Joerg

I am not sold. Trolls think that this was D'Wargon, the Womb Biter. The wound is way worse than mere deception. Gbaji is a human concept, possibly brought to the awareness of the uz through Arkat, but a secondary one. The uz wouldn't have cared whether Arkat was Gbaji or not, as long as he ended Womb Biter. If you look at what he left behind in Dorastor, you could easily identify Arkat as the true Chaos monster in the conflict. Talor's curse on the Telmori is little better. Nysalor is too bright, and amoral. Good or evil? Most of Glorantha is of the mindset that doing evil to your foes is doing good. I just doubt that the trolls really care about Gbaji. They have their beef with the Bright One. They don't really care much about Arkat's previous cause against the Bright Empire, all they care about is that he led the fight against the Bright (and therefore evil) Empire.

Smugglers could be in the province of an otherwise immaculate trade god, possibly one not directly from around here - i.e. Issaries. Finding a path where there should be none, free trade with no respect for arbitrary regulations, all of that may be an imperial crime or high treason, but it is all within the mandate of the free trader. The thief and burglar could be some form of Orlanth - bypassing the court protocol several times to disturb the peace of the Emperor, absconding with his concubine. Probably came in secret for trysts before he slew the emperor, too. Another great catch-all for the Lunar underbelly are the mobs of Lunar zealots from the lowest tiers of society who follow agitators. Such mobs existed even before the Goddess - several such are mentioned in the Fortunate Succession, often in connection with Illuminated wisdom dispersed (and diluted) to the crowd. While the Anabaptists of Münster are an incident from the turn of the medieval world to the modern world, the entire event had some Old Testament feel to it, also in the punishments for the leaders. Lunar cities have been on the brink of such outbreaks quite often. It is not just the White Moonies who attract weird crowds, the Blood Sun might, too. Add in some Victor Hugo's Paris (Notre Dame de Paris, Les Miserables), again not really period appropriate, but very human stories, hence quite timeless.

While it may be nitpicking, but I am not quite convinced that it was Gbaji who cursed Kyger Litor - that was Nysalor, the Bright One, all on his own, without any need for Chaos. Basically, he used the "Eaten by the Father of Lies" myth known to the Elmal cult since before the Dawn, with the twist that the Black Eater survived the experience (unlike the Father of Lies). That's straightforward Light/Fire vs. Darkness. Burnt from without - Uzko. Burnt from without and within - Enlo. But. Chaos. Broken Compromise. Yadda. Where? Nysalor was a demigod, much like other god emperors (e.g. Takenegi, Sheng, Godunya, Belintar, the Only Old One). Undeniably there was Chaos radiating out from the Bright Empire, later on. And there was Chaos radiating back, borne by Arkat and Talor, and presumably others, too. But none of that manifests at the Battle of Night and Day. That's straightforward Runic hybris like illustrated in the Argrath centerfold in Prince of Sartar: http://www.princeofsartar.com/comic/99-change/

Even if neither you nor any of your ancestors was at the Battle of Night and Day, the womb-biting was shared by the Dozaki trolls, as was the coalescence into the Black Eater. So - there was a battle, against nasty men of fire. There was a way too bright entity that got swallowed, and that then tore out of the womb damaging Korasting's fertility. That entity is D'Wargon, the Womb Biter. Reason for the battle? None needed, nasty fire humans. Name of the foe? Irrelevant. The Black Eater's Darksense image (potentially with a blind spot at Nysalor) of the battle events is available in the Time-less moment, and can be re-lived by the curious and masochistic.

Yeah I knew these enitities but they are second age ones rather than BEFORE Ernalda married Orlanth Silver Age heroes rather than deities, and of mixed storm and earth origin. Humans, mainly.

Welcome on board. At least some of us will discuss everything, and then some...

If it breathes, it is eligible to worship Orlanth used to be the criterion back in the days. That's not really a sexed criterion last time I checked. The great mother goddess has "if it has given birth, it is defiitely eligible" as her criterion. The inability to give birth needn't be an absolute exclusion criterion, but will make acceptance into the cult much harder. Orlanth's duties are a lot softer - he isn't required to fertilize Ernalda (although when that happens, it brings forth special powers), but to provide reasonable protection and material support. Nothing there really requires male reproductive organs. Yes, the peer pressure in a Bronze-Ageish society would be immense, but rebelling against just that sort of pressure is Orlanth's playbook. (And to some extent, Yelmalio's, too, which explains the few canonical Light Ladies).

An R-map of the clans is pretty impossible - while we have some canonical coverage for the Colymar and the Cinsina and some of their immediate neighbors, I don't think we ever saw say a canonical list of Sambarri, Aranwyth, Kheldon or Locaem clans. One simple way to create a map would be to track the clans of origin for the wives (or uxorilocal husbands) of all clans you know. It would tell you which clans either have good relations so that they would prefer to marry off their sisters there, or which have strained relationships which just might be improved by exchanging marriage partners. Exclusive marriage relationships like the remaining one from the Runegate Triaty do throw something of a spanner into this, but that goes for political relationships with clans other than the marriage partner, too. Mapping out the relationships between the 24 tribes would be quite a piece of work already. While fairly often the relationship might be "too distant to matter", this alone creates a huge set of possible relationships. Multiplying the number of participants by six (for a median number of clans in the tribe, give or take one or two) would create orders of magnitude more potential relationships.

What I have been doing (narratively, not yet in RQG but in older versions of RQ, and in HQ) is to treat certain mythic interactions as patterns that may impose themselves on the quest. In that method, it doesn't really matter whether the other myth is just a different look at the happenings of the ones the player party has been experiencing up to that point or whether it is just a superficially appropriate entry from some fluff they brought or accidentally triggered. A sort of derailing railroading, maybe. It takes something like the identity challenge in Morden Defends the Camp to keep on track and to shake off the distraction, or it takes a well-versed heroquester seeing a chance to hop on that new potential and use it to further the goals of the questers (or a personal goal that was included into the total of the quest goals). (A bit like taking Heracles along on the Argonaut journey. You know he is going to be an asset, but you also know you have no way to keep him on your quest for the whole length of it when it comes to his personal challenges. Well, player characters can be like that, too, although they might be more easily brought back into the fold once they achieved their personal goal. Provided the leadership of the quest leader suffices. But then, if the quest is community-based and sponsored, there is a strong element of "executive producers giving dictates to the writing room", to take a parallel from what I learned about how TV series like The Expanse are produced.) At times, questers might find themselves entering a scene on the wrong side, or with a significant twist making it appear that way. This doesn't have to happen in every quest. If it is a simple quest to gain some standard magic, deviation from a myth as written isn't really required. But then, unless the story isn't yet well known to the players, there is little reason to play it out, either. In inverse logic, when the devious GM starts stepping the players step by step through a well known quest everybody knows in their sleep, players might get attentive to what exactly they are doing, and look out for the weirdness to happen. The even more devious but somehow stumped GM might then claim that their precautions spoiled his surprise that may not have been that hot, and stick to the original story. If you play in a living world sandbox where the players have rivals with similar (and on occasion, mutually exclusive) goals, letting those rivals take roles in certain encounters, whether clearly identifiable or just barely hinted at, will be good for keeping your narrative resource list smaller, and for having an idea what those rivals are about to do, and whether or rather when it impacts the player character community, and how. This is of course a lot more fun if the adventures or misadventures of the other party get played out, too. Like two or more GMs communicating about their games if they manage to run them somewhat in lockstep, or perhaps having some game among themselves.

At least the male dark troll (Whiteye?) in the original rainbow mounds scenario had a cave troll female partner and litters of trollkin, if my memory doesn't lead me astray.

But then the Leviathan in Sandy's Gods War and the serpentine expressions of Earth deities could be mistaken for dragons, as well.

P.190, "First Fire Day" (a boxed section).

What do they receive in trade?

Veskarthan and his sons. Veskarthan was half earth after his merger with that foe he wrestled, and his sons were half earth by their ancestry. Thunder Rebels lists the handmaidens of Ernalda and their lowfire husbands. Earthwalkers are known. Tada was one. Whether Molandro is associated with Esrolia is unknown - he is mentioned as second in a line of three foes of Yelm Ascendant, the first being Basko (whose Blood Sun manifestation appears to be a recent addition to sky cult practices in Dara Happa), the last being Jokbazi, who apparently was listed as a fifth hell ruler at some point. Esrolia - Land of 10,000 Goddesses starts off with Harono as the Emperor. Some mythographers might claim that only with the fiery injection of the celestial semen fatherhood and the necessity of males began to figure, but that leaves the way older interaction between the gender-fluid sea and the female earth or earth reproducing unto itself aside. God Learner monomyth canon has Umath as the first Burta (mixed element) birth. It certainly became the signature one, leaving all other such firsts (thinking of the Wild Man of Kralori myth here) as weaker incidents of this cosmic scale mingling. But we do have transitional entities, like e.g. the River Edzaroun (formerly known as Styx) preceding the birth of the Waters of the World. From her ancestry, Styx would be a Darkness Srvuali, a devolved instance of Nakala. From her nature and behavior, she is a Water entity for the Underworld, in a place that preceded the presence of water. In "The Monomyth According to Joerg" theory, there was an age when both Sky and Air were there but not yet conceptualized after the Earth Cube had pierced the Upper End of the Seas and had a surface all to itself. This would be Creation Age according to the few God Learner Monomyth events presented for such a primal period, and possibly setting for the Dragons vs. Giants myths hinted at in RQ3 Gods of Glorantha and the RQ3 Troll Gods Annilla cult. The concept of fathers was not yet conceptualized, either. Larnste caused the birth/growth of Kero Fin by placing a seed deep in the land. One possibility (and a concrete belief among the Beast Riders) is that the Earth Gods were giants.

Actually, I doubt that, strongly. Possession of the Rock Gizzard is the only good point about enlo as slaves, as feeding them doesn't cut deeply into your normal budget of food. On a related topic, I would bet that when you cut open a tusk rider, you won't find even vestigial rock digestion that a mixed ancestry certainly would have produced. And neither in the Ergeshi slave population of Sun Dome County - the human shape of the Kitori should never have had this feature. One possible way for the enlo population of Chen Durel persisting without immediate degeneration could be an unusually high proportion of "superior trollkin", aka multiple birth uzko deprived of the usual nurture for dark trolls and condemned to remain developmentally stunted from that lack. I have similar suspicions about Neep Trollsbane. And if failure to nurture slightly defective or multiple birth Dark Trolls results in superior trollkin, second (or further) generation trollkin litters experiencing nurture from a trollkin mother might fare significantly better than their inheritance would allow than first generation trollkin litters with neglect by a dark troll mother.

No, trolls aren't defined by participating in the D'Wargon or Womb-Biter moment, but by the much older self-perception through or with the Hellmother and the Man Rune. Do trolls far away from the event learn the name Nysalor or Gbaji? Other than through contact with oversea travellers, I doubt it. D'Wargon or Womb-Biter (IMO the translation from Darktongue) on the other hand does describe the experience and the interaction with the foe. Do they characterize it as Chaos or Fire? IMO neither. It is just evil for being what it is. Rather than people, I would speak of ancestral lines. Moorgarki's jungle trolls were cut off from participation through the theft of their Cold powers, breaking the direct link to KL and only affording it through Moorgarki. These true-breeding SIZ 9-10 enlo basically are a success of heroquesting, possibly by unknown enlo mothers, possibly an offshoot of the quest that erroneously caused the multiple enlo effect. True-breeding enlo mothers were not hit by the womb-biter curse, while still-birthing or freak-birthing enlo mothers suffered from it. The Tarmo trolls are the result of the original exodus from burnt Wonderhome, AFAIK. Moorgarki led a portion of them against the south and was badly hurt, then found refuge with other foes of the fire-folk in the south. Not sure about the source, but I seem to recall a project of the Tarmo trolls to use the enlo-free jungle troll strain as fathers to breed an enlo-free population, and succeeding in returning an ancestral, IIRC horned form that has been reproduced a few dozen times or so and appears to breed true. That's independent from the All Genertelan (and presumably also Jrustelan) Feed The Great Mother project laying the foundations for a new race of dark men to supersede the Uzko and their Enlo descendants. Which bears the question how all the blood lines of mothers feel about the perspective of no longer having descendants to promote their spirits closer to the Great Ancestress. From what Greg and Jeff hinted at, this won't be a secret like the Great Troll creation quest. Uzko will no longer receive special magical support to prevent enlo births, and enlo true births will suffer too, so all of uzkodom is doomed to degenerate to unviable enlo within very few generations, then disappear. Cave trolls might persist somewhat longer.

A shrieking pain piercing all of her Darkness's worshippers a short while after the Sunstop after a moment of blissful unity with her. The Battle had a few timeless moments, but was a historical event nevertheless. The unity with the Black Eater would have affected all true trolldom - if snow and jungle trolls remain unaffected, it shows how broken their tie to Kyger Litor is. Cave Trolls did experience this, however.

Undergoing the initiation rites and succeeding in them with a hostile intention will be somewhat hard. These rites are deeply immersive quests, baring the self of the initiee to the deity. Hostile intent to the specific priesthood of the place of initiation won't be a problem, but hostile intent to the cult object will be difficult to overcome. For the Initiate, his cult is about becoming like his deity or becoming his deity, at least in special instances (when carrying or enacting the magic of the deity). The lay members and associates may be ok with just observing the cult practices and sacrifices. Divine magic is the magic of being, not of having or knowing. You have to be the Storm to cast a Lightning, even though it is reduced to an ability roll on your runic score in RQG or HQG. You can always be the storm with the wrong allegiances. Sylilan sky bear worshippers might be able to "infiltrate" Orlanth after proving that their deity is as much an aspect of the Storm King as the local form.

Brother against sister doesn't mean cult infiltration in any way. The sister is very likely married off to a different clan anyway, so it isn't even kinstrife. You are extremely hung up on illumination. There is no need to bring mystic experiences and detection blank into this. There is standard Orlanthi mythical precedence: the Sword and Helm Saga, where the Ernaldan wife betrays the Orlanthi husband for the welfare of her beset kin. There are plenty of semi-enlightened folk around. For a lot of them not devoted to the Lunar Way, it simply means that they are above the struggle between the Lunar Way and the Old Ways of Orlanth. They would be hard to find, harder to recruit, and yet harder to rely on. Those devoted to the Lunar Way don't work as undercover agents. Former or pro forma lay worshippers is about the deepest insertion into the cult that you can hide from divination. Of the Lightbringers, only Orlanth has a personal problem with the Lunar Goddess - she invaded his realm. For the rest of them, it is a problem their leader is annoyed with which they may help or hinder according to their own goals and agendas. It's a bit like the Atlantic alliance right now. Orlanth wants to build a wall and everyone to increase their "defense" budget to that of an offensive army, and the other Lightbringers have their own priorities to tackle. Eurmal just has announced he'll leave the clan, Issaries is worried about tariffs on trade, Lhankor Mhy has problems with yellow-robed apprentices, and Chalana's call for charity for strangers has angered the warbands who just managed to evict the red menace.

It happened in a Trickster thread.

It did have soldiers to offer, which might have been one reason why they kept invading it for two centuries after the disaster of the Varus battle, as shown by the finds of the Harzhorn battle. But it is true, none of the mineral deposits that were to be found in Germania had been accessed yet when the Romans entered, and the cost appeared higher than the return. On the other hand, sitting still while abandoning most of their Biscayan coast as "Litus Saxonicus" rather than going against the root of that trouble was part of the downfall of the empire. The Principality of Sartar was made rich, yes. The pre-Sartar Quivini tribes were at best well-to-do without a secure trade across the Pass guaranteed. Arim's Kingdom did offer such a thing while the Grazers remained friendly, which gave Tarsh a head start it lost in several civil wars and regained only in repeated Lunar conquests as part of Lunar political and magical maneuvering . Sartar entered the region just as Illaro had died, and when it wasn't sure that his successors would make a successful dynasty. By the time Sartar had established his superior trade network, the dynasty was usurped by Hon-eel.

Poorer in luxury goods, and possibly in the ubiquity of metal. On the other hand, they had a monopoly on amber, and such monopolies went a long way to bring in either riches or invaders. The main items of the Bronze Age international trade away from the naval routes were bronze, copper and tin, and exotic luxuries for the elites to display and reinforce their status. All food, presumably almost all clothing items (which, due to the climate, weren't that many), and quite likely most other everyday articles were locally produced. Salt and top quality flintstone and easily carved minerals like jet or steatite may have been "bulk" trade items next to the metal. Dyes, exotic resins, and semi-precious and precious stones are traded mainly for ritual use by the elites. We know that central and northern Europe were "poorer" in social organization due to the lack of the necessity for water management that climate change forced upon the riverine cultures. Quite different riverine conditions, as watching a few other videos of that series made clear. That reduced the need for record-keeping and literacy. Huge communal works like the mounds still occurred, but not for direct needs of survival, only as cultic practice. Water management reached the area only in the Roman Iron Age as the coasts needed fortification against rising sea levels (actually sinking ground levels, due to the seesaw effect caused by the absence of several tons of ice per square meter). All of that was handled by communities that would be regarded as small clans in Dragon Pass at best. But then, that's the true difference between the Orlanthi and the lowland river cultures, too. The Orlanthi never were much of an irrigation culture, although Orlanth taming Oslira (another interpretation of the Aroka story, or Aroka aftermath) may have been recognized as such. Only Esrolia has similar levels of water management, and more of drainage than of irrigation. The resettlement era of Dragon Pass is what I would qualify as one of the poorer Orlanthi cultures (compared to the international trade relations nurtured and then controlled by the House of Sartar). First and Second Council Dragon Pass and Orlanthland were some of the richest periods and regions in Orlanthi history, however, and the EWF drained all their subject areas for even more wealth. One problem with bronze artefacts in the archaeological record is of course recycling. Any item not taken out of the daily usage would be melted up when no longer serving its purpose unless devoted to the dead or the gods. The same is true for glass (which is not really a Bronze Age material). A lack of metal never was a feature of historical Dragon Pass (and wasn't much of an issue in Godtime, where you went to a master metalworker whenever you needed a new toy that you didn't have to plunder). Access to the metalworker was the real Godtime limit for full canoplies of armor, IMO. That goes for the introduction of the fully armored urban soldier by Daxdarius, too.

Must be a very weird sect of Arkati. The major tenet of Arkat's multiple cult membership was always to respect the cult he joined.

Thanks for that pointer. I am a little behind in reading up the newest material. Orgorvale was more a heroic queen than a goddess, daughter of Vingkot (himself a demigod) and granddaughter of Tada through the elder of the two daughters given to Vingkot as wives ("the summer wife"). Together with her as heroic foreigner husband Ulanin the Rider she led one of the three Summer Tribes of the Vingkotlings. Her tribe ruled the entirety of "Old Sartar" south of the Creek and east of the Creek-Stream River, and when the Vingkotling kingdom faltered in the Great Darkness, the tribe re-emerged as one of the Heortling tribes and lasted until after the Tax Slaughter, to disappear into the nebulous history of the EWF. For a measure of the heroic or demigod status of the Vingkotlings - when Orlanth summoned the Ring of the Vingkotlings via the winds to aid him at the shores of Luathela, the responding warriors stood man to man against the Luatha - the same creatures who destroyed the Kingdom of Old Seshnela with just a shipload of warriors and workers, ending the Second Age. Otherwise, little is known about Orgorvale or her husband, outside of the material in the Red Cow campaign. Ulanin is mentioned once or twice in the Dragon Pass - Land of Thunder gazetteer for Volsaxiland, and has recently been suggested as a hero cult or subcult for Orlanth under RQG rules. It isn't clear whether Ulanin's ancestry is tied to the Nivorah exodus or to the Galanini mythic cycle of Ralios, or possibly both. If there is something like chains of events of these Godtime activities, her marriage to Ulanin followed that of Redalda to Beren (which is part of the marriage of Redaylda and Elmal, or vice versa). Their ancient royal seat at Ulaninstead probably had quite a bit of the Rohirrim splendor I mentioned above for the Berennethtelli, too. Before the council of Orlanthland introduced the Pure Horse Folk into Prax, her tribe would have been the closer source of horses to hate for the Praxians, with the Pentans only discovered in the Imperial Age as the Hidden Greens of the Wastes were explored by the Praxians. Looking at the Red Cow material, we know about the presence of giants nearby, and of hostile interaction. At the same time, we have occasional builder services rendered by giants. Never Elder Giants, although one of the mountains overlooking Boldhome may come close. Clearwine differs significantly in architectural style from ancient Earth places like the Paps, Ezel, or some of the Oasis altars (places built by or with the aid of Orgorvale's maternal grandfather, Tada). It might be of a similar cast as Old Karse or one of the earlier wall periods of Nochet.

It's not like we really reached a conclusion, did we?😈