Joerg

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.

Possibly little unusual - a lot of the body mass appears to be gathered ad hoc, without having any biological function while in deep meditaion/slumber.

Wyverns are said to be the result of wet dreams / sexual dreams of True Dragons. Why that leaves them without arms is beyond my understanding - some form of draconic bondage? I would think that a dream dragon retains its individual existence as long as the dreaming dragon lets it go about its business. That gives a fair number of dream dragons that might emerge from a single True Dragon. Re-absorbing a Dream Dragon may occur if that Dream Dragon has undergone a great insight or similar, performing an utuma. Spawning a Dream Dragon should put no great stress on the abilities of a dragon, whether asleep/meditating or whether actively engaged with its surroundings. As mentioned in the question whether Mostal ever bound a dragon, I see a certain potential in using a dream dragon to create an uplink to the True Dragon, and with suitable magics some high amounts of magical damage might become applicable. Thinking about draconic nightmares is something I prefer to avoid. If Ingolf Dragonfriend's path to draconic enlightenment is somehow related to the places a True Dragon visits, then they don't need to dream such trauma up, they can just remember having been there. These draconic otherworlds are highly corrosive for entities with too strong attachment to this world (or some of the Otherworlds). They can apparently be entered and survived after having developed some dragon powers like partial body transformation (as per the warrior and higher dragonewt magics). Apparently, the short cut paths of the Immanent Masters or other (forgotten) Third Council Short Cut methods granted a similar invulnerability to these places as did the true (and much slower) path of draconic enlightenment followed by Obduran and Ingolf.

There are the midgets of Halkomelem in Akem, whose ancestors had been tapped by the Brithini over generations, resulting in their offspring being born small, as an example of Lamarckian inheritance in Glorantha.

Neither village sits directly on the lake, IMO. The Enjossi main village is on the upper Stream and may be just "Enjossi Fort", "Salmon Weir" or something similar. The Richvale village on the Chorms River should really be part of the Balmyr tribe rather than the Locaem, or possibly both, but that complaint of mine has been ignored for too long to be effective.

Apart from their Mycenean equipment, my first impression was dark-skinned Polynesians or Indians. The guy in the back on the left has almost Mongolian features. Their skin color is similar to that of Beat Pot or his allies in Prince of Sartar, or the Dara Happan generals visited by Jar-eel. I agree about paler skinned Pelorians, but from the hair style etc. in Prince of Sartar, those appear to stem from western Peloria rather than Dara Happa - the region which is home to the Eel-Ariash.

We might reasonably say that Lhankor Mhy is more Aristotle than Plato or similar. But jumping from that to 'so, it's irrational' is wildly anachronistic. And, FWIW, I don't think it is very representative of LM either, as LM obviously is interested in sorcery, alchemy, and investigation of the true nature of things. I think LM knows both, to the extent that Heortling law works that way. But if we had to choose between the two, that LM lawspeakers literally recite the exact terms of the law before each moot would tend to indicate that they know them. After half a week of absence, I find the thread on RQ sorcery closed before I had the chance to reply to David Cake's well-written reply to my rather flippant claims on Lhankor Mhy learning vs. Malkioni reasoning. Note that the bearded guy is among my favorite cults as a player, offering plenty of attitude and some snobbery. Not so much in the role of a lawspeaker but in the role of the cartographer (rather than pathfinder) of the Otherworlds. His temple-libraries are magpies' hoards of snippets of knowledge. Possibly comparable to the 19th century antiquity/colonial exotica collections (real and imitation) of the well-to-do white men, and what their catalogers could make of them. We do know about some of the specialties of the Great Libraries - including one priding itself on its oral tradition "collection". You are not distinguishing between command and control, maybe? Esrolia and Dara Happa have centralised command, but they exercise command over a broad collection of independent authorities, who have their own privileges usually enabling them to control their own internal organisation. They can't, for example, demand the Granite Phalanx retrain as peltasts. I specifically think the Talars can order the zzaburi to help them defend against a threat, or even join them in a way, but I don't think the Talars can, for example, demand all the Debaldan school switch to learning Furlandan magic, no matter how terrifically handy it would be. If that is what you understand by control, then no, no historical realm prior to the spread of "socialist" autocracies had this power. There is no 100% successful conversion of a population to a different cult or sect. Rokarism and New Idealist Hrestolism may come close, but there are strong old-Hrestoli sentiments in Seshnela, and weird non-conformist traditions in Loskalm. A wise ruler will only issue irrational commands in order to exact punishment upon non-fulfillment of said command, like in the case of the Shadowlord Krengen Bik did (HotHP p.72). Any bureaucracy comes with a huge dose of "Yes, Minister". Military logistics always calculates some "living off the land" into their calculations. As long as the units don't start slaughtering their mounts or fellow soldiers for food, everything is within parameters. Of course there is rather little the Talars can do to influence the curriculum of a sorcerous order, except sponsoring a new one with a curriculum after their wishes or needs. Outside of Loskalm, they have no real understanding of what is going on in sorcerers' education. Inside Loskalm, they will tend to be too tied up in their own upbringing to envision much of a new way (and the same goes for leading sorcerers in the schools anywhere). The God Learners had not one dubious, in hind sight heretical or unwise, idea, but multiple. Calling down Tanian's Fire was of course tampering with powers beyond their control and resulted in the Firebergs as fallout, but the destruction of the Vralos forest pretty much was within the expected parameters. Zzabur's great magics had greater adversary side effects and yet are claimed as necessities, so we may be over-critical when looking at the Jrusteli schools. As a rule, any big enough magic performed in Glorantha will create an adversary effect that will haunt the originators (or their descendants). Tampering with the structures and protagonists of the myths defining their world was clearly the Malkioneranist branch of God-Learnerism. The Makanist Hrestoli still suffered from Adventurism, but lacked the places to expand into after their Six-Legged Empire had failed and the seas closed. Dealing with pagan deities from an equal or even superior position is what sorcerers do. It works excellently as long as the enemy doesn't do anything unexpected. Which they will be trying very hard to do. Specific Runic Protection is particularly fragile - it relies strongly on having a very good idea of your enemies magical resources, so one bunch of unexpected allies can be devastating. While that is true, it goes in the other direction as well. There are ancient enemies of the Orlanthi which made their deity look bad, or at least required him to take a great detour. Summoning Daga in the middle of a battle should stifle much of the Orlanthi magics, manifesting Tarumath would be devastating. The magic of standards and their totems is well known to the armies of Seshnela and possibly also Loskalm. The resistance of the units to the wyter-spirits in Dragon Pass may derive from the regimental cohesion magic in these standards in non-Orlanthi (non-wytered) units. The Dara Happan priests were close enough for Harrek to wade right through them at Pennel Ford, which might limit the "long range" aspect of wyter warfare a bit. Part of buffing the troops is buffing magical defences, so these sorcerers may not be quite that "useless". And they may serve by lending power to the spells of their better adapted colleagues. Yes, and it all depends. The sorcerers are likely to have defences up against spirits and deities attacking them - that's expected behaviour of the enemy, and as standard procedure as providing a wooden palisade for a post-Marian Roman field camp. Sure. It still beats the Leroy Jenkins attitude you can expect from an Orlanthi army.

The Flood saw much of Aldrya's Forest drowned, and it took intervention by Orlanth to return those lands to the forest. That's what they were harvesting the material for, I suppose. All of them, to both. These are myths, and as such may be interpreted in many a way, sometimes with identifications that make little or no sense to our pre-conceptions. From the context, these are "lost in the Gods War" episodes, and nice ones, too. Third Eye Blue: I like the influence of the Mycenean style heavy bronze plate armor in this picture. Dark skin, I agree. African features I fail to see. The rather straight hair style for instance is found everywhere but in Africa. Their skin tone is that of the original Dromali of the West, the workers and makers. They do appear to be quite tall for westerners, though (through a trick of perspective). Vadeli are known to have overthrown the Kachisti when the Nidan Mountains "erupted" (in collusion with the dwarves there, not as in volcanic eruption, but more like quickly shooting up through great tremors, cutting the Kachistil lands in two). Kadeniti were the architects and makers among the ancient tribes of Danmalastan, who weren't known for any migrations than fleeing the expanding Vadeli empire of Endernef (or succumbing to it). Yet their skill sets spread to all the Malkioni peoples, and may have resulted in these self-proclaimed part time sorcerer crafters. (Them being warriors too is of course another aberration to the Malkioni ways, that profession was held by the red-skinned Horali.) Dara Happans and Theyalans are what US "racial" norms would call "brown skinned" or "olive skinned" by a majority. There are pale groups among them, but those would be remarkable for their tone of skin. I would place these majority central Genertelans on the darker end of the Eurasian spectrum. Definitely no southerners. I think that a Kachisti origin is quite likely. If some Kachisti group managed to evade enslavement by the Vadeli uprising, they would have inherited an enmity to the dwarves who facilitated that uprising by destroying their empire, and would seek to get back at those interfering short nuisances where it hurts them most - in their magical secrets.

I don't recall seeing this anywhere in a Chaosium/Issaries Inc. source, or any printed fan material. That said, when Vadel approached the Mostali of Magnetic Mountain for assistance in dealing with the spirits of the south, they had the Iron Energy Prison ready for him to use (or possibly field-test). There may have been shackles to apply to a fallen dragon, too. Dragons in the west are at times underwhelming, like the "ease" with which Waertag and his descendants make use of Sea Dragons for their naval equipment. There is a possibility that there was some trade between Waertagi dragonmasters and Mostali, so I think that there is a fair chance for something like this. I am less sure about Mostal still having agency when this may have occurred - Mostal was crippled when Umath ripped the sky dome off its rest on the Spike. A cabal of ancient Mostali - sure.

Lhankor Mhy is rote learning - like knowing all the dates of history, but having no idea how those events are linked, being able to name every single bone in a human body but having no idea about how they interact in force distribution, etc. Knowing all the precendences in a legal conflict, as opposed to knowing the exact terms of a law regulating such exchanges. I had the impression that centralized control is the defining feature of the Bronze Age high culture, like e.g. the lords of Glauberg or Heuneburg, the (Alpine-born) master of Stonehenge and similar. Pretty much everything Dara Happa stands for, and also the Grandmothers of Esrolia. First and foremost they learned about the Invisible God, and most of the God Learner era Malkioni stuck to those principles, with only a variant minority doing the (in hindsight blasphemous) subversion of deities. The fires that destroyed most of the Vralos forest have nothing to do with Malkioneranism but all with driving sorcery to new perfections shown by the Abiding Book. Burning two points of rune magic (Extension, Bless Champion) for each spell meant to last him through the battle? The theist gets the option to switch briefly to spell casting in the middle of battle, but only with personal magic. The sorcerous soldier goes into the battle with specific runic protection to avoid that kind of harm.