Joerg

Imperial magic. In RQ3, there is a rune spell "Coin Wheels" for the Lokarnos cult, and it may be a partial re-instating of the Gold Wheel Dancers of the Dawn Age (and earlier). It is possible that the mere presence of these coins conveys some form of authority and order. Wheels may be an antidote to anarchy.

That's not quite the case. Practically everybody worships Yelm in Dara Happa as a lay member, but only the elite can initiate to his cult. Apart from the birth privilege required to be initiated into the Cult of Yelm, IMO this isn't that different from most Pelorian deities. We are all used to the Orlanthi mode where everybody is initiated to a specific deity. For the vast majority of Pelorians, this is not the case. The majority of the Dara Happans has as limited insight to these truths as say the Orlanthi, as they are denied access to the cult secrets. There are more illuminates in the Empire than there are people privy to the secrets of the Sun Disk. The sun mystery is one of the ways the nobility conserves its superiority. The Buserian cult and other lesser priesthoods are strong in partial secrets, and a small fraction of the illuminated also has the insights into celestial lore to approach the secrets. To all the rest it is the awesomeness of imperial solar rule. The widespread direct Yelm worship among the horse riders is one of the reasons why horse rider rule in Peloria has been regarded as legitimate noble rule. While their "justice" wasn't exactly "measured", they certainly were qualified for the "from the above" part of the Solar concept of imperial authority. The Lunar Way and nobility derived from the Red Emperor side-steps this, both in access to the cult of Yelm and in access to the mysteries.

Alchemy? Alchemy requires base substances (although the RQ2/RQG rules only deal with the equivalent of baking mixtures that you buy from your temple or guild). If I had to do it in the real world, I would probably get iron sulfide (pyrite, or ochre subject to fouling mud) and roast it while cooling the exhaust, creating a reflux that would collect the liquid vitriol (aka sulphuric acid) and allow it to leach the roasted ferric ions, or by adding vitriol to freshly sedimented (then dried) ochre, then evaporate any excess liquid and recrystallize once or twice for purity (depending on how the ink turns out with less refined material). Ochre and bog iron are minerals that don't contain any metallic iron (though significantly more ionic ion than blood), and hence are harmless as food for uz or aldryami. I don't think that the Mostali produce their Death-Metal from this stuff - IMO they would use something like magnetite, heat it to red glow and then apply some arcane energies.

Not quite. Everone thinks they should be the ones to tell all the others to do it, and how to do it. The catalogue artifact in the Jonstown library is extraordinary. The other libraries have sequential inventaries at best, with the same item possibly listed under different titles (and probably different shelf/chamber positions, too) Inkmaking is a fairly involved process, whether for gall ink or for india ink. I have no idea where Gloranthans would get ferric vitriol from for gall ink, though. Craft shops probably line the library sites, or have soot kilns in charcoal producing areas (for india inc). How to make paper from wood pulp might be a dwarf gift designed to anger the aldryami. Especially if the pulp is directed to be made from elf bones. (For people speaking German it is somewhat ironic that Gloranthan elf bones are wooden, as the German term for ivory translates as elves' bone.) There ought to be some variant of "taoist" spell card magicians using exotic writing material from specific elf paper, monster hide etc. and likewise special inks somewhere in Glorantha (and copied in Fonrit and probably Maslo, as part of their avoidance of too powerful personal magics). Why not the Vadeli?

The entirety of the last few days worth of messages in this thread were material for the Glorantha forum, but unfortunately the normal mortal forum user has no way to move stuff from one forum to another. Branching off a new thread doesn't redirect replies to earlier posts in the original thread. In order to stay on topic with this upcoming RuneQuest publication: Does Lightfore get a cult in GaGoG, or is the planet mentioned shortly in "The Cult in the World" for both (young) Yelm and Yelmalio? Not that any mythic insights found now would have much of a chance making it into this manuscript.. Content editing will be restricted to checking correct attribution of subcults etc. compared to previously published lore. I don't think a guide to heroquesting in the Sky World together with a sandbox description of constellation denizens etc. has even been suggested as a product, yet...

Then let's close this part of the discussion - there are other things about Kralorela's dark underbelly that deserve attention. Basically, because for every monstrously murderous tyrant correctly identified as such there are half a dozen historical characters with effectively the same track records who are remembered as upstanding cultural heroes by their (victorious) side. I don't find an absolute monster that interesting. Sheng as the leader of a well-organized state with an eager bureaucracy combining the best features of Kralori and Dara Happan administration is more interesting to me than just another demon. If these bureaucrats are Eichmanns, so be it. There are a lot of things in Kralorela that are suspicious - like e.g. the license Boshi Bushi has for his aberrant (and doubtless monstrous, if perhaps slightly less murderous) practices just for being Godunya's loyal monster. Sheng's activities in Boshan show a purified, almost angelic AgartuSay as a wandering Sage, fully reformed. Was that prior to his Jolaty revelation? Was the Jolaty revelation something forced upon him in Boshan or after leaving? Sedenya (as the Red Goddess) has a friendly side and a demonic one. Sheng is her Other, yet all that we see in his biography is his demonic side, except for the Boshan impressions. We don't have any written sources from his miraculous activities among the Pentans and Praxians, or in Ignorance. Those in Kralorela were re-written, as were those in Peloria.

It is a licensed product, as Chaosium (or MoonDesign) owns the Glorantha intellectual property, and it is one of two Gloranthan boardgames currently in print (and one out of four ever professionally published). I am active on the BGG forum, so it isn't like I am starved for people to discuss this with. There tend to be quite a lot of competitive board gamers over there, though, with focus on gameplay and rules, which is why I thought one could have some armchair discussions on the Gloranthan details over here. (I had one weird reaction to me voicing a minor disagreement on Gloranthan details with Arthur Petersen along the lines how I could challenge authority... thankfully my notoriety had reached some of the other posters.)

And if it was 13G, if that character shows up in a Gloranthan game he should have that magic. Sorry, Jeff, but "This is a RuneQuest forum" doesn't make Hofstaring a tree-climber and abseiler, either. I chose my words carefully to indicate a single recipient of this feat. IIRC it was won as a reward for the "Seven Steps West" quest (from King of Sartar). You might not be too fond of the Sartar Rising story line, and to be honest, neither am I, but this shouldn't cut out all the Sartarite detail from it. The character I was talking about appears in the Sartar Rising! campaign for HW/HQ1: Javern Spithorn, originally the spear companion of Orngerin Thundercape, and the characters' lead to become followers of Kallyr, "Orlanth Is Dead" p.10, and more prominently in "Gathering Thunder" p.5, where the player characters get his help in a combat situation. An image of him is on p.49. It is a very special feat, probably gained on a heroquest. I recall a short article or story by Greg why Javern couldn't be resurrected because his feat spared him most of the Path of the Dead. Guided Teleport to a specific Outer World location works as a RQ spell. The Gate of Dusk is on Luathela, not in the Sky World, BTW.

Weirdly, Mastakos grants one of Kallyr's followers a feat "Sunset Leap" when the leap his planet does is from Sunset to Dawn Gate, and the march westwards is a swift but steady amble.

Slime deer cavalry is what I would assume, too. Maybe the riders have a contraption on their saddles to hold those boneless head sacks up? The political map of Dorastor shows 30K "other chaos" in the eastern part of Dorastor, and "at the head of a mob of chaos things" suggests that the stag riders were only a small but memorable part of the horde. The population numbers in the Guide ignore the Grayskins of the Mad Sultanate described in Dorastor: Land of Doom, but the Guide mentions the Tower of Lead (located in that area) as sometime palace of the Mad Sultan. The riders could be some less depraved or luckily chaos featured individuals from the Mad Sultan's horde. The rest of the horde could be a wide array of weird mutations, or possibly some of the earliest Pamaltelan chaos monsters transferred to Karia. The RQ3 Glorantha Bestiary had a few examples, like the charnjibber. It might be an early effect from the Chaos build-up in Karia, although I think it is a little too early for that.

But why does he teleport at dusk?

The one you address through your rites. A sorcerer might tell you that the magical energy comes through that god's runic interface with the Absolute, and the incomplete mastery of that rune may bar you from receiving the full range of that rune's magical expressions. IMO you can question the identity of the object of your rites only while heroquesting. The worship interface is set by your traditions. Altering the worship by changing the name may alter the response you receive, but there is a high likelihood to (start out to) receive a far weaker response than from your original rite without active heroquesting. Attending a rite of a god-talker or priest from another tradition will give you that tradition's results from that tradition's source. Yelm is very much a source of magic merged through countless heroquests. Reducing these to the constituent parts will require lots of heroquest experience along all those paths.

There's a slight flaw in this - it would presume a teleport from the Gate of Dusk to the Gate of Dawn (like Mastakos/Uleria/Emilla), as Lightfore exists through the western gate as Yelm enters from the east, and vice versa. Otherwise, nice idea. Does any of this "bearing the solar disk" require to make a night-time appearance in the sky? Kargzant is Reladivus is Elmal among the Eight Planetary Sons which are known to the Theyalans, too. Shargash and Verithurus(a) have their own stellar bodies in the sky. They both returned from the Underworld after the invasion of Umath. (I am unclear when, and in what shape, though.) The other five (and the two additional planets, plus Entekos/Dendara) probably aren't associated with Lightfore, either. But both the southeastern and the central orb (Reladivus/Kargzant and Antirius) are Lightfore - though possibly only as the result of the Sun Swirl which merged and separated out their identities.

A good traveler's tale, news from beyond the valley, some entertainment, the offer to carry news to distant kin will usually get you board and bet at a non-hostile clan as an individual or traveling in a small party. Mutual exchange of gifts is a high-risk game for status that can easily become vicious. That said, as a traveler claiming a high rank accommodation, you have to leave appropriate material gifts behind. This applies to traders or groups traveling in state, with pack beasts or vehicles to transport stuff, or accompanying a herd driven to the market. Promises and obligations are a currency, too. You can reciproke a gift (including basic hospitality) with a blessing or by accepting a quest or aiding your hosts in some problem. You can offer to plead your hosts' case with some authority you are going to meet, or one you have privileged access to. Including deities if you are a god-talker. Sacrificing some personal magic at the local shrine is another way to "repay" hospitality. Find a mixed party to travel in. If you are pledged to that party leader, that party leader will be held responsible for your actions, but reactions of the clan you trespass will be directed to that leader. Expect to be exempted from the better hospitality offers. Come as a negotiator. Even if your negotiation is as hopeless as Boris Johnson wanting to re-negotiate May's Brexit deal, you are still entering as a bona fide emissary, and if not your person or your clan then at least your mission is likely to be respected. Divert the patrols - let them hunt after a decoy trespasser, or sneak in while they are busy greeting a sufficiently important potential guest. Stick to the royal highway, and/or hire an escort trusted and respected by both you and the hostile clan. Bring an intercessor and gifts. "We offer you escort to leave our lands" might be a friendly way of telling people to get away from here. If there is a concrete grief between the two clans, the greeters might send intruders back home with a message from their chief or some other authority concerning that grief. "Don't bother us again until you have paid the outstanding weregeld for X/have returned that stolen item" etc. It is possible to make such a demand on an unreasonable claim. "Foul spawn of chaos..." is a rather harsh way of rejecting Lunar-affiliated people.

Good (and quite hard) questions. Keep them coming. Unhindered passage through clan territory is a form of hospitality, too, IMO. You don't have to stop your journey at every stead and sit down for a sip of water or to stay the night, but you will travel past lots of sisters and female cousins who married into the clans on your way, and it is good practice to at least talk to them, exchange news, etc. Hospitality can slow down your travel speed to a crawl if you have the leisure to do so. An urgent mission will allow you to promise to have those talks and sit-downs on your way back, or next time. Then there will be clans who invite you to discuss a case of unpaid debts or worse. This too falls under hospitality laws, and may not be brushed aside that easily without deepening the conflict potential. Officially, hospitality challenges are the duty of patrols and gate-keepers. Depending on lots of factors like your status, your mission, clan relations, personal relationships, etc. In practice, hunters, herders and outlying farmers will act on behalf of the clan or the officials on patrol, or lead you to those better equiped to deal with such interlopers. A local carl or thane will often be the highest instance of the clan leadership and make judgement about your requests if these aren't neative for the clan. Accepting hospitality is a sacred oath, and reneging on that has serious repercussions, political, personal, and magical. Refusing to grant (a degree of) hospitality is a political statement and may trigger repercussions. About traveling incognito, there is the ancient "you may call me X" routine that avoids outright lies. "I once climbed the slopes of Arrowmound on the Lawstaff path" is a valid declaration of your past, though a rather meaningless one. Such fractionary introduction won't grant you high quality hospitality, and may be sufficient grounds to deny even basic forms. Normally, your response to the name challenge should be able to include a declaration of the degree of hospitality you are willing to accept, but like I said above, sometimes there may be offers you cannot (or don't want to) reject. You can always make a plea for a greater duty, although with big names like Argrath or Leika these had better have as prominent or as magical backing. Duty should only be offered to those in a follower relationship. If your clan or your party of travelers has pledged allegiance to Argrath at some point, saying no gracefully is hard. If there is anything like a prescribed liturgy for these ritual exchanges, it has to be highly flexible to take into account different degrees of hostility and purpose prior to the hospitality negotiations/offers. There will be lots of "I bring greetings from ...", too, and you might use the originators of these greetings to establish your importance.

After most of them died on a martial adventure of their last king, the grandmothers and his wife made sure that he and his remaining comrades died, too. While Rastagar was anything but a good husband, this act accelerated the victory of Chaos. There are parts of Esrolia that got "adjusted" as the Hendriking kingdom was fastest to recover from the fall of the God Learners and the EWF, forcing a more patriarchal system on significant portions of Esrolia. The Grandmothers countered this, and regained some of the lost ground, but not all of it. Plus this weakened southern Esrolia to the extent that another group of patriarchal reformers, from Caladraland, established another much less matriarchal region known as Porthomeka. In short, Esrolia is home to many variations of gender domination. Few of them healthy, none of them fully egalitarian, most of them somewhat functional and often problematic to modern sensibilities. (But that goes for the rest of Glorantha as well, only usually with stronger patriarchal domination. Holay may be a more pleasant environment.) This is over-stating the fact. Kimantor was the main protector of Queen Norinel of Nochet and guided her city halfway through the Greater Darkness before evacuating it into Shadow Plateau. A few other hideouts in and around Esrolia survived the Greater Darkness, too, and the Silver Age and Dawn Age saw an eager expansion. Orlanth does remain the most important husband of Ernalda, and the most worry-some. Many others are known, by ancient and by modern names.

Welcome, and no, this is the right place and the right format to undergo the test of Ehilm's Flame. The very act of reading is a form of worship of Lhankor Mhy. The secrets of literacy and writing are taught to the lay members of the cult, or inversely, whoever acquires these abilities does become a lay member of the cult. (Not necessarily in good standing, though.) This appears to aim at the history the Lhankor Mhy libraries have with the God Learners. The act of teaching literacy and writing may be seen as admitting the pupil to lay membership. The question is, who is qualified to admit someone else to lay membership? In the worst case, a lay member might teach another person some basics of reading and writing. So does this lay membership transmit through contagion? The Spirits of Reprisal are tasked to react to different crimes against knowledge, such as destruction of books (without proper replacement - creating a psalimpsest from a document a) reduced to illegibility and b) with all the pertinent information copied elsewhere is fine. Destroying a unique document meant for safe-keeping is a crime worthy of Reprisal. It would be a heck of a job. First, you need to create a catalogue, at least of all the documents you have indexed. This catalogue better had some sort of systematic by which the document can be located, and some enforcement that the document will be returned to the assigned place after being taken out to be read. Next, you need to create any form of systematic by which to categorize the document (or a subset of it). That is a never-ending process. For real-world implementations of Glorantha knowledge, I offer two examples. Peter Metcalfe has initiated the Glorantha Wiki, covering similar ground. Creating an entry is easy, assigning good categories that serve a systematic is a sysiphos task Peter has spent thousands of edits with. Jeff has dedicated a room in his flat in Berlin to house the Vault of Glorantha documents. Accessing that data requires a good memory, an insight in how the material was fit into the available space, and a lot of luck if it is one very specific piece of paper you are hunting for. In any case, a well-indexed document will create a greater amount of meta-documents (index cards) than its actual page count. While you're at it, make a copy of every document you indexed. The only way to keep them accessible, provided noone else has access. And that's the crux. Other library heroes will have pursued a similar strategy, and while this may have resulted in a certain redundance of such documents in your library, there will be documents which exist only in one of those partial indices, of which the original may be lost (or returned to the donor/owner who lent it to the library) or simply officially loaned to another sage. Ingo Tschinke wrote up the Jonstown library as a RQ2 setting, and used the work done for that in writing the 1995 freeform Heroes of Wisdom, recruiting me as co-author and co-referee. Lhankor Mhy temples are a sort of parent organisation to many advanced crafts that may pertain to the writing material. Typical writing materials include parchment, often from temple-owned livestock also used in sacrifices; papyrus (or similar woven/glued flat reed fibre prepared for writing) clay tablets (raw for quick notices, burnt in specialized kilns to preserve for posterity) murals, reliefs, rock carvings (writing in architecture) metal (sheets, coins, artifacts) wood and bone (carved/engraved) textiles (embroidered, crotcheted) and possibly knotwork possibly paper from linen or similar fibre. Wood pulp sounds like a fairly advanced technology. There will be lore-dependent industries surrounding major Lhankor Mhy temples, probably owned (at least partially) by the temple. But yes, trading for writing material produced elsewhere happens a lot. The concept of seals exists. In a way, these are movable type, only not fit for a printing press. But it is possible to use specific seals to print ownership details, curses or blessings into suitable material, all the way to coins. There are oil presses in Glorantha, though I doubt many (if any) use screw mechanics. Using wood cuts (or similar lithography) to produce form sheets appears to be an applied technology in Lunar bureaucracy. If they have to... Submission is always a reluctant process. Sages tend to be a proud bunch. Rather than deathtraps or magical seals, cyphers and kennings are a way to limit accessibility of a dangerous secret to those in possession of the correct keys and context. The most poetic writing style of the three LM scripts lends itself to the use of kennings and indirect references, allowing a writer to obfuscate his message to just about anybody without detailed instructions and context how to access this document. Locked vaults and curses as part of the document are used. If you manage to convince a person with full access to the location and the cypher of a document (you need to learn about in the first place), there will be ways to buy or bully your way to it. Learning about the existence and relevance of a document is 80% of the trick. Can you avoid getting illuminated when studying such stuff? And if it happens, is that such a bad thing? Limits to your knowledge probably are the worst obstacle, but can be overcome by learning. Learning weird and unnecessary stuff, too, like e.g. the theory of weaving, if you want to be able to contextualize a certain cypher using this specialized knowledge for kennings. Foreign languages, weird dialects... Written communication can work beyond first impressions, but basic knowledge may have to be extended to specialist knowledge to understand hidden meanings. Provided there is anything meaningful hidden in that piece of writing. Superstitions and arbitrary limits imposed by illiterati? Yes, these things happen. You need to awe them enough to take you serious, but not too much that they take you as indispensible for their goals. The dangers of applied anthropology just increase when you carry that pursuit to the gods and demons of the Other Side, but a ruin crawl has its own challenges, too. New technology: this will gain the attention of Mostali, regardless whether they were the source of the technology or just claim it for the World Machine. The Clanking City is full of such stuff, and even fuller of Mostali traps, old God Learner protection mechanisms and charred or otherwise brutalized remains of explorers trying to find them and figure them out. Pavis is a good place to plant a lead for a treasure/magic hunt that may send you all across the known world and on many a heroquest. If you are lucky (or unlucky), you might get Argrath as your sponsor. Someone suggested a campaign along these lines recently, "innocent" research leading to you in a project to create a new division in the Sartar Magical Union.

Greya's Story is simply a source that hasn't been published. I heard the story once, more than 20 years ago, from a distance, with Greg being hoarse as hell from three days of Convulsion. I didn't remember the name of the narrator. Greya's story may be a key source, but it is one that is unavailable to the Gloranthan public. As is Ten Women Well Loved, and as are all of the other pieces of Gloranthan character prose Greg ever wrote, except for that Aftal fragment which was published as part of Missing Lands (in itself an item of unattainable rarity, and apart for Aftal's story and a few pieces of interest for the development history of Glorantha with little material that wasn't reprinted or expanded in the Guide). If you own a copy, good for you. Treasure it like I treasure my copy of Hrestol's Saga. But neither is broadly available reading. What do you make of this judgement of Sheng's occupation in the history of the Fifth Wane (Sourcebook p.175) In Lunar memory, the people of Saird suffered more at the hands of the raiders from Tarsh than the farmers occupied by the subchiefs who regularly would cull villages for slaves to sell (to whom?) and who would graze their horses on rich barley fields (which apparently continued to be tilled).

I stumbled a bit reading this, thinking first of the temple in Boldhome that was built under Sartar the founder. Sun Dome County centered on Vanntar has this inside/outside of Sartar switch, but I suppose that Monrogh's construction on the site of Palangio's Bright Empire temple is what Jeff is referring to here.

Tattooing ink would be yet another form of transfering the pigment into a skin. I have no idea whether pulverized indigo could be massaged into cuts and remain inside. Woad applied as a pasty skin paint has adstringent qualities (reducing blood loss from shallow cuts), but these qualities might prevent the pigment from nesting into the fatty surfaces of living cells. Applying the textile mordant as ink won't work as the reduced form is soluble in body fluids, and subcutaneous oxygen supply isn't sufficient to return it into the colored form. The ink based on the mordant would be diluted and carried away. But all of this is real world chemistry. Another thing about Orlanthi tattoos that I don't know is how exactly these are earned, and added to. Looking at Argrath's initiation story in Prince of Sartar, we don't see anyone with a needle and ink approaching Argrath. Instead, the magical energies manifested on his Other Side experience remain behind as blue markings on his skin. But all of that is Argrath's subjective experience of his initiation. The mundane world part is last seen when his clan members enter his sleeping chambers bearing (rather crude) masks representing the Evil Uncles. It is quite possible that the prone body of the initiand receives the care of the clan's ink-master, following the energies the initiand manifests during his subjective experiences on the Other Side. But then, such a "netrunner" experience of the Other Side goes contrary to how I would imagine Gloranthan heroquesting, and it isn't compatible at all with the description of Ingolf's initiation in King of Sartar, commented on in History of the Heortling Peoples p.51. (No idea whether the page numbers there reference the old softcover edition or the new hardcover. I suspect the softcover.)

Your character will be subjected to the Praxian Sacred Time ceremonies (which may be an unpleasant experience) and help strengthen the captors' magic for that year. As she lives adjacent to these Praxians, the benefits to the land may be similar. She personally will be missing out (possibly on a POW gain role, in rules terms). I don't think that participating in someone else's Sacred Time rites increases your chances to experience a chaos attack unless those rites were of a chaotic nature. But then, Raus's rites might have some inadvertent Chaos in them from his Lunar connections.

The use of woad by the Orlanthi has been canonical since Cults of Prax - although first and foremost as (magically charged) skin paint. But use as a textile or leather dye is more or less inevitable at that point. Woad (aka Isatis tinctoria) will be one of the non-food plants necessarily cultivated by the Orlanthi, along with flax (for linen). Both woad and flax fibre requires a process of fermentation in its production. (Flax seeds for oil or varnish are more straightforward.) The blue pigment in woad is chemically identical to the main component of indigo, but the extraction and reduction process used to transfer the pigment from the plant to the textile gives less stable adhesion of that molecule (in the real world). (Indigo gives a deeper tone of blue also because it contains a number of similar pigments with slightly different light absorption - the first synthetic indigo was better than woad in its durability on the textile, but no better in terms of the deepness of color.) Everybody knows the pigment won from indigo - blue jeans are known world-wide. It may be less common knowledge that this pigment is applied to a textile through a process of reduction (resulting in a colorless milk) which then is oxidized on the fibres after the textile (or raw leather surface) has been soaked in the liquid. The air prerequisite as the mordant's helper makes woad a very appropriate dye for air worshipers. Applying the pigment to skin or treated leather probably doesn't use this method, but mixes the pigment with some fatty or waxy substance which is then massaged onto the skin or hide. As long as the coating remains on the skin or hide the blue pigment can work its magic.

Sedenya taking the shape of a bat - that's new to me. A nice idea, though. as far as I know, Annilla is allied with the bat goddess of the Blue Moon plateau, but it is a separate entity. Jar-eel's Liberation quest for Beat-Pot shows Verithurusa and Artia (or whatever name the Bat would have in her cultural context) as separate entities. It also shows Tolat's involvement in the rebellion. (Somehow no Dara Happan finds the moral fortitude to point out Shargash's involvement... other than claiming Yelm's greater purpose for Shargash the Destroyer in the Greater Darkness. But if Yelm's destruction was a cosmological necessity like the subsequent destruction of the world by Shargash, why blame the other sword rebel?) Most of that Blue Moon stuff has only been published in Drastic: Darkness, which used much of Greg's material available at the time, but wasn't official. Still, the troll-bats were MGF created by Greg, and used in a memorable improvised Hero Wars scenario that is among my most treasured Glorantha memories. Blue Sun of the Green Age: another interpretation not really funded in published material. There was a White Sun prior to Brightface's usurpation, mentioned (very much in passing) in the Entekosiad which then turns to the Naveria story rather than exploring this bit further. I am convinced that the White Sun followed a Day-Night cycle, not necessarily by traversing the Sun Path though. Verithurus being sent to Hell in the invasion of Umath is recorded in the Copper Tablets in the Guide and the Orlanthi take on that story in Heortling Mythology. The latest edition of Glorious ReAscent of Yelm has another slightly different take on that. What happened to Verithurusa after Umath had been sent to Hell is undocumented, although The Lives of Sedenya suggests she met him there and had a child from that encounter that turned her red (as the event did to her brother Alkor). Verithurus re-appears as Guardian of Mernita with Blue Lesilla as his provider (i.e. wife) under Anaxial, putting both the Red and the Blue Moon into a single package. Brightface's new order did remove women from all positions of power over men. Calling this a specific enslavement of just the women is a feminist point of view - he "enslaved" the entire world, including the Earth Walkers, and would have claimed the new-born Storm as well if Umath hadn't disrupted his perfect moment in time by dislocating the heavens frozen in eternal day.

Checking the Guide for this (and discovering a typo in the caption of the map of Sheng Seleris' empire, where the sub-chapter paragraph covers a hidden (but searchable) instance of Sheng), there is the factual description of Sheng depopulating Puchai on p. 264. Which is a terrible terror tactic, precedented only by Alkoth in the Darkness, and by Parg Ilisi. The Battle of All Widows After A Week leaves the losing side in the same situation as the outcome of Argentium Thri'ile. This is what is done to the losing side of a decisive battle, in Pentan history. (Also compare Alavan Argay.) I wonder why you don't pick up on this paragraph (Guide p.268f: Sure, it doesn't excuse his later atrocities in Kralorela. But it does paint a very different picture of his motivations. (Another aside on the Guide: one of its strengths is that the factual information in there is written in the voice of the current culture dominating a region. How else is this sentence to be interpreted? P.267 "The rule of the barbarians ended in 1460 when Godunya invoked the Potential Curse he had hidden in 1363. Sheng Seleris was torn apart by his own barbarians." Describing the Lunar Empire as "his own barbarians" is not exactly wrong, but... The Char-un conquest of Erigia remains uncommented as the victims weren't human but plants. Parg Ilisi's atrocities against Eol required the Emperor to disown the practices for fear of general uprising in all of his satrapies. It was worse than anything the Carmanian Bull Shah doctrine had inflicted on places like Rinliddi. The conquest of Sylila and the Provinces was done avoiding Dara Happan involvement, and the Dara Happans greatly resent that course of action. Likewise the subversion of Tarsh. Both the Eel-Ariash and the ruling dynasties of Sylila (the houses may change, but the objective of retaining control over the Provinces remains) stand for policies the Dara Happans are disgusted at. Yes, the Dara Happans have a history in their fight against the EWF after liberation from the Sun Dragon Emperor that saw Saird under the temporary influence of their civilisation, but - perhaps because of the Carmanian mother? - the Sairdite experiment just showed once more that nothing good ever comes from that den of rebellion and sedition, and good riddance after the Dragonkill disaster. The Dara Happans have a deeply rooted desire to destroy the rebels for good, but their hands are bound. Still, they plot to do as much "good" in eliminating the rebels as they can, spearheaded by Tatius, and if it means to turn their lands into a wasteland like after the Dragonkill, fine - just don't have your leaders killed in it this time. Some forces in the Lunar Empire wish to conquer Sartar and make it a profitable pacified province. Factions like the Eel-Ariash and their royal Tarshite branch. The Sylilite clan rivaling the Eel-Ariash for control of the Provinces wouldn't mind a new profitable province as long as it doesn't fall under Tarshite control, but for the time being, they are happy to join forces with the Yuthuppan-led efforts to turn Sartar into a depopulated wasteland. Because that is what the Dara Happans desire from the conquest of Sartar - an end of all these rebel creatures for good. Annihilation is too good for them. Tatius is their champion, and Tatius takes enjoyment and pleasure from the atrocities his activities inflict on the rebels in repayment for millennia of humiliation. Once his new Reaching Moon temple is up and running, he will find the leisure to indulge in more hands-on forms of degradation and destruction. Yes, the paragraph above is propaganda. It contains mostly truth, only the motives of Tatius are conjecture. In every bit as much conjecture as your motives ascribed to Sheng. Quoting this out of sequence here to illustrate how you mix fact - "we know he destroys the farms", reasonable conjecture "and doesn't care..." and spin doctoring "possibly ... he really enjoys it though".ci I admit that your interpretation is the standard interpretation, and Sheng's activities and track record give enough fodder for such an interpretation of the written history. Speculation on his motivations and ignoring his visible steps at actual empire-building towards creating an utopian nomad-ruled solar empire are consistently downplayed or ignored by you, or presented as a pure dystopia. Sheng integrates the Tripolis into his empire, and brings bureaucrats from Kralorela trained in supporting his demands. And he also transplants useful Dara Happan urbanites to Kralorela to create positive (and lasting) change in that hidebound culture. He cultivates what he likes best in both urban civilizations and has plans to develop both towards his ideal civilization. His disciples also bring him the reports on the city of (Old) Pavis, the ideal urban site for a horse nomad ruler (never mind the stripes). The dynasty build by Joraz Khyrem shows some of the finest achievements urban horse nomad culture can bring, and artifacts from those ruins still are valued highly. Sheng agrees with the aldryami that there is a too big population of farmers hurting and exploiting the sacred Earth in Peloria. Their main difference is that Sheng wants grasslands where the aldryami want forest. And given their past experience with the Char-un and the Moonburn of Rist, the aldryami probably won't be inclined to settle for a horse-friendly Taiga. I would assume that Sheng's original impression of agriculture was learned in visits to Ignorance. Massive blood rites to power the growth of the fields (it's where Hon-eel would get the maize magics from). It is quite likely that Sheng assumes that all agricultural magic works like that. Coloring the river red with blood might even be his way to imitate those fertility rites for fertile pastures in Puchai. I disagree. It is no comparison because history is written by the victors. The Lunar Empire is the result of a Mahdi uprising bringing weapons of mass destruction into a fight with regular armies. The fall-out in Tork and the strengthening of Dorastor with the influx of the grayskins remains. The Night of Horrors produced a new level of terror, outdoing even the First Battle of Chaos. Kralorela has an evil underbelly as well, and the Eastern way is to accept that as part of the whole where it doesn't obstruct advancement of transcendence into the light. Thus, Huan-to and Sekever with his transcendence into the dark are considered foes, but local expressions of the dark can just be contained and don't require removal. Kralorela is way more refined than the Lunar Empire in that way, and one reason for Sheng to bring Lunar overseers to Kralorela might be to reduce the un-necessary levels of refinement towards a more efficient administration of his assets. Calling the Crimson Bat to descend on Runegate after the Zombie onslaught didn't quite work in 1602 is the comparable terror warfare. In a single act of war, the Lunar Empire annihilated (not just killed) about a percent of the total population of Sartar in a day. And still the Sartarites didn't learn the lesson. There was a dragon that eliminated the Bat, otherwise the entire urban population of Sartar might have been annihilated over the course of the conquest. The Crimson Bat is very much a neutron bomb-like assault, leaving treasures and valuable stuff behind, satisfied with annhiliating the souls of its victims. Yes, and unapologetically so. "It was a regretful necessity" is what you get from perpretators and incitors of such atrocities. Like e.g. President Jackson or General Custer. I disagree with your portrayal of his motivation. Yes, he desires to transform their civilisation, and that transformed civilisation doesn't have a place for what he regards as useless parasites of society. But then he had tried the inclusive approach, in Boshan, and it had been used against him and the supporters he had gained from that. Pages 104-114 of The Eleven Lights tell a very similar story. An unfettered Tatius would have put Parg Ilisi to shame, but Eel-Ariash influence on the emperor and his inner circle remains strong. "He sets his men up as roaming rape and murder squads," Char-un patrols during the Sartar occupation? Honestly, I think you are going out of your way to accuse Sheng and his army of rape. Where are all the broos caused by this? The History of the Lunar Wanes has two mentions of rape. One for Parg Ilisi, the second for Beat-Pot Aelwrin. The Third and Fourth Wane doesn't mention any such activity. Yes, Sheng destroyed cities to deliver a point. Pretty much in Assyrian or Republican Roman style. "Today Runegate, tomorrow maybe Wilmskirk, maybe Jonstown - Boldhome is behind those annoying peaks, so the Bat will have to take a detour." The Lunars are masters of the same kind of atrocity warfare that sent their founders into rebellion against the Carmanians. Sheng's ecological reforms are drastic, yes. They may have a valid magical and ecological underpinning, though, as the Lunar Way is feeding the dark, destructive side of Earth which is hostile to Sheng. Sheng is no Raider Khan like Jaldon. He aims to be an empire-builder, like Jenarong, only for the entire world. That's what he traded ascendation for. (Or, as Greg told the story on one occasion at Castle Stahleck, quoted from memory: "Last temptation: Emperor of the World? Yeah, I'll take that." Smiling, in his jocular tone, not in those muted tones I remember from his readings of Greya's story.) Speaking of Greya's story - the parts that I remember from this impressed me strongly about how wretched a life the Sixths of Dara Happa lead at the command of their Dara Happan betters. My extended family has lots of tales of escaping the advance of the Red Army on East Prussia, and Greya's story didn't impress me in any way or added anything to what already was in my family history. Her wretched existence prior to Sheng's conquest was what shocked me.

They love to possess women, they hate to be commanded around by them. While there is a lot brotherly love among the Templars, it is sexual while at the same time not about gender. It is physical affection between fellow combatants, and how they are plugged doesn't matter that much. Outside of that comradeship, the templars and even more the miliitamen have the social pressure to provide new bodes to the templars, and to keep the supply running as there will be attrition. That means reproductive sex, and that's where female templars are at a disadvantage as they have a harder time fighting while reproducing. In both detailed instances of Yelmalio temples we have (Dykene and Prax) the authors have put these Light Ladies as the foremost champions of the cult. Confirming the stereotype through the exception. But then we never have seen the Kuschile mounted archer regiments in print, a branch where female warriors are known from terrestrial history. Those are templars, too. No, Daysenerus remained that big hunk of a spearman dominating the battlefield while Nysalor manifested as a human-sized robe wearing man floating toward the Black Eater. There is Antirius the Steward, ersatz-Emperor and holder of justice. There is the Spearman cult which gets interpreted as the warrior aspect, and which leads a separate identity in Dara Happa as opposed to the frontier regions of Rinliddi or Saird. There is the Sunspear cult of that street sweeper Avivath which has been merged into the Emperor Yelm cult when his descendant Khordavu became emperor. Interestingly, the entity Khor which is a family magical guide of Avivath has been named as one of the Illumination forms of an earlier Sedenya. The first (well, actually second, there was Eusibus from Alkoth) Dara Happan emperor who was of Dara Happan ancestry within history carried the Lunar spark already.