Joerg

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.

and a lot of not so secret ones, after all Lodril is the spearman, too. There will be wrestling, and use of all manner of digging and agricultural implements.

Then what about Axe/Sword Trance? Does the spell effect build up strike rank by strike rank? And is it possible to follow up a Heal Wound 9 with a Heal 5 in the same melee round, on SR 6, or are you still busy pumping those MP into the Heal Wound?

Harrek's circumnavigation is special only in its coincidental timing. It is possible that Argrath starting his circumnavigation from the Cradle makes it special. I used to think that the rise of the boat planet was the somewhat delayed end of Dormal's quest. Dormal was last seen sailing west from Whalebone Island, possibly to (through?) the Gates of Dusk or down the lower Sky Dome into the Underworld. Given Dormal's interaction with Fronela, the release of Charg and other parts from the Ban might be contributing. (Parts of the Janube outflow from the Sweet Sea and the southern Sweet Sea shore may have needed to be liberated, and possibly the other half of the Esel River.)

Which is somewhat surprising when you look at Hoom Jhis with three circumnavigations to his credit (Guide p.600).

On a first glance, this looks rather similar to the RQ3 presentation of the Path of Immanent Mastery, which apparently was similar to the path Isgangdrang (the Speaker of the Third Council) was pursuing. This does look playable, if as over-priced (rune-spell wise) as the RQ3 version (or its Hsunchen equivalents). You did a good job substituting temples to leaching off magic from the dragonewts (e.g. the dragonewt roadse) and true dragons. I can see why you want to distance the cult from the elemental cults, although the breakthrough of draconism was Obduran's demonstration that you can both worship Orlanth and proceed on the draconic path of mysticism. The mysticism side is almost non-existent. You do give a nod with applying the Meditation skill rather than the Worship (etc.) skill, but that's all. If you are happy playing a partial shape-shifter, this cult will eventually give you some of those powers. Arcane Lore suggested another way of residual draconic mysticism with its Red Dragon dojo somewhere west of Lunar Tarsh, near the Red Dragon lair. That dojo appears to be more like one of the Kralori martial arts styles, with some fire powers thrown into the mix, and possibly other options of spiritual advancement. But that's a different concept.

It is possible that Occlusion limits the potential for advancement in enlightenment, possibly more so than seeking transcendence through a single rune (like the Stormwalkers of Old Wind Temple). The Liberation through the Red Moon likely leads only into a certain direction, and once there it may take special hardships to escape that specific snare. A successful mystic overcomes his physical existence, and leaves the limitations of the world. Revealed Mythologies names a few - Oorduren, Venforn, Sivoli. Larn Hasamador might have achieved Nothing, and Mashunasan - so what? Anything worth the mention coming from Mashunasan was separated from himself or from a disciple of his, and his "triumph" over Avanapdur basically was Avanapdur's (slightly enforced) ascension. Nenduren's limited path towards unity with Atrilith was quite successful, sufficiently so that Oorsu Sara undertook ages of intense meditation and best behavior before doing his corruptive act which consumed the remaining mortal form of the Sage (who was united with Atrilith already). The EWF produced at least one successful mystic - Obduran. In fact, Obduran was more successful than the majority of true dragonhood, as he surpassed even that state of being.

That works fairly well with the elemental runes, of which you have at least three in RQG, allowing you to adjust your balance while approaching a more magical state with values well above 100%. With the opposing Power runes, any such progress makes you unsufferable. An individual with 100% in Mobility isn't necessarily holy when displaying all the symptoms of ADHS. If your trader cannot even stand still at his market stall, how shall he communicate with customers? Take that picture of the Swenstown street scene. Neither Harmast nor the Issaries trader haggling with him is fidgeting all over the place. Neither is Vasana, who is resting rather motionlessly. To me this indicates that none of them are in the psychotic bracket of the Change rune. Since when has a good measure of greed been detrimental to a merchant? Those overflowing with Harmony may be well liked, but will go broke at least as badly as Gringle, and probably never even achieve a portion of the wealth the broke Gringle had in his pawnshop when attacked in the classical scenario.Apple Lane is the epitome of egocentric behavior - the entire hamlet is set up to serve Gringle, who certainly is an individualist. How did Gringle manage to settle down at all, without any stability in his life? A certain measure of Stasis is quite desirable for a Garzeen merchant overseeing a stable market at a city, with moderately stable prices and a stable flow of goods. Likewise, a Desert Tracker would be well advised to have some remaining Disorder to counter Chaos in the Wastes. And I feel that an overdose of Harmony is quite harmful in haggling - while keeping it all in an amiable environment, a certain bickering and teasing is required to get the best price out of the opposition.

Mechanically, such a transition could be a great boon, since it allows you to fully master that rune without destroying your humanity by completely suppressing the opposite power emotions.

Not-Cosmos is not Chaos as long as it stays outside of Creation. There even is a place for the Void inside Creation, in a well-defined cyst, subject to a harmony of Creation and Un-Creation, as in the Spiral Map of the Holy Country Otherworld in Arcane Lore. Wakboth is Chaos born from Creation, through Rashoran's (Gbaji's?) power, abused and twisted by the Unholy Trio. Chaos deriving from Wakboth (and some of the eastern Antigod rulers) might be different to Chaos seeping in through the rifts. Small Chaos is All Chaos? Only to the unenlightened. There is some truth to the Lunar acceptance of Chaos, although I think that Teelo Estara's union with Blaskarth in the Nether Hell makes her ultimately unable to ascend to the Ultimate. At least she needs a reboot - much like Ingolf after he had become wayward and squandered his achievements on the way to the Ultimate for mundane goals. But then even Lunar philosophy agrees that the Red Moon is only an intermediate step in the cycle. The troll acceptance of the cave trolls and sea trolls may be another such case of insight beyond the unenlightened pure rage of Storm Bull and those who take his lead. The notion of moral chaos is derived from Rashoran/Gbaji through the Unholy Trio and Wakboth, whether the moral crimes of rape (Ragnaglar/Thed), spreading disease (Malia), cannibalism (Cacodemon), head hunting (Thanatar) or sacrificing the soul or life for continued existence (Vivamort). Other chaos like Bagog, Krarsht, Krjalk, Kajabor is simply the manifestation of an aspect of the Void in Creation, having intruded through seams or gaps.

The sources I have seen usually require an annotated transcription rather than an OCR (and interlaced typewriter used to be a pain in the posterior to submit to automated OCR, no idea how much this has improved along with the scanners now that OCR software isn't included in the OEM software of said scanners any more). On the other hand, the typed manuscripts are rather low in the word count, and typing them in is a fairly leisurely process unless you have to deal with genealogical charts or map labels. Some later work-in-progress documents like the earliest (pre Glorious ReAscent) versions of the Lunar Book are in considerably better shape, having been produced on word processors.

Sorry, but no. The Void is essential to Creation. Creation is the separation of limited creative potential from unlimited potential. The Chaosium is essential to let new potential enter, but not as Chaos. There is no requirement for Chaos inside Creation. There is another aspect to Creation that is essential, the energies flowing from the Ultimate through the Middle World to the Chaosium. These are what power the runes. And IMO it is to this source of all that enlightenment is reaching, not to the random annihilation to the Void.

Having read about halfway into that book (covering the Germanic successor states to the Roman Empire in the west), I was rather intrigued to see the significant volume of gold coinage in circulation. Granted, there was a rather small class of people handling money, with huge parts of the population in some sort of serfdom, and the Germanic conquerors forming some new class of military low aristocracy parallel to the landed imperial aristocracy which apparently persisted well into the late Merovingian time. I am a little undecided how much I can follow his argument of a completely laicist absolute reign of the Germanic kings of these former provinces - given the continuation of e.g. the bull-drawn wagon rite of the Merovings, I think that there may have been significant pagan clerical functions remaining which stayed outside of (christian recorded) written documentation. So I wondered where and when in Glorantha we would find such a situation, and the answer is of course Praxian- and Heortling-occupied Dara Happa (and Sylila), where barbarian warriors instituted dynasties of nobility that still persist - most notably the Sable rider dynasty of Hungry Plateau who managed to preserve their nomadic identity through mandatory life on the plateau, but also the bison-riding nobility in parts of Kostaddi, Vanch and Sylila. I wonder whether there are any Dara Happan noble houses who can trace their ancestry back to Heortling administrators taking over in this time. The violent expulsion of the Theyalan overseers at the end of Ordanestyu's stewardship needn't have affected people who might have gone native as much as the Praxians did (and possibly aided that expulsion).

Being a sports archer, I house-ruled that the halved damage bonus is available if you have a bow and arrows tailored to your characteristics. Crossbows obviously don't, the ability to crank them prior to the shot means that the shooter doesn't influence the intensity of the shot, although physical strength might lessen the reload-cycle in strike ranks. Slingers might be able to fire heavier missiles, which would inflict greater damage. Slingers with less strength wouldn't be able to fire such missiles.

Indeed, the Black Fang is an extremely localized cult prior to them accompanying Argrath from Pavis to Sartar. Afterwards they appear to have been active wherever Argrath had need of discreet killings. The size of the organisation appears to be just right, however. In Umathela, a society like that may have formed from trainees of the Gift Carriers of the Sending Gods who never got to learn about the secret, and who had the honor to eliminate the last Gift Carriers who knew about the secret, their teachers.

It is not that Chaos is evil - it is inherently inimical and annihilating. As long as Creation runs strong but not on steroids, limited annihilation is tolerable to the cosmos, although the individual annihilation is worse than the dread of death. Chaos is alien to the Creation. There is a difference. The wilder emanations of the Green Age like Grotarons, Hoolar or keets are optimistic and playful applications of Creation. The Predark and the disruptive mutations of Chaos are the expression of negativity. Not until their encounter with Rashoran. Violence is one of the End of Green Age moments, and predates the birth of Umath. The horror and fear is an original property of Darkness, the first step of Elemental Creation. The overdose of Creation that enabled Predark Chaos to enter through the split seams that separated Creation from the Void didn't make anything new, but it allowed annihilative forces to enter Creation. After a while, Making failed to keep up with Growing, and without Taking (Death) things went out of control. Some say the birth of Umath was such an out-of-control act of Growth/Creation. Don't they? They are aware of the pernicious mutations that Chaos inflicted on their forests, and the elimination of their central forest. Arachne Solara created (and bought) time for the universe to achieve transcendence. Who is calling for the extirpation of all enlightenment?

The Conquering Daughter dealt with the folk that sent Jannisor against the Empire in the previous Wane, which means that her activities weren't entirely unprovoked. Their conquest of Tarsh was rather gentle, although there were a couple of bloody battles after they had taken over, including the Palashee interregnum. Both Saronil and Jarolar had clearly positioned themselves against the Lunars, too, and Tarkalor even bested Phargentes, their Provincial Overseer. It's not like there were no good reasons to set those anachronistic hill-billies of Sartar right. Tatius' Mark II Temple of the Reaching Moon and its prequel was overdoing things, badly. In comparison, Fazzur's governorship and his plans for an expansion into Kethaela weren't that odious, although he had inherited the burden of Euglyptus' crushing hate policy. The Empire never was monolithic, not even when Teelo Estara still walked the earth.

Possible sources of pirates: Rebels against the current people in power in a given region Rival Cities Fonritians, operating from their homeland or the Kumanku Isles Vadeli Masloi Yggites / Wolf Pirates (from Laskal or Jrustela) Uz from Jrustela Many a trader captain succumbs to temptation when offered an easy target ripe for the plucking.

Sure - and apart from first contact problems, a species like the one I described above would fit the description when seen in connection to its host organism. It would be tool using (or the space encounter with the armored/upgraded host organism would be impossible), and it would be tool using to communicate with others. It might be possible to break the host organism down to "environmental suit" size, allowing interaction with individuals (or very small collectives) of this species, that would be playable. It wouldn't be any worse than the tripartite symbiotic race encountered by Nicholas van Rijn and David Falkayn encountered.

If any Gloranthan had said or written what I did above, he or she would rightfully be burned with extreme prejudice. As a Gloranthan, you would need to be enlightened in a number of possibly contrary ways to arrive there. If you need a villain for any given story, looking for one in the Storm Tribe will probably yield results. I don't think that you can separate either Arkat or Nysalor from Gbaji, but yes, the Curse of Kin was entirely in line with the Bright, solar aspect of the new empire. The occasion wasn't quite because they did not support him - trolls, dragonewts and Heortlings had joined forces to end his reign. And while Palangio was the first to break the Compromise at the Battle of Night and Day, the opposition was as prepared to do so, and did, resulting in the Black Eater turning up for Nysalor to confront. And in the long run, trolls, Heortlings and a few other forces Nysalor had managed to anger beyond the pale did manage to end the Bright Empire. Arkat and Talor weren't any better with their curses on the lands of Dorastor and the Telmori folk, either, and Harmast facilitated both.