Joerg

Yelm's position in the Middle Sky is somewhat uncertain. We know that his feet rested on the Footstool in Raibanth before the river invaded, but he was seated in his throne in Yuthubars, the (levitatinng) Divine City, which was part of the Middle Sky originally, then moved up, disappeared, then reappeared as a star pattern. Yamsur appears to be the light atop/above the Spike (if there ever was just one). That would be higher than Yuthubars. The eight planetary sons were supposed to have taken positions around the lower outskirts of Yuthubars (I guess), vertically above their towers (e.g. Alkoth, Mernita etc., compare the Copper Tablets for the associated sons and how the Oslir River is depicted, leaving Alkoth "south" of Nivorah. Of course, Glorantha was subsequently shattered, rims were dissolvved, and then dragged together again. Yuthuppa was inserted equidistantly between Raibanth and the next northern city after the Flood. Is it just Reladivus who gets honored as Little Sun (alongside with Antirius), or are all surviving Planetary Sons (and daughters) suns (or moons)?

Then there are kings, and in between princes. In the West, the king is about the highest authority you can get. There used to be an Emperor of the Middle Sea, but those times are gone. Princes in the West appear to be the next highest tier of nobility, especially when not prince by virtue of birth to a king and queen but by other means (still noble birth, of course - strictly Talar caste here). Duke, Baron, Count are lower highest ranks of the administration. City states like in Ralios dpn't usually have kings or queens, with the exceptions of Kustria (the Tournament King) and Galin (the Horse Queen). Compare the "mere" duchies of Nolos or Pasos or the autarchies of Sentanos. The Hill Barbarians have tribal kings (Orlanth Regulus, really) lording over a couple of clans, Princes of confederations who are also called kings, (Vingkotling rite kings), and finally you have Sacred Kings (whose domain may be as little as a Triaty or as large as Kerofinela, Kethaela and Saird) or the Godking which approach the power and following of a King of Seshnela or Fronela. The Kings of Lankst, Jonatela, Jorstland or other such entities with some western influence have realms that dwarf those of most Barbarian princes. The Sairdite kings are somewhat similar to the Hill Barbarian ones, but may differ in other areas. The Citadel Kings of Balazar are somewhere in the region of tribal kings, but nominally lording over huge stretches of land (while in reality they often just lord over their citadel and the pig fields outside). Horse nomad kings are sacred kings and the tribal leaders, with the tribe about five times the size of a midget Kerofinelan tribe. The clan chiefs of the Grazers are roughly the equivalent of tribal kings of Sartar. The Enerali kings were more in the style of horse nomad kings, with all of Ralios (and Tanisor/Fornoar) ruled by just four kings. Much lower population densities in those times, but clearly a very large territory claimed by them. Peloria outside of Dara Happa and/or before Dara Happa had kings, e.g. the Red King in the Naveria story, and entities like King Bear in southern Doblian. The Carmanian ruler aka Shah or Padishah (unless that has been revoked) basically is a Western model king. The Zaranistangi had kings, whereas the Artmali had emperors. Doraddi appear to have temporary kings as warleaders. The Kingdom of Ignorance has yet another type of King, and then there are entities like the Monkey King.

The magic that extends the Glowline has been described as chaotic at times, which makes Temples of the Reaching Moon possibly quite a headache for those bullies. The Glowline effect in itself isn't necessarily chaotic, though. It is a shift in realities.

Perhaps you will have to accept that demigods exist in more than just the physical reality with its laws and limitations. We know that e.g. the Grotarons are interacting with spirit mammoths that leave no trace in the Middle World. With giants, there may be some instinct level interaction with a similar realm. Boshbisil's diet plan is too weird to be explainable by biology. Other giants are less reticent to embodying the hunger implicit in the Darkness Rune. It doesn't matter much whether they need to eat as much or often as they do, they simply enjoy eating, much like the trolls do.

I don't quite see how Illumination is associated with cycles or the return of dead things. A neglect of opposites limiting one another, sure, that looks like a feature of enlightenment. I cannot say whether the Blue Moon and everything connected to it is as necessarily illuminated as all the Red Moon stuff. The late Artmali alliance with Chaos powers doesn't mean that they were immune to it in any way - they had come past the point where they cared.

There is another moon, the Blue Moon, but it is mostly invisible since it climbs into the sky on the outside of the visible sky dome before it plummets down from Pole Star through Magasta's Pool into the Underworld Sky. During that rather brief plummet, it can be seen as the Blue Streak. That plummet also starts the demi-weekly (though irregular) low tide, with a massive outflow of all the waters that had followed the Blue Moon's rise and climbed into coastal bays and estuaries. As a source of light, this isn't worth mentioning. Lightfore, the planet that runs the Sunpath antithetical to Yelm (short in summer nights as Yelm's day ride is in winter, and long in winter nights as Yelm's stately pass across the summer sky), has quite some luminosity, outshining each of our celestial night sky features except for our moon. The biggest object in the Night Sky (apart from the Red Moon) is the Red Planet, associated with Shargash or Tolat, a southpath object with two weeks of visibility followed by two weeks in the Underworld. It isn't that bright, though. Whether the Red Moon brightened up the sky significantly remains a matter of debate. I once described the moonglow as the absence of an absence of light.

And these 15m tall giants (or at least one individual, Boshbisil) have a very strange diet of one big pile of meat and on another occasion one as big pile of vegetable matter once a year. This does suggest that they are already more of a genius loci manipulating the substance of that place than an organic entity - not exactly lifting complete hill-sides when rising as Krisa Yar, but a similar control over what makes them themselves. Traditionally, the smart way to fight a giant is to trick it into harming itself.

I think it could happen, but its fairly rare for sorcerers too. It implies an elemental specialist school, and there actually don't seem to be too many of those about in Orthodox Malkionism. Not necessarily elemental schools. There ought to be spells that manipulate matter without summoning the elements. E.g. using the forms instead. (I sort of miss the Mineral rune option. Earth has way too many functions.) No, that kind of thing is Exotic (aka mystical) magic, not physical magic. Sometimes a wind is just moving air and not a spirit. Sometimes a hail of stones is minerals falling down from above. Even in Glorantha. The Loskalmi sorcerers are generally armoured cataphracts. But yeah, I think the Brithini and Rokari don't go in for any kind of tank tactic that I've heard of. I assume the zzaburi mostly stay away from the battle front. I managed to miscommunicate. I wasn't talking about physically armored vehicles, but about mobile protective circles. Interestingly, the only mention of a flying carpet in Glorantha that I can recall is Ernalda magic (Orane weaves wove Dumela, the carpet that flew her and Durev out of the clutches of Endon the Cruel. I'm guessing it might involve some Storm magic from Durev too). Who said anything about floating carpets? I was talking about cloth spread on the floors that has all the inscriptions you would like to have for protective circles, serving as receptables. Or (in similar manner, and slightly more mobile) pavilions with such a circle active that might be moved by servants lifting up all the poles in unison and carrying it about like a giant parasol. A palanquin carrying the entire protective circle would be quite the thing, unless you have it carried by giant creatures (like e.g. elephants or dinosaurs). The land version of the turtle barges usually gets bogged down away from paved roads and has no practical use in warfare. Armored howdas are problematic, too, if the armor is more than moderate protection against arrows and similar light missiles. Slack silk tents acting as ballistic cloth would be possible in weak winds, however.

In short, it resembles the Temple of the Thirty in Gemmell's Drenai saga, as I suggested it would ages ago when discussing this on the digest. Illumination appears to be helpful, but not exactly required - Vasana, Yanioth and Vishi aren't picked out as enlightened in any way, and Vishi is doing exactly the shamanic stuff he had been trained for while the sisters rely on brute presence. Now if we had a couple of Warlocks displaying these spells in their stats, I wouldn't have complained. Bur then these requirements sort of contradict the claim that they come from whichever magical tradition. Their magical communion for instance might be a lot more permanent than just for the duration of the battle, which would alter their psychology and behavior significantly. Why not give them something similar to the forest song of the aldryami? It could be a secondary skill latched onto their primary magical ability score, or to their passion loyalty to unit. Being on the receiving side of a regimental spirit attack would still keep me somewhat adrift in narrating. Finding the common ground for descriptions of reactions tp psychedelic effects might be easier after sharing a psychedelic experience, so what movie or piece of music would be a good shared experience if you shy away from shared chemical exposure? Lucy in the Sky from Yellow Submarine?

You can use one set to build a defensive wall...

The ostrich riders are presented as skirmishing cavalry, avoiding contact while peppering slow enemies with missiles, whenever possible from the flanks. If they use javelins, their javelins might have leather slings attached, making them effectively atlatl missiles, compensating for lack of arm length. When firing at a mass of bodies, whether bison or enemy troops, you aim to cripple or slow some of them to take them down after they have been weakened. Other avilry has more fearsome mounts than ostriches, but from what I have seen in ostrich riding, 70 kg riders appear to be manageable by those beasts at least at short distances. Dragonewts use atlatl-like throwing techniques, too, or slings.

In case of sorcerers at a battle, I expect protective circles to be used in a similar way Argrath had the defenders of the Cradle set up Wardings. Finding entities or conditions in which Orlanth was forced from the battlefield is a challenge, of course, Orlanth being the major bully for much of the course of the Gods War. But then, there is one power which renders the Storm King as tame as a bunny, and that's the authority of the Earth Queen. Not exactly the forte of the sorcerers, even though their ancestral ties to their local goddesses of the land are fairly good (even for the atheist Brithini),, but that would require to have the female priesthood acknowledged on the battle field. Can sorcerers attack at a distance with discorporate entities? Obviously they can, as shown by Sir Narib's company which is one of the slightly better mounted magician units (though not quite on par with the Egglords). It doesn't appear like it took Sir Narib much (if any) effort to participate in the same game as the Eaglebrowns or the Eleven Lights, and his unit might have had that ability prior to his allegiance to Argrath. I could as easily make an argument for sorcerers calling in physical magic attacks akin to those of the WInd Children, Crater Makers or the Cannon Cult - the classical ranged damage dealing that you find in the genre literature of sorcerous battles, thoroughly underused in the Dragon Pass style board games (I mean if you devote an entire section of the magical combat rules to this ability, you really could have more than three such units in the board game). Attract Magic, Attract Spirits and Attract Missiles could have powerful effects on the battlefield, too, especially if the Malkioni armies have effigies which are basically immune to the incoming attacks, or can easily be sacrificed or protected, or even tap what is incoming. When sorcerers have the opportunity to prepare the battlefield with such neutralized or aggravated magical zones, their armies can use counterattack tactics to the fullest. We don't hear of chariot use in western armies, or huge beasts carrying howdas, so there don't appear to be anti-magic tanks on wheels. Do the sorcerers use carpets or possibly pavilions? Attacking the dread gazebo might be a sound tactic if it harbors enemy sorcerers or offers a magical fallout shelter to enemy troops. Magical mine fields - whether remote triggered from the observation post or by troops crossing some line - are another rather overlooked form of battlefield preparations. Releasing or summoning hostile or noxious entities or conditions is just another thing you don't want to experience as a normal grunt in a sorcerous battle. Enraged normal-sized bees/wasps/hornets or noxious smoke have been reported and re-created by experimental archaeologists from classical age battles. Release of enraged elementals doesn't really require controlling them at first. Fire in battles is a trope way overplayed by Hollywood, which has haphazard salvos of fire arrows in every yet so ludicrous fashion. We have Rain of Fire magics in the sorcery rules, noxious air, and possibly caustic rain or dust storms, too (although air as a damage vector might be unwise in conflicts involving Orlanthi). Firearrow as a spirit spell is fairly effective in the amount of damage it promises, but rather limited in use over the course of a battle unless each participant has multiple MP storage devices (which would make plundering a battlefield quite lucrative).

The coolness of Gloranthan developments lies less in items and way more in personal advancement of the character. Magical abilities or otherworldly allies gathered on heroquests, personal contracts or enmities with the deities as the result of the players entering the realms of the deities, or the underworld, or similar. Not to mention personal relationship to movers and shakers of the recent history and the near future, and the ability to jump into the middle of that and shoulder one such major event (or at least a decisive component of it), and possibly averting one big thing or bringing in a new, unheard-of big thing. And with the kind of feedback board here, it is possible that the coolest thing of your house campaign can leak over into other peoples' campaigns, and into the general body of lore and scenarios. No guarantee for that, however cool the event may have been in your campaign, though.

Discussion of mystic paths usually get too involved and scholarly for the RuneQuest side of the forum, which are supposed to give rather quick and easy answers useful in the middle of play. We haven't seen much of an actual description of Argrath's warlocks yet - in fact, while we have seen a couple of portraits of his companions in the Glorantha sourcebook, we have few ideas of their special powers, and how these manifest om a game situation. The eastern schools of mysticism have many different approaches. While we know that Vith himself was one of the privileged disciples of Oorduren, the High God of Mystic Insight, he was just one of several. The decisive mystic of the Gods War, the one to deal with the most of the antigod leaders, was Mashunasan, whose method was indeed Unrealization and whose transcendent principle to meditate on was the Void, but there were others, too. Given the results that Mashunasan obviously achieved against Keltari and Avanapdur, he and his Liberating Bolt were popular with the martial artists (i.e. followers of dedicated fighting styles using all manner of weaponry) who did the footwork and dealt with the servants of the great antigod leaders. This Liberating Bolt is a power or expression(aspect of Orlanth, too. The Book of Heortling Mythology paragraph on this is a bit myterious, as befits a mystical power (p.59): Now read Argrath's Arrival in Boldhome (e.g. hardcover King of Sartar p.128f) One can speculate a bit about what was necessary to re-light Sartar's flame. According to the Heortling Mythology text I quoted, the transformation of Sartar from human king to the guardian deity of his country, with the physical manifestation residing in the flame in the brazier, already was that Liberation Bolt. Teenage Jar-eel and her cotery of Lunar magicians (quite likely led by Tatius) quested and struggled mightily in 1602 to quench the Flame of Sartar after having overcome the human defenders of Boldhome, and succeeded in a contest of mystical energies. But then, Jar-eel herself may have provided one of the ingredients to Argrath's success in 1627 when she dismembered Belintar and let the Spirit of Freedom escape. (Which might be named the Harshax - Belintar was addressed as Lord of the Harshax as one of his titles, IIRC.) Sartar's self-immolation succeeded despite the chaining of this spirit, but after Belintar's dismemberment, the rules had changed. Another possible contributing factor might lie in two rather overlooked companions of Argrath, Vailor Blue Fox and his bodyguard Hal-Yan Monsterkiller. If they traveled the East Isles, fighting monsters there (with the Andinni rather at large, there should have been no shortage of those), and probably observing martial artists employing this power against their antigod foes. Whatever else happened, Argrath transmuted Sartar's flame to a beacon of Liberation.

In that case, does one point of Create Image produce enough of a similar glow to fool people into believing you have this magic up?

Yes, this distribution of incoming damage would remain for the duration of the spell. Anything you suffer is just a bunch of flesh wounds, unless you reroll the same location too often. No disabled limbs despite high amounts of damage. Armor would be deducted once, for the original hit zone. The rest is internal distribution.

Ignore damage could be something like Summon Illusion (of) Life (aka Fertility). As usual, spell strength needs to overcome the damage done to the location. There could be other solutions to this dilemma, e.g. a spell like Distribute Damage, which should probably have Command Death Disorder (or both Summon and Dispel) and transfer one point of damage per spell strength to a random other hit location, or all the damage if the spell strength overcomes the damage sustained. (Involves a lot of D20 rolling...)

It doesn't, but going from shooting straw to hitting bone, rock and tree, probably would. As someone who practiced field archery, I have to pass on bone, but I had plenty of misses hitting rock, metal or tree/solid wood. For someone wanting to hold the bow for half a melee round to improve the aim, 70 lbs are monstrous. For someone pulling it through in a smooth move, monster begins past the 100 or 120 lbs zone. Yes - you have to put the same work into drawing the bow to full extent, but the force curve is completely inversed - maximum effort when the string is straight, and minimum and maximum extension. That means you get an accelleration gradient that is positive throughout the acceleration of the arrow, unlike the negative acceleration gradient in conventional bows. Since I talked about putting the same work into the bow, I expect to get the same amount of work out of the bow. WIth velocity coming in squared in the kinetic energy term, perhaps momentum isn't exactly the same, but close enough for back of a napkin calculations. Exposed area and time of exposure play a major role in wind drift. Shorter flight times of speedier missiles reduce this quite a bit. They also make hitting moving targets easier.

That assault failed largely because it was started at the eve of crescent go. The moonboats were without power for significant portions of the descending flight. It wouldn't have been the 1602 invasion, but one of those against Terasarin. In 1602, the Household of Death went to the offensive along this road.

Neither are the post-Opening Vadeli that conquered. For threats, you have Malasp and whatever the mostali may send or scare against you and your stronghold...

In my years of archery, the only arrows ever coming to endanger my face were carbon arrows that had a split I had not noticed when recovering them. In competitions, I used to shoot a 40 lbs recurve bow, or a 70 lbs flat bow, with arrows adapted to my draw length and draw weight. I don't see how raising the draw weight from 70 to 80 lbs would cause such drastic changes. While true, that concerns modern style archery. Shooting a monster bow of 70+ lbs means that you make drawing, aiming and releasing as short and smooth as possible Not quite. The force of the string changes with the draw length. A conventional bow (longbow, recurve) has the greatest force at maximum extension and gets weaker towards the point where the arrow leaves, whereas the translation of the compound has less force at maximum draw and most force at the moment the arrow leaves the string, making it about half again as effective as a conventional bow at the same draw weight. About using arrow guides: Shorter arrows means lighter and less thick arrows, which means faster arrows (momentum should remain the same) and less air resistance, reducing the deviation coming from high ballistic curves.

Keep in mind that Daysenerus was introduced in the Bright Empire, a portion of Antirius that was manifested by the Iron Vrok in the Battle of Night and Day, and that the cult remained a (or the) main war cult for the Bright Empire to the end of the Gbaji Wars. Illuminate Yelmalians manifesting Chaos Powers. There is no problem with the Hellwood Elves contacting this aspect of the cult, is there? The Tharkantus cult was at first opposed to Orlanthland and the dragonspeakers, then allied with the Orlanthland traditionalist leaders against the dragonspeakers, then surrendered to the dragonspeakers, adopted their dragon dream (their mysticism, and drew martial strength from it furthering the EWF cause in Peloria and Ralios), then lost their draconic leaders and advantage in the Utuma of 1042, and participated significantly in the True Golden Horde, losing their anti-dragon leaders and rank and file. The EWF period saw the mysticism come in again, this time not concerned with Chaos but the outer realities of dragondom. After 1247, at latest after Hwarin's expansion into Saird, the sun domers were under Lunar influence (or actively opposed, in Tarsh, until Hon-eel established the Lunar influence there). The two Tarshite temples may not actively support Chaos worship, but they go along with whatever the Lunar high command asks of them, unlike those weirdly conscientuous Vannstar forces at the Battle of Aurochs Hills. For almost the entirety of the known presence of the Yelmalio cult in Saird and neighboring regions, mystical insights have overruled otherwise truth-bound rules of the cult. Acceptance of Nysalorean illumination was sort of inherent in the cult's conception. Elmal (and presumably Yelmalio, too) has a myth about Chaos in disguise, letting himself get eaten, and destroying the nothingness of Chaos from within. The emerging entity has destroyed its foe by accepting its innermost secret. This appears to be somewhat different from the Star Heart, though it isn't clear how different. The Heortlings (and probably all the other hillfolk Orlanthi) are possibly the greatest providers of (propitiary) worship to Chaos in all of Glorantha, possibly more so than the Lunar Empire.

About 9 hexes by road from Alda-chur, so almost fifty imperial miles. Or a bit over 70 km in relatable units of measurement.

Given that you have no alternative material to use in Glorantha (no aluminum arrows, pretty please - not even Mostali are certain to have the technology to produce them, and of course even less inclination to do so as their crossbow bolts don't have this exact problem), and given the time and care you put into creating an arrow that is perfectly attuned to your draw weight and draw length for those last 25% of accuracy, scavenging for your own arrows is exactly what an archer will do if he has the opportunity. There is the issue of impact breaks, which is why already neolithic archers would dovetail the front end bearing the arrow tip into the major part of the perfect shaft, the ends bearing much less stress and providing an easily replaced part. The reason why wooden arrows aren't popular in modern target shooting is their mass to stability rate. Aluminium-carbon composites with tapering thickness of aluminium take the same stress at much lower throw weights, reducing vertical deviations significantly, and they are way more easy to mass produce than arrows that you have to tune (in the end: carve and sand) individually. Most of the arrow shafts you can buy commercially are cut from blocks of wood, providing bad fault lines in terms of the grain of wood. Longbow archers would havest straight young branches from coppiced trees that would provide radially symmetric grain way more suited to the stresses the arrow undergoes. Getting access to these basically requires years of preparatory gardening.

The end goal may be quite different. Nenduren's Stillness meditations sought unity or at least contact with Atrilith, the One, whereas Mashunasan's meditations went beyond, to the Void. Larn Hasamador achieved Nothing. EWF schools acquired draconic features before ascending through utuma (at least that's what Obduran did, the one proven True Dragon that came out of the EWF experiment). Arkati and Nysaloreans grow a Third Eye.