Joerg

The hardcover edition received some edits and was expanded, mainly by the Fazzur fragment in the Composite History of Dragon Pass. Kittens come up in "How Peace Was Made", p. 62 in the hardcover. The kittens are in the softcover, p.72, above the paragraph where Orlanth had to kick the dogs.

Neleos, Neleom, Neliom, Neliomi: These incidents are even indexed. I found them slightly vexing. p.96: Neleos Sea. (Neleos is the founder and Dawn Age ruler of Neleoswal, the outermost Malkioni colony on old Seshnela, nowadays a submerged ruin.) Neleom, Sea of Neleom, Neleom Sea: p.24 (as noted by Steve above), 101, 104, 111, Neleomi Sea: p.115, 117 Neliomi (ocean): p.21, 106 Neliomi Sea: p.15, 112 There seems to be something like verisimilitude at work for names evolving in the mythical maps, but in this case the modern version (Neliomi) and the original version Neleos -> Neleom -> Neliomi doesn't seem to have been followed. There is a similar development of names for Mount Nida which is (prematurely) announced for the early Golden Age Map as Tinsnip Mountain (the label turns up a map later). But hey, this is mythology. Who expects consistence for details?

Malkion the Seer is a visionary, possibly in his own right as much as inspired by an Invisible God that is not discussed by Zzabur. My point is that these visions of the End are visions of Malkion's Fifth action, a transitional rite going spectacularly wrong as outside Krjalki and angry gods interfere. And that scene is extremely similar to Westfaring's Eurmal's perspective on being freed from execution in the Black City by (monstrous) Orlanth and his buddies, to be dragged off into Hell. IMO Aerlit is a lesser Orlanth - a smaller hill (not much of a mother), much less influence on his lands, and no dalliance with Earth, instead with Sea (Warera), and a few generations later, with his own great-great-grand-daughter (daughter of Fenela and Yadmov) siring Damol, the great pagan demigod hero of third generation Serpent King Seshnela. The Genius Loci gods of Old Seshnela (including Basmol) keep finding mortal noble women lost in the woods to mate with in Greg's stories even in History. All too often "child of" is interchangeable with "mask of" or "incarnation of". One way how multiple parentages turn up, and how generations can be jumbled. Kodig and Barntar predating their own well-attested birth events (or that of Kodig's father) is not a big deal. This is another, earlier Kodig re-born as son of Vingkot, the same person/deity. The firstborn from Vingkot and the Summer wife, with the best claim to succeed is father after he dies in a battle far in the future of the VIngkotling generations. Establishing primogeniture as one aspect of Vingkotling kingship, later inherited by Korol's lineage in Heort's sons. An archetype like Grandfather Mortal - the pure. unalloyed embodiment of the Man rune - is pluripresen The Fifth Action is Malkion taking on the role of the sacrifice after the Expulsion March. The sequence of Actions of Malkion/The Invisible God is part of the Zzabur canon about Danmalastan and the ancient west. Basically, you have a manifestation of Malkion (as the immanent form of the Invisible God?) cogitating the world from principles. FIrst Action: Creation. the "universal perspective" perceives the Prima Materia, and divides it in (base) matter, energy, and emerges as intellect ("Ferbrith") aka Malkion the Creator. Second Action: Manifestation: Runes as the Great Thoughts of the Intellect. This leads to Kiona the Law (rune), aka Malkion the Law. Third Action: Multiplication. Kiona creates the One World (the world of First Beings, every one the archetype of what is to follow) by combining the runes, the Erasanchula or Maseren. Emerges as Ordelvis, or Malkion the Seer. Fourth Action: Duplication: Ordelvis turns the prototype beings of One World into serial production, populating Danmalastan, the (triangular) (Golden Age) continent of Brithela. The Six Tribes of Logic, leading to Malkion the Founder. Fifth Action: Destruction. Malkion the Sacrifice. That latter philosophical stage is Grandfather Mortal, accepting Death as the final stroke of a life cycle. Alien to the non-aging Logicians of Brithos.

Malkion's Fifth Action is basically the same mythical archetype as Gramps receiving the Sword. Yes, it happens outside of chronological order, or is a later loop's reflection of this "out of Green Age" transition. For all practical purpose, (an iteration/incarnation of) Malkion is the western Grandfather Mortal. Spread offspring with all manner of goddesses, starting lineages or archetypes (or both in the same twinned couples of offspring). (He also doubles as Aptanace of the West despite Zzabur's desperate claims.) And he seems to be the (ultimate) judge of the Dead, or he appoints dead Talar to the post. (There is some delay between Gramps dying and Daka Fal sorting the living and the dead.) Grandfather Mortal is truly a title well earned by Malkion. There is even room for a Bijiif-like portion of Malkion going to Hell while some incomplete Malkion stays around for the Expulsion Marsh and being martyred in the Black City of Introspection where the Lightbringers sweep up EurMalkion... oops, different parallel.

Yelmalio is a portion of Yelm, so whatever Yelmalio did was done by (a piece or aspect of) Yelm. The deeds of Yelm are: self-realization as a thought of Aether, alongside Lodril and Dayzatar his non-confrontation with Basko his confrontation with Molandro (which may or may not have involved melee or archery) his summoning of everybody to deal with Jokbazi (possibly on behalf of the White Empress) stepping up to emperorship turning Buburstus into his throne (by command?) receiving the adulation of the hundred (Gods Wall) enduring the wedding contest (which resulted in some fertile glances or one case of burnt plumage leading to offspring) siring the eight Planetary Sons (by looking at Dendara, I suppose) making humans (including Murharzarm and other Dara Happan nobility) together with five other deities evading Sshorga (leaving the solution to Murharzarm) absorbing or eating his northeastern planetary son as Umath invaded extending hospitality and recognition to his nephew Orlanth (? - might have been a local proxy in Ernaldela, Harono, or the capital proxy Murharzarm) losing the contest of arms (by proxy?) - or - witnessing the death of Murharzarm in the contest dissembling, leaving the portions to do their thing. After going to Hell, Bijiif became the remaining identity of Yelm, burning out Wonderhome, setting up court in the scorched Underworld receiving all the dead gods from the surface world who made it west and down. Cursing VIvamort "summoning Rebellus Terminus" - receiving Orlanth Lightbringer demanding proof by the Fires of Ehilm and the proof of battle (basically demanding reflections of the first of the two tests of his own ascension) exchanging vows with Orlanth holding on to a strand of Arachne Solara's Web being carried in procession to the brand-new Gates of Dawn (siring Hon-eel's twins by gaze) rising, setting (for 374 years) rising, stopping up top, being dragged down again (Sunstop) rising, setting. Spreading light and warmth while up, enabling plant growth and fruit ripening, searing vampires - all merely by being. The list of his photonic offspring is rather long: Murharzarm and the first nobles (by making, leaving the hands-on job to Lodril and Oria) eight planetary "sons" possibly surface god suns like Yamsur (not part of the eight?) Griffins by Galgarenge Daga by Molanni Veldara and Lokarnos by Black Dendara in Hell Ironhoof Twilight and Nightlight by Hon-eel Then there is the list of his fragments (which continue apart inside the Compromise, with himself whole again inside the Compromise). At some point, Eurmal stole his fire for humanity. That's Yelm. The nomads then project their own survival onto their deity, adding shamanism (Golden Bow) and the travels of Reladivus and/or Yamsur to his credit. Possibly realized by absorbing the north-eastern Planetary Son when Umath ascended.

Clay dwarfs are one of those badly diminished Elder Race expressions. Their self-replication mechanic stolen from Grower (or finally implemented from the Man Rune, unlike their elders), they are somewhat expendable repair crew following the Gold foreman exegesis of the available copies of the original blueprint. (Which may be fractal in nature, making each piece of Truestone a fairly complete set of instructions, but requiring some means to actually parse it.) The article on dwarf food in Elder Secrets (with the recipe for one type of canned food) has the criticism "too much gold". The diamond foremen or masters don't need leaders, they need workers and lower management. Some intra-caste versatility is wanted, and clay dwarfs have a mandatory hobby for downtime maintenance. When too much cogitation leads to heresy, the food may be to blame. Of course Mostal has souls - at least eight, one for each (original) caste. IMG I solve the "clock without clockmaker" problem with my assumption that each Mostal is made to be a von-Neumann-probe, a self-replicating mechanism sent out to become, and then to make self-extracting copies that do so elsewhere in the Void. There might be a non-clockwork clockmaker generations ago, in a different cosmos, or just out there in the depths of the Void. Or beyond. Possibly there was a set of instructions for the instance of Mostal that had sent off its copies to rejoin the other Mostals. If so, that has been lost, along with the copy-making instructions and tools. But Time is going to last a fair bit, so there is a chance that the Mostali will get closer to reconstructing those instructions and apparatuses.

The entire rider culture is derived from Yamsur (a little sun) and Hyalor. Yes, the young men can progress seemlessly into Yu-Kargzant, but their behavior is Kargzant, not Yelm.

I don't think that would be a valid conclusion of a Lightbringers' Quest. There is no known (to Harmast) way for backtracking the Court of Silence to the Lost in Hell and then the Banquet sites of the LBQ. While your escape from Hell can be along any strand of the web if you take on a specific mask of a deity (somehow Harmast gravitated towards Ralios - some Old Religion element to his Westfaring?) you can follow that deity's web conduit into the day of Dawn. That's how despite appearing at the Gate of Dawn, the gods appear amid their worshipers in Dragon Pass and elsewhere. (Ok, they are using pluripresence there, too.)

There are two rather short myths which cover all of the Gods War. One is the Sword Story (which can be told for each of the four participants - Eurmal, Humakt, Vivamort/Nontraya and Gramps Mortal/Malkion), and the other is the highly intersectional Hill of Gold. Both are ongoing through all the Ages, describing the conflicts of the participants Lightfore(s), Orlanth/Tolat, Zorak Zoran/Tolat, Inora/Valind/Mountain. The destruction of Mostal might be the third ongoing story, and the cycle of forestation and vegetation the fourth. The dragon(ewts) sort of refuse to have a story, but the (blue) moon has one in all the Ages, with Tolat involved.

In the end, you either need to find a way to fail forward somewhat - introduce a gray zone of say 30 percentiles in which a failed roll achieves at least some of the player's goal at some cost to the player, which may be some hurt, loss of precious time, damaging their equipment in the process, or similar. Such a rule reading needs group buy-in, but might make your life as GM easier. For more on the concept, read the QuestWorlds SRD.

The Mostali claim that the first matter created, Stone, was alive and vibrant. Just not Growing. The core parts of the Machine were made of living Stone - the Spike, containing the Chaosium from which the new matter and new metals were called forth by each new generation of Mostali. (That's IMG the Mostali explanation of the sequence of Metals, and thereby elemental matter.) These periodic table elements you mention have no place in Glorantha other than as weird variations of rock. Metals are a plasma emanation of the (Gloranthan) element on a solid crystalline matrix, and thus all are of Mostal's stasis. (Our world only has an electron plasma in metals and to some extent in semi-metals.) In my description, the Spike is inscribed with The Blueprint which includes the operation manual for the Chaosium matter generator. Self-construction of Mostal ended a bit after 10,000 YS (Lodril's dive into the earth as part of tablet 3 of the Copper Tablets), with the separated Aether derivates taking up their positions and elemental metal (brass for Lodril, gold for Yelm, silver for Dayzatar) simultaneously emerging from the previous Tin. (Basically, Mostal and his earlier Elder Mostali had three vessels cooking at once for finishing the World Machine, brass, silver and gold.) What was left was detail work on the features inside the Machine. Then Umath was born (not made), a different expression of the tin-copper alloy which was not part of the extraction process from the Chaosium in The Blueprint. Mostal was unhinged and stopped communicating. Later the brute smashed into the North Pillar that had been erected to manage the unhinged dome, starting the tilting business which made deciphering The Blueprint even harder. But basically, that's my way of agreeing with that statement. IMG the Iron Crucible was the Mostali invention (the horror) of refining Stone into something counteracting both the Grower and the Taker whose interferences had make the Mostali miss the Umath development at the Chaosium when there were hardly any Mostali down there maintaining it - after all the building material was already in place. The primer material might have been taken from the barrier to the Void, which the assembled Elder Mostali may have regarded as the lesser risk to the Machine than the boundless Growth and unregulated Taking. Also, a makeshift border had to be created around the rim of the Machine which now was bleeding stuff outside of the snowball globe in an equatorial belt - stuff replenished by Growth, but a misuse of energy and the Chaosium nonetheless. Humans - especially those westerners who the Mostali of Tharkarn interacted with most, the useful Vadeli and the thieving Brithini - refused to bind themselves to any of these matters, which took them out of the targeting specifics at first. But then Trickster observed Mostali taking the border stuff from downbelow for some other purpose and wanted some for himself. The rest is the Sword Story. Applying non-solid lubricant is a fallacy. Gold beaten to extremely thin leaves, mixed between the mess the Mostali call food, is the intoxicant which triggers originality (=heresy) in the Mostali. Most clay dwarfs are kept on a stupidity diet to avoid any new ideas, with the gold caste carefully dosed to allow some intellectual oversight.

IMG, the iron caste of the Mostali would have been started after the birth of Umath unhinged the World Machine and made Mostal unresponsive towards the pleas of the Mostali for instructions. High King Elf striking down the base of the Spike using Death, killing Stone, would be a much later incident, with the majority of the Mostali of that time already the self-replicating Clay variety. The birth of Umath "dismembered" the World Machine. His subsequent crash into the northern Pillar halfway between his birth and the death of Yelm destroyed one of the stopgap measures the Mostali had devised to keep the remains of the world machine running as smoothly as possible, the four pillars preventing the sky dome from wobbling. In the Vadel story in Revealed Mythologies, Vadel is given the Iron Spirit Prison for his return expedition into Bamatela. This would be in the late Golden Age, with the first rivers (including Neliom) already on dry land. This is Fourth Action, Multiplication, and not yet Fifth Action. Whether Malkion's Expulsion Walk is (a cognate of) the killing of Grandfather Mortal is a different question. Iron Dwarf received the sword from Eurmal after Orlanth had slain the Emperor. He remade it as an axe, laying no claim to sword-smithing, or creating the original sword of Death. (Other than Eurmal having removed it from the base of the Spike, exposing it to what lies beyond Subere's Vault). I sort of question the existence or at least the mythical relevance of Humakt before becoming and/or receiving the Sword of Death. He would have been little more than an interchangeable Storm Brother with an above-average score at the court of Kargan Tor. Sure, there is a brother of Orlanth in the Fighting Pit, but Humakt's next significant act after slaying Gramps Mortal and failing to prevent Orlanth from slaying the Emperor with Humakt('s toy) is severing his kinship ties to Orlanth and the rest of the windy family using the sword. What Humakt gained from joining Eurmal on his Deathbringer quest is the experience of becoming the sword, of becoming the harbinger. This may help inform a metal worker about some of the quirks of the different material, but it doesn't impose any skill at metalworking. Undergoing the experience of being re-shaped into an axe might have given Humakt the metalworking experience - gained from the Iron Mostali.

Pretty much like the enchantment rules for magic items in the fantasy coverage. Dust needs to be sacrificed to instill the magical effect, or to keep it running. I have no idea how dust as a currency is packaged - for all I know, it might be something like gold-pressed Latinum or a virtual currency with Dust banks balancing accounts. As for active magic, I have no idea how the setting does that. Activation of dust-infused artifacts (or tattoos) with more dust, at a guess.

If I understand the concept of heroes in that setting correctly (from reading a brief wikipedia entry about the game, and the in-setting wiki about dust), possibly yes. At least for those following the physical path of the previous civilization, advanced cyborgs (or undead). Using RQ or BRP concepts for undead to simulate dust-dependent cyborgs seems feasible to me.

If you listen to Sandy of Cthulhu, Sandy Petersen's youtube channel, or if you talk to him about using the Starspawn etc. as factions in his Hyperspace board game (and an upcoming game where you captain individual ships in that setting), yes, then Shoggoths are the result of one of the Mythos races' technology. In case of the Shoggoths, IIRC there is more than just bio-technology involved, but yes. Could human-level weird science produce shoggoths? Not exactly that, but infusing science with things man was not meant to know might create its own horrors to destroy human civilization. Possibly rivalling ones.

Dust seems to be something like nano-technology, non-rogue replicators waiting to do their creators' bidding and slightly amenable to commands of others. In RQ terms, Dust could be an ingredient of enchantments, possibly replacing the POW sacrifice.

Every night, the Gloranthans can observe the adventures of Lightfore as she rises up into the sky all the way to the Pole Star, and then descending again to a place within a sixth of the circumference of the sky dome from her starting position (on the equinoxes setting in the same constellation as she rose from). The path forms a loop in the sky resembling the HIV symbol. Plentonius attributes these paths to the actions of the Young God (GRoY p.69) and identifies the Young God with Yelm. But the Copper Tablets tell us a very different story: they show Yelm (and initially his two brothers) as that stationary object in the center of the sky. We only have one myth about the sun rising in the east, and that is from the Dawn, the last day when all the Gods walked the world. There is no Godtime precedent for the sun emerging from the Gates of Dawn in the Monomyth. We do get one wandering sun in the Copper Tablets, though - Reladivus Lightfore, as a consequence of Umath ascending into the sky, known as Kargzant to the horse nomads of Pent. If you choose to believe the mythical contradictions of the Entekosiad over the artificial corset of the Monomyth presented in Mythology (a work that explicitely warns against mistaking such a "map" for the territory), there was a Golden Age before Yelm Brightface replaced the White Empress Goddess (possibly with the rotating searchlight) as the Emperor. We do get one short piece of Yelm prior to becoming Emperor of the World in the Prosopaedia (originally in the Jonstown Compendium) - his three challenges by Basko (the Black Sun), Molandro the Earth Walker, and finally Jokbazi the Predark Chaos. All of this is very different from the story of the Young God. It does work perfectly fine with the Brightface usurpation of the reign of the White Empresses, though. The Golden Age immobilizes Jokbazi, taking it out of the perception of Yelm. A feat very similar to what Magasta does. Yelm the Youth basically becomes Yelmalio inside the Yelm cult. Nothing that Antrius does (other than accompanying questers to the Hill of Gold) is anything like what Lightfore does. The Bridling of Kargzant, aka the Anarchy Year, is what gives us a Lightfore sharing in all the non-Yelm elements of the little suns that never entered Hell but confronted it whenever it surfaced. Youth is about opposition, about failure to obey. Yelm is not at all about this. In the Entekosiad his ascension is about betrayal of trust (of the White Empress) and of abuse of jurisdiction. In the Prosopaedia, it is about destroying the previous order by painting it as monstrous and then demanding collective followership to deal with the problem the absence of previous power has created. Experience of the world is something Yelm cannot undergo, except in proxy. Reladivus (the son corrupted by Umath) gives him such proxy. (So do Verithurus(a) and Shargash, and the four who perished. The one who re-absorbed may have been the necessary link to the others.)

Zeus may not have changed his name, but his appearance for many of his extramarital affairs. Odin walked the world using an alias, and many other rulers are attributed the same way. I think that there are plenty examples of deities interacting with the world in a diminished form of exposure. And those are many of the names of the gods.

David Castle is doing a read-through of the guide on his Glorantha Discord server, and as of last week David entered Volume 2 of the Guide, which was not covered in this series. I wonder whether there might be an interest to accompany the Discord discussions here?

The old fart brigade may have had these myths, or may have created their own spin-off version of the Monomyth to play with. (And that spin-off thing is fine for a game table, as long as nobody claims that their version is what canon has to be.) RQG is aiming to become a self-contained description of Glorantha (including a few rules-free collections of world descriptions like the Guide and the Sourcebook). As such, it has to deliver its own presentation of the Monomyth. More than rules you need GMing tips and tricks to navigate myth, and for that an understanding what myth means is a prerequisite. And here the Mythology book delivers at the start. So yes, we need a book on heroquesting, and how to use both the Monomyth and the specific cult write-ups to create regular heroquests following a passion play approach, or the deeper godtime dive of the similarly scripted quests, before we can ponder ways to veer off from such entry myths into other paths or into unknown territory without falling out of myth back into some (usually dismal) surface world or hell experience. I sincerely hope that there won't be more than a handful of rulesy pages in such a product.

The rules are pretty worthless without a framework of myths to quest in. The Monomyth is supposed to provide the scaffolding of Godtime, to branch off from. It resulted from Arkat#s cross-referencing his heroquesting experiences in multiple cults. The only rulesy bits for heroquesting would be what portion of the standard array of RuneQuest abilities ports into heroquesting, and how to adjust and create heroquesting rewards and penalties. The rest is how to turn bits of the mythic landscape (or hypersurface) of Glorantha into adventures, and that requires some basic familiarty with archetypical myths and possibly variations thereof (like slaying a blue dragon to release a mask of Heler).

Leika would have been aware of Kallyr's quest, and would know that a portion of it was to be enacted in Antorling lands. Kallyr is calling up an immense amount of magic, and people alongside the ritual would be able to join into that magic, both to support the main thing and to syphon off some of the magic for their very own goals. The usual clan level questing during Sacred Time is a passion play of the Lightbringers' Quest, with the questers separated from the rest of the community, who then act as the heroquest encounters wearing the masks of the encounters. Some of these re-enactments routinely run out of the limited scope of the passion play and may take the questers deep into Godtime, or may replace mask-bearing clanfolk by actual enemies (which is when the ritual guardians come into play). Kallyr's quest is such a passion play writ extra large, and then with some whammy. Delegated mask bearers might have to quest against other obstacles to get to their stations to receive their ritual defeat against Kallyr's band of questers, or may be admixed to the actual threats, and then to have to decide how to proceed while keeping in the myth without defeating Kallyr outside of the script. Few other Lightbringer cult activities would be available for the LBQ passion play portion of Sacred Time. There is of course I Fought We Won as a (very dangerous) alternative rite to perform during Sacred Time, betting a lot of one's own communities on the outcome of very few solitary questers. This is an Orlanth cult quest that doesn't involve Orlanth. There might be others. One quest I haven't seen played out or written up yet would be Orlanth's conquest of the sky world, and his successful defence against the Chaos invasion of the sky. At a guess, something like that may have earned Kallyr her starbrow, but no details are in publication. (The Well of Daliath might have hints, not sure I have read them all.) Brave questers might opt for an "as above, so below" approach to use their Sacred Time magic, but that might result in a much weakened magic for Ernalda.

The Monomyth is close enough to Arkat's understanding of the hero plane. Fairly basic knowledge you should have for running a heroquest before considering possible mechanics for heroquests, IMO, but then I am a Glorantha scholar first, and only then a GM and scenario writer.

I had the impression that the Chaosium was named that already when it became the base of the Spike. Primal Plasma being polluted: surely not the entirety of it, but probably the portion of it carried into Glorantha by Wakboth and minions.

I wonder in which age communication between different entities became a problem requiring magic. As a rule, the further we go back to Creation, the fewer problems would be involved - the Green Age did not even require fire, the Golden Age did not require much in harvest magic, Storm Age required magic to supplement the missing sun, etc.