Joerg

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.

IMO the best descriptions are the "Green Age" texts in Esrolia - Land of 10k Goddesses and (to a lesser degree) Entekosiad. The earliest organisation of humans (and Elder Races) was in holy places of the earth, even before Fire was involved. We have descriptions of Ezel (Esrolia...), the Paps, and there are hints for the West which indicate that the old temples of Earth provide the wives and an unacknowledged (by Zzabur) contribution to the organozation of the Malkioni I mentioned the crystallization of Kachisti refugees after the Vadeli (and Nidan Mountain) uprising at the Earth temples, not just Seshna Likita or the Green Lady or Hrelar Amali, but also the holy spots of the Hykimi (their links to the earth), places like Göbekli Tepe and named "the city of wolves" or similar in the Serpent Brotherhood lands. The Balurgans probably preserved the religion of the early hunter gatherers that had discovered the wild grains as their annual gathering crop above the annual migrations of herds of prey for their hunters, and which developed horticulture from that. Expect the universal all-bearing mother goddess of Earth, her brawny and fairly obedient husband/brother (and/or son), and the deities of the crops. In a later generation, the protector may be a (perceived) outsider, sometimes like Tada or Pamalt, sometimes already of a different elemental background - most often earliest storm (e.g. the pig god protector) or fire (a fiery serpent). Pottery may be present if Fire has been invited, otherwise expect wicker-backed unburnt clay. Plowing comes - if it comes - with the storm protector or the advanced fire protector. Orlanth/Barntar brings it, Veskarthan doesn't, but Lodril the master of Irrigation does (originally using primitive sky creatures like gazzam). The use of muscle power other than human may signify the closing Old Earth culture. The Caladralander fire culture is a continuation of an Old Earth culture with the heavy influence of the volcano. The gifts of the fiery mountain make a reliance on beast muscle superfluous. The Balurgans probably had special growth and ripening magics for their crops, probably unavailable to those who plow, offering them a similar advantage.

That depends on my stock of ammunition and the threat potential of the approaching PC1. Arrows are a considerable investment of time, effort and possessions, and that investment will be weighed against the expected benefit. On the other hand, panicked over-reaction is the typical cause for meaningless expenditure of ammunition. Firing at a single target at extreme range is a gamble at best. The rules aren't written as such, but not only should the skill of the archer be halved, also there should be a cap of the hit probability even if your archer comes with 190% skill. Maybe not a fixed cap, but a POWx3 roll or a POW vs POW roll in case of a hit, to determine whether the target really moved into the path of the arrow or not. Is the archer honor-bound or commanded to fire as soon as he can? Then it is 50% chance. Does he lose his cool? 50%. Does he have the experience to wait (e.g. a successful Battle roll): he waits for the full chance.

Maybe the problem here is that Osentalka was the perfect synthesis, possible under the timeless state of the Sunstop, but disintegrated into what might be mistaken for thesis and antithesis while each being part of both (but not the whole), and at least one thing more, a destructive barrier in between. It's cyclical. Whatever synthesis one arrives will become a thesis, to be tested on an antithesis which might similarly have been arrived at by synthesis.

@Darius West writes an interesting piece on how the Compromise and Arachne Solara are tainted with Chaos and how that needs to be undone. This makes a good in-world statement, possibly an occluded one, but definitely one requiring some form of enlightened detachment from living inside that world. I would think that there would be people around Argrath pursuing such an agenda, and pressuring Argrath directly or indirectly to further it. They probably succeed when they convince Argrath's Trickster (still Elusu?) to let go of the net in the Ritual of the Net rite, a station that Argrath may not even have reached on his Lightbringers' Quest as he used demanding the boon for his quest as the starting point for the second, deeper quest for the prison of Sheng Seleris. If he avoided that station at that time, when would he have returned to the Underworld on a LBQ? Wakboth (and possibly his parents) gave evil a bad name. Chaos let loose in Creation has never been benevolent, but it may not have been purposefully evil. Is "I want to make them suffer" necessarily evil? Probably yes, but then you get things like Hammurabi's code of law, or the similar Old Testament passages, which basically demand that a perpetrator of a crime was to suffer as his victim(s) did, and possibly worse. Which only brings us to a "they started it" style of ethics. Revenge or getting even is a very strong theme in mythology. Is pursuing this after reaching some form of enlightenment evil? Is claiming necessity for such a pursuit a cheap cop-out? If the people who pronounce this have already shed themselves of more than just their corruption, this accusation doesn't hold. Objectively, they may be right from their point of enlightenment. To those who haven't overcome the dichotomy of good vs evil or the corruption it brings, such pronouncements bring all the evil of at best partial understanding coupled with misguided convictions put into action. The Trio chose to destroy everything, not minding their own destruction, which (according to their "enlightened" insight) was necessary anyway. There is no Chaos where there is no Creation. Outside of the sphere that separates Creation from the rest, there is unlimited potential, eternal flux that will receive and dissipate any "energy" that goes there from the Source, the Ultimate. It is way beyond my grade of "enlightenment" to decide whether that source is available through other routes than through Glorantha. I would think so, but it needn't be the case. Creation is building from the bottom of slightly, then ever more firmly limited potential towards that Source. Chaos is festering into Creation, not caring whether it expands its deletion towards the Source or not. That's not so much an aim as the inherent nature of Chaos, and to be fair, Kajabor's Chaos doesn't have a selection bias against Chaos and will destroy other Chaos just as readily as it will destroy (parts of) Creation. Wakboth does have a selection bias, but will go against rivaling power anyway. Wakboth has a weird self-preservation drive, which may be explained by its conception inside Creation. Kajabor and other "Outer Gods" of elder chaos don't have these. Creation in Glorantha is a self-organizing or higher-self-organized irregularity in the infinite randomness outside. Creation is a flaw in the Void, growing from infinite potential through limitations towards an Ultimate. Elves have faced whoever threatened their collective forever. Often without success, as when Pamalt of the Veldt kept out the encroaching forest, or when the Seas flooded vast forested areas in the Flood. At times with compromise, where humans created culture land (starting with palaeolithic fire-farming for hunting - possibly avoided by the Hsunchen, but likely practiced by cultures like the Votanki). The spider and the world she defended was doomed before the Ritual of the Net. Going through it and giving birth to Time has delayed the ultimate fate, and however each of the cycles will leave Glorantha worse off than the previous one, I think that there is a shrewd asymptotic trend involved that will keep Creation active forever, despite Time. Each cycle might reduce the influx of energies from the Ultimate, but within each of the cycles, there is potential to reach for the Ultimate and become one with it. From the perspective of what (and who) remains in Creation, things will disappear, or get so remote that they have effectively ceased to interact with their reality. Godtime did not count cycles, but I am fairly convinced that the cycles did stack up towards the Source, with Creation Age being the closest, and the Great Darkness the most remote. The Gray Age may be an anomaly in this, pre-Dawn Time that still is accessible in the heroplane cyclical time. Breaking of the Compromise after the Dawn might have created similar anomalies. Is Time chaotic? It is entropic, that is for sure, taking Creation/Cosmos further away from the Ultimate. The mystical ascension game appears to be a separation from "corruption" (or, in the Venfornic practices, all-encompassing those and everything else) and an acquisition of stuff closer to the Ultimate at the same time. Much of the "corruption" separated appears to be rooted in Creation.

Lhankor Mhy is the official chronicler of the compact, and the only one who has the beard fetish. The Noble Brothers are subservient husbands and sons. Issaries is more or less without defined gender (except for that Garzeen-Fenela romance).

elfquest.com is online, and you can read all the series there. Quite generous...

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.

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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.