Joerg

This "dead trees" aka wood for sheep topic reminds me of Catan... I wonder whether there is a joint donkey breeding program by Waha, Issaries and Lhankor Mhy. Issaries for mule breeding, LM for the parchment, Waha for the salami. Rather than just the booklets, do we have a chance to get pdfs or similar formats of the maps and handouts, too, or is that the province of the t-shirt, bedsheet and coffee-mug department? And for the DIY pros among us, pdf or similar for the box covers and sides?

Sorry about this, but Orlanth certainly went around and made people smart. In fact, he was notorious for it, as were his brothers. Yelm even disintegrated from it. But yes, stats are tied to runes, and only a deity with some mastery over that rune should have the means to tinker with it. But then Orlanth managed to steal runic powers from all runic tribes that wouldn't give them up peacefully, including fire. Orlanth did manage to civilize the Storm Tribe to a great extent. He managed to listen to his wife. Give him some minimal credit, there.

Blood as liquid bone? While this makes a little sense chemically, it goes against established supernatural physiology. Use of dragonbone is established as a (quasi-) metal. True Dragons' bodies are drawn from the environment and magically transformed into the body features of the monster. "Black blood" sounds like something already gone wrong in the dragon as the consequence of the wound. No idea whether the concept of the humours of Greek medical lore applies in any way to Glorantha, but there black was associated to one kind of bile. I would treat this as wound effluvia, possibly of great value to alchemists who would subject it to all manner of further transmutations and putrefactions (fermentation) in order to extract some essence, but the raw stuff would IMO best be treated as a venom when entering a body through open wounds or imbibed/inhaled. Given the Lunar origin of the wound, the stuff might be as bad as the ichor that resulted from Larnste being bitten at the Footprint, with a dose of Chaos. The after-effects of dermal contact might very well provoke a reaction that produces "scales", possibly even granting a point or two of armor in exchange for an inhuman appearance. This sounds like a fun after-effect.

Jane William produced a VRML version of New Pavis. You'll need a browser extension to navigate it, though.

This thread has now degenerated into "Casualty of the Good Time"

In my opinion, yes. There are numerous variations of (someone like) Orlanth marrying (someone like) Ernalda, like e.g. the marriage of Durev and Orane during the Downland Migration. It usually has the dashing (but maritally unexperienced) heroic guy rescuing the experienced wife from some danger or fix. King Heort unfreezes Ivarne out of the ice, for instance. While having to admit that I have no idea about either of those two movies, there may be alternate versions of Orlanth's Three (plus one) challenges of the Emperor who held Ernalda as a servant/slave/concubine (pick your choice). The official story has the plot of land given to a very inexperienced Orlanth who is also being ridiculed by his elder brothers. But then, there are the tales of Tat and Tol, aka Orlanth and Yinkin, and their youthful amorous adventures (which are likely one origin story for the cat and hawk clouds), which puts a bit of a question mark to Orlanth being that much of an inexperienced oaf. (The rudeness is pretty much in character, though.) It is perfectly possible to insert Uleria as positive meddler in the Three Challenges arc, possibly setting up the meeting between the couple. As to the deity running interference, the solar court is full of these. It could be stuffy King Griffon (as a foreshadowing of Orlanth's entry to Maggotliege's court). That's not that unusual, really. The Ernalda quest in King of Dragon Pass has Ernalda encountering her yet unborn daughter Babeester as one of the obstacles/proofs of her purpose. Likewise, when Orlanth encounters the pair of Lhankor Mhy and Issaries on his Lightbringer's Quest, the encounter is presented as if it was their first meeting, yet both LM and Issaries had been mainstays at Orlanth's and Ernalda's shared court for many a myth. It is entirely possible that another aspect of Orlanth met his Ernalda under different circumstances. If you produce a cool story that fits into the early Orlanthi myths somewhere, go for it. This is a different tale from the Downland Migration, which Ernalda doesn't take part in at all. When Orlanth liberates his wife (by slaying the Evil Emperor), he brings her back to his mother's lands at Dragon Pass. I don't really think that this myth is about the migration, it is rather about the association of the gods and goddesses with their animal or plant companions. In this it yields much the same result for the male gods as the one in Anaxial's Roster about the Storm Gods hiding from the bad sorcerer. But then there was a migration of the pastoralist tribes down from the Cosmic Mountain, the one that produced the Andam Horde with its Ordeeds, the Ram People that attacked Dara Happa, etc. (IMO also including Storm Bull and the majority of the Praxian founders), and while I doubt that they brought their own land goddesses with them. If Orlanth was involved in that, he may have taken a lesser role than that of the King of the Gods - possibly as the Ram God. Yes, mention of Vingkot and Voriof does appear to create a paradox, as they shouldn't have been born yet. (Vingkot is not a son of Ernalda in any of those stories, anyway, but rather the son of a mortal woman who became king of the people of Orlanth, and a god in Storm Village at the same time.) However, deities have more than a single manifestation or incarnation, which sometimes shows in the recital of the names by which a deity is known. These names usually stand for a feat or a series of feats. For comparison, the Krishna participating in the events of the Mahabarata is only one of several manifestations, IIRC the eighth.

You're basically describing a Trickster's daily life. Seriousl,y, becoming a Eurmali is a never-ending divine challenge, and you are more or less obliged to drag your surroundings into your antics. And even when things go wrong without your involvement, you are still going to be the one to take the blame. From the side of the people who have to put up with a Trickster, one major reason to keep him (or her) around is to ease the transition to the Hero Plane. The price you pay for that is the easy transition to the Hero Plane.

The Noyalings are about as much a bull people as are the Bison Riders or the Andam Horde. (And I miss a group using the water buffalo as a totem...) I was reducing this to the true cattle folk (ok, including the aurochs which is the wild form, also in Glorantha as proven in the background of the Red Cow clan). The bull warrior societies of Seshnela are most likely imports from Akem (ancient Loskalm), descended from the Enjoreli. Soeaking of bovines, there is evidence for the (four-horned) water buffalo in Seshnela already in the Dawn Age, in that image of Ylream on p.409 of the guide, but other than for (rice growing) southern Seshnela and the lower Tanier valley, this kind of bovine is absent from any regional description of Glorantha, with special note for their apparent absence in the other rice-growing areas of Glorantha (Melib, the Teshno plain, the Pelorian basin, Kralorela, Vormain, the East Isles, Fonrit, Umathela).

If it is directly on the lake, the name might be forgotten as soon as you leave the place. At least if the memovore essences of that lake still aren't removed from the lore.

Good reasons, but like I said, European orchestral music creates an associative disturbance for me when presented as in-world produced. I am hardly familiar with "world music" like that Indian piece you suggest for Esrolia. At the very least, the instrumentation here is what I would feel comfortable with for Dara Happa, and the lack of vertical harmonies beyond two or three accompanyment lines by different instruments that are so pervasive in European "classical" music (even when dissolved in ladders in the string and reed sections). (Note that I find it a bit hard to express this competently in English, as all my music terminology is wired in German language - most of my mistakes in terminology come from inept translation rather than ineptitude in music theory.) I am dubious about choral harmony brass fanfares as used by Hollywood in the sandal movies, too. We have been trained to associate these with Romans or Hebrews, but the actual instruments of those times would have sounded quite different. Orlanthi are Celts?🙄😛 I missed the percussion and the pipes - not necessarily the bordun bassos of British or continental European bagpipes, but maybe the dual aulis pipes of the classical Greeks which enabled the flutist to play a melody and a simple harmonic or counterpoint on his own. For percussion and similar sound-rather-than-melody instruments we know about rattles and bull-roarers, and I would imagine Orlanthi liturgical singing to clash with a racket of percussion and a choral hum of bull roarers. (Drums of goatskin are the instruments of Darkness, though.) Uz certainly have volume to put behind their songs, but think also of the Wagnerian "fat lady" soprano valkyrie when it comes to uz vocal ranges. Their main melody instruments could be timpani made of skins stretched over various sizes of beetle shells. At one "Jugend musiziert" (youth playing classical music) event at my school I witnessed a guy playing an etude for timpani - he had three of those things, modern ones with pedals to switch between different states, but he even managed to play a glissando slowly raising the pitch of that instrument. I own a bodhran, and I am aware of a couple of techniques to alter the pitch of that (unfortunately I need almost a litre of water to tune it down to even a mth odest boom). But yes, Hombobobom, that's how uz melodies are played. The vocal range of an individual uz might surpass that of professional human singers and might be on par or even exceding the Diva from Fifth Element. Her resonance body certainly does (except for jungle trolls). Certainly a point, given the Anglophone interpretation of the term Celt which differs a lot from the continental European one. I'm not so sure about that. While baroque music was produced for the absolutist courts, it just happened to be the avantgarde of musical development from the renaissance, with the first widespread use of polyphonic harmonies (at least in Europe, and to my knowledge - in our courses, Baroque was the historical foundation for music, and most of the discussion of folk music happened as explanation for Dvorak's 9th symphony ("New World") and how mostly European folk elements entered those sounds that we now associate with Hiawatha etc.) I don't know how much of that will be available in Dara Happa or Carmania (and by extension to the Lunars). The hydraulic organ was a mainstay for Roman gladiatorial games, much as it is for NHL ice hockey (yes, there are other forms of hitting roughly round objects with sticks), and it might have pioneered vertical harmonies. But then, Captain Nemo's organ on the Nautilus (copied as Davy Jones's in Curse of the Caribbean) might be best placed in Mostali wheel-paddled floating castles (and the Phantom of the Opera piece, too). That carries a lot of cultural differences. For me, Tango music will be indeletably linked to Scandinavia and Finland rather than Argentina since my stays there. Peruvian reed-flutists and players of guitars of all sizes (could be replaced by russian balalaikas of all sizes) are part of the German pedestrian zone experience, and German medieval reenactment music like Corvus Corax has been co-opted by the Dark Eye community among German roleplayers (ugh). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWlJbHtROQQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QuxZ9_JFb94 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJbNnVzhii8 That pretty much reduces strings to the variety of the Indian ones in your Esrolia piece, or Chinese ones, or the stuff used by Corvus Corax. Dulcimers, psalters (or the Finnish version Kantele), variations of lute or citar, or the hurdy-gurdy are all within the technological capacity of Gloranthan cultures when it comes to string instruments. Orchestral string groups should still be beyond the corner. They might appear as an interim between string and percussion, the Rummelpott. (No English language page available) Harps are canonical, but the number of strings may be as low as the Greek lyre, or no more than a small Celtic harp. The resonance body might be ivory from huge tusks (dragon, mammoth, elephant) or horns (e.g. triceratops). Reed instruments will either be reed flutes or rather squeaky and probably amelodious stuff. Flutes of clay, bones and wood are more than possible (there are bird bone finds on Neanderthal sites with holes spaced in harmonic distances, suggesting that these early Europeans already had music). Bagpipes aren't exclusively island Celtic. They are as common in hispanic and old German music. What we call brass instruments may be such where brass is produced, but are more likely to be made of horn or shells. Brass and terracotta cymbals and bells are a thing. Basically, of the European symphonic orchestra, the mainstay (the string section) is the one I doubt the second most in Gloranthan music, after the pianoforte and its cousin the cembalo. The reed organ as some form of mechanized pipes should be existing in the Holy Country and in the Lunar Empire. The folk or popular music we associate with these instruments may be misleading from our various cultural backgrounds. The Harry Lime theme isn't the only kind of music you can play on this kind of instrument, and doesn't have to point to Vienna in the early days of the Cold War, as the biblical psaltery associated with King Solomon is hardly different, perhaps slightly less sophisticated in the resonance body.

That's what Glorantha-themed conventions or online or play by forum gaming is for. The group dynamic role of the duck can as easily be taken by a trollkin, a newtling (with a point or two of dragonewt magic?), a magisaur, a satyr or fox woman or a wind child - a glass cannon character with the magic up, and cannon fodder without it. Or in Prax, by a baboon or a morokanth.

It would be more of the nature of a movie (or TV series) score than the actual music (or cacophony) produced by the participants. But that goes for all orchestral music, IMO. Like I said, I would be interested in a collaboration of combining composition and runic theory to experiment with melodies that might result from Elemental (or Dara Happan, or Lunar) liturgy, with weird ideas how the Powers and possibly the Form and Condition runes may be introduced as compository elements. (For comparison, the sacral choir-and-orchestra passions by Bach have symbolic musical elements that are evident mainly as graphical elments in the score (when combined from the different instrumental voices into an organ original or a piano transcript for choir study purposes), like crosses formed by the various notes over the beats.) A bit like the cooking book project by Claudia Loroff. Purest geekery, though.

IMO Sacre du Printemps is the perfect accompanyment for the Wild Temple rites. No Chaos required, only raw Creation powers of Arachne Solara (and perhaps some digestive problems after giving birth to Time).

Since Peter asked so charmingly friendly: Joerg, this really isn't the place for deep gloranthan discussion of putting forward your theories as facts. If there's no textual evidence, leave it out on the RQ forums. Asking for textual evidence in the RuneQuest forum is of course not at all newbie-friendly, either. In the spirit of the original post of that thread (wait, that was mine), I'll repeat my thesis here, and I challenge you @metcalph to provide conclusive counter-evidence. But you are as welcome to post another such short notice with a friendlier formulation of "a load of bullshit" and be done with this thread. Sorry if this comes about as a bit grumpy. My pain medication after a major visit to the dentist doesn't do its job that well. We have a list of the Old Ralian deities as they were encountered by the Theyalan missionaries. The Theyalans made identifications of several of these deities with their own Manirian versions, and with their slightly more effective magic and a lot of shared mythology that was able to patch forgotten bits of Vustri and other Enerali myths managed to Theyalanize the Dari confederation. If there ever was written evidence about the pre-Lightbringer missionary myths of the Ralians, it probably went into the Autarchy lore which was then plundered and transshipped to the later sunk lands of Old Seshnela and Jrustela, where they formed the basic canon for God Learner heroquesting in Theist cults. The Dawn Age Seshnegi had been practitioners of the same theistic cults as the Pendali, whose noble refugee tribe became known as the Basmoli of southeastern Ralios and northwestern Maniria (in the meaning of the Gloranthan region, not the portion of pre-sinking Slontos but including that). They appear to continue these semi-Hsunchen, semi-Theist practices in their warrior societies (Beast Warrior cults which are likely to make up a good part of the 100 war gods of the Kingdom of War, too), but in both cases, there appears to be a "back to the magical, Hsunchen roots" movement. The animosity between these no-longer or not-quite Hsunchen (extending to the Entruli pig totem tribes, too) and the Serpent Brotherhood Hsunchen folk that slowly succumbed to the military power of the Second Council and then the Bright Empire, leaving only the most remote areas of Ralios to the shamanistic beast peoples does appear to be a distinction. A case can be made that all the pastoralist beast riders that populated the uplands of the western Rockwoods, the Mislari, and the Nidan chain were Umathi in origin, as were the Beast Riders of Genert's Garden and Desero's Horde in Pamaltela. There seems to be a somewhat fluid transition from Tawari bull hsunchen to both Enjoreli aboriginees in Loskalm and Bisosae in Pelanda. Likewise there is a strong Storm connection for Rathor and probably Arakang making them hard to discern from the part animist, part theist Odayla of northern Saird. Fact is that a lot of the Orlanthi that were Malkionized either in the Autarchy or under the Middle Sea Empire have Hsunchen or Hsunchen-like beast totem roots. The Ancient Beast Society of Estali has pretty much the same beasts as the Hykimi creation myths in the West, the Korgatsu Hsunchen of the Shan Shan, and among the Fiwan of Pamaltela. (There may have been a fourth group for what became Slon - there used to be four Sea Turtle peoples, one for each corner of the world, but only the two eastern ones survived. The Dinosaur hsunchen of Slon don't appear to be Fiwan, but they may also be a way more recent retrograde development if Sandy's theory about Pamaltelan evolution going backwards in Earth parallels still is the meta-rule there.) IMO the entire Serpent Beast Brotherhood and the Hykimi nations they descend from sits halfway in the Theist camp, halfway in the animist Hsunchen one. The hints about the Seshnegi warrior societies and the hints in the rules (RQG, HQG) and the guide about their use of theist and animist magic and their role in the HW/HQ1 era separate worlds dogma is contradictory to the pre-WBRM writings about the west, which have pretty much Theyalan-feeling polytheism for many of these. (And yes, it doesn't take Ethilrist's writings and the Lunar Empire map from the WBRM rules to remind me that there has been a lot of world building also in that region in the meantime, resulting in the texts of the Guide which is a synthesis of all those predecessors and has been slightly re-interpreted for the current editions of RQ and HQ compared to what it came from when it was published.) The Kachasti migration resulting in the Kachisti settlement of the beast lands that would become known as the Greatwood to the Vingkotlings after the rising of the Nidan Mountains wasn't in those earliest stories. The raising of the Nidan Mountains doesn't have the same vibe for the Vadeli as do the four tribes of Old Brithos which permeate the pre-WBRM writings about the West, and which see short reprises in Revealed Mythology (next to all that "colliding Worlds" "Great deeds of the Eransanchula Zzabur who never was a son of Malkion the Founder" stuff in the Danmalastan section that IMO clearly postdates Greg's original writings about the God Learners), but without access to more than a part of those highest level rewards of the Guide kickstarter, I cannot provide an exact analysis about the development of these aspects of Glorantha. The gazetteer parts of Fronela - especially Loskalm - contain many a detail lifted from those stories that were not included in the RQ3 Genertela Box presentation of the West and its Beast-descended human neighbors, and probably mostly forgotten at the time that first edition of the world book was published. The glossaries of the three regions (west, south, east) in Revealed Mythologies let a few of those older sources glimmer through, but not quite shine. The Kachisti/Hykimi hypothesis for part of the "Orlanthi" peoples of western Genertela with Hsunchen and Pastoralist Hill Folk sharing many a totem myth remains my best interpretation of the synthesis of these different creative periods that went into the Guide. And Jeff made it clear to me that the historical information in the Guide is far from complete compared to the stuff the historical maps provide in names and the Vault of the original Glorantha manuscript provides in short explanatory lists for those places, with the example of Vindorhall and a quite as interesting sequence of events unfolding there during the Gbaji Wars. So, in short, there was a period of writing in which the Galanini were as Hsunchen as the Basmoli, and the Pendali were just a tribe of the Basmoli who had married into the theist land goddesses. There were tribes of elemental demons like the Likiti which may or may not have been humanoid and may or may not have practiced agriculture or at least horticulture, and may or may not have absorbed some of those Kachisti who escaped Vadeli enslavement after the Nidan eruption. The High Llama pass is the continuation of a migratory path defined by Lord (high?) Llama across the low watershed between (what would become/had already become?) the Janube and the Tanier catchment (or at this time still invasion target) regions, and Mount Nida itself (NW) appears on the God Learner map of the first copies of the Cosmic Mountain. (In fact, we find three corners of a square of dwarf mountains with Magnetic (SW) and Diamond (NE) Mountain, and the fourth corner (SE) lost in what later became the Sshorg Ocean. The Mostali urge for a symmetric World Machine suggests a loss of workrooms in that area.) This extension of the North-South separation of peoples that had been started by Larnste in a way that was counter-productive to separate the differing world views - IMO on purpose, to promote his agenda of change and development - ceated two separate Hykimi areas, still labeled as the Greatwood in the historical and prehistorical maps, but introducing a Umathi cultural element to several of those peoples in the higher foothills. E.g. Jonating Bear "Orlanthi" (alongside Tawari cattle ones) vs. Rathori Hykimi - I doubt that these had always been completely unrelated. Some of this unpublished stuff had been processed in the making of the Broken Council Guidebook, and that gives the lucky collectors who have a copy of either print run of that freeform companion booklet a glimpse of stuff that I suppose ended up in the set of scans in hardcover that accompanied about two dozen kickstarter deliveries of the Guide. (I cannot really regret having previously invested that Glorantha budget in visiting a number of European conventions instead, but I am a bit peeved not to have that access.) The connection between Hykimi (aka Western Genertelan, Wareran Hsunchen) and Orlanthi isn't exactly a new idea. I think it was around 1995 that I took part in an email exchange with a number of people from the Daily (or already Digest) about the Urlanthi, the tribes or clans of animal totem people that became the Theyalan missionaried inhabitants of the Barbarian Belt. I think that some of the stuff debated then was echoed back to Greg by a few of the participants who had direct access at that time, and we either guessed correctly about a few things or actually managed to feed halves of a few concepts into the canon. Yes, this is not explicitely the canon that is printed verbatim in the Guide. It doesn't contradict any information presented as fact about the history of that part of the world, either, and as I said before, a lot of the concepts (or at least names) from older ages have been glossed over in the Guide to keep it somewhat readable without an exegesis like this.

There have been different definitions of "Galanini", and one of them as originally horse Hsunchen never has been made obsolete, although a pure Hsunchen form probably predates Time, or was a retro-actively Hsunchenized form of the Enerali. As far as I am concerned, Enerali, Pendali and Enjoreli are what you get when you civilize Galanini, Basmoli and Tavwari respectively. Whether this happened through interbreeding with Kachisti survivors or other theist acculturation I cannot say. I would tentatively place this after the Golden Age, throughout the sunny parts of the Storm Age and onward in the lesser Darkness prior to the destruction of the World Mountains (Spike, Flamal etc.)

Yes, quite a few of these use folksy music. What works well too is Irish folk, also in the modernized forms by Clannad or their little sister Enya, especially her soundtrack for the BBC documentary "The Celts". I am in regular contact with a German music project that produces mood music well suited for roleplaying, Erdenstern. (Among other things, they produced a CD with Dresden-files inspired music for the German release of that game.) When it comes to the Classics, there are a few evergreens, like Holst's The Planets, Tchaikovsky's 1812 ouverture (and for a nice battle-gimmick, "Wellington's Victory at Salamanca" which has two orchestras playing "agains" one another), Stravinsky (both Swan Lake and Sacre du Printemps), Grieg's Peer Gynt heroquest, of course Wagner's ride of the Valkyries (and if you can stand it, quite a few of his arias, too). Personally, I find Bruckner's 8th symphony an excellent backdrop, too. Dvorak's 9th Symphony "New World" and Mendelsson-Bartholdy's 3rd (Scotch) symphony and his Hebrides suite are great, too. There are quite a few harder rock pieces that wax quite mythological, too. Metallica's The Call of Ktulu (sic) is an obvious choice...

That voice range (or at least something approaching this) is used in a number of Country songs, too (I Was Born Under A Wandering Star, Ring of Fire), and a few of the Romantic (and later) European-style composers demand that range, too. Perhaps even already Mozart with the initial notes of Osmin's revenge aria in "Entführung aus dem Serail". My natural singing voice range was probably best described as bariton in younger years (it has diminished since), and I struggle somewhat to reach those lowest notes, depending on what tuning is used. One voice mode I haven't commented on yet is the yodel, which is basically a controlled release of tonal control and doesn't necessarily follow normal scales. I expect this to feature in quite a few Gloranthan forms of singing, too, along with stuff like the throat singing or related effects you can get at singing certain vowel shifts from throat to labial. (An example is Annie Lennox's initial sound of the "When" in "When Tomorrow Comes" - or at least it happens to me trying to reproduce that - as the English double-u sound is almost more like a vowel than a consonant.)

TLDR: some comments on music for people literate in sheet music and European music theory I am a bit unhappy with European "classical" (actually Baroque, and what sounded like Russian Romantic) music for Glorantha, really. I wonder how much the Gloranthans have mastered polyphonic harmony for their music - do they really use chords (or polyphonous choral singing resulting in such), or is melody, counterpoint and rhythmic bass plus any number of percussion the extent of their music? (To make clear where I come from: One of my A-level core subjects was music, in the sense of analyzing "classical" music, ranging from Bach's Baroque all the way to the 1930ies with late Romantic and twelve-tone music. This wasn't about playing a musical instrument, but about analyzing composition techniques, the structure of classical music, harmonies etc. I do play acoustic guitar with a basic education in classical guitar, and I did dabble a bit in playing in a band, using the guitar and electric bass, plus I sang in the (slightly demanding) school choir - stuff like Carmina Burana, German Lieder, choral sets of West Side Story.) I expect quite a lot of Gloranthan music to be mostly pentatonic (e.g. only the black keys on a piano - you can play them in any sequence you want, and it will always sound fairly palatable). The modern scales of major and minor are only two special cases of the harmonic seven-tone scale which requires two half-tone steps to have both the Tonica (main scale, setting the number of hashes or 'b's for the sheet) and the dominant and subdominant chords as part of the seven tone ladder. There are other scales using only the white keys of the piano starting at other notes than C (major) or A (minor), called "church scales" and named after (lost) Greek scales, e.g. Dorian starting on D and Phrygian starting on E. Then there are variations on these, like the harmonic minor scale which pitches up the 7 to have a one-half tone step (resulting in using the major chord of the dominant rather than the minor), which results in a three-half tone step from 6 to 7 (common in Spanish guitar music which was of course influenced by Arabian music), and non-European scales like the Arabian one which has a similar three-half tone step between 3 and 4 of the scale, creating that stereotypical Arabian wail in the melody line, and other variants in far eastern scales that I never had any education about. Then there are chromatic scales (12 half tones until the tonica is repeated), and there is the full-tone scale (best known example is the Simpsons theme harmonies - not the melody, which makes rich use of half-tone steps - with its unconventional harmonics resulting from that). The pentatonic scale goes well with the five elements (and the five elemental souls) of the Theyalans. There are five possible pentatonic scales, pacing the three-half-tone steps differently. I am tempted to assign one each to one of the five basic elements as the tonica, and make the accompanying chords accordingly as major or minor chords. Basically pentatonic melody lines still can have occasional occurrances of the two other notes, but these needn't be always the major or minor scale, but can alter. That's quite in keeping with the Orlanthi doctrine of "Nobody can make you do anything". Dissonances can be powerful effects in music, elevating the conscious perception of music. I figure that mystical or chaotic-friendly groups in Glorantha will make great creative use of that, but dissonances can also be a measure of struggle (Death, Storm) and Disorder, or even Truth as much as Illusion. Indeterminate intervals or chords may represent Chaos or Raw Creation (especially when followed by well-determined though maybe previously unexpected harmonies, and are a higher extension of Harmony, even when appearing as dissonance to less discerning ears. Unlike the well-tempered tuning of modern pianos and guitars, there is also the harmonic tuning which results in certain intervals that should be harmonious in a well-tempered scale to sound somewhat off-tune, e.g. the wolf quints that should be avoided on non-well-tempered accompanyments. (In fact, a well-tempered scale is somewhat off-tune from a harmonic scale that uses equal distance shortening of a vibrating string, so-called flagiolet sounds. People with absolute pitch may be slightly uncomfortable with well-tempered scales. If you are playing e.g. cello, there is a distinction between an F-sharp and a G-flat, not enough to register as a tone step, but audible when played wrongly along one another.) I am not quite suggesting to have a composition- and jam-session with a number of musical instruments on some Glorantha convention. but it might be an interesting experiment, if there are other musicians and wannabe composers around. Perhaps rather per hang-out.

I guess you confused the minimum STRength of 9 with the Strike Rank column (last but one). Weapon strike ranks range between zero and four.

Having individuals from one of the three major elder races join the party places a number of restrictions on the party. As a rule, it is hard to be both an elf friend and a troll friend, and whether it is possible to be a reciprocated friend of dwarves isn't quite clear, although it is possible to be a valuable asset in some greater task of those dwarfs. Aldryami and Mostali have mandatory home leave, or drag their human companions along to their homes. Aldryami in Colymar lands might join Tarndisi's grove, which would make their way home rather short. The Elder Race encounters in Griffin Mountain are rather untypical of their respective species, written to please normal elf/dwarf expectations. The mostali party consists of individualists with too many generalist skills, and their leader should really be a noncombatant Gold dwarf rather than the competent warrior king. They are however what many RQ2 players regard as their Elder Race normal. Trolls as party members are easy. They have a number of disgusting habits, but that's not different from certain human stereotypes like alcoholic Storm Bull berserks or tricksters. It helps to have one or two humans with similar predilections in the party. Trollkin may be a lot easier - they make excellent ablative meat and tragicomical relief, and can be on par with ducks. Great Trolls are first and foremost meat shields. But both great trolls and trollkin can be real characters - a trollkin could easily fill the role of Sam Gamgee to another party leader and provide servitor wisdom, and a great troll could act as a moral compass and even as social glue. Dark Trolls are power houses, especially female ones (XU healers somewhat less). Unbroken aldryami following High King Elf or one of the deities shared between aldryami and humans may attach themselves to Yelmalians and Earth worshipers. They are pretty restricted in their abilities to interact with larger groups of humans, and they will have to have some sort of mission, whether gathering intelligence or persecuting specific enemies of the forest. Aldryami twenagers might set out or be sent out to experience humans and other non-aldryami. Other types of aldryami may be played, too - dryads and pixies are possible. A dryad away from her tree/grove would be rare, and would have to have a very special doom or mission, but with a high likelihood to be a shamaness there might be a sufficiently good motivation. Even so, many an aldryami will be unavailable for certain missions, and have a hard time to participate in things like the Sacred Time rites away from their own people. Greatway Individualist Openhandists are borderline able to join a party, but would need some reason to do so, too, and some means to be effective. A work team might be easier to integrate than individuals. A tin darf operating a set of gremlins and/or nilmergs might actually have enough indirect abilities to be an adventurer. Iron dwarfs are pretty boring munchkin warrior-smiths. If you want a tank, especially against trolls or elves, having an iron dwarf on your team is fine. A gold dwarf could be inquisitive, but their main role is that of an overseer and decision maker. Useless in practical skills, a gold dwarf would need some subjects to heed his commands unfailingly in order to put up with more disorderly people (like e.g. a disciplined team of Templars). I think that a mixed party of several dwarfs and attached humans might be able to work, with a dwarf-driven storyline. Merfolk are difficult to integrate into any land-based adventuring. A predominantly coastal/high seas game can have them, and the Holy Country boasts two cities that can be visited by merfolk, too - certain roads of Nochet, and most of Seapolis. The City of Wonders used to be such a place, too, and it is possible that the fish road nexus somehow survived the disappearance of most of the rest of the city. Dragonewts as player characters will probably produce rather variant Gloranthan experiences. Other non-human species are easier to integrate, although centaurs are almost as limited in their choice of terrain as are merfolk. Morokanth might be a lot easier, although narrow passages or steep inclines mean the end of the road for them, too. Ethilrist's demon horses can at least send out their riders - a possibility for Morokanth with awakened herd men, too. Wind children are hopeless for indoors activities. Wyrms as player characters are oversized and both overpowered and under-skilled. Two-legged beastfolk, newtling bachelors, magisaurs, tusk riders, baboons, gorillas, keets and other such creatures work as party members with similar effects as trolls. Lunar cultist chaos humanoids might be feasible in Lunar lands, but would require some World of Darkness approach to deal with their destructive urges. (Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda TV series has a broo PC, Rev Bem, in all but name, but that crew is as weirdo as a crew can get.) Pairing such characters with a sidekick to function as ersatz-character in those situations where the main character cannot function might be a way to solve the individual exclusion problems. Otherwise, your party might need some kind of followers that can be shared by players of currently inconvenienced characters - something like the Ars Magica troupe play. If you want a party with exotic party members, these exots will always be outside of their own social group other than the party. You can have something like Torath Manover's Lightbringer party with a fledgeling exile power structure of their own. You should be prepared to bring the party into the homeland of their exots on a regular basis unless those characters play the exile for some reason. It is your choice how whacky and how surreal you want your Glorantha to play out. Personally, I prefer atmospherically dense gaming over weirdness. Would-be players of extreme characters should give me a good idea how they want to play such a character, what kind of storyline they see for those special challenges of such a character, and how they mean to integrate that character into the party and the storyline. That goes for ducks as well as for trolls or ludoch. Special needs characters can expect to be left out in certain scenarios, and as a consequence will have slower skill progression than the rest of the party. There cannot be a guarantee that they will balance this with more spotlight in scenarios where they can participate, either. When playing the savage bodyguard/sidekick of some socially well integrated leader, I aim to be socially embarrassing in a consistent way, and can be as much a pain in the posterior as a well-behaved trickster. When GMing such a party, I expect some consistency, too, and a roundabout way to produce results rather than "good Orlanthi style behavior" by non-Orlanthi (replace with Esrolian or Praxian as needed).

If this is going to a vote, I would posit the Pujaleg as another candidate for greatest social sophistication with their temporary hold on civilized Laskal. The problem with such sophistication is that they might fall prey to the lures of civilization, as happened to the great Hsunchen-descended nations of western Genertela in the Gray and Dawn Age (Enerali, Pendali, Enjoreli), although that may not affect the entire nation, as the re-emergence of Basmoli in Ralios and Maniria suggests.

There is also the very Gloranthan possibility to make an existing faked religion real, most easily by "finding out" that the religion has "really been X" all the time, proving that connection, and voila, real magic from the Ultimate and not just some Short World reservoir that was filled with worship. New gods can and do arise from apotheosis of heroic (and/or demigod) individuals, too, and even ordinary mortals can become demigods as a figure of worship.

Like the reverse Elmal/Yelmalio debate? Or questions about moose and other deer-like animals in Fronela?

Several of the hero bands described in the Hero Wars era products would evolve into units of the SMU, so it might be worth taking a look at the Sartar Rising series of scenario pdfs in the Chaosium Vault. The Eaglebrowns and how they start to be a magician unit are part of that campaign.

Winterwood isn't a good place for reindeer with its immense range of spruce. The Deerwood might be if it is the typical Arctic dwarfed birch and pine savannah, though I wonder what beasts would be there for hunting other than reindeer and perhaps moose. We know that there are (or used to be) musk ox, mammoths, mastodons and woolly rhinos in the greater region, but hunting those is a quite different challenge from hunting reindeer, and they come with their own Hsunchen partners (over in Rathorela or northern Loskalm). That close to the glacier I wouldn't expect the full range of the Cro-Magnon prey depicted in the caves of southern France, such as wild horses or large wild cattle or bison. Having lived in a mainly Sami-descended community in Norway, I did some research about the region's history. It turned out that the coastal Sami were sedentary with only seasonal raindeer hunting, using something like permanent fence traps to drive off parts of the annually migrating herds into captivity or butchering (with the climate acting as a natural ice house for storing the meat), living off the extreme bounty of the winter fishing and trading that to the Norse folk for grain and metal. Possibly doing so since the Nordic Bronze Age, as the local rock carvings (Helleristninger) show similarities with the nordic boat builders whose rock carvings show boats resembling the Hjortspring boat. This rich source of additional protein also outside of the main fishing season creates a population base higher than that available to the Uncolings who have at best riverine fishing with a salmon migration filtered past many other fishing communities. Other populations in comparable environment would be the Samoyedic Nenets people, who have (with 80+% urban population) a population density of 0.7 per square kilometer, compared to the 4+ per square km David gave for the (modern) Sami. Trading for metal is an option for the Hsunchen of Tastolar as there are Third Eye Blue people in the region, or at least there used to be.