Joerg

I never cease to be amazed by the heights of concise arguments here... Feel free to ignore me. The Guide gives us a Silmarillion level collection of the old story data. I would be happier with a Book of Lost Tales level of access to these stories, though I am happy to ignore the later rehashes of the Tolkien estate, and wouldn't go as far with hoary Glorantha documents, either. The name "Naveria" is a title, with the component "eria" clearly meaning "woman". The meaning of "Nav" is obscure. I still think that the concept of the static emperor is Brightface. Whether his myth is limited to Naveria or whether it is paralleled elsewhere (e.g. in the bit about confronting Basko, Molandro and Jokbazi on his ascent in the as hoary Jonstown Compendium tidbit). IMO Brightface is a Change of Cycle myth, not Golden Age, or at least not the one that the God Learner monomyth would recognize. One problem I have with the Monomyth is that it suppresses all earlier cycles of rise and decline. These may be even less solidly remembered than the pre-Gods War fragments. All of Glorantha is a collage or mosaic of mythic fragments, the Hero Planes as much as the mundane world, where the Gods War has destroyed much earlier detail and richness. The spider silk reconstruction is what we have to work with, but it is just what could be salvaged, far from what went on. Entekosiad is the one Stafford Library document which gives hints at some of these earlier cycles, which makes it the richest and at the same time the hardest to parse of the library pieces.

For early modern taxonomy, my personal reference is Georg Agricola's last book on mining which is a dissertation of the creatures of the Below. Less systematic than Anaxial's Roster.

Plentonius and/or the Gods Wall adds planetary representations of Dayzatar (Zaytenaras) and Lodril (Ghelotralas) for the far eastern Senthoros (or above) and the far western Akuturos (or below). Murharzarm is the second emperor of the Sunstop and the now more distant over-sun (Yelm/Arraz). Arraz is something like the celestial father in this sequence, and (I suspect) created from contact with several of the urban suns and the realization that they need to have something in common. At the same time, some local sun gets replaced by an ambitious Brightface, whose ambition knows no bounds and claims the Arraz position for itself, making the Sun stop in the sky, creating (this cycle's) static phase.

Arkat was as much a mortal as Sheng, and that changed only with his apotheosis around 500 ST. The notion of Gbaji apparently became a world-wide effect spreading from the Bright Empire (unless you ask the Dara Happans, who will say that it spread from Brithos), so a Dara Happan origin might be a possibility. When exactly did Malkioneran emerge? The School of New Order appears as part of the Return to Rightness crusade already under Hadalin, the first manager, and tried to take over the rule in Seshnela when Pilif the Magus fielded his claim for the throne, and only barely was overcome by Saval. In a way, the conflict between Saval and Pilif was a re-hash of the conflict that was triggered by Hrestol and Faralz a few years into Hrestol's exile in Brithos, where the supremacy of the sorcerer (Zzabur himself) over nobility was in question. Saval all but exterminated the New Order in Seshnela, but on Jrustela the Order changed its organization. We have a slight chronology problem here. Saval's savage revenge against the New Order predates Annmak's conquest of the Autarchy by a generation, and due to the internal strife, I doubt that great advances against the Autarchy were achieved under Saval. Yes - it predates the first mention of Argrath by about seven years, I guess. No idea when Harmast Barefoot first entered Greg's writings. Unlike the other prose pieces in the Hrestol's Saga collection, Hrestol's Saga (his original quest to kill Ifttala, the mother of Pendal) is actually a finished story of nine short chapters and a tenth giving an outlook on later events. Two other unfinished stories are included, the rather long visit of Sir Faralz on Brithos (which at least features the Kingslaying, unlike Patrick Rothfuss' Name of the Wind series which features the adventures of the Kingkiller) and a much shorter fragment about Sir Lokalm (no s in the name), a young man-of-all eager to show his mettle through a chivalrous quest (name a monster, slay it, encounter otherworldly opposition and guides on the way) - in his case a mysterious ferryman who refuses to be paid (always a bad sign). This fragment ends there and then. Hrestol and Faralz in Brithos has a whole lot of courtly interaction, playing out the caste laws and limitations, and then some action sequences and some high magic politics, culminating in the abdication of Zzabur and the hunt for Faralz the kingslayer (where this fragment ends). Greg was great at writing expose prose for interesting characters - Aftal the Waertagi in Missing Lands is another such piece that plunges you into the middle of the action, and then leaves you on your own. With an upgraded gazetteer and a bunch of cameos, each of these could be sold as HeroQuest scenario books, I suppose, or using some other story-telling system like Prince Valiant. Maybe this format could be marketed as "Glorantha: the Origins - Make Greg Stafford's early visions of Glorantha your own." Much of the genealogical stuff and the kings list from the Hrestol's Saga collection have been published on the old glorantha.com website. While you are right that there is a difference, I think that Greg might have been hard put to point out the differences. My main argument is that there was a lot of heroforming but little heroquesting on the Bright Empire side of the Gbaji Wars, whereas Arkat is generally named as the grandfather of heroquesting (never mind his contemporary and probably equal Harmast, the Stanley to Arkat's Livingstone). (BTW, any weird strings I failed to catch in this post would be commentary by Max, my office feline.) Isn't that a common "secret" of all Truth cults? LM, Yelmalio, Humakt, IO, Buserian all are masters at misguiding others outside of their immediate groups. I don't blame all orthodox Yelmic worshippers to be adherents of Gbaji, but I do blame the origin of this doctrine to have arrived there by the methods of Gbaji. But then, maybe Yelm is as innocent as Nysalor was of all the bad things Gbaji did (or had people do in his name) - somewhat, but yet not quite innocent. That's almost too easy. If this was the case, the Mashunasan exposure to the Ultimate test would affect Gbaji, but I think that Gbaji would be able to stand that test, and possibly twist it into a new Antigod way every time he was made to undergo a new, improved version of this. The Initiation of Orlanth myth is a set of mystical conundrums served by the Evil Uncles, and escaping the Uncles' tests (does every Heortling undergo Orlanth's trial, or can exceptional characters choose to or be forced to undergo one of the other brothers' trials?) is the first mystic experience of that quest. The Star Heart part is the second mystical quest. Both are presented as remarkably free of Gbaji, possibly thanks to Harmast beating a way avoiding most of Gbaji's traps where thousands of other contemporary initiees succumbed and perished. But then I do feel that Gbaji may have laid one trap there, too, causing the ones closest to Orlanth to trigger the release of the Devil. No idea whether Harmast was directly responsible in the Gbaji Wars (Arkat and Talor were the ones to produce the Chaos curses, both rescuees of Harmast), but if this theory holds water, Renvald would be one prime suspect for the appearance of the Devil in the Second Age. The honors for the Third Age summoning of the Devil go - of course - to Argrath Maniskison. Solipsism is a mystical failing, but is it Gbaji? Is it Chaos? Is this just giving the name as a cheap label? That's Rashoran's demise, at the claws of Ragnaglar, Thed and possibly Malia (one "l", no apples involved). Nihilism, really. Mystic hubris is what Greg called "failed mystic", see e.g. Sheng or the major antigods like Keltari or Oorsu Sara. To be honest, I don't see the necessity for mysticism in the appearance of Gbaji. Bad myth-interpretation and myth-presentation of past events like Garangordos in Fonrit is sufficient. (Intended as bad puns...) That's the best description of Sheng Seleris I have seen so far.

Not sure that it was about accountability, really - more the desire to learn about the magic that caused the Closing. Dormal must have realized that his method was nothing like an impromptu repair, and his mission may well have been to make the rites named after him obsolete. Learning about the cause and original nature of the Closing would be a good place to start. Odysseus, Sindbad, Manannan or St. Brennan, navigating magical islands in search for something... in many ways this will be a familiar story. Empress Somali, wife of Emperor Keralamalos and mother of Ilotos, was a Brithini emigrant. The statement that she left the island for her husband suggests that this happened at some time after his birth, unless we deal here with Pratchett levels of time-dilated love.

Because both Hrestol and Zzabur refer to the sun disk as Yelm in direct speech in Hrestol's Saga. Irrelevant to We are talking about the early days of name-giving, where names are directly descriptive. Naveria translates as "(something) woman". Not red woman, unless there are different names for different shades of red, but then early color language appears to be rather limited, as Homer's appellation of the sea colors illustrate. Yelm originally being a local sun god, parallel to the multitude of Dara Happan city sun gods, is the point of this thread...

For the Black Fleet to survive anywhere on the Mirrorsea Bay, it needs access to a cavern depot/shipyard right on the shore, much like the ancient Egyptian .Red Sea naval base. This base doesn't have to be inside the Shadow Plateau, but could be inside a lesser rocky outcrop on the shore - a place like Lylket, or possibly under the ruins of Lylket, which has known troll tunnels connecting to the Plateau proper. Of course the Black Fleet wasn't seen - it sails in Darkness. How much good that may have done after the Closing is the only valid objection Peter produced. The accounts from the Readjustment Wars are rather scarce and only deal with the Hendriki perception of them. Esrolia - Land of Ten Thousand Goddesses barely mentions it twice in short paragraphs, and that's where they happened. The detail in History of the Heortling People is hardly better, and doesn't have any naval outlook at all. The Kingdom of Night had some beef with the Islanders - possibly both arms. Gloranthan Sourcebook p.62 times the conflict to the arrival of naval westerners in Dark Esrolia (probably before the Kotor Wars). This initial alliance would explain the placement of Lylket, too, but fails to explain the Slontos invasion of Heortland. Anyway, Dark Esrolia is the time when Ezkankekko's folk had access to Esrolian ship-building resources and timber. Fleet implies more than a dozen such galleys, though probably nothing like the Esrolian trireme numbers. Operating in Darkness, possibly using Sea Troll "marines", such a fleet would have ruled the Mirrorsea at night, but would have needed a shady hide-out during the days. The nature of the conflict of the Esrolian Pelaskites (it is, and always was, their coastal fisherfolk who built and crewed the triremes, as clients of Enfranchised Houses) with the Rightarmer Pelaskites somehow eludes me, to be honest. Could it be about the Rightarmers' open acknowledgement of the Ludoch as their overlords, rather than Ezkankekko's Kitori and Trolls? The mainland Pelaskite settlements are in all likelihood bound into the Kitori Shadow Tribute system, but the Isles may have been an exception from early on, and that might have rankled. However, the OOO probably had lost most of the Heortling tribute following the Tax Slaughter in Kerofinela (even though that mostly may have been against the tribute that went to Dagori Inkarth rather than the Kingdom of Night). Building a fleet of Black Galleys aiming to institute a tributary relationship with the Rightarmers may sound like a way to compensate for loss of a mighty tributary by adding a new one, but the nature of the Kitori Shadow Tribute is really a form of equal exchange, and it would be quite Trumpian to suddenly step up and claim that the Rightarmers are behind in paying for their protection after centuries of ignoring that, and quite dubious Silver Age precedents if there were any at all. Pelaskites are ubiquitious on the Mirrorsea Bay and in the estuaries of Kethaela. Only the Leftarm Isles and the Poison Shore have no permanent settlements of theirs. Nochet, Karse, Leskos, Sklar, the County of the Isles, the Esvular peninsula, Storos and Rhigos all have significant Pelaskite population. The Rightarm Isles have few humans that aren't Pelaskite, mainly trade agents and specialists in Seapolis. The Pelaskite culture isn't uniform on the Mirrorsea Bay. Esrolian Pelaskites are bound to have adapted to the Grandmother system, and may at first look be mistaken for weird Esrolians. They probably speak the Esrolian dialect with anyone not from Pelaskite origin and keep their own dialect among themselves, or on the ships. The Black Fleet as a tribute gathering instrument meeting the Rightarmers after the God Learners had been cleared off might make some sense, and wouldn't have been affected by the Closing. (The wealth of the Rightarmers had been affected by it, though, which would mean that they had to pay the tribute in population rather than wealth.) The Kingdom of Night might have collected a parallel to the Danegeld from the Islanders, which would of course make them quite open to promises by Belintar the Stranger. On the whole, I prefer to make weird and apparently contradictory statements about Glorantha work rather than de-canonize everything in sight. The above is an attempt to keep a fleet of Black Galleys in the region, and possibly re-emerging once the Wolf Pirates are off on their Circumnavigation. We don't have any Rightarm Isles military events after 1621.

I was talking about the name "Yelm" being used before any contact with Lifebringer missionaries.

My guess is that Dormal would have asked Zzabur for an explanation. The people of Arolanit may have welcomed some of those last emigrant groups from Brithos, which would shorten that interval to some 700 years.

That appears to be the case - I purchased mine comparatively late. True, but her left hip is pointing towards us, and that is free of any scabbard. The right hip appears to have a side quiver, which might have a sheath for a shorter knife attached. Her riding without any tack eliminates the chance to attach useful things to such tack, so whatever she carries into battle must be on her belt - no spear or javelin quiver possible.

Where is this rule of the Closing from? I have heard about wrecks cast onto rocks, and of ships carried down the maelstrom, with a few escapees occupying the island opposite to that with the dwarven city of iron. Also check The Middle Sea Empire - it features a Last Ship that reaches Seshnela decades after the Closing isolated both the Seshnegi coast and the continent of Jrustela. Also, check Dormal's Third Voyage (Men of the Sea p.19): From the fact that there were later voyages we can safely assume that Dormal and enough of his crewmates survived this experience, even if their ships didn't.

DId the beheading hurt him, or did he manage to cast "Remove Head" before the executioner's tool met his neck?

It ddn't, and didn't have to - it was swept down the Maelstrom.

Smaller than which horses? The stats in the RQ bestiary make them somewhat larger than the sample horse - 4D6+18 for unicorns, 4D6+12 for the horse or 3D6+18 for the War Zebra. Does the rider have a side-arm? The shield slung on her back does seem to imply one, unless it serves as body armor only.

Yelm as we know him definitely is a construct, but a certain root Yelm probably goes back all the way to Brightface the Usurper, first incarnation of Gbaji, or even further. As far as I am concerned, Yelm does mean Brightface in Dara Happan. He usurps at least one of the little suns (that of ur-Sedenya), possibly all the Planetary Gods of Peloria, true to the old adage that there is always a free spot at the top, or above it. Hrestol knew about Yelm at the Dawn, even though the False God of the Sun was named Ehilm, after the Enerali sun god (or vice versa). A bunch of other major deities were known by their monomyth names, too, e.g. Eurmal, the Friend of Men. Zzabur knew the Vingkotlings, or at least a bunch of Vingkotlings he had finally devised a very destructive spell against (though his well-defined targeting was thwarted by the fact that the target group had changed). This implies a certain minimum exchange of names and concepts. The Waertagi had entered the Pelorian rivers, and probably reported back to their marine kin, who then may have talked to Zzabur, too.

Dormal is simply the author of a very short grimoire with just one spell - Open Seas. The spell itself is barely registering as magical, hence available to commoners. The Quinpolic League is pretty orthodox by any standard but Theoblanc's. Sailors are a notoriously spiritually polluted bunch, anyway, with all that contact with unhealthy ideas.

Or rather the leak the Mostali have been trying to plug under the Long Dry?

We don't have separate counters for them, but they are in the unit description. I am starting to wonder whether the Bush Children and similar mounted cavalry units in the game are (possibly apostate) Templar or Sun Dome Militia units. True. All Yelmalio has (left) are the geasa against letting horses suffer, which are right alongside the ones for elves.

The Battle skill in RQG is suspiciously similar to Pendragon, which means I don't expect anything groundbreakingly new there.

Control is a spirit spell. A pretty useless one for people unable to discorporate or otherwise initiate spirit combat, except for this one use to keep a bound spirit or other entitiy in the enchantment or crystal after it performed its service.

Perhaps the difference is that the Theyalans all cooperated to contribute, whereas the Pelorians are ruled from above to better contribute, or... The Theyalan way brought an exchange of ideas and concepts, and created more of a shared identity, whereas the shared identity in Peloria is having the same overlord.

That's where Countermagic steps in, protecting all the weaker spells cast before. And each dispel of a Countermagic can of course be countered by having a supporter cast another one. Unless you use coordinated teams of spell strippers, a single magic supporter can frustrate your efforts at spell stripping.

And Arkat. Or as the separation between the two. Ho hum. I am not convinced yet. As with Nysalor, it wasn't the entity that caused the evil, but misguided followers. If Malkioneran had a champion against him, it might have been Halwal. But then, Halwal's main opponent was a Makanist like himself, Yomili. Red Goddess and Sheng come as a pair, much like Arkat and Nysalor, but Sheng gets disposed of early. Jar-eel is Argrath's Other, I suppose. Following this list, Gbaji is the Devil, within Time. In a way, he may also have been Kazkurtum, whose demise starts the pre-Time that gives us the first 600 year cycle from the Greater Darkness. But it was the expurgated versions which were circulated by the fringe splinter groups. The initial error probably lay in declaring portions of the book as ballast. The Makanist Hrestoli majority in the Empire was as much at fault with this. The early great successes of the God Learners were founded on the unabridged book - burning down most of Vralos, calling down Tanian. As I am not agreeing with your equation of the Devil with Gbaji (see below), I don't think this is the case. But what it definitely did was weaken the fabric of the world (aka Arachne Solara's web which holds it all together). That's their difference to what the Arkati did (and keep doing, either ones from the original era suspended in timeless questing, or their heirs unwittingly using half-understood fragments of secrets. At least some of them, others fail greatly and provide the opposite effect.) Interesting. I viewed it not so much as a guide to Illumination than as a guide to entering the world of myth through stories, something the old Hrestoli questing apparently did not do. Hrestol's quest (and other quests begun in the Hrestol's Saga collection of fragments) appears to be more a stumbling into the myths by confronting or more often being confronted by guardians of the magical places/the Otherworld. Almost always some confrontation with a (or the) deceiver. I didn't think that Impossible Landscapes was Nysaloran in origin, either - I placed it in the Arkati camp, as a basic tool for their heroquesting to guard the Otherworld. (Which doesn't make it any less prone to conveying some mystical insights.) Despite you making excellent points here, I think I disagree. Gbaji is the Deceiver, the twister of Truth (rather than the bringer of illusion). As such he is instrumental in paving the way for the real bad things, and I am firmly convinced that e.g. all the Ompalam stuff that rules/ruins Fonrit is based on Gbaji, and much of the orthodox Yelmic doctrine is, too (beginning with the rise of Brightface before the so-called Golden Age).(Umath and Orlanth are bumbling efforts to express their disagreement with that, perhaps more destructive than anything Gbaji creates himself, but naive in their raging.) There might even be a case for equating Antirius or Metsyla or Govmeranen with Gbaji - the immortal part of Yelm. The Devil on the other hand is something released by Orlanth, if unwittingly and unintentionally. Release Orlanth into the world, and the Devil will follow, and it is a lot worse than anything Gbaji produces. Sure, it was Ragnaglar's misdeeds that set up the creation of the Devil, but it was Orlanth's (and Ernalda's) mismanagement of the situation that brought about the vengeful acts of the Unholy Trio. Orlanth stepping forth, showing his power to right a situation, and achieving the opposite.

A heartfelt nay to temporary membership of Babeester or some other such Dark Earth avenger - choosing the Dark Side of Earth is for eternity. Choosing to walk in hubby's steps with hair dyed red is a far cry from the commitment to the Dark Earth. It is female fertility suspended, not female fertility sacrificed. To address the original question: to go Vingan is a change of gender, a change of outllook. It makes a woman unstable and emotional, losing her cool. While this is a weakness in civilized company, it is an adequate response to unciviized conditions that may have arisen because the males didn't do their part of society's duty properly. I am inclined to make this a temporary (one assumes, at least at the beginning) change of personality. Ruleswise, I have no recommendation on how to derive the temporary Storm rune ability from the now unaccessible Earth rune ability. All access to Earth rune magic is suspended for the time following Vinga. Some Storm magic will come from the act of the gender change, but whether at the same level of power is a different question. A passion might be turned into that temporary rune ability.

I am fine with the "hard cap" on stackable spells applying to spirit magic taught by the temples. To shamans, there should be no hard limit. In RQ3, shaman-taught spells were harder to learn than temple-taught ones (greater spirit resistance, D6 POW per point of the spell rather than D4), and I ruled for my games that casting a spirit screen during the learning gave the spell spirit the opportunity to break off the combat it only started under coercion. This kind of soft capping did the job in RQ3.