Joerg

I think this is badly underselling Surensliba,, the Creatrix. Modern Suvaria may be rather small and unimportant, but once it encompassed all of Creation. There is a reason why the Red Emperor would participate in the heron rites and risk his existence, and that reason is not simple carnal pleasure. The modern version of the goddess (used to be Great Spirit) is much diminished, but her myths are more primal than anything the Yelmies have to offer, and rival the oldest women's myths in Entekosiad. Possibly predate them. I still think that the Heron Hegemony in the God Learner map of the Golden Age is an inference error.

In the diplomatic 2-player games, the additional assassin is great to hunt down and eliminate enemy exotic magicians like the Crater Makers, Earth Shakers etc.

Actually, three assassin units, as the Tarsh Exiles also have a unit of these (for the three players game). Argrath reacts very badly to the assassination at his entry to Pavis and/or Boldhome, but he probably employs the Black Fang folk from Pavis.

Rereading the unpublished Hrestol's Saga, it looks like Brithini of any caste but Talar mustn't _own_ horses, but soldiers may ride them in the service of the owning Talar. All Brithini soldiers in that Dawn Age snippet are strictly trained to a single set of weapon skills, meaning that spearmen are never cross-trained as swordsmen. Their general regards that specialization as asset and the flexibility of the Seshnegi approach as a liability. I have no idea whether the Pendali would have been of significantly larger stature than the Seshnegi or the Enerali (whose horses are the Galana pony, which does limit rider size on non-augmented steeds). I know that I (with my 2m frame and a bit more bulk than the necessary muscle and bone) probably will have to do any attempts at riding on charger-sized equines (or directly on pachyderms).

WIth the exception of some similar populations in Banamba, the majority of the Agimori uses standard human stats. It might be argued that all Veldt-descended Agimori types could have stronger Fire than the other racial types, but much less than the Men-and-a-Half. The non-Veldt Agimori (e.g. Pamaltelan Hsunchen and Thinobutan-descended "Agimori") who don't share that First Drinker myth may have different runic distribution (i.e. more standard). It isn't clear whether the Teleosan multi-colored Agimori types are Veldt-descended or of Thinobutan (coastal) descent, but they probably don't deserve any special Fire relationship any more after centuries of sea-going life. Torabs (Fonritians with some blue and some black ancestry) use normal human stats and runes. Pure Artmali Veldang probably are stronger in water and moon than your average human, but that may be reflected as much by culture and cult as by ancestry.

Not necessarily - the Votanki hunting range may very well have overlapped with those areas, and the power of the citadel kings has always been rather limited to their own citadels and little beyond (at least before the giant Vrok Hawks were tamed, which was at best a generation ago). Balazar oversaw the building of two of those citadels. He himself didn't build anything, although he may have ordered the defensive structures done as he saw fit. That "son" may have been a daughter... but the point remains that without that magical descent from Rigtaina and Balazar the Founder, nobody was able (or inclined) to start another citadel, and after what the giants who built Elkoi had done to Trilus, few people would have dared to enrage more giants.

I would hazard the guess that these would have been agricultural centers of the Arcos civilization - the goat herding and grain growing folk of Jarst and Garsting. Possibly another "Yelmalian" and elf-friend (or elf-fearing) culture. That's extremely weak evidence. The Garst and Jarsting population is missing from this map, and it would have been them who would have built cities. There were only three giant-built citadels, one for each child of Balazar. There might have been more if the founder had not perished in the Dragonkill, but there were none. The human kings of Balazar did not have the technology to build citadels. A structure like the "sun dome temple" in Dykene is possible as central feature for anything the citadel folk might build, but I don't see them leaving their home citadels for unprotected exposure to the risks of the Elf Sea.

Paragua doesn't seem to have the same shoe size as Larnste, but the local force under his heel would have been similar. And what kind of town do you think Robcradle was? From the name, I envision a wild west shanty-town, and not a well-constructed multi-storied architecture with masonry to rival that of Flintnail. Robcradle wasn't a real city. It was the equivalent of a whalers' outpost where the captured behemoths were taken apart for whatever valuable stuff could be extracted. The lumber of the cradle with its magical carvings would be part of that treasure, too, I would guess. Now why would there be such tunnels in Robcradle? Whatever subterranean infrastructure there is on Cradlesnatch Island or anywhere else in the Rubble is very likely built by Flintnail cultists. I don't know which secret this Umathelan revenge cult eliminated, but it needn't have been the RuneQuest sight. It may have been some method the Umathelan raiders of the god planes used on the hero plane. And some of them may have found out about the Chaos buried deep beneath their island when God Learner magics still worked. Yes, it does - beneath the Block. The Eye probably will regenerate the eyeball, too, but it won't regrow the Devil around it. I haven't seen any information on the nutritional value of eyeball tissue... Yes. Permanently inhabited places like the Mycenean citadels or the Cretan palaces, where a strong elite lorded over a significant rural population. That's not what Robcradle was. Dawson City on the Yukon or the whaler outpost on South Georgia are too cold to compare directly to the conditions on the Zola Fel, but the spirit of its inhabitants would have been the same. But even if Robcradle was the equivalent of a Roman Legion outpost like Segontium at Caernarfon, there is no reason that people whose job it is to take apart magical ships would build a nuclear-proof underground shelter when they feel safe from giant retaliation and the major threat are the beast riders. Yes. It takes dwarf technology to build those structures in the first place. Which was available from the Flintnail cult. The Zistorites had vast underground complexes beneath the Clanking City, using the ambient source of magic of Kostern Island. Robcradle existed for about 20 years. It is unlikely that they had cordial relationship with the Zola Fel river cultists, their only allies (though not friends) were the Pure Horse folk who welcomed them as source for metal and other stuff hard to get in Prax. I can tell you have fallen in love with the idea, and it works for the 17 Foes of Waha period and for the Troll Occupation. It has no foundation for the shanty-town of Robcradle. I call Bull's Itch. Prior to permanent human habitation on the island, there was no way that such a large predator could have survived in this environment with extremely hostile prey. Occam's razor - there wasn't anyone left alive after the Giants had smashed and stomped the Robcradle palisade and huts to bits, and whatever underground storage bins there might have been at a stretch were crushed to bits. Not even Mount Nida was giant-proof, so why should ramshackle Robcradle's infrastructure have been any better? Waha knows about redirecting a river, but Zola Fel may prove too powerful for Waha's magic.

Still working on that - not even Halwal's efforts, using the God Learner knowledge against what they had done to the Arkat cult trying to aid the Arkat cultists of Ralios, had managed to bring him back. Possibly because Halwal aimed for a single one.

There could also be something like a vengeful water elemental replacing the former spirit of the well/the aquifer, or a malicious entity with toad-like venomous slime giving off that stuff. Leaving a rotting carcass in an aqueduct or its reservoir may be a combination of active microbes, spores, and microbial poison. Numerous molds can act that way, curse-of-the-mummy style aflatoxine dust for instance can be carried by air, or settle into water supply or aqueducts. I Treat Poison on the patient, and exorcism on whichever ingested resource has the chlostridium botuli infection. If you are going with real world properties of that microbe, Air powers might render it inactive, whereas Darkness will further the production of the poison (increase its potency). Water powers of purification may cleanse the water batch-wise, but won't necessarily destroy the source (often rotting flesh or other organic matter in enclosed conditions). Fire may burn it off once you separated it from the water, and might even be a radical cure for the poisoning. Earth may starve that organism, or find ones that feed on it and its metabolites (and the latter would be Darkness being helpful, too).

But there is. Explosive microbial multiplication needn't take place in the host organism, it may be enough that their continuously produced metabolites poison the drinking water. Fungal or bacterial spores may be carried by non-infected but contaminated organisms into new reproductive habitats, creating spread patterns very difficult to discern from contagious infections. Multi-stage parasites may be hosted by pets or husbandry. I am thinking of biofilms, which are of course host to all manners of microorganisms in the Real World, but may also host microorganisms that require conditions for replication that aren't found in warm-blooded mammals. And prions are effectively self-replicating molecule formations rather than micro-organisms. More of a poisonous meme. A virus is not an organism, but can usurp organisms. And while I am no microbiologist, I work as a chemist in water analytics, with microbial hygiene or microbial water treatment a common topic, and I need a few related certificates. I tried to hurt the science as little as possible... Bluebottle maggots consume only dead flesh. Other maggots aren't that finicky -- when our (senile) laboratory dog went AWOL six years ago, he was found after six days with a huge open head wound full of some unspecified, small maggots, way too small for bluebottle ones, but the veterinary told the holders that these maggots would continue to tunnel into the host organism and may ultimately reach the brain. The owners decided to finish the elimination of the maggots at home after the veterinary had more or less suggested that euthanasia would be indicated, and they succeeded to remove all (or at least enough) of these maggots that the dog recovered and stayed around for another year. The other arthropod parasites may carry microorganisms that also act as parasites - amoebas, monads, bacteria and viruses. If meningitis is observed on victims of tick bites, then the Gloranthan logic doesn't look for the virus causing the tick-borne encephalitis, or the borreliosis bacterium, but sees the tick bite. No worries. I get similarly riled when I read about "water memory" outside of fantasy literature. Western sorcery used to describe spirits as energy complexes, and captured them in an enchantment named Energy Prison, copied from a Mostali device named Iron Energy Prison. Or in modern pseudo-scientific jargon, "quantum". Subspace, if you're a fan of the Star Trek franchise... The Malia cult leaves an infected carrier covertly possessed even though he or she infects others (also through the RQ-rules mechanic of covert possession). This suggests that new disease spirits spawn somehow, or that colonies of microorganisms in the host multiply and transfer. They might disagree about the exact nature of the disembodied entity, and there might be purely sorcerous essence diseases (infected ideas or memes?). There are divine agents of retribution that behave very much like diseases or STDs, like Orlanth's impests. I assumed that the spirit spawns new ones which then grow in the new host body. As one would observe in a bacterial infection. If it gets expelled from the body, and presumably rejoins its source deep in the spirit plane. I'll have to read up whether overcoming a passively possessing disease spirit may keep the infection down without worshipping Malia to avoid the symptoms. Taking the materialist view often doesn't help much there, either.

The goat-herding Zarkosites are still around in the former blank lands of Jarst and Garsting. They have ceased to be a military factor in the region, and have been conquered by horse nomads or Dara Happans alternatingly. They probably share Gerendetho with the Kostaddi folk (and the Sable riders of the Hungry Plateau) and worship deities of sky and light behooving their lesser station. In the Anaxial myth, they are even more civilized than the Darsenite second disembarkers. A bit ironically, they must have been kin to the Starlight Wanderer ancestors of the charioteers of Kargzant from whom the Veshtargos (Arkos or Argos in their name) and possibly the Hirenmador were descended. There don't appear to be domestic goats upriver of the Elf Sea, but otherwise everywhere in the Arcos lowlands (including the tributary valleys). Balazar has the eubuck instead, an taboo/sacred antelope rather than a goat (but those differences are extremely gradual). Gerendetho (Earth Walker and goat god) is sufficiently antelope-affine to be accepted as a husband of Eiritha. There will be chamois or ibex in or along the Rockwood Mountains, both really just varieties of wild goats. Just not domestic.

Taken over from the slavery thread: I know it's my hobby horse lately but doesn't Lodrilela also die at roughly this moment? They might provide reproductive technology whereas the theoretically immortal in-caste Tadeniti could well have become something else. If you mean Mt. Ladaral on the edge of Danmalastan, presumably at Sog City, I am not quite sure when this victory of the riverine seas over the fire mountain took place. It certainly repeated itself at Mt. Turos (nowadays Lake Oronin), and probably was Waertagi magic in both cases. Looking at the geological activity in the region, maybe the explosions of Mt. Ladaral ("Laddy") and Mt. Turos were required for the Mostali raising of the Nidan Range, dividing the Kachisti lands and further thwarting their opposition to the Vadeli slave revolt. (And writing this, I could have remained over in the slavery thread...) Ironically the most detailed look at skin color goes with the "small SIZ / little Westerners" material. I'll track it down first chance I get. This is the era when there were "Naga" or "Nogi" in the gene pool as well as blues and "greens" who may or may not be Waertagi and/or Menenites, not part of the formal four-part society but still participating in various iterations of the community of Malkion. The Waertagi apparently inherit their green tan from Jeleka, who is (IMO wrongly) described in the Guide (p.465) as a Ludoch mermaid. The father is Malkion the Seer, not the Founder - both evidently Fourth Action aspects of Malkion. The six tribes of Danmalastan named after the sons Kadenit (the builder), Tadenit (the scribe), Waertag (the sailor), Kachast (the speaker), Enroval (the philosopher) and Viymorn (the explorer) don't appear in the Brithos texts, except for the Waertagi. Viymorn is named as father (or at least ancestor or chief) of Vadel. Vadel and Zzabur cooperate at first with the Energy Prison, copied from the Iron Energy Prison Vadel had borrowed/rented from the Mostali of Thakarn. When the Mostali send an army of constructs to recover all the Energy Prison copies, Horal sets out to clear Danmalastan of these dwarf constructs and their mostali handlers. There are two sons of Malkion mentioned in the genealogies in Hrestol's Saga, Horal (ancestor of the people of Horalwal, who also are descendants of Menena and who are the least orthodox of the Brithini) and Holan (ancestor of the Sword-wielder and leader of the Warrior Caste). And Horal is shown as the oldest brother of Talar and Zzabur, while Holan the Sword-wielder is shown as the youngest. I have seen "Holar" for the warrior caste ancestor, too. Even more apocryphal from Hrestol's Saga All male descendants of Horal of Horalwal and Menena are Talar caste members (or ascended demigods): Duke Antalos (father-in-law to Hrestol) and Ordelam (son of Antalos' brother Yingar, who had become Malkion's winged messenger). The Brithos episode of Hrestol's Saga mentions as an aside how Horal had been chained by Zzabur in an earlier dispute, but had been freed by Menena and taken settlement in the northern part of Brithos. Possibly after Horal had cleaned up the Mostali mess that resulted from Zzabur's cooperation with Vadel and the copied Energy Prison artifacts. Lodril's Mountain should have been at Sog City. If you part the Inner World maps along the diagonals, the Neliomi coast and Sog lie a bit too far to the east, but that may be just a slight distortion. Or there is substance to the story that a chunk of Fronela has remained missing after the Thaw, or possibly after the Great Darkness. (I was told this more than twenty years ago, and it was discussed on the digest. Any hints to this in other sources?) Lammy or Lhankor Mhy obviously is known to the Malkioni, and as a False God (or aberrant Erasanchula) rather than as a tribal Founder. Still, the pairings of Tadenit/Lhankor Mhy and Kachast/Issaries are quite persuasive. With Waertag and his people well known and ditto for Viymorn and Vadel, this leaves Kadenit the Builder and Enroval the magician. There is no warrior among these six tribes, though, and while Kachast may be trader as well as speaker (and therefore a talar predecessor), the Kachasti (or at least their magicians) are one of the blue peoples candidates encountered as troublesome by the Pelandans. (The riverine Waertagi have been confirmed, and blue Vadeli are likely after the rising of the Nidan Mountains, and probably behind YarGan. That there were wars between the Blue People may have remained largely unnoticed by the suppressed Pelandans.) Most Malkioni authors probably don't know because Zzabur doesn't want to tell (or anyone to remember). At the Dawn, Zzabur is the only non-divine child of Malkion in Brithos. A summoning of Menena leads to Zzabur's retreat from all worldly affairs, leaving his only son/child Kaldes in charge of the caste. The context in Hrestol's Saga and its genealogies suggests that most pre-Dawn Malkioni are not direct descendants of the Caste founders, even though they clearly share their hereditary status. The separate nature of the Providers (Malkion the Founder's dark-skinned children of the land goddess/mountain nymph Kala) suggest an adoption of a numerous folk through this marriage rather than Malkion as the physical ancestor of all of these, and probably likewise with the Six Tribes.

IMO the centaurs will worship Grazer deities. The Pain Centaurs of Remakerela were stitched from captive horse folk and their horses, IMO. Yes, the Pure Horse Folk of Prax were allies of the EWF, but they would have had their share of wild bachelors raiding the EWF nonetheless, and if these were captured, they might have been enslaved, and bought up by the Remakers. Ironhoof is their demigod ruler, not always present in Beast Valley, but will be summoned in times of big wars. He is a son of Yelm Kargzant. Kero Fin or her daughter Tara, Lady of the Wild, is the mistress of fertility for both their herds of cattle (shared with the Minotaurs, who have an additional use for them) and the wild beasts of prey they hunt. Golden Bow (Dastal the Hunter) or a javelineer deity are likely to be both warrior and hunter occupational cults. Do the centaurs use couched lances, or do they have stick swords similar to the Wind Children? I don't see them using shields to avoid missiles, too much of their bodies remains unprotected, so they probably will go for the extra damage of long-shafted two-handed weapons. Full time warriors will be rare, most of their warriors will be hunters or herders. Yelmalio might be an option for warriors but is problematic when looking at their (and their neighbors in Vanntar) history, but also Storm Bull (shared with the Minotaurs) and possibly Humakt (shared with the Durulz). There will be a few full time centaur crafters, and I think that their craftsmanship will be highly sought after not just by fellow beastmen but also by the humans in their neighborhood. Other rare specialisations will be Issaries traders, Drogarsi skalds and Skovari jugglers (through Donandar), and possibly tamers (of dogs, manticores etc) and falconers. The Arachne Solara rites are tied in with the worship of the Wilderness and the Land (Lady of the Wild, Kero Fin) at Wild Temple. Without eight-legged effigies, who can decide whether a dyonysian rite is dedicated to Tara or to Arachne Solara?

To answer the original post, there is no upper limit to the number of cults or deities if you include subcults or weird sects worshipping only an aspect of a deity. Quite a lot of deities have inherited deeds (i.e. magical feats) of other deities that vanished in the Gods War, or even deities whose cults became minor and then were adopted by the bigger cult. There is Zolan Zubar, described in Heortling Mythology as a spirit society within the Heortling Kolating shamanic tradition, but in the Dawn Age (or even earlier) this was the Storm and Darkness protector of Varzor Kitor, the first human disciple/adoptee of the Only Old One. The Heortling spirit tradition doesn't practice necromancy, but there might be something like it with a focus on undead. The cult later was replaced (and presumably taken over) by the Troll Berserk God. Zolan Zubar was quite violent, too, so maybe not within your player's requirements. It is possible that he was the personification of Zorak Zoran's berserking, much like Gadblad the Leadsmith is the personification of Zorak Zoran's fire power (won at the Hill of Gold). His mastery of Death and the Undead doesn't have a subcult. There is a Dara Happan underworld ruler, Deshkorgos (an enemy god acknowledged by the Dara Happans) whose description matches aspects of Zorak Zoran and possibly Nontraya (discussed below). The Necropolis of Esrolia is a bad place to raise undead. The Esrolians have Nontraya as their main demonic foe in the Gods War, despite the waves of Chaos demons that Kimantor (the Only Old One) fights off after his marriage to the Queen of Nochet, before he and his wife's people retreat into the Obsidian Palace. But that was after Nontraya, Lord of the Walking Dead, emerged from the Blackmaw, got fooled by Ernalda's death-like sleep and burial, and got fooled again by Tada burying Eiritha under her hill range. Some people say that Nontraya is Vivamort, but I don't see any necessity to mix the very specific Sword Story and Wakboth encounter myth of Vivamort with the Hell guardian who broke out of his nether realm when there were more dead folk on the surface than in his own dominion. Part of the problem in the Gods War was that people died, but then stopped following the westward trail and down to Daka Fal's Halls of Justice. Even though dead, they stuck around, in decomposing bodies, but demanding their shares in food etc. without doing their share in the burdens of life. When Nontraya emerged from his nether realm, he gave those dead ones a purpose, and led them demanding tribute and sacrifice through the lands of the Living. It took the Silver Age heroes like Heort or Vogarth Strongman to send the dead souls off onto the westward path and to restrain the dead bodies to their graves. There is no indication that Nontraya was required to activate the dead to follow him, but his magic certainly gave (and gives) him sovereignty over animated dead bodies. Animating them in the first place might be some other deity's or sorcerer's work. While Maran and Babeester Gor both are Dark Earth cults with Death association, neither has any sympathy for undead - they (or aspects of them) were among the foes of Nontraya. Neither does Ty Kora Tek appear to be associated with perishable undead, although the cult might have magics to create animated mummies as guardians of cemeteries. The Rakshasa guardian demons associated with Earth Temples will have cousins used for the necropoles, possibly indistinguishable from gargoyles to the casual observer. Delecti heroquested for his power to animate the fallen of battle (or sacrifice), stealing the ability from a feat or aspect of Zorak Zoran. Magical economy of Necromancy: From your reaction to the Zorak Zoran rune spell, it looks like you find the cost of the Create Zombie spell acceptable. I would rule that the two rune points activating a zombie remain occupied until the Zombie gets destroyed, unless bound to guard a shrine or temple. The spell is limited to recently slain (or otherwise deceased) corpses - possibly while the body could still be resurrected? Definitely no grave robbing a battlefield (say the grisly remains encountered by Germanicus when he arrived at the site of the Varus battle eight years later) - that would be a different kind of curse. (And yet different from the cursed undead of the Paths of the Dead in the Lord of the Ring.) There is no statement about the effect a zombie created from a deceased body may have on the soul's progress in the Court of the Dead - there is a possibility that the former owner's soul is stuck waiting for judgement while his body is shambling about. You should work this detail out for your cult. @simonh's objection to the acceptance of necromancy is correct. If your necromancer animates the corpse of someone with kin nearby, that kin will seek to free the body from its curse and to take revenge on the necromancer. The corpses of distant foes are comparatively safe in this regard. While no Orlanthi feels comfortable around walking dead, they don't protest much of those bodies are recognizable as Praxian raiders, Grazer raiders or notorious outlaws beyond the pale of politically outlawed rebels. Lunar corpses might even be paraded to them (as long as they aren't errant kinsfolk - you never know...). Humakti will react badly to the necromancer, to say the least. Their corpses don't succumb to the Create Zombie rite, either, which makes them destructive without providing replacement corpses. These cultists are pretty omnipresent as bodyguards of Orlanthi nobility or as caravan guards, making it all but impossible for your necromancer's undead pets to operate openly in Orlanthi society. Your necromancer should study the hospitality laws, because those may be all that stand between him and zealot Humakti attacking him. Daka Fal cultists might be hostile even when no kin of theirs is affected - the ancestor worshippers prefer a clean processing of all dead souls and spirits. Cremated bodies usually aren't eligible for zombiefication, but only somewhat fried ones from impromptu funeral pyres might just offer some resistance to the spell. Properly embalmed and buried corpses (however fresh) may offer the success of the embalming or burial rite as a resistance, too, but they keep much better, too.

The Gods Wall identifications of the Pelorians build on the Ark myth and try to explain all (real) humans as descendants of the people who sailed with Anaxial, hence the weird claims for Uldoviham as ancestor of the Elvtios Lodrili, Darsenites, and Uryardan Zarkosites. Glorious ReAscent claims that the Ram People were descendants of Uldoviham (p.25). They don't even agree with the Darjiini ancestry (or they work Yestendos the boater, and Bethegus the blue boater of the west into the picture) and don't really explain the Rinliddi/Kestinaddi bird folk, either. (Kestinendos claims an unbroken male heritage from Murharzarm, but his ancestors don't appear to have been on the Ark.) Survivors of the Flood could have come from Saird, or they could have come from the far side of the standing wave (going by the name Aroka Sea) separating Kerofinela and Saird from Genert's Garden, Prax and the Elder Wilds foothills of the eastern Rockwood giant mountains. The Votanki may have been flood survivors on the far side, sharing their Foundchild and Brother Dog cults with the people of Genert's Garden possibly as early as the Dara Happan glaciation. (The original Ice Age animated movie might as well be part of Foundchild's myth...)

The harvest of the Tadeniti falls into the right frame of Godswar events. Mostal had been silenced at the Birth of Umath, as the clockwork was lifted off the axis, and the waters reached to the top side of the Earth, with the rivers invading. Attrition of the demigod Mostali was high, and reproduction or replacement rate was low as Mostal's absence had thrown a spanner into the workings of the crucibles. It isn't clear how many Danmalastani were converted by the Vadeli, or whether they just bred new ones on their women while working the males to death. Women were scarce in Danmalastan, even though the births produced an almost balanced ratio of males and females after Malkion had come. Revealed Mythologies p.26 Which is strange, as their mothers would have been assigned the caste of their fathers? Only some men were allowed to marry (i.e. propagate). By removing the women from the other Danmalastan tribes and reserving them for themselves, the Vadeli may easily have outbred the Brithini. I don't think that they bred with slave women taken from the Artmali or Doraddi. Their Danmalastani slaves might have, though. We don't learn what human racial type we find on Surface Slon slave population. It could be mixed Artmali and Doraddi with an admixture of Thinobutans and Warerans if they received these slaves from the Vadeli empire, and might include Vadeli refugees among their ancestors, too. We don't know how fast the Breaking of the World flooded Endernef. A bit off topic, but on the subject of Brithini birth order: I don't get the impression anywhere that the sons of Malkion had any children outside of their own caste. The Dromal caste explicitely is of darker hue due to their earth goddess ancestry. The other four castes descended from Phlia come as tinted pale - yellow, blue (twice, different hues for Zzabur and Menena?) and red. Sons' caste by birth order works for the Phlian castes, but I don't think that the Dromal caste was involved in this. Both known sons of Froalar were of the Talar caste.

I am far from convinced that the victims of the Corn Rite sacrifices receive the Peaceful Cut treatment, either. The difference being that these sacrifices were "not us", whereas the mass sacrifice of Esrolian mandom is sacrifice of "us," significantly less than half a step away from kin-slaying.

That was the general assumption after reading about them in the Glorantha Book of Genertela Box, yes, but consider the Closing that separated the elf forests and the mostali colonies just as efficiently as it did any human communication. Restricting their activities to Umathela and Fonrit wouldn't make their achievement any less impressive. It is quite clear that Jrustela before the drowning was not afflicted by any such activities, whereas the breakdown of the God Learners in Umathela and Fonrit predates that cataclysm by about a century. The Umathelan tsunamis were much smaller and more targeted than what befell Jrustela, Seshnela and Slontos. I think that Halwal's activities did a lot to minimize such damage in Fronela and Ralios, and it might have saved Tanisor, too.

Re-constituted Tadeniti? Those flayers of living foes had been harvested early in the Vadeli wars. The Dwarf Mine refugees from the Dragonkill of 1120 have re-surfaced in Dragon Pass more than two centuries later (as enslaved personnel and cult of the cannons and the Alchemical Transformer) recognizably as human slaves and not in any way resembling the dwarves they serve. Neither do the Slon humans show any adaptation of Clay Mostali traits. The humans and their cave oxen are as low in rank in mostali society as are nilmergs, gremlins and jolanti.

Yes. IMO this refers to the Jrusteli traders who entered the city during the reign of Joraz Kyrem and took up their role in the artifact trade again. The map describes the situation of 1200, and officially, all God Learners are dead. Logically, the inhabitants cannot be God Learners, but must be Jrusteli descendants. That would make them excellent leaders to follow both during the nomad occupation (17 foes of Waha) and during the troll occupation afterwards, having survived 800 Paragua destroys Robcradle, sets up his wall. 809 Praxians destroy Adari, young Pavis flees to Dragon Pass. In 830, Pavis rides the Faceless Statue to Paragua's enclosure and engages Waha with it and his EWF buddies (including Sun Domers) engaging the beast riders, while his Pure Horse allies overcome the giants. If there were any Jrusteli hiding out in tunnels (civilians and defectors from that battle), they survived 30 years of hostile occupation without being noticed. This kind of magic would become common knowledge to the Pavisites after the nomads had breached the wall, and probably included into Pavis's grimoire by his priesthood. The giants do their worst and the surrounded Jrusteli get slaughtered to a man. Civilians and a small guard might have remained hidden, but what follows are giants systematically stomping down all edifices in the Robcradle enclosure, pounding the rubble into the ground. The equivalent of a strength 10 earthquake during carpet bombing with house busters. The text which follows works (just as) fine if you place it in the time of the 17 Foes of Waha: Doing this in the 17 Foes of Waha period also offers them the opportunity to prey on Praxian beasts and riders. Human meat is good for the magical food requirements, but herd beasts provide better calories, as per the 2018 igNobel prize. 30 years in collapsed tunnels... if there were chaotic survivors, my money would be on vampires or other such "noble undead" rather than ogres. I am not going to take this away from you, I just think that postponing that process by 3 centuries or so produces the same Big Rubble. I'll give you undead. You are helping me make my point. If there had been survivors of Robcradle, they would have been mentioned, wouldn't they? Flintnail dwarves are as eligible as ogre snack as are humans, trolls or broos. Ogres who subsided on a diet of trollkin and broo might end up less intelligent and more chaotic than your normal breed, but might recover now, or have a bright master caste and brute muscle to use up. No such encounter in the temple history for the priests... and believe me, Cyrilius Harmonious would have found any such precedent to support his cause to marry the Lunar pantheon into the city. Keep telling that story to the tricksters or the Lunars (so that they have expeditions into those rumored tunnels for God Learner secrets and get eaten by their fellow chaos worshippers). Safe and sound in their fortifications. The broos will prey on the Praxians between the surviving urban population, and be regulated by them, now the zebra riders had to flee the city. In 830, there were no living Jrusteli citizens of Robcradle to be encountered in semi-collapsed tunnels on Sorcerer's Island. Undead, perhaps, but not yet re-activated. There are broos and ogres in the Rubble. The Jrusteli descendants did turn into monsters, or summoned and dominate them to defend against the Beast Riders. Being located on an island makes them pretty immune to beast rider raids as beast riders cannot swim. Their beasts can, or can wade the river in shallower stretches, but for their riders that is an experience like a passage through the Underworld.

If he was a western sorcerer (which has a fairly good likelihood) and Malkioni, one could have called him a God Learner since the Malkioni drew on the Abiding Book, one of the earliest results of God Learning. Whether Delecti belonged to any of those specialist schools, and which of those, is another question. We cannot discern whether he was a Makanist, Malkioneranist, or whether he was rather agnostic (which is quite likely for him to take up business in Dragon Pass). Apparently it was a pre-existing path that they explored and then usurped. The same path is cited for Isgangdrang's short-cut teachings in Heortling Mythology p.138. They (and Jogrampur, Worlath and Humct in Umathela) are the lasting successes of the God Learner meddling with theist cults (other than stolen artifacts).

I find references to the Gift Carriers only in the Umathelan context - nothing of this for the drowned lands of Seshnela, Jrustela or Slontos, or for the lands previously liberated by Halwal (Fronela and Ralios).

I think that the main workload for heroquesting fell onto the (possibly monastic) Men-of-All and the monastic wizards. Makanism is just a reform of Hrestolism, and the Seshnegi kingdom inherited by Talar had had Man-of-All kings for centuries, so that there was no need to bring any non-Man-of-All Talar types along unless that would provide a special identity advantage. Master artificers or even farmers would have been encouraged to become Men-of-All to add some magic to their abilities, and to be able to interact better with the wizards. Master hunters or scouts would be recruited for heroquesting, and probably put through a heroquester basecamp which they would leave as men-of-all. Outsider companions would receive basic training to act as heroquesting sepoys. On the whole, I think that most of the infamous God Learner quests were done as conquests, with quite a number of spare troops taken along to fight through where they didn't know or care about the correct maneuver. Think of commando raids.

Yes, although there is a difference between asking for volunteer individuals and between being put forward by lot (if you're lucky) or by bad will (as in "being the most inconvenient person to have around"). The Crimson Bat episode in Sartar Companion makes it very clear how sacrificing the souls of the victims is deemed wrong. Although this is a case of "Follow Chosen Leaders" rather than being commanded out of the blue to go and get sacrificed. Any lost hope rearguard comes with some amount of immortal glory. There is a lot of magic to be had from death rites, and the usual way is to use your enemies' lives, as in the magical mortar of Wolfblood in Ralios. Hon-eel's corn rites aren't uncontroversial, although Tarsh probably had much less problems with them given the dominant role of the Shaker's Temple which has been making use of blood spilled in battle for fertility purposes since time immemoriable. What I am saying is that the Esrolian use of males as sacrifices by command of their Grandmothers makes them no different from say special breeds of white/red/black bulls especially kept for sacrifices. Pampered and possibly even slightly honored chattel for the sacrifice, without any regard to the individual. Most commonly, Glorantha is approached through Arachne Solara. Of course, there may be other aspects or avatars of Glorantha about. Imarja is a very localized phenomenon, basically unknown or unobserved outside of the vicinity of Nochet (i.e. Esrolia). Her special appearance is extremely uncommon, too. Although we might take a look at Surensliba in Darjiin, and her lesser reflections in Arir and Vonlath. The divine feminine is as often connected to Uleria or her (parthenogenetic) daughters, like Phlia (the wife of Malkion, goddess of love, mother of Talar, Zzabur and Horal, and presumably Menena). In the East, Yothenara or Allgiver fills this role. I think it is as possible to enter a mystical path from the Spirit World as it is from the Mundane World. It would likewise lead through destructive/purifying environments that either need to eat away impure parts or otherwise be integrated into the Greater Self to balance those. I think that Imarja used to be the local analog of the heron goddess of Darjiin which is of course a (slightly weird) embodiment of the female principle. Similar to Sedenya. Possibly more than just similar. The Grandmothers quite evidently act like a bunch of self-declared steadholders of this principle. If Imarja is the object of a mystical path (and I think that likely to be the case, similar if not identical to Sedenya), then their interpretations of this principle is as flawed as the Third Council path to draconic wisdom.