Joerg

The Elfquest rpg started to develop a new elven culture with the Sea Elves, which apparently alarmed the Pinis that now other creators had taken over their creation of Elfquest and were publishing something that fans might consider as canon. Given the fact that the Elfquest property pretty much was their livelihood, this may explain why they weren't amused about the perspective of losing control over that. In later years, they produced a number of spin-offs and follow-ups which included a tribe of mermaid-like sea elves, quite different from the scenario booklet for the rpg. The game system (as far as I studied it) was pretty much that of RQ3 with just the magic adapted to the world of the two moons (the setting of the Elfquest comics and anthologies). The later storylines saw the humans of that world develop from palaeolithic hunter-gatherers to a number of societies quite unlike our own planet's, although recognizably human. The two (interconnected) SF series of comics would make a very interesting setting for a near-future SF game with a pinch of elf magic and alien psionic powers. On the whole, the overlap between fans of the comics and roleplayers eager to play in the World of the Two Moons appears to haven't been that great. Part of that may have been the great impact of the few protagonists of the comics on the story line. You were almost pushed to either choose some of those characters at some point in their history, or make up your own, entirely non-canonical clan of elves dropped someplace different from Cutter's band or their ancestors. The four known clans (wolf riders, sun villagers, mountain elves and reindeer elves), the two troll tribes and the community of preservers did get explored a lot by official publications of the Pinis, which never were translated into scenarios. I guess the RQ3 system with its lack of social attributes wasn't the ideal engine for the kind of stories told in the comics. Still, at the time of publication, it may have been one of the best possible fits, one of the very few character-class-less designs around.

Maggots in the flesh of the original giant, as in the Edda? In case of living mountain deities, the dwarves would be some kind of vivisectionists. There is a decent chance that dwarves produce iron from training dropouts among the Iron Mostali. That would mean that all Iron Mostali (no idea whether there are Iron dwarves, as the Iron Mostali aren't quite true Mostali but already a mass-produced later variant) would be the survivors of a massive Darwinian selection of the fittest.

Griffin Mountain (Classics) p.206 Sa Mita is a local giantess who claims descent from the mountains Fork, Borg, Mok, and Ilfagor (from a different group). She firmly believes that the mountains are her sleeping ancestors. She has heard rumors that the local trolls are cruelly digging through them. This worries her, but she does not normally speak of it. This nice passage in Griffin Mountain illustrates a dilemma Gloranthan miners may face when digging into mountains with actively worshipped deities, elder giants or even dragons associated. Are they digging through merre mineral cover of those entities, or are they cutting their way into the vitals of said entities? We have hardly any information on the anatomy of Elder Giants, or dragons, and even less on that of mountain or volcano gods. The closest thing to information we have are the Big Rubble quarries into the remains of the Faceless Statue, with special minerals like the organstones showing that Mostali construction of Jolanti of any size does recreate the overall building plan of the Man Rune in those constructs. It also tells us that the fossilized body of an Elder Giant like Paragua or Thog would likely have special regions of minerals with similar magical functions. On the other hand, I think that True Dragons like Krisa Yar (the Red Dragon who presumably caused Ormsgone Valley in one of his awakenings) take on an possibly also shed any available local matter to manifest their bodies. Elder Giants like the four ancestors listed for Sa Mita possibly do the same, whereas a just past juveile Elder Giant like Gonn Orta might forget about his current body if resting for long, and forming whatever body he needs when rising again. His appearance at the Battle of Gargantuans may very well be a lot taller than the sitting Pass Giant described in Griffin Mountain. What would a miner find inside the living body of a mountain entity, and what could he take out? And will those entities even registier that small ebies are digging into their body? Can such miners encounter a brass bone of some volcano god and harvest it for the local smithy? And will they dind the wound they caused on that bone healed over when they return after some absence delivering the metal bounty they took?

I could see the point in Third Eye Illumination, but Third Hand Illumination sounds very much like gaining the chaotic feature of a third hand. Like those Lunar assassins (mortal minions) in Sandy Petersen's Gods War game.

Sort of. When I look at the raising of the Nidan Mountains during the Vadeli uprising, the surprised Kachisti get slaughtered or enslaved by the Vadeli, except for those who make it to the old holy places of Earth. That's how the western lore-person gets adopted by the earth tribe. Usually, there are demigod or mortal protagonists acting in the stead of the deity - aspects or avatars.

I don't think that simple RQ magic is the key here. If your "entirely mundane" activity has a mythic resonance, then it will be a test of magic. Think e.g. about Enjossi swimming up the Lyksos and the New River, and leaping up a couple of rapids in the Stream, to bring back the salmon to the Stream. Those leaps up the rapids may well have been magic, but the swimming was a mundane activity. Using rune magic will push you on that deity's paths. Good for you if you want to navigate the quest along known lines, using your cult lore skill. Doing it from your own skills may establish something like a feat, or a cult skill to teach. Or a community bonus. This doesn't quite cover the "you've been drawn into an antagonist's heroquest, now play your part to benefit him or prove yourself, thwart his designs and take home a boon from it if you're lucky" sort of quest I like to inflict on player characters. There are such events in Biturian's travels, like his Sun County episode (where he failed to get a meaningful boon) or the Zorak Zoran episode with Rurik dropping in. Situations like these suit my style of GMing and narrating better. And you can drop the player characters in medias res, avoiding the "refusal to take on the quest" bit that may be the most applicable of all the Campbell stages of the hero's quest in GMing. Old style Super-RuneQuest, or "you need to be a rune lord to accomplish anything on the hero plane" style questing? Thanks to RQG, you now have abilities in 13 runes (3 elements, 8 powers, man and beast), and you can use those as your moral compass on the quest. This gives you a basic set of abilities for any kind of quests which demand judgement or other decisions, e.g. "seduce the hag" type of interaction. Many of the RQ skills can be regarded as sort of binary - you have them, then in the hero plane there will be a way to embody them. High percentages make your life easier, and take some of the "being you" and "becoming you" out of the Other Side experience. As we have learned, people are expected to undergo 2 initiations on average. Do you expect to enter these initiation quests with rune lord level skills? Often enough, circumstances will make a place encouraging. And Glorantha is a patchwork world, with somewhat hastily reconnected shards of reality. Transition between such shards may occur in rather unsuspecting places, and might occasionally offer a continuation on the Godtime continuity of the shard you would normally leave. The hero plane may be closer than you suspect.

Overcoming that barrier may have been the fight or the river crossing behind you. As a rule, the entry into the hero realm is associated with some sort of test - could be a roll to find your way, could be anything. Another typical entry form is the encounter with the guardian figure, which may be a human, a wild beast, or maybe even a tree or something like that. And it needn't be a single test. Quests usually offer a series of tests, with some that you are more or less supposed to fail. The quester can rarely script quests into which he gets drawn without ritual preparation. It is possible for the genre-savvy heroquester to identify a mythic story to follow, but as often as not it is all right to follow the character's own determination, letting fate shape the path on which to walk, if you have a destiny behind you (or ahead of you). Campbell with his sequence of Call to Action and Refusal of the Call come into this, too. Encounters on the journey are how the GM can pull the player characters into a quest. If there is an encounter at a transitional place (a ford, bridge, shore, border, a welcome by a clan patrol), it may signify a (partial) translation into the more magical place of questing. Sometimes the translation can occur by resting in a place. Arthurian questing is a lot like that. Gloranthan questing can be like this. There are of course other, "official" ways that involve worship services with your soul joining the winds to Orlanth's Hall, feasting, choosing an exit, etc. etc., but that's almost like cheating outside of your ambitions to become more like the deity.

As far as I am concerned, the Knowing God is the masculine outlet for Esrolian males to a position of influence and some limited power, and may have been since the founding days of Nochet before the Sun Emperor took over. The Knowing God is the required witness, the Other who seals the contract of that city, between the six tribes. The beard requirement was to set this acceptable Other apart from the female elite. And when females started to creep into this role, they were made to wear silly beard-lookalikes.

Argrath is a mystical force at least as much as he is a mystic himself. His very name means "Liberator", and it seems that he is destined to liberate quite a few entities, whether in Ralios, Sheng Seleris (twice, once from Hell, once from his physical existence), the Lunar Empire, the Red Moon, and the entire collection of divinity. At times he appears to take the role of the Liberating Bolt, at other times he facilitates utuma. This suggests a lot less deliberation and a lot weird mystical insight to me. Illumination may allow him some detachment from his obvious passions, when he decides to do so, but on the whole Argrath acts as a model Orlanthi leader, with all the exaggerated passion and emotion. Almost like a superhero-setting major villain.

This almost suggests that resurrecting the Bat wherever you need a Battle of Chaos might be the fast way of getting that chiroptera where it was needed. Less opportunities for terrorizing subdued rebels, but quite efficient as a way to take over a battlefield. Will Jar-eel's appearance on the Bat cause another swarm of raving madmen to be sent into Tork or Dorastor or the like? The boardgame battalia aren't the most trustworthy source, since they have Harrek, Jar-eel, the Red Emperor and sundry in every full scenario.

There is bound to be a whole lot of overlap or identity of these. Of course the daughter of the White Goddess would be the White Goddess for the next cycle (and I am fairly convinced that the Sunstop status of Yelm's reign was introduced only with Brigheye's rebellion, and that there was day and night prior to that massive betrayal and putsch. Zator identified with Zayteneras is in a way my proposal. I made a list of the Copper Tablets sources and the planetary sons. There are four lists of the planetary sons: The Gods Wall first row, including Zayteneras (as a manifestation of Dayzatar) and Ghelotralas (as a manifestation of Lodril). The Copper Tablets list (identified by their runes, replacing Buserian with Zator) Glorious ReAscent of Yelm has a list which has Zator(a) for Zator/Buserian, Kargzant for Reladivus, Zaytenera instead of Falsoretus, Jernedeus instead of Verithurus and Makestina instead of Ghevengus. Lastly, Heortling Mythology has its own version of this, agreeing with the GRoY version except for Jagrekriand rather than Shargash and Therados rather than Zayteneras/Falsoretus. I am not sure that the sons of Yelm did involve man-rune like reproduction. I take those entities at the moon utuma to be draconic rather than elder giants. The giants make their appearance at Fyllich Kwan, significantly earlier in Argrath's Saga.

Readying a spell involves clearing the mind,, preparing the focus if using spirit magic, preparing the expenditure of a new bunch of magic points (and/or rune points). I blame the magic (point) flow which requires a significant pause between two spells. Without sufficient pause the magic might simply bleed after the previous spell. And, Glorantha being a magical setting, mundane actions may involve the containment of magic (points), much like some of the real world eastern martial arts involve control of chi. A cesura might be required between actions.

There is a plus button next to the "Quote" link at the bottom of each post which allows you to collect the messages you want to quote, which you can crop and separate then. Another possibility is just to reply to one quote, then scroll up to the next message you want to quote with the browser window sidebar (not the editor window sidebar) and click quote for the message you want to include. It is also possible to mark a section of the text you want to quote (e.g. to create nested quotes if you want to comment on a thread rather than on a single comment) and then press "quote" in the little box appearing below the selected text. If the comments you want to multi-quote are spread over several pages, you can just work up one page of comments, then select and copy all of your editor content, switch to the next page, paste the previous editor content and continue as described above. If you work with an external editor, the quotations are likely to lose their format.

Two times the Lie spell? Or did you omit "was" and "by" on either side of the "killed"? Or are you a Crimson Bat cultist?

I think we have to discern between the Red Goddess as the current (nathic) incarnation of the Lunar Goddess, and Sedenya herself as the principle from which the Lunar Goddess in all her incarnations emanates. The White Goddess, celestial ruler before Brighteye, predates the five planetary sons of Yelm that all are some form of emanation of Sedenya (Verithurus/Jernedeus, Deumalos, Zator/Zaytenaras/Buserian, Derdurnus, Falsoretus/Zayteneras, probably not Ghevengus/Makestina, likely not Reladiva/us/Kargzant, definitely not Shargash/Tolat/Jagrekriand). So are non-planetary ones like Rashoran(a)/Nysalor/Gbaji. I disagree with the notion that Sedenya did in some way inherit Illusion. The Lunar Glamour appears to be something else, a reality formed under the influence of the moonlight and having some form of permanence within the Silver Shadow and its extensions (the Glowline). Solidified moonglow, so to say. Veldara and the Artmali descending from her had a similar selenic power in the Storm Age. The undead blue moon is part and parcel of the Annilla cult in RQ3 Troll Gods, tied to her Elder Giants connections. Both her blue moon and the Mernitan blue moon and the Artmali Veldara/Serartamal blue moon appear to have been the same celestial body. The westerners know Annilla and Tolat (i.e. Verithurus(a) and Shargash) as twins, as celestial as underworld deities.

There were a few Hero Wars scenarios in the rules, like Chasing Kites, which are also set roughly in the 1619-1621 bracket. If you are using magazine scenarios, too, Tradetalk had a few RQ scenarios, including a weird one involving Dinacoli cattle raiders and dragonewts. Tales had some, too. The Manirian campaign Blood Over Gold is a bit too renaissance and churchy to fit in with the current interpretation of Glorantha, but I have seen it used without any jarring problems. The reminiscences of Paulis Longvale in Cults/Lords of Terror are starting around 1621 and continue into the initial phase of the RQG period.

I cast my spell, then close until just outside of melee range - sounds like a valid statement of intent. The opponent who was waiting for the character to close may leave his position and engage in melee, or may remain in formation and wait a little longer. Hurry up and wait... Wearing the GM hat I have used something like this as an NPC tactic to let the first wave of protective/boosting spells wear off. With reasonable duration sorcery more readily available, this tactic has probably seen the zenith of its applicability.

Violent snow melt has always caused rivers to become difficult to impossible to cross, and may have caused temporary floodings of pasture and even better land. Continuous snow melt would still swell rivers, but keep things manageable. Be prepared to get wet feet anyway. You wouldn't want to rob lifestock prior to the thaws, though. It is weird going on a raid with bales of hay on your backs.

The hill (or ridge) definitely is made of limestone. The trouble is that limestone ridges like this don't remain white, and neither do walls made of it. And my quartzite suggestion for (the facing of) the walls (not for the rock the city is built upon) is at least a decade older. The construction occurred in the late Vingkotling Age (or earlier). Rock like that would be found in river deposits.

The extent of frost in Dark and Storm Seasons still can vary quite a bit. Storm Season is known for harsh storms, but whether they bring snow or strong rainfalls may vary a lot from year to year. After the main thaws have set in, travel (and raiding) may be taken up again. I wonder whether the Sartarite highways used to have something like a snow patrol, with Orlanth priests or Kolating shamans reenacting Orlanth's victory over Thryk in the service of the Princes. With such support, some traffic might even be upheld in the worst parts of a normal winter. And, picking up from my post on quarries, snow-covered land makes good transportation conditions for hauling big chunks of rock overland. Something which doubtless has mythical precedence, too.

Urban construction in Dragon Pass and Kethaela is using a whole lot of masonry and quarried stone, from the cyclopean walls inherited from the Vingkotling Age or giant builders through dwarf-built artefacts like the eastern wall of Boldhome or its pockets, or the Heortling-made royal roads of Sartar, the housing in the reclaimed EWF (and Vingkotling) era hill forts like Clearwine, the fortifications of the Sartar dynasty or the Tarshite dynasties. Much of the known rock stratum in the region is sedimentary - sandstone, chalk, or riverine and glacial valleys. The tall mountains have grown from volcanic pushed or pierced upward tectonics, or from the tectonic seeds planted by Larnste, bringing up deeper layers of "hard earth" from below. Erosion can be supposed to have been strong in places where Storm and Sea battled it out. Torrential rainfall, severe mountaintop frost and at higher altitude at times rock-shattering storms helped to carry away some of the material pushed up, and then we have beheaded mountains like Shadow Plateau or Stormwalk Mountain. Despite the dominant distribution of chalk and sandstone substrata, karst regions appear to be rather rare, or otherwise covered by sufficient glacial or riverine deposites to avoid much of the water sink effect. Other places with known and extensive karst regions like e.g. Snake Pipe Hollow have more precipitation from the Skyfall than even a thoroughly hollowed out karst substratrum can carry away. Being able to find dry caverns beneath Snake Pipe Hollow is probably thanks to the presence of the Chaos rift down there, where the Maggot roams. Something similar to David Scott's thoughts on the Long Dry may happen there. What kind of rock is used by the masons, and where do they harvest it? Whitewall implies the use of white rock, as the name has stuck even through centuries of neglect, which makes white-washing (chalk plaster) as source of that color rather unlikely. I still think that the material used there would have been something like white quartzite, like the stones used in the (artistically nice but probably not exactly historically correct) front face of Newgrange, a material retaining its gleaming reaction to the sun even when partially covered by algae, lichen and moss. Calcite faces tend to darken considerably as these botanical settlers take root not just on the surface but also inside the outer layers of that rock, unless continuously eroded and newly exposed (like e.g. the white cliffs of Dover). I wouldn't think that an impregnable fortress sacred to one of the forces of erosion would slowly be weathered away like that. The rock covering the royal highways of Sartar must be as durable as that used in the construction of the Roman highways. The prototype of these roads were probably dwarf-built, with the road stretch between Boldhome and Jonstown very likely the work of mostali masons and engineers. These roads have been around for 125 years without significant deterioration, which is quite a feat when comparing them to the motorways and highways in the modern western world. This would mean that there have to be some sources of road-building material along those highways from which material for repairs come, or otherwise there must have been quarries of very high-quality rock (e.g. hexagonal slivers of basalt) that created a paving that a century of heavy wagon traffic couldn't wear down significantly. Depending on the quality of the rock, material would be transported over quite some distance - the sarsen for Stonehenge was carried in from Wales, for instance, and marble and porphyrite was shipped across the entire mediterranean. On the other hand, even in places with a long tradition of masonry like early imperial Rome, an astonishing amount of construction would be done with bricks from burnt clay. That method does use up a lot of fuel, though, not just for burning the bricks but also for burning the chalk needed for the mortar, and in the case of opus cementitium, also the basaltic ash that creates the concrete. But where do (and did) the Colymar quarry the stone for the town houses of Clearwine? From the illustration, the rocky outcrop on which it was built is not quarried on any side, and doing so would only invite any besieging force to use that quarry to bring down that side of that hill, walls and all. Is overseeing such a quarry done at clan or tribal level? Is it handled by specialists, or is this a joint effort a few times in the year? How much time to the people in the quarry take to break off big slabs of rock? One method would be to chisel just enough space to insert very dry wooden wedges and then make them expand by pouring water over them, creating a rather deep fissure. Then in Dark Season one can fill these cracks with (heated) water and use the expansion of it when freezing to widen the crack and push the slab from its bedrock. Depending on the material, the slabs might be sawed into shapes using ropes and sand or gravel. That method can also be used to separate well-formed blocks out of the bedrock if you have access gaps (whose material you may have harvested as gravel for the roadbuilding or, in case of calcite or marble, as raw material for mortar), possibly made with mining technology as discussed recently.

Normally I would expect such a fair to be outside of the seeding and the harvesting times so that there can be quite a few participants who won't be missed in their home clans, which makes Fire Season a very likely date for such a festival. Given the influx of capital and additional potential worshippers, it would make sense to do this around a holy day or two.

That used to be a problem, but nowadays you can use e.g. an Android-device as a prop to calculate courses, travel times, fuel consumption etc. with little effort. For Odd Soot, such a prop would probably have to be clockwork brass instruments, depending on how much Tesla-tech you want to include.

Death from a crit needn't be final - look at Rurik Runespear. Antagonists get DI, too. Failing that, their vengeful ghosts could find a suitable vessel to further their schemes. Heroquesters may have found their backdoor exit from the Descent to Hell. Belintar was killed multiple times before he returned the favor on Ezkankekko. Then there are hoary old chestnuts like the body double, as in Kurosawa's inversion of this theme in Kagemusha. "Bypassing all armor" - does this include all magical armor?

Nine stars are visible all year. That might mean that the other two in the illustration are weaker, and may become invisible part of the year due to haze. Lorion is a constellation on the lower rim of the sky, after all.