Joerg

RuneQuest is a set of fantasy rules nowadays firmly married to Glorantha, but it had one previous incarnation which successfully carried over to other settings. Call of Cthulhu is a daughter systems of RuneQuest as a specific setting adaptation, and another wildly popular one used to be Stormbringer. HeroQuest is a completely different type of rpg, originally firmly married to Glorantha, although the third revision of the rules (the original was called Hero Wars, so this is taking about HQ2) was presented without a specific background attached (only to be followed up with HeroQuest Glorantha which was as firmly married to the setting as you can). HQ is a narrative system, often using a single opposed roll of dice to solve a scene that would use intense dice rolling in RQ and CoC. HQ is in no way limited to fantasy games. There is a German language scenario book which has modern spy, urban fantasy, historical and Gloranthan scenarios.

Single unit, otherwise nothing would stop Yelm from building a shrine and summoning two archers to release himself. Yes, whenever a temple is taken over or gets destroyed, a unit gets routed, and a unit killed when capturing or destroying a ziggurat. Absence of Chaos shortens the Chaos Rift phase. Otherwise it is possible to play without Chaos. Playing with Chaos creates a lot of free map space as Chaos prefers to parasite to existing buildings. Without Chaos, getting that many buildings onto the map may take some more military effort. That said, someone on BGG created a "Chaos robot" doing stuff for Chaos without intelligent player control.

The invasion of YarGan has him worshiping Estoro. (p.45) And yes, the text on p.46 says that YarGan was killed by the bull. The Bisos texts however make a distinction between the god YarGan (p.67) and the king of the people under the lake, ErvOronius (p.68), who is overcome by Bisos. But (my bad) in battle, at Yartos, and not in single combat. This (and subsequent good things happening to the people formerly ruled by ErvOronius) provoked an attack of the (differently, corpse) blue people "under the water", the DediZoraRu, under their leader IvinZoraRu. But then the footnote equals IvinZoraRu with YarGan again. I have always read this "Under the Water" as "Inside Castle Blue". So IvinZoraRu was an avatar or so of YarGanEstoro. The story of IdoJartos (p.56) has this son of Turos and Oria slay the dark god in the Black Mountain at the (temporary) loss of his own life, too, but due to his knowledge of the path into the Underworld, he was able to return, and afterwards act as the psychopomp. I think it might be useful to investigate Estoro/GanEstoro/Ganesatarus (and by implication in Fortunate Succession's Carmanian Sources Idovanus) in this context. For some reason, Valare never questions Estoro's appearance in the stories. There's also the possible parallel between Makan/Estoro and Idovanus/Irensavel to consider, given Syranthir's opposition to Arimadalla.

In that case, you really should get the pdf from Chaosium. At 5$ it is a steal... https://www.chaosium.com/dragon-pass-a-gazetteer-of-kerofinela-pdf/

p.86.

Gan appears to be part of "Ganesatarus", the "separate(d) one". The Vadeli demanded human sacrifice when they conquered coastal Pamaltela after the Opening. We know from the Tadeniti War that they had a magic to separate the energy from the body, and it is possible that the process of human sacrifice and accompanying propitiating worship served to power their magics. Many of them are demigods, or at most third generation offspring of deities. The earliest Malkioni were very much a dickfest with hardly any female among them. They made up for that by wedding or at least bedding nymphs of various kinds - Tilntae love nymphs, Niiad sea demigoddesses, Land goddesses and whatever else female manifestations in sufficiently human appearance came forth (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nymph for greek names of what you can think of). With the possible exception of Aldryami (i.e. dryads). It wouldn't have been much different if they had been a bunch of Satyrs discovering civilisation in its various aspects. Malkion himself set the pattern. We know of at least three wives - Phlia the Tilnta mother of Talar, Zzabur and Horal (and the two named daughters of Malkion, Menena and Eule), Kala the land goddess and mother of Drona(r), and a cousin of his mother who mothered Waertag. Then there are the other five ancestors of the six tribes of Danmalastan. If any of these tribal leaders acted as deities, the candidates would be Waertag, Tadenit, Vadel (rather than his father Vimorn), and Kachast. Of these, Kachast (who is most likely in the region) would be the least prone to cruelty. No, that wasn't YarGan, but his head worshiper, King Blue.

Sure. But then, our observations of their lifestyle can be projected on that of our mesolithic predecessors (or those displaced by our neolithic and then band ceramics predecessors). But then, the Doraddi had managed to go from cultivating lineage plants and hunting to building an urban civilisation depending on horticulture and presumably water management. It isn't clear whether that culture included metal working - while helpful, metalworking is not required to create or maintain an urban civilisation. What is required is transport of food and the presence of water.

You're wrong.

It isn't as much a pastiche as a weirdly unique social structure, one largely absent from all those urban maritime cultures we discuss, or if we take their mythical stories, all those "demgod rulers by divine ancestry" top-down societies that are exactly what Orlanthi society isn't (any more, we have left the Vingkotling Age far behind us). The ox-plow cattle-herder farmer-warrior republic is fairly unique to "Northern" Europe (we're talking about the Danubian valley and Illyrian mountains, which is latitude-wise as far from the southern shore of the Baltic as it is from Lampedusa). Neolithic farming methods that spread millennia before Bronze or the corded ware people remained feasible in continental Europe when agriculture in the Fertile Crescent suffered from climate change that made the crescent a lot less fertile and in consequence required bureaucratic administration of manpower and supplies for communal works beyond religious monuments. And let me repeat: the longhouse with indoor stabling is a neolithic farmer design for a climate that has real winters which need stabling of cattle and other lifestock. It was such a useful design that it fell out of use only with the arrival of motor-driven tractors. Pants or leggins were worn by chalcolithic wanderers like the Ötztal Ice Mummy. They were still worn by Hallstatt miners or Danish bog mummies from Republican Roman era. "Thane" is an English language archaism for a form of clan nobility, heavily used in the Scottish Play by that playwright who shaped the modern language so much. If you want to use or create archaic English-related terms, you will drift to Anglo-Saxon terms. You can go and use a foreign language, like English Latin (trust me, when spoken aloud it doesn't sound anything like a Romance language) or Greek. There is the weird non-sequitur that equals "Celt" with Gaels. Read the classics! Caesar, the Greek historians... none of them ever encountered Hibernians knowingly. But hey, if you find a culture of free farmer-warriors who are both transhumant pastoralists and grain farmers and form small republics as their dominant social order, point them out and show how they weren't really led by dynastic demigod kings, and use their cultural terms for these positions

"Someone remove those spider webs, or I cannot enter this room!" Player-called arachnophobia. Probably not worth a fate point, unless the party is fleeing from something bad. And in that case, the party suffers a disadvantage (or leaves the arachnophobe behind). At least, this is how I have seen and experienced fate points in play in FATE.

In my book, that was a stretch... and "summon nonexistent item from whole cloth" doesn't cover taking out enemy vision. Heortling warrior would have done the same trick with a lot less of a stretch. Flower Arrangement would... (Wait, did Janaral wear boots at all? Sandals are all the chique in the current depictions, unless people go barefoot.)

A relationship to a dead person might be fairly obsolete. "Companion of Kallyr" gets a lot less useful after the Battle of Queens.

Personally, I feel that the number of rune levels from the Colymar tribe is greater than the number of rune levels in the Colymar tribe. While the magically advanced folk are valuable resources to the tribe (and clans), they are more likely to be subject to exile (during the Lunar administration), and to be head-hunted by foreign leaders (like Argrath, Samastina, Fazzur...) A priest or lord in exile needs replacement, but will retain the rune level.

Yes. The one equivalent of gods bones our history had, and the amounts were minuscule, fit for godkings only. (A bit like the aluminium in the crown of Napoleon III - hihly valued for the rarity and the skill working it required, at the time.) Tin is the sky metal, not the metal of volcanon boy, or lightning. I have no idea what Lodril's metal would have been prior to his dive into the Earth, or whether he had one distinct from Aether's. The only bones we have are from after his dive. The early earth walkers or the men's tribe of the log didn't leave any bones behind until much later. All the variant Lodrils go asleep or explode as volcanoes. I don't see tin in any way related to Lightning. Up to tin, each metal is associated with one element. After tin, we get three celestial metals, one of which is an alloy (brass). Silver is a wide-spread celestial metal, and even Orlanth has a claim to it, as do the very numerous Star Captains, and the moons.

When asking about L-Space, the sorcery plane was indeed one of the concepts I considered. It doesn't have to be thundering Thesauri or Thursday Next-like book-jumping. Another thing to consider: most Lhankor Mhy documents come with blessings and curses. The library shelves must be full of some of the most gruesome curses uttered in Glorantha. Trespassing through L-Space might trigger quite a few of these.

Late Storm Age would make the Nidan range impassable unless the Psstorlists descend from Top of the World rather than the Spike. I agree that Daxdarius usurping his place on Mt. Jernotius would be late Storm Age, but then his early deeds were a whole lot earlier. My impression was that the hordes (and the Yolp range) appeared in or even before the Flood Age. The arrival of the Andams marked the change from Wendaria to Pelanda. I certainly don't allow even the possibility. The Third Eye Blue folk are goat herders and never appear as riders. Six Ages depicts them as dark-brown skinned, and I think they are closer to the mark with this incarnation of the game. As far as I am concerned, they are one of the many deeply brown-skinned people of Fronela, possibly related to King Drona (who landed at Dorsomon/eastern Norans, Loskalm (p. 206) and then migrated on to Baklene in Junora (p.215). His companion Eurmal Friend of Men may have had something to do with misplacing the dwarven metal secrets. In short, I am going for a Fronelan, possibly Brithos-related origin for TEB. Bonus question: how do you mark a blue eye on blue skin?

I am referencing the way I am to earn the Fate Points I can then spend on useful parts of the story. Spending Fate Points doesn't create much of a problem, really, but creating needless minor distractions from THE story just for personal gain is what I feel is metagaming, gaming the mechanic but not the story immersion.

No idea about the world-machine, but I for HeroQuest would frame the contest in a way that the players are up against a high two digit mastery better than their own augmented ability (or even a two mastery low single digit better opposition), which means they would need a critical success not to fail - which means in turn that their chance to succeed requires them to roll higher than the opposition and have a success they can spend a hero point on to equalize the mastery difference. There is a statistical chance to make that roll, yes, but basically it is betting on the opposition to blow their roll. Yeah. Heroquest offers "failing forward", what is your character willing to sacrifice to trade off their mechanical loss in a hopeless contest to still achieve the narrative goal? Which brings us back to "are you going to break this geas/taboo in order to achieve the narrative goal?" Fate comes with the metagaming of calling your weaknesses, which can in my experience interfere with the narrative thread. If you can do this without the metagaming, then I would like to hear your practical proposal.

Short and dirty answer: Practically everybody in the clan who isn't initiated to Ernalda will be an associate initiate or a lay member of the Earth Queen. Ditto for Orlanth. The other gods have it a little harder if their area of expertise doesn't impact clan life on a similar level. The local river cult won't have as good lay worshiper turnout than the big two, for instance (not even with the swan women history of the Hiording clan).

Humakti loves their children too! All these popular music references begin to Sting...

Come on, we are talking about sages, subcults, and cult heroes. Lylket library was full of troll writings, and I don't expect Buserian temples to have much (if any) of those. Every library has its specialties, and every sage has his or her hobby horse, and is burdened with the ones of his superiors. The Buserian temple layout is drastically different. I also have some doubt about the recognition of Elasa in the Dara Happan cult, about the admissibility of female sages to Buserian, and about the beard fetishism beyond the normal Dara Happan ones. I expect Irrippi Ontor to use the Lhankor Mhy temple layout and admission pattern rather than the Buserian one - but then, people with access to the GaGoG pre-run can render those speculations moot. Pratchett phrases it better in Going Postal (both book and TV show) when Moist comes to the temple of Offler to pray for the financial miracle. But, speaking of Pratchett and heroic librarians (whose obligatory hair is on the chin, not on extra long arms...), what about L-Space?

This takes a couple of definitions of "habitable". Proxima Centauri B for instance lies in the habitable zone in times of normal brightness, but would be over-exposed to radiation during periods of signiicantly increased activity. However, presumably being tidally locked, the backside or the twilight zone of the planet might offer the temperature range we would deem habitable even in times of greater activity. If you mean habitable as in having a biosphere supporting an oxygen atmosphere, probably none. Having conditions where such a biosphere could be introduced, possibly a few. Allowing domed habitats without intensive thermal requirement - probably quite a few. Having a planetary magnet field to ward off cosmic radiation - hardly any. All of these at once? Probably similar to a jackpot in a lottery.

With the accordeon parts replaced by bagpipes?

Yet Orlanth's mood can swing as far as to make his adherents stick-in-the-mud traditionalists resisting magical changes beyond any reason. Some of the fiercest foes of both EWF and the Zistorites were change-hating Orlanthi heroes. "Sure we support change, but this change is not from here..." Sartar had an uphill struggle introducing his concept of city confederations to the Quvini, and in case of the Colymar, he failed.

The mention for cattle in Jolar is an isolated mention on p.541, possibly a direct carry-over from the RQ3 short world description in the DeLuxe-Box or the Glorantha Bestiary that survived proof-reading. Yes, Umathela does sustain cattle-herding. There are elands in Jolar and Tarien, tanuku (milk antelopes) everywhere south of the Fense mountains, and wildebeest in Jolar only. The latter may be confused with cattle, and follow migratory patterns between Jolar and Laskal, entering the area of the former Greenwood of Jolar. All of these beasts are mentioned for the Fiwan, and domestication of the tanuku is only mentioned in the culture description, not in the regional description. The timing of the pastoralists that would become the Hill Barbarians is an issue. I'm aware that we are talking Godtime, and sequence is tricky, but when did these migrations start? What is the Dara Happan frame for the reigns of Daxdarius and Gartemirus?