Joerg

Blah, foobar and other: that's where foobar tends to turn into FUBAR. Seriously, parallels aren't. Sample Sartarites are shown in various Glorantha publications, most recently (and most canonically) the RQG rules, the Red Cow books "The Coming Storm" and "Eleven Lights" for HeroQuest Glorantha (which also has typical sketches of Heortlings), and in the Guide to Glorantha. Plus we have the illustrations of Vasana and her companions. Is that sufficient pictorial material, or do you have to refer to half a dozen osprey books which all give details that are irrelevant or misleading when applied to Sartarites and their neighbors? Urnfield and Hallstatt people did X, that means Orlanthi do that, too. The Myceneans did Y, that means the Orlanthi do that, too. So we get Micky Mouse hat-wearing proto-hoplites on penteconters in the highlands of Dragon Pass? I hate the Greek Bronze Age references, and references to the Heroic Age when everybody was the son or grandson of at least one deity. Yes, there was such a period in Orlanthi history - it is called the Vingkotling Age, and it is probably about 200 generations ago. The Vingkotling Age is the age of demigod rulers, when everybody important was within very few generations from Orlanth. The heroes of the Hero Wars are at best avatars of their deities, with only a few demigods around. They are blue-collar demigods who have worked mightily to attain those ranks, even those bred for the job like Jar-eel and her son Phargentes. This doesn't make their feats during the Hero Wars any less epic.

I lifted this out of the "how to sell RQG to players" (presumably players without Glorantha experience) as that thread really also is for GMs just cutting their teeth on Gloranthan roleplaying. First, let's deal with the typical drift what familiar earth culture you would use for which Gloranthan culture, starting (as usual) with the Orlanthi. The concept of the Stead as the central place for the important person is as old as the arrival of agriculture outside of the semi-arid river valleys. The neolithic farmers had pretty much the same idea of the stead as had the Icelanders up to the 19th century. Likewise cattle-herding, plowing, sheep- and goat-herding, and the use of the semi-domesticated pig for meat (a lot less dangerous away from the hot conditions of the Fertile Crescent). For some reason, I associate neither Irish nor Greek myths with the Orlanthi of Dragon Pass. I'm fine with the Mabinogion, the Nibelungenlied with its own Migration Age heroic age condensation of historical figures (often telling the same stories as Homer), the Ynglingatal in the Heimskringla or the Kalevala, and not hostile to the Vedic myths of the interaction with the urban natives of their conquest, or the Philistines in the bible. Until the Ernaldori clan received the focus, the Orlanthi have been predominantly portrayed as rural clans far from any urban activity. With the Ernaldori clan centered in Clearwine, this has at least been changed to a fairly urban setting. More urban than I would have expected of any Colymar clan, really - prior to seeing the Mediterranean temple-fortress of Clearwine, I would have regarded Runegate as the more urban place in Colymar lands, a town shared by the three clans of the former Triaty (with the lost clan replaced by the Taralings) and the clans playing a role in town management similar to the tribes in the confederated cities. But then, the non-urban clan has received a near-perfect treatment with the two Red Cow books, so I guess it is time to move onward. I would have preferred a Kheldon-and-Boldhome setting to start with, though. But canonically, Kallyr only lasts about as long as Ned Stark in Game of Thrones, and even in the alternate canon provided in King of Sartar she doesn't last more than five years more (mowed down by Harrek after the conquest of Furthest). For being the dominant ethnicity in Prax, the Beast Riders have seen as little description as the Sartarites or even less up to the publication of Hero Wars. I did play a few games as a Praxian, but they never fascinated me the way urban Sartar or the Holy Country did. @David Scott has a fairly advanced Praxian project at his hands, but it doesn't seem to be in a production state yet (unlike the new Troll Pack). The Zebra tribe of Prax and the Zebra riders of Pavis are the one exception to my dis-interest in the Beast Riders. That, and the EWF inheritance. Old Pavis has a lot of Karakorum, only without the empire. New Pavis is a Sartarite plant dealing with the local inheritance, and gels with my fascination of the urban Orlanthi. I am fairly certain that Robin Laws will surprise me with is take on Pavis after the liberation. Barbarian Town and the Pol Joni are the other Praxian riders that have my attention. Troll history was my entryway to the history of Glorantha. I never played a troll character in table-top roleplaying, although I was type-cast as a terrifying troll in freeforms twice, and played an entire Blue Moon plateau tribe as my "character" in a memorable Heroquest session with Greg. Very playable, and there is an upcoming project that has been announced officially, i.e. already out of the hands of the author. As player characters both of these are approachable only as presented in the Griffin Mountain encounters, i.e. fairly generic. The Mongoose Aldryami book presumably was the published version of Shannon Appelcline's Hero Wars Elf Pak manuscript, but it didn't make me want to play an aldryami. The semi-rootless Yelmalian scouts into human lands and their gardener companions preparing the Reforestation might offer a campaign arc, but I don't see much potential in playing aldryami outside of their three big arcs in the Hero Wars. The Aldryami arc with the most potential to me would be the defense of Enkloso against the Mostali Land Raising and cleansing. Cooperation with or rather control over the local Orlanthi and a nightmarish wake-up for the Malki(oni) in the coastal cities provides quite a bit of potential. Journeys to Grigdom to ally with the Malasp who are about to lose their homes, and possibly the Dwerulans who are about to be crushed between the shard of Slon and the basal cube of Earth provide several possibilities for travel scenarios. How to make orthodox (i.e. Nidan or Slon) Mostali playable without entering Paranoia (the rpg) territory is difficult to envision. You'd probably have to play a collective each, similar to the troll game experience mentioned above. In that case, you could be trouble-shooting the resistance to the Land Raising in Umathela and Jrustela. They get slightly better treatment in Griffin Mountain than the Beast Riders get in Pavis and Borderlands, but most of that campaign is about citadel-based Lightbringer or Lunar adventurers. They lack a set of dog-folk specific scenarios, with typical annual events and then repercussions of the Hero Wars. Getting a proper way to have independent women in the party will be the main project when you look at what we got in the Hero Wars rules book. It is quite ironic that the historical Bronze Age horse riders had a greater share of women with warrior careers in the archaeological record than the Gloranthan equivalent has seen so far, unless you count the Pavisite cult of Yelorna and their free-roaming sisters in the plains of Prax. The Grazers have already experienced their years in the spotlight, only we didn't get to play any of those events (the Esrolian campaign, the rise of Jandetin the Avenger). Apart from Argrath's upcoming marriage to the Feathered Horse Queen, they are looking towards a period of auxiliary cavalry service with one or two back-lashes, and a conflict with the False Sunhorses a dozen (Gloranthan) years or so in the future. Urban Dara Happa has all the opportunities for urban adventuring that Pavis has. While the Lunars aren't an occupying force, they form a counter-culture with various facets, and then there are the residents from Heartland regions which aren't strictly Dara Happan (which is the majority outside of the river wetlands, really). The basic idea of describing numerous facets of an Imperial Association in ILH2 was quite nice, but what an overkill of factions and facets to follow. Too much, and at the same time way too little information. To quote Tom Perry's "Into the Great Wide Open": "I don't hear a single." A more concrete campaign outline with less organisations might be playable from a book that waits to be written. Hmm. Each culture deserves its own adapted write-up of the important cults or temples. The Darjiinians with their hilltop cities and their swamp Heron heritage are significantly different from the surrounding Lodrili wet or dry farmers the wet farmers being part of the Dara Happan culture, the dry farmers with more pastoralism and potentially some transhumance a great deal less under Dara Happan control although they have Dara Happan officials on imperial business. The three major Dara Happan metropolises (sp?) and the lesser large cities all have their own peculiarities, possibly on the same scale as the Sixths of the Holy Country. Life under Alkothi protection with Darjiinian revanchism will be different from pompous Raibanth and studious Yuthuppa. How to deal with the Meta-Plot? Don't worry much about it. There is a possibility that scenarios or campaigns will be published for a later part of the meta-plot that won't fit your current campaign, but how common are (Gloranthan) decades-long campaigns nowadays? Should there be a great Lightbringers Quest as one (intermediate) high point of the campaign? Certainly. And there is a possibility that Argrath joins it only as rescuee in Hell, or as guide to the deeper quest for Sheng, if your players managed to off him and his bunch of supporters on the way and now need to rescue a hero carrying the light of hope. Quite a few of the metaplot events follow the LBQ that releases Sheng, like the Flood, the Kalikos quest, or the increasing bloodthirst as the corn rites offer an opening for the Ignorance deities of Terror to enter Peloria. The Takenegi Stele offers a campaign with a scope similar to Dara Happa Rising, with young Phargentes at its focus rather than Karvanyar, bringing on a new, re-invigorated Lunar Empire. You could possibly take Dara Happa Rising campaign and re-frame it with the events of that stele.

Worth having for "The Smell of a Rat" alone, IMO. The first pieces of published Gloranthan fiction are reprinted here from Wyrm's Footnotes 2 or 3 (IIRC the Fadabius dispatch), too. The Holy Country article was the fifth-best regional description available (after Griffin Mountain, Pavis, Borderlands, and Troll Pak for Dagori Inkarth) until Dorastor was published. The map lacked a gazetteer, which became my first productive contribution to Glorantha. The snippets from the Jonstown Compendium contained the first hints at distant myths, like the Kralorela emperor list, or the three challenges of Yelm (Basko, Molandro, Jokbazi) and made our heads smoke for years. And you just have to love the bison with its saddle and its leather stirrups on the cover.

Wyter - like "y" (as you pronounce the letter) + "terr". Even when discussing the term in German. I would never have that even guessed that it might rhyme to "litter". Which is strange because I talk about Hüalor and Hükim and Miküh (really "MEE küh") using the frontal umlaut sound that doesn't exist as a separate phoneme for most English-speaking people. In the case of Hykim, I am astonished about the "high-kim" pronunciation because it is really Mikyh backwards, and Mikyh has that "MIK yuh" guidance that resembles the typical English-speaker's attemmpt at pronouncing the German "ü". (In Finnisch I'd probably spell and pronounce them as "Hyykkim" or "Hyykkiim" and "Miikkyyh".) (Hüalor actually is something of a pun, as "Hüh" is the German spoken command to speed up a horse, and the rest can be pronounced like the French "alors"). Unlike Simon, I don't put a glottal stop into this "shite" (being above conscious avoidance of anal/fecal puns, and I guess that during the Lunar occupation the people in Sartar made a point of avoiding that glottal stop, too), rather failing to separate it from the previous syllable, and then "Sar - tah - rite" all with the a sound from "far" (or as German and other phonetically written languages use the letter). In English usage, only, in German it is "Tarsheet" (usually followed by "-ish", spelled Tarschitisch, when talking about the language or using it as adjective, or followed by "-en" if talking about several or all members of that kingdom (Tarschiten). Same for Sartar, but with a soft "s" leading as German doesn't do sharp S at the beginning of a word, and the weird German "r" sound. As a rule, I use "-ier" as the plural form and "-isch" as the adjective/language form for English adjectives or national monikers endin on "-ian", like Ralian, Esrolian, and I leave the "it" from such monikers ending on "-ite". (There are people who write "Sartarier" as the German plural form of Sartarites, but that makes me cringe.) I'll pull the brakes at the "it" in "Alakoringite", though. I generally use the German pronunciation of Latin names, like Malia, although my English pronunciation of Ralios has that "a" rather like the Danisch "a" (as in English "bad"), while my German pronunciation has the long a like in "father". Oh, and my German pronunciation of Orlanth, Glorantha, Argrath has a "t" sound rather than the English "th". Don't enforce it on Germans unless you have a spittle fetish. I tend to do most of my writing and talking (and hence thinking) about Glorantha in English, but the names mostly still sound German in my mind. When reading Scandinavian texts or trying to read French texts on Glorantha, same effect. Heort and Heortling are missing from the pronunciation guide cited above. In German, I would use a very short "ay" sound for the "e" in Heort without any consonant-"y" sound as not quite a diphtong, while in English I'd probably go for "h-yort" and possibly "hay-yort" when talking to a mixed audience at a convention in Germany. Would the names "Heort" and "Hiord" sound different to you? If so, how?

This cult has never crossed my path, which makes me inclined to say it was non-canonical, likely his invention, or at best fan-micro-published. I don't have good access to the APA zine material of that time, though.

Is there a reason why you limit this to human cultures? The uz are traditionally a popular and playable culture, too. Ducks, Newtlings, Beastfolk (Centaurs, Minotaurs, Satyrs, Fox Women), Baboons, Morokanth and Wind Children are quite playable, too. While sharing some aspects with neighboring human cultures, they all have their special twist and habitat to make them somewhat interesting. Tusk Riders with their demonic cult may be a bit problematic, in the same way that playing Fonritian slavocrats is, but then people have played Melnibonean or Pan Tangian sorcerers in Stormbringer with gusto while those cultures effectively the same problem. The Orlanthi or rather Theyalan culture is way more than just the well-explored Sartarite storm worshipers or the Grandmother-cowed Esrolians. Sun Domers have their great RQ3 sourcebook for the Praxian branch, Caladralanders and their Porthomekan and Dwarf-controlled offshoots are quite different, and the Pelaskites, Ingareens and Kitori of the Holy Country/Kingdom of Night are sufficiently alien to deserve separate investigation, too. Quite multi-flavored, or at least "vanilla and ..." flavored. Pelorian cultures are different, and apart from the Lunar Way or mixed forms of Theyalan, western and Pelorian influences probably less suited for RuneQuest games that appear to assume Initiate-level involvement with personal magic. There are such people in the Pelorian population, but they are unusual in the same sense that D&D adventurers are different from NPCs. (But then, the Western culture has the same problem with regard to sorcery, and personally I am disappointed about the "they just use spirit magic and theism" for the main portion of the population. Fine for mixed regions like Carmania, Ralios, Esvular, Umathela or Jonatela, less so for the purist Malkioni in Seshnela and Loskalm.) I have somehow stopped to regard Kralorela and Vormain as China or Japan with the serial numbers filed off. Vormain is the survivor of Imperial Vithela, now limited to former highland sites. Most of the Eastern mythology in Revealed Mythologies applies to them, and their color-coded pantheon and the Joserui genii loci (which appear to be different from the Parondpara of the East Isles don't bear that much similarity to Bushido/Land of Ninja). Kralorela is first and foremost draconic, second and below that it is former Hsunchen (many of them draconic) adopting Vithelan civilization and ceasing to be Hsunchen (something paralleled in the West) while retaining some of that in their military (or rather martial arts - again, paralleled in the West). Then there are other external influences - antigod horrors (not limited to the Huan-To) and demonic presences almost integrated into normal life in a vast number of places. Cthulhu mythos balanced by draconic consciousness or sorcerous discipline of the bureaucrats. It lacks the Warlord episodes except for the Shang-Hsa and Seleric occupations - both corrupted draconic practices leaning on Adpara (antigod or demonic) magics and foreigner auxiliary going native. Teshnos may be Fire worship meets Mohenjo Daro meets Tibet meets Myanmar meets Angkor Vat Khmer, with the latter's tiered caste system inherited from Brahmin India. Melib and Trowjang add two quite different expressions of Tolat influences that are weaker on the mainland. The inheritance of external conquerers may be less purged than in Kralorela, with Middle Sea Empire (Eest) and previously Zaranistangi stuff still present. While Teshnos was subject to Antigod conquests, too (Keltari, Sekever, Seleris), it was also saved by those foreigner antigods that fought one another. I am quite intrigued by the various Thinobutan cultures, five of which survive (two in Maslo, one on Kimos, one in Thinokos in Fonrit and one on the Fonritian-controlled Kumanku archipelago), with another one in Loral mysteriously disappeared, and Teleos ("Agimori by race") undecided between Pamalt-Agimori and Thinobutos-Agimori origin in the sources. They have been shaped by lots of hostile contact (antigods from the Vithelan conflict, IMO including the Gorgers on Kimos, Chaos-infested Artmali, equally evil Vadeli, hostile Sea pantheon) and one significant friendly contact with Sendereven Outer Gloranthan culture which gave them their distinctive double-hulled ships. The Artmali struggle and the Melibian quest for the Sword of Tolat ranks fairly high on my interest scale. The resurgence of the Blue Moon people, and Gebel possibly even reaching Zamokil before (or after?) making his way to Loskalm and back is a very interesting campaign premise, and intersects with many other Hero Wars major events (White Moon and later Sheng Seleris in Peloria, returning Arkats in Ralios while potentially tracing the steps of the Loper army, the Kingdom of War in Fronela, the disappearance of Kresh Wagons in Zamokil). Sheng Seleris may also affect all of the East again - while he disappears from Argrath's borders after being defeated by the Six-armed goddess of Saird and the horse nomads move eastwards, that doesn't mean that he or his disciples are gone for good. The Pentans in the Hero Wars may be quite interesting, too.

There are certain magical activities that reqire the use of a different, quite specific ability. Other than that, the GM adjusts the difficulty of the opposed roll by how appropriate the ability is. Using Sword-and-Shield style to manipulate a complex mechanism in a way that doesn't render it un-reusable is a quite impossible stretch.

The Cult of Lhankor Mhy is the cult of literacy, agreed, and it probably took control over the EWF literacy and Western literacy as well. If you are literate, you are at least a lay member of LM. While we are all high on the "Orlanthi are not Vikings" vibe, think of the Iceland sagas as a rural environment of chiefdoms where scribes created an astonishing amount of literature. True, it required the introduction of the written word by the Christians, but then probably at least somewhat literate Irish hermits had reached Iceland before the Norse settlers at the onset of the Viking Age, and raids on Irish monasteries provided a steady stream of literate slaves to make the concept present in Iceland from the onset of its settlement. The cult of Pavis certainly required literacy as a sorcery-using group. Among the beast riders, lay members of Lhankor Mhy would be rare, except as slaves, and possibly among the sedentary Eiritha priestesshood. But then, Praxian knot writing is not a skill taught (exclusively) by Lhankor Mhy. Sartar and his son Eonistaran and his companion Wilms propagated literacy in urban Sartar. Belintar himself was a writer, and he would have encouraged his scribes to leave documents, too. Nochet has a prehistory of documents written by the Lhankor Mhy cult. Too bad that the libraries are described as using parchment rather than clay or metal tablets, although there will be lots of carvings and fresco inscriptions in the necropolises of Esrolia. The Esvulari will have a tradition of literacy, too, at least in their minority castes. Talar administrators are in charge of record-keeping while zzabur sorcerers are in charge of philosophical texts (lore, history, natural history, alchemy...). Same with the Ingareens and their Brithini lords/role models. I am open for less documented literacy under the Only Old One, although the Kitori adopted Arkatism enough that at the time of the Tax Slaughter the Heortlings failed to recognize the difference between the Stygian sorcerers and the Shadowlord shapeshifters (in History of the Heortling Peoples). Arkat never initiated to Lhankor Mhy, but he would have acquired literacy in Seshnela when he became a Man-of-all, so maybe the Kitori use Western script to write their dialect of Darktongue, unless they adopted Lhankor Mhy-controlled literacy a lot earlier. I would think that my personal library would be of similar dimensions as Fazzur's (the Wide-Read, one of the richest people in all of Dragon Pass). I have read over 90% of the books I own (the other 10% consisting mainly on inherited ones on topics which aren't exactly my style, or written with the assumptions of Germany before 1945), and I have probably more than a high three digit number of printed volumes (not counting rpg publications or my digital library which includes my own "dissertations" in the internet). Page count of Fazzur's library would probably a lot lower than mine, though, and include letter exchanges and administrative records. While Jonstown is not a Great Library in the sense of being a Great Temple to Lhankor Mhy, it has enjoyed royal sponsorship even during the Lunar occupation, and will contain many a treatise that is the equivalent of small Glorantha web-sites or threads in this forum, each counting as its own book (scroll, really). As a "national library", it will probably receive a copy of every public document written anywhere in Sartar. That's how the Compendium came into being, IMO. Minaryth Blue, probably a Varmandi tribesman, appears to have been a scribe and soldier in the service of the Sartar royalty - from Temertain over Kallyr to Argrath. As such, much of his work will have consisted of copying other people's texts for distribution or maintenance, taking dictates for letters, and little original work. Typical original work will include criticism of other writers' ideas, research summaries from the library he was associated with, and the fragment "Events of my Life" penned in his old age. The library will likely have secret deposits of copies of the more important works similar to the Qmran jars, too, and possibly grave offerings of (unburnt) scrolls in jars next to the urns of initiates of the cult. Or alternatively urns covered in text, whether stenciled or glazed. Ironically, this oral tradition is controlled by the Lhankor Mhy cult, too, except for the high skalds which are shared between the cults of Orlanth and Donandar. One important aspect of writing outside of Lhankor Mhy control is map-making, like the shamanic drum patterns recording their spirit world travels, navigational aids, or path records created by Issaries merchants.

Despite "dissing" people being incited to do their pre-history homework in the "how to attract players to RQG" thread, I just watched a nice lecture on the development of horse-riding in the central Eurasian steppes which has quite a few interesting data that could be applied to the horse nomads of central Genertela - including a different group of pure horse people - the Botai culture - and standard pastoralist horse, cattle, sheep and goat breeders of the Yamnaya and Afanasievo cultures presumed to be the origin of Indo-European languages. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QapUGZ0ObjA So, if you are interested in the origins of the real world horse nomads, spend some 40 minutes on this video. It also gives an interesting exposition of the role of upland forests in the steppes.

If your house has a basement, you are a bloody uptight urbanite and not a Real Orlanthi TM. Real Orlanthi TM have stomped clay for floors. I seem to remember someone shooting a bow in the contest of weapons, and that he was dragged back from the basement, too, but the details in between appear to be a little different from your story. And you'd still have to pay his weregeld (a chieftain's son's), which you couldn't afford, and your clan couldn't, either. Besides, look where that friendship is now.

Not quite, Orlanth would have shot him down with his (the opponent's) bow and arrow... The situation required a bit more diplomacy, as one of the characters was in a vise. Summoning the Earth Woman on Freezeday in Death Week hadn't that well thought out.

Many a troll born as a mistress race troll was burnt or mutated into something lesser. Dark Trolls are the result of Lamarckian inheritance, as are Cave Trolls and Sea Trolls. The Only Old One was not born to an uz mother, but to Esrola. He was kind of unique (as his name suggests).

I am not sure "you will want to do your ancient history homework" really is a selling point (although it may come to that). Gaming in Glorantha is a journey of discovery of a fairly different mind-set. You're best of forgetting your contemporary mores and dive into a mode that may be unlike yourself. Somebody is trying to impress you with their wealth and status, when you are just a lousy Orlanthi shepherd boy bearing a dire message? It's not that you have nothing, so ham it up. Take your most recent blunder (which led you to that situation) and brag about it. So, what is cool about Gloranthan cults? That you can play someone who worships a deity somewhat exclusively in a pantheistic setting? Somewhat meh, really - a question that only pops up in the D&D universe if you play a cleric or similar class (paladin, druid). Or that you become like your deity when wielding the deity's magic, an avatar of divine power? And that you can choose not exactly to match that deity, and still be within accepted parameters (unless you are a sucker for death powers or gilt bronze armor over kilts, at least before you pay for your gifts). You can play adventurers that have a cause - the people who support them. (And you can play adventurers that have people who support them... which might be a novel idea to some players, too.) "Everybody can work magic." That's an old sales argument for RuneQuest, and still one of the best selling points. Yes, there are specialists in magic. But they are allowed to use all kinds of weapons, too, unless they choose one of the more restrictive cults. "It is a world with a rich and well-documented background." True, but not necessarily a sales point, another "do I have to do homework?" situation. Or a point where some rail-roading is expected so that your character doesn't break the expectations of the GM and possibly the fellow players. Perhaps better: "It is a world where you can start digging in details, and your GM will be able to provide those if you give him some time for research" with research being a question asked here. You're bound to get an answer or three to choose from before the discussion drifts off into unforeseen side issues. Basically, it is a world which offers a support structure for the GM in the form of an active community, and that can be reflected in his GMing. A sounding board for ideas you may heed or ignore, and which may come up with cool game aids, visual, technical, or just ideas.

There are Dara Happans in Dara Happa, and there are Dara Happans elsewhere in Peloria/the Lunar Empire. The Cult of Yelm provides Overseers - senior officials who administrate and adjudicate in the name of the rightful authority. Ideally (for them) that's the Emperor in Raibanth, but they also were active in Peloria outside of Dara Happa when there were no strong emperors. Pelandans and Lodrili actually imported them. (Similar to the Greeks importing some German nobility for their king after their independence from Turkey?) The cult of Buserian provides the scribes for them. This means that you are quite likely to encounter Dara Happan bureaucrats outside of Dara Happa. Other than these, only the traditional army units and merchants are likely to leave their well regulated land of rice paddies, water management, and rigidly organized cities. The Dara Happans bear grudges. Storm rebels are possibly on the top of their list - they slew the first emperor, they conquered the country in the course of the Gbaji Wars, then they usurped the emperor with the Sun Dragon, and each time they carried lots of plunder and tribute away. Then, when the Dara Happans joined the great raid on the EWF after the draconic leaders had passed onward, they had hidden all the treasures taken from Dara Happa and then lured them into the dragon trap of the dragonkill. This grudge was brought to full malicious revanchist misconduct with the conquest of Sartar. The opportunity to do so in Tarsh had been spoiled by the Doblianese Eel-Ariash who had engineered a Lunar takeover with rather little bloodshed (although the subsequent uprisings paid their blood toll to Maran, but that no longer benefitted the enemy alone). Compared to the Provinces, Dara Happan conduct in Sartar was petty and cruel. As far as I know, Euglyptus the Fat was a Yelmic overseer with little Lunar acculturation beyond his gastronomic escapades. HIs record as a field commander was quite atrocious when he took personal interest. The Building Wall battle and the Starbrow Rebellion were his failures, whereas the successes (Fazzur in Heortland 1605, Jomes Wulf in the Maboder/Telmori incident 1607, Sor-eel in Prax and Pavis 1610) were mainly due to the initiative of his more independent commanders, and at least at times despite his leadership. His demise (due to his ineptitude) was of course another thing to blame on those rebels. Dara Happans know as a fact that theirs is the only civilized culture that can provide stability. Never mind outside or minority influences taking a temporary upper hand. This deeply ingrained knowledge makes everyone else people of lesser status, often confirmed by their crude ways of clothing (or lack thereof). Individual fighting prowess isn't a Dara Happan virtue. Fighting in close order formations or as massed missile troops is the Dara Happan way of warfare, with "subject people" filling all other functions. While there are a couple of Dara Happan cavalry troops associated with the metropolises, horses don't thrive directly in the river valley and are probably kept on the drier lands above the rice growing area. Dara Happans are respectful of due authority, when presented with due formality and ceremony. Even fourth and fifth tier Dara Happan citizens will have some pride in their position and see themselves ranked above any barbarians who don't fit themselves into the strata overseen by the cult of Yelm. (Most other Pelorians use Yelmic overseers, even if they may have some local "nobility" based on dubious other standards.) For the Dara Happan Yelmites, Lunar nobility in the satrapies may have been hard to swallow in the first two wanes - e.g. Jannisor's rebellion managed to draw disgruntled Dara Happans into its fold. By the Third Wane, all of those Lunar noble families had sufficient descent from the Red Emperor to by potentially Yelmic, and the empire had satisfied their grudge against those Carmanians who had had the gall to come to their lands as conquerors before the rise of the moon. Is there a real world parallel for the Dara Happans? Not quite. The Indus Valley possibly is closest in terms of geography, except for the direction of the river. The climate is wrong, though. The Ukraine has the climate and the fertile soil, but no rice cultivation and no metropolises (but then, cities of that size were rare in the Bronze Age, with many urban cultures having smaller main settlements than Boldhome). The ziggurat style temples appear closer to Mesopotamia than Mesoamerica in style, but city size is closer to Mesoamerica than Mesopotamia. In Glornantha, step pyramids aren't a specifically Dara Happan phenomenon, but a Golden Age trait - you'll find such structures in Prax, Esrolia, Dragon Pass, and apparently in Maslo as well (Guide p.603). Fonrit probably too. I have no idea whether Golden Age Prax was urbanized, and Dragon Pass certainly wasn't during the Gods War, but Esrolia was, and the temple style may have been exported from there. Yelmic nobility wears togas (the most impractical way to wear a blanket, suited only for nobility who don't perform physical activities other than walking sedately - compare the great kilt for a way more practical and way less composed way to wear a blanket). I don't know of any ancient culture other than the Roman Senate to don a blanket that way. The rest of the Dara Happans wear no pants, but shirts and possibly kilts or skirts of middling length, with flowing robes with longer hemlines reserved for higher status. It is hard to give a date for cultural continuity in Dara Happa. Murharzarm and his successors did have an opulent urban culture in the Golden Age, but that ended with the dismemberment of Yelm and then the Oslir flood. Anaxial re-started a similar culture after the flood, but that was crushed under the Glacier, and then devastated in the Greater Darkness. Jenarong started a revival of imperial power, but from his horse nomad roots rather than from the sedentary culture which he re-awakened. One century into History, Avivath started an emancipation movement of the urban culture vs. the Horse Warlords, but that only managed to come into bloom because of the conflict of the Horse Warlords with the Second Council. The Khordavu dynasty was the first urban culture to rule over the tiered social system installed by Jenarong, and that institution lasts to the modern day. The Dara Happans claim continuity from even before Murharzarm, but their actual society was shaped by Jenarong adopting various Pelorian groups into his empire. He did build on traditions and ancient texts on the temple ruins he found and had explained to him by the surviving urban priesthood, but basically he re-invented Solar culture, much like Anaxial had before him. What Plentonius writes (The Glorious ReAscent of Yelm) is a reconstruction of the Golden Age from the traditions and physical documents available in the Dawn Age. The document does form the codified official history of the Yelmic nobility, and it has been re-inforced by centuries of ritual activity and some heroquesting. The Lunar Way has left this inheritance alone, reconstructing a rather different and more mystical background for Sedenya, with deeper roots, but - at least pro forma - anchored in the Yelmic revised history and myth. Her truths are transcending these, rather than niggling with historical details like some of the TLDR discussions here. The Lunars are in some way a Messianic movement that took over the worldly rule, too. Their goddess started out as a mortal, was then molded into an avatar and then a living goddess, fighting a war of liberation against the then dominant empire of the Carmanian Bull Shahs and traditionalist detractors (Tripolis - especially Alkoth, but also horse nomads like the Char-un, and the nearby barbarians). After less than two centuries, she had won over all of her foes from that time, or pushed them out of the empire. Then came Sheng Seleris, conquering much of the empire, striking terror into those who would stand agains him, co-opting the Dara Happans under his new Horse Warlord reign like he had the Kralori and Teshnans before, but he never managed to quell all resistance against his rule, and where there was resistance, Lunars and Dara Happans were pretty much united in their efforts. The Lunar Way is a parallel society in the Empire, which is built on Dara Happan administration over non-Dara Happan Pelorians. This may not actually be helpful to the original question about the Dara Happans, as it adds a couple more cultures to the Lunar Empire, but those can be ignored as local color until you start interacting with them (as a visitor, or interacting with a specific military unit serving under the Empire in the region of your game, like for instance the Doblian Dog-Eaters who are part of the occupation forces in the Cinsina region, providing a further cultural perspective to the already existing mix of Lunarized Tarshite Orlanthi, Yelmic administrators, and Lunar priesthood representing the mystical aspects of the Lunar way). For the Lunar occupation, I had these categories: Lunar Tarsh: Followers of the Lunar Way, provincial, out for conquest, meaning to be the hegemonial power in the region. (Tarsh fell apart into two political factions, the Fazzurites and the Phargantites, with similar goals but different personnel.) Dara Happan Revanchists: May or may not be Lunarized, among the rebels to take revenge, for good (or rather bad). Lunar missionaries: genuinely wishing to convert the new provincials to their "We All Are Us", luring the natives away from the ways of Orlanth (who still is a foe that won't be tolerated in power). Post-Dragonkill, there are few Dara Happans to be found south of Saird. The missionaries that weren't eaten by the dragon or slain in the aftermath are gone or enslaved. Same for the folk who were settled in the former provinces. The Tarshites are at each other's throats, still the main tool for the empire to intercede in Dragon Pass, but with Fazzur and his circle of friends among the officers out of the Lunar campaigning, and sorely missed by the troops. The provinces north of Tarsh are contested between the Tarshites and the ruling dynasty of Sylila (adopted as a Heartland satrapy, but Orlanthi in origin) who are Lunars but not Yelmic Dara Happans. (They try, but fail to convince the real Yelmies. "Not a real Scotsman", really.) If you want post-Dragonkill contact with the Dara Happans, you'll have to travel into their lands, as Argrath never advances on Alkoth, let alone further north. They will send troops, and for a short time also administrators, but they don't last long enough to make a new impression.

There are bronze bones that come from Volcano deities, really brass bones, but the difference isn't significant. Sky gods may have left tin bones, silver, or gold - Celestial Court deities included, like the Powers. Earth deities left behind copper. Sea gods would have left quicksilver (pseudopods rather than bones?). And Darkness deities may have left over lead. Bronze may also be the default metal for deities of mixed ancestry in general (aka Burtae) . Although a deity born of darkness and sky could have pewter bones (tin-lead alloy). If the Gods War deities fought using RuneQuest rules, there may be limbs of extant deities among the fossils you can dig up, too.

On a roll of zero, a disturbingly sheep-like other creature appears, acting disturbingly sheep-like? Hedgehog, woolly pig, feral broo...

"Blast you for being a bunch of narrowheaded men! Violence is not the only option. Ernalda, grant my your blessing to show these woolheads that there is always another way!" (Note that an Ernaldan getting this emotional is already a sign of extreme agitation...)

And are illuminated so much that they glow in the dark...

Nope. I checked the cults originating Charisma, and each of these cults has one of the runes. It would be weird for a cult to have non-associate magic using a rune different from the cult's (or its subcult's) runes. Under that reading, Charisma from Ernalda uses Fertility, Charisma from Yinkin uses Beast, and Charisma from Eurmal (also for Orlanth) uses Illusion. It also suggests that associate magic using an element rune may be useless to the associate cultist if she doesn't have a rating in that element (yet).

That's just the start of the part of the "Through Hell and Back" heroquest...

In HQG, you get three runes for your character, and you can assign some of your major ability ratings to one or two of them. That's what I did when I created a character for a memorable HQG session at Chimeriades a few years ago. These were the Gloranthan runes, but I didn't play a vanilla Orlanthi cultist, but rather a slightly weird spirit-talking shepherd boy whose signature trait was having this spirit owl companion - a break-out ability from my spirit rune. I actually based one or two more of my abilities on that rune, and that was how that character's magic worked. It is possible to base the runes on a profession, or the ability "rune-writing".

I have never seen the Storm Bull presented as a carrier of Harmony. Show me a Berserker embodying Harmony... Show me how mindless rage fits in with Harmony. YGWV. That character would probably be one of the Storm Bull priests under RQ2 rules... Storm Bull bands are a disorderly bunch. When they don't have Chaos to fight, they are little better than Gagarthi. To quote from the Urox description in Storm Tribe (p.156): All descriptions of Storm Bull cultists have been consistent with this description. (Including my own description of Hrut the Thirsty, an NPC description I coughed up in a discussion in 1994, with the expressed goal of breaking Gloranthan stereotypes.) Storm Bull holy bands near Devil's Marsh tend to be of as mixed origin as Gagarthi bands - e.g. Barzaad's band that got hired by Biturian. Such bands would hardly be sticking to tribal herds. Their best real world equivalent are violent biker gangs. There is one mention of a tribal group of Storm Bull Berserkers in Cults of Prax - a High Priest of the Impala tribe. Chalana Arroy's harmony is the weakness of the Berserker. Hate and Harmony don't combine well. I see how the Storm Bull medic would require a decent stat in harmony in order to cast these common rune spells with a decent chance, but that's a rules artifact based on the unholy mix of character traits that add up to 100% and magical aptitude that so buggers the cults based on Power Runes vs. those based on Element Runes. But then, at least in my Glorantha Storm Bull bands would mainly have first aid, and buy, hire or marry a healer to tag along. Not necessarily a Chalana Arroy healer, mind you, Eiritha is a lot more fun to have around. (Rand about how the opposed runes rules is unfortunate and how it contributed to my dislike of playing Pendragon deleted...) Storm Bull warriors would be diagnosed with PTSD from their exposure to Chaos. It makes them sociopaths, really.

I miss the mention of the excellent RQ3 products "What My Father Told Me" and "What The Priest Says" in this discussion. There ought to be a copy of the collection on the web that was assembled in the HQ1 era.

This looks like an edit gone wrong. Storm Bull and high harmony rune don't go together well. Another option for a philosophy strong in the Man rune is Malkionism. Their way of explaining the world isn't called the humanist perspective for nothing.

Only by allied spirits residing in that blade, I would guess. To be fair, most weapoins protrude significantly from their wielder's aura.