balmy air from the south being sucked into the Pass region all the way to the bottom of the Dragonspine ridge as counter-currents. Midwinter in Glorantha has a day length of about 8 hours (Guide p.112 - night length of 16 hours), a bit shorter than in Seattle or Montreal. Comparable to Denmark, really. Temperatures are ruled by three factors in Glorantha - the sun, air currents, and sea currents. Sea currents are dominant in providing warmth from the southeast, with two doom currents spawned off boiling Togaro and only one spawned off icy Hudaro. Storm is instrumental in carrying the cold of the Glacier eastward across Genertela. The Sun warms up wherever its rays touch down and aren't reflected or blocked. The Night Sky doesn't actively spread cold, though (under RQ3, Xentha had the Shadow Rune rather than the full Darkness Rune), but it still accepts the updrift of warm air. The Skyfall acts like a warm current in winter, too - its source doesn't change temperature with the seasons. The Middle Air does cool down in winter, but what arrives at Skyfall Lake remains mostly liquid.

Ambush from hiding is against Humakti mores. Hit and run attacks depending on superior mobility (or obstacles covering the distance between the skirmishers and the targets) are perfectly allowable. So is the lone Humakti blocking the road challenging the arrivals, and then skirmishers joining the fray. Orlanth killed a tyrant of people he cared for (Ernalda and her kin), but not his own ruler. If Yelm had acknowledged Umath, a lot of subsequent events would have needed a different excuse. Humakt is a thief, too. That's how he obtained Death. Footwear versus terminal change of existence... methinks that Humakt's theft weighs a little heavier.

There are known instances of Orlanth smiting his heroes with the Liberating Bolt in Heortling Mythology, causing lethal damage in all cases but two or three. However, these are instances of the hero challenging the deity directly. For infractions and severe lapses, there are spirits of reprisal, starting with impests. Their description says "cosmic farts," leaving little doubt about the method of their creation.

While that may be true for the tenant tending to your orchard, you want a little more loyalty from the person you trust to intercept incoming lethal intent. I was talking about Bronze Age leaders and body guards. Your caravan guard between two oases in Prax is a different proposal than the guy you let into your household and take along to highest level diplomacy. Basically, a warrior without a patron has no means of survival other than mercenary or banditry. Mercenary jobs may be far in between. Obtaining a patron means regular meals, access to decent dress and equipment. It is a big deal, and usually rewarded with a loyalty passion.

A Humakti wishing to eat regularly will have to enter a relationship relying on his loyalty with his employer which may be a regiment leader taking a mercernary contract, or it could be a noble engaging him as a bodyguard and companion.

There are a few obvious spells I can think of - separate water for drying stuff and creating a puddle or container of water, separate fire for dousing a fire and having a short-lived flame. Adding Command to the latter gives you a fiery orb or wall that you can direct at others. Separate Darkness might be a spell to detoxify some food, drink, or even a wound, or to concentrate a weak venom to something of immediate use. In connection with alchemy or mining, Separate is a god-sent. Want gold nuggets? Build a spell on Separate Fire. Want to avoid getting drunk, or want to pour a strong drink? Separate Water. Working on creatures might be trickier. Separate Man could be used for a sorcerous variation of Befuddle or a short-term parallel of Alter Creature. Separate Mobility might be used for Hinder (but Summon Stasis would do as well).