Joerg

No, it is even worse. Think Harsaltar. Greg said that these are child prodigies, magical children. Perhaps heroic adults trapped in what looked like children's bodies. In a literal reading of the Tarsh CHDP Pyjeemsab would have been three years old when Hon-eel seduced him. Not that child-like if Phoronestes was the result. My own interpretation of those sources had older kings in the Illaro dynasty, but Greg was quite insistent. See also Peter Metcalfe's take on this: https://glorantha.wikia.com/wiki/Problems_in_Tarshite_History Similar, not identical - the twins had a divine mother, a nymph, whereas later Sorana Tors appear to have been human avatars rather than divine entities. The twins displayed their divine magic at rather young age, but their Falling Hills feat is inherited from the goddess. No king of Illaro's dynasty had any similar powers. The Earth Shakers in the Dragon Pass boardgame whose exotic magic is that of the Falling Hills are the Maran Gor priesthood of Shaker's Temple. No idea. The FHQ reborn in the Earth receives powers similar to Bruvala, contemporary queen (then Grandmother) of Nochet.

Most storm peoples come around as migrating pastoralists descending from the slopes of the Spike - the Beast Riders of Urox, Desero's horde in western Pamaltela, and to some extent possibly even the Hykimi of the Great Forest or their sedentary kin (Pendali, Enjoreli, Enerali). There appear to be mostly male storm gods, whether among the Vadrudi, the Praxian Founders, or the Storm Brothers, and few if any named female air entities. Brastalos, Vinga, Molanni, Iphara... At the onset of the Downland Migration, Orlanth's (paternal) sisters are mentioned, but that's it. When Storm gods mate with Niiads, we get Triolini or coastal westerners (Malkioni, Yggites). Kahar's marriage to Harantara produces the Zabdamar merfolk, not of niiadic descent (although God Learners might identify Harantara with Triolina or Mirintha).

Just like I think that pure elemental water would be isotonic (i.e. drinkable but fairly salty), pure elemental air is breathable. Both are in motion. Respiration takes some of the motion out of the air. So does fire, or tapping. It might be argued that plants take fire and reanimate stale air in the process. In that case, algae might be able to animate air. Water-breathers would take motion out of the water. There might be some way to transfer motion from the sea to the air bubbles, too (simulating the exchange of dissolved gases).

1440 birth of Illaro? Illaro becomes Sacred King of Tarsh in 1455 or so, and fathers three sons on Sorana Tor. The first, Black Fawn, born from his consecration rite, runs away into the wild - claimed by Velhara/Tara, the Lady of the Wild. The second, Tastinim, is born at Illaro's first renewal of his sacred kingship. The third, Halifitoor, would be born at Illaro's second attempt at renewal, which he doesn't survive, assuming that each sacred king period lasts for 7 years. Illaro dies in 1470, and his seven year-old prodigy child Tastinim inherits the throne and the sacred kingship. After seven years, Tastinim fails to renew the kingship and dies, possibly leaving a pregnant Sorana Tor representative behind, and his brother Halifitoor comes to power, another then seven or eight year old child prodigy. Now there is a possibility that already Illaro was a child prodigy, possibly bred for in magical rites similar to those that produced Hon-eel and Jar-eel. In that case, his kingship of the Hendarli tribe could have been achieved at single digit age, and his marriage to Sorana Tor at age 14 or so - if the Hendarli had such a 7-year prodigy child kingship, the time of his test of passing on after having served the royal half of his life. Otherwise, Illaro would have to have been born at least about seven years earlier, and the child prodigy line would have been through the accelerated maturity stemming from having Sorana Tor (or an incarnation thereof) as the mother. My assumption used to be that Illaro was an adult king of the Hendarli, but if he already came from a lineage of child prodigy sacred (tribal) kings, that would explain the short generational sequence of the dynasty prior to Phoronestes.

Not relevant here, but Yinkin himself is a foe of the Serpent Brotherhood shamans and their spirits. A mungo or meercat wouldn't provide the near-panther companions the largest of alynxes can provide, and would be bad at driving herds of sheep or cattle, but they make excellent lookouts, and can probably ride the sheep. Their diet includes all kinds of venomous beasts, like scorpions, and other hand-sized arthropods.

That's roleplaying terms for "touched by destiny". It is a bit harder to achieve in gritty RuneQuest than in simulationist HeroQuest, but most of the memorable events in the development of your character are less roll-playing and more entertaining your GM with your choice of actions. As long as the game system doesn't make such choices impractical, you'll be fairly fine. It is a case of know your GM and his style of narrating and judging actions, so thinking a bit like your GM while surprising him may be at the core of such character antics.

That someone was me. Try History of the Heortling Peoples p.9 When I collected the index, the goal was to give myself, Greg and other developers a lookup table to find stuff that had been written. The data came up in a discussion of the Silver Age heroes, quite possibly wearing my hat as "expert" for the Holy Country.

Take the stats for a small quadruped, allow for quickness, agility and stealth, and there you are. Attack is the bite, armor is negligible, dodge is high.

Sor-eel leaves, Gimgim possibly stays (if that "this is how we deal with assassins" is spoken at the liberation of New Pavis). A certain Seven Mothers initiate recently active in Elkoi gets assigned as Sor-eel's successor. The Windstop freezes up the Zola Fel in the north. When it stops, a flashflood washes down the valley, carrying ice and debris and devastating all low-lying areas. New Pavis is safe within its walls, but Badside and low-lying parts of the Rubble fare less well. Other than that, the Lunars still remain in the city, a good portion of the rebellious elements among the Orlanthi are missing since the Cradle incident, and the more rebellious of the Praxians keep low profile.

The New Fens have that name because they came into being after the Devastation of the Vent (Guide p.352). If you look at the map of 2nd Age Slontos (p.351), you will see comparatively dry lowlands along the Noshain River north of the Mralot Hills.

Glad to be of service! No idea how much the rune is meant to imply the deity or how much it is to imply a lesser principle in your scheme. I objected to Barntar because apart from his Daga myth and his death at the hands of Vadrus all his feats have to do with cattle (or some other ungulant able to draw a plow - I think that water buffalo would work, too, maybe even Sylilan bisons). Plowing is about harnessing draft animals to do your work for you. But then, there is another possible source of traction - harnessing your community. Maybe the Cabbage Ducks do use plows, and have teams of draft-ducks pulling them across their plots, Wolga-shipper style (now there's a picture waiting to be anatomorphized...). It helps that cabbages prefer light sandy soil (though somewhat rich in organics and nutrients). Yep, I noticed and appreciated that. When exactly would this ring be active? Joseph had to go to exile in 1613, and at a guess, the rest of the beaked personnel on the ring, too, at least retreat into the Marsh or Beast Valley. I feel you. The entire concept of the keets is one of amphibious/ambiguous lifestyle. Keets are either water fowl, sea birds, or wading birds. When they still could fly, keets were creatures of all elements (although Darkness wasn't really expressed except by choice of grubs as diet). Feathered (sky-descended) flyers (air) on aquatic (sea) and dry land (earth). Air is actually the characteristic the keets lost, keeping all the rest. I don't quite know which kind of water connection to give the keets (and by deduction, the ducks). Tholaina and a sky deity produced the sea birds from which about half the keets derive their head shapes. The wading and duck-like birds probably are related, although sweetwater dwellers are somewhat remote from sea deities. Heler - who was separated from the Water tribe - would be a good choice. Although I cannot avoid the suspicion that the sea god unable to return to the sea after being blessed with lightness by the keet sage is none other than Heler, so there would be a certain grudge there. River gods are fine, though. At least in Dragon Pass Lorion/Engizi and his siblings. Choralinthor is probably friendly, too, and all of its tributaries. The Keets in the East Isles are likely less happy to deal with currents, but probably are fine with standing bodies of water. There are few significant rivers in the East Isles.

What exactly are the feeding habits of the Gloranthan vampires that would make up a vampire "legion"? Do they still have a full stable of human Vivamort initiates spending their existence to feed their vampire masters in the hope of joining their ranks? The effects of the Vivamort touch in RQ2 was downright humane - you would lose temporary POW (aka magic points) and when drained to 3 MP or less, the knowledge of the latest rune spell you sacrificed for would be transferred to the vampire, in RQG speak along with the rune points to cast it if divine, and some general hit points when donating blood. Ok, so you had to provide a victim from among your kin - I wonder whether nasty in-laws count... I don't have the RQG bestiary yet (need to wait for christmas...), which means I haven't seen the RQG treatment of vampires and sorcery yet.

When did the newtling breeding grounds (or perhaps better ponds) get moved to the Noshain River valley? Was this a consequence of the Goddess Switch? At the Dawn, we find the main newtling population sheltering a bunch of Pelaskites and others at Serid Yarkassa, the city of Amphibos, the newtling Silver Age hero of Kethaela. Given the duration of the Silver Age (estimated the equivalent of 150 years) and the rather short life-span of newtlings in the bachelor stage, I have to assume that the newtlings were capable of breeding there if they survived until the Dawn. However, in the Third Age, after the Closing has struck, we find one of the companions of Dormal a bachelor newtling in dire need to return to the New Fens for breeding, and the Guide tells us that most newtlings of southern Genertela have their origin there. How did this come to pass? One earlier possible reason for migration might have been Palangio's establishment of the dragonewt colony of Ryzel near the Noshain River. One later possible reason for the newtlings no longer able to breed in Kethaela could have been Veskarthen's Devastation of the Vent destroying the conditions which allowed them to breed in the tidal pools of the Rightarm Isles, but at that time the Closing would have been as much a problem to the adult newtlings as at the time of Dormal's first voyage. The Goddess Switch predates the Closing, making a resettlement hard but not impossible, although the New Fens had not become fens then. On the other hand, the southern islands of the Wenelian peninsula may have offered suitable conditions for the amphibians prior to the Devastation.

Baroshi could become instrumental in pushing the maize cult of Hon-eel out of Tarsh and Saird.

Good luck with that. When I tried something like this, it was reduced to the Esvulari Aeolians, which are counted among the non-orthodox Malkioni. The cults of Worlath and Jogrampur probably have such potential.

Possibly mungos, meerkats, or similar? No idea about the native lizards and snakes of Umathela, but they might be less friendly and more venomous than those of Genertela.

I had to re-acquaint myself to those HQ1 era runes first. A few interesting choices. Magic Rune for the Rune Ducks - a clan of magicians? Perception Rune for the Spire Ducks - the watch-ducks of the tribe? Pella the Potter for the Beaker Ducks - logical. Skovara for the Slapfoot Ducks - an entire clan dedicated to entertainment? Umath for the Shell Ducks - victory of the primal storm over water? Velhara, Lady of the Wild, for the Marsh Ducks - indicating a hunter-gatherer existence? Barntar for the Cabbage Ducks appears to be quite unsuitable, given that the ducks don't appear to plow, don't have oxen, etc., but then the Orlanthi don't really have the equivalent of a stick farmer in their pantheon. The human culture is more or less defined by using the plow. Gardener groups that don't, like the Dawn Age Balurgans, are outliers of the Theyalans, and Orlanthi that don't plow like possibly the Skanthi are hunter-gatherers and raiders. Ohorlanth for the Thunder Ducks - no question here. Fate for the Old Ducks - tradition keepers privy to the ancient secrets and curses on the durulz? I miss something like the Reed Ducks for the boating activities. Was the double mention of Joseph Greenface as shaman and River Priest intentional? Duck names: I suppose that part of those early publication names may have been handed down to us from character names. Less Orlanthi in not having herds of any kind, but quite Theyalan otherwise. I tried to trace the ducks in the scholarly documents of Glorantha. Interpreing their description in the RQ2 rules, the ducks failed to participate in the Unity Battle: They still seem to have accepted the Lightbringer missionaries at some later point, and may have had a role to play in the conflict with Nontraya. Leaving the pre-history of the keets in the East aside, the origin of the ducks appears to lie with them and the Solkathi flood (an offspring of the Sshorg/Oslir flood). The presence of ducks on the western shore of Kethaela and Kerofinela is attested for the Hancheros Sea (Heortling Mythology p.75): We don't have a Dawn survival site for them, unless they are included in the "many others" of Serid Yarkassa, the city of Amphibos in the Rightarm Isles (modern Seapolis?). No mention of them for Sedenorshill (the Star Tribe located next to Wild Temple). The first historical mention of the durulz is for the Inhuman Occupation in King of Sartar (p.86). Otherwise, ducks are mentioned in King of Sartar only in connection to the Beastmen Wars of the Lismelder and Colymar, the founding of Duck Point by Sartar, and the duck population of Boldhome, and as one of the Elder Races. History of the Heortling Peoples mentions them only in connection to the Lismelder. Esrolia, Land of Ten Thousand Goddesses mentions the land of the Gander, Bokumarade, but afterwards only has the geese of Imarja. Arcane Lore offers this tidbit (p.61😞 Another, more cryptic mention is on p.62: This is possibly also credited to DC, or otherwise uncredited. DC stands for "Draconic Secrets" as the source of that information: This makes this text the oldest historical Gloranthan reference to the durulz, and the first after reporting the Beakies riding the Solkathi wave that smashed into Danmalastan in the Storm Age. I have no idea whether the term Ganderland was derived from the Bokumarade story (or - in real world timeline - the other way around). Duckfoot island in the marsh off southeastern Nochet appears to have retained its shape since the Grey Age. No idea whether it is home to durulz, or whether there were durulz plying their boating trade on the Lyksos prior to Belintar digging the New River. Cursed by Sky, and an uneasy truce with Water, at least if you take the durulz as a portion of the keet population carried off by Solkathi and other irate kin of Endaralath from that early conflict in Keetela. We know the ducks to be excellent swimmers (Hancheros coast) during the Flood Age. They don't appear to do anything for or against Orlanth's (and Vingkot's) conquest of the lands drowned by Hancheros after the victory over Worcha, except (evidently) stay around mostly unnoticed. All keets have webbed feet, which indicates some swamp or water affiliation. The God Learners group ducks and herons together and with the red elves.

How exactly would this outcome play out for a minotaur character? What kind of life would ensue for the Tamed-to-the-Plow minotaur? A life among the durulz, as a plow for hire?

I don't really see why Baroshi should be limited to the Dark Earth. Sure, he has an avenger aspect, but that isn't that far from Tada's job to keep unwanted elements out. Baroshi is the warlike male earth, the protector, but that doesn't eliminate his intrinsic fertility aspects as a harvest entity. (Naturally, he doesn't have great feats in that direction - his myth is similar to that of Choralinthor, about survival in the face of destruction, only that his revival takes longer to take place.) The discussion so far appears to have assumed that the star selection would occur before Baroshi's liberation from the Hollow. How would this play out if your heroes first went into his chamber in the Hollow? There is always Barntar, as much the Male Earth god of the Orlanthi, the warlike-when-needed fertility manager. Baroshi falls into a similar bracket, the seed-bringer and defender.

The Sky Dome does rotate around Pole Star, which never leaves the north-south axis. In Midsummer it reaches its northernmost angle before Kalikos pushes the sky back, and in Midwinter it effects the skyspill into the Nargan Sea and beyond. All of this is in the Guide, p.644. It isn't entirely clear whether day length and sky tilt angle are directly linked or only somewhat in synch. Lightfore's antics are fairly hasty in summer and take their time in winter. Yelm's more or less stately travel across the sky draws similar traces into the sky, although on a different path than Lightfore half a year later. There is comparatively little Chaos left in the sky. The Dark Spot and Bakoka are the ones I can count off right now, without looking everything up. But then Orlanth had his only major victory in battle over Chaos in the sky.

That explains the province of Bosh(a/e)n and its sunset islands, too...

Rashoranic/Nysalorean illumination doesn't play a role in the west outside the Niebie rejection wars of the late fourth / early fifth century. Irensavalism apparently was a dualistic discovery of a disciple of Hrestol following Hrestol's second term as a prince, in Akem/Loskalm. Hrestol himself appears to follow a mystical path, restarting his career twice after instituting the concept of the Men-of-All in Seshnela. I cannot say when Irensavalism was first discovered - perhaps @Nick Brooke knows whether the notion was around before How the West Was One. I remember an exchange where I compared the Carmanian dualist magics and hierarchies with my solution for a pseudo-Persian/Parthian kingdom in my alternate Earth/alternate Glorantha RQ3 setting - which pretty much was on spot. Is loss of the ego really the universal goal of Asceticism, or can Asceticism also be used as a tool to discover the Self? Correction: the Irensavalists condemn Makan - the mainstream Second Age Hrestolist Invisible God, not Malkioneran, the God Learner expression of the Creator, as the demiurge. Which is a bit weird either way. It would all be easy if Malkioneran, the experimntal heroquesting God-meddlers' high deity had been condemned as the demiurge, although then too the question remains what Hrestol's disciple in the first or second century would have called the demiurge. This condemnation of the Invisible God worshipped by all other orthodox Malkioni as evil is one of the reason I doubt that all Loskalmi Hrestoli are Irensavalists. There is Irensavalism in Loskalm, it is influential in parts of the doctrine, but I don't see a complete demonisation of all other Malkioni creeds by all Loskalmi Malkioni. That's another beef I have with this "evil demiurge" stuff. The Old Testament god is the tester, providing all manner of bad obstacles to the believer (e.g. Job), but is not perceived as evil. The testing is necessary, the material world is necessary, even though the reward is transcendent. Which is ironic since they accuse all the orthodoxy of satanism. I may have been polluted by Provencal concepts of the grail, the sang real, and by looking at the katharian dualist heresy. Not the first occurrence of dualism in this corner of the peninsula, the Priscillanists offer a similar outlook, also possibly influenced by dualist notions seeping in from the Parthian religion and its precursors. The roots of the Arthurian legends are pagan, predating the christanization of Britain. A good number of the grail seekers are quite or totally pagan, with the christian veneer only a later varnish when everything but christianity was unthinkable. There's also the connection of the holy chalice imagery of the grail with the Cauldron of Life from Irish and Welsh myth which makes Arthurian legends mythical rather than fairly boring warrior saints' vitae. Illumination as in Nysalorean illumination - probably no. Some sort of enlightenment allowing the ascetic practitioners to distance themselves (their selves?) from the polluting influence of the world, probably yes. The Westerners have no shortage of "Bad Men" in their prehistory. Elevating their own Creator Law into that position is odd.

Zenith is a fixed body in the southern sky, below the tilting Sky Dome. From the map in the Guide, it sits close to the central north/south axis near the Southpath. I think it should really sit in the western quadrant of the southern sky rather than the eastern, probably a transcription mistake since the sky is viewed from below, whereas the position of Zenith would match Magnetic Mountain on the God Learner maps. It should be possible to navigate the Sky Dome and get close to Zenith, then switch over, but such sky wanderings are a pretty high level of heroquesting. Hitching a ride on the Twin Stars might be a good way. Zenith is not in any way the zenith of the Sky Dome as we understand it. That would be Pole Star, at least at the equinoxes.

Acos used to be the name for the universe, at least in some Western philosophy (or the earliest version of Greg's writings - which means no great difference), but I don't think that you can single out any one of the Powers as the only opposite of Chaos. A similar case can be made for each Power Rune, and for any of the (established) elements. (Moon with its chaotic leanings may be an outlier.) Again, this kind of argument applies to all Powers. Do you have any idea where you have seen that weird number? Is the Chaosium the source of (Predark) Chaotic entities? Predark means the bits of Chaos that slipped in before the great invasion from the North or seeping in through the rift left behind by the implosion of the Spike. I have come to the conclusion that such Predark entities managed to slip in whenever Creation was used excessively. Maybe the Creator entities pulled in more raw potential than they could handle, through the Chaosium, in which case yes, the Chaosium would be the source of the chaotic entities. But I can see another case, with too much new Creation straining the boundaries of the universe, allowing Predark to seep in from places other than the Chaosium. I can see the Mostali making this argument for the consequences of the Birth of Umath which disrupted their World Machine project. There is a Mostali repair plan, made by the ancestral Mostali when Mostal fell silent, and Zenith may very well be part of that. I think it is possible that Zenith is the control platform for the Somelz project. After that, the Zenith might be the sky anchor for the reconstruction of Magnetic Mountain.

Eristiland has 100k trolls, and North Pent has trolls, too. The total troll population of Kralorela is one million (p.268), and none of the other provincial maps acknowledge any troll presence, so I have to assume that there is this massive troll population just outside of the two regional political maps of Ignorance, to the north. The Black Sun is worshipped by the northeastern trolls, too.