Joerg

That may be a little harsh. The Seven Explorers of Eradinthanos - cited as the first early "God Learners" - were sorcerers who applied passages from the Abiding Book into their spell research, which then produced the magic that burnt down much of the Vralos forest just three years after the revelation of the Abiding Book. They did not rampage through the stories grabbing whatever artifacts they might have happened upon. Instead they manipulated the material reality with their spells, in the best (or worst) tradition of sorcery. The discovery of myths as source of artifacts and other exotic magic only followed the fall of the Stygian Autarchy and the theft of that magical landscapes introductory book to the Hero Planes.

The context of my statement was that the Sun Dome temples do field hoplites. Goldedge is a special case as it is a combination of a city and a Sun Dome Temple. Vanntar is a Sun Dome Temple first and only in a very secondary role a city. Cities like Furthest, Alda-chur, Bagnot, Jonstown or Boldhome don't field any native phalanxes. Some of these places still have sizable numbers of Yelmalians. The main Nochet trade passing through Beast Valley is on the river boats piloted by durulz. I don't see any indication of overland traffic through Beast Valley. Road traffic goes either through the Grazelands or through Volsaxiland to the royal highway to Wilmskirk, passing east of Sun Dome County. "astride a trade route" is a bit of a hyperbole. A half-strength regiment with family members and some support infrastructure would provide enough population to name a quarter in Nochet, even if the majority of the templars may be absent from the city on various duties.

Peloria clearly had white queens in Naveria's days before Brighteye usurped rulership and instituted a strict patriarchy. The Jonstown Compendium in RQ Companion mentions Molandro as Yelm's second opponent on becoming Emperor, IMO the previous Earth King of Peloria. All of this makes it rather clear to me that the Golden Age of Yelm started with rebellion and strife, and wasn't all that harmonious as the God Learner maps or Dara Happan texts on the Godtime want us make believe, and neither was what went on before all "Green Age". Entekosiad is full of chthonic ancient humans - descended from trees, made by deities, descended from deities (goddesses), etc. If you look at the earliest God Learner maps, the "four tribes of Mountain People" migrating into the cardinal directions may all be regarded as Earth people. Take for instance the Malkioni tribes. While the forefathers of the Malkioni tribes trace their descent to the Citadel of Logic, most of them (with the exception of Waertag, who turned to the Sea aka Sramak's River) took goddesses of the land or of Fertility as wives to propagate their peoples. So did Malkion when he fathered the five castes. Likewise, the Vadeli as aboriginal people of Brithos are an Earth- or at least Land-descended people. Early Ralios was quite similar to Genert's Garden, though without a strong presence of Genert. Instead, Flamal at Hrelar Amali towered over the land. The Likiti are the autochthonic people of Sesnhela. The Pendali are the hybrid descendants of the Basmoli and the Likiti, IMO, with Likiti providing the majority of the urban population of Seshnela in the Gray Age, under Pendali protection against the lingering after-effects of the Greater Darkness. We don't have much information on the earlier population of Seshnela. It may have been on the southern outskirts of the Kachisti-and-autochthonic culture of western Genertela prior to the Nidan orogenesis and the Vadeli rebellion. While not the city builders of Danmalastan, the Kachisti probably communicated the concept of cities, and together with old chthonic groups may have been instrumental in the formation of all those (Serpent Brotherhood) Beast Folk temple cities dotting the Greatwood of Ralios and adjacent territories. Ernaldela was the name for the lands north of the Spike. The Solkathi flood drowned much of it, but when it dried away, the sea bottom became land again. Orlanth's Downland Migration may have been only the latest to pass through if you look at all those beast herd invasions in the early Vingkotling Age. The Durevings are a combination of Spike humans following Orlanth and autochthonic (woman)folk already present in the region, and apparently also already in contact with Veskarthan and his lowfire offspring. Thunder Rebels names oodles of Ernalda's handmaidens, all of them with lowfire husbands, who were brought into the Storm Tribe, too, along with Mahome. Elmal established the uxorilocal outsider marriage, and was the first non-Storm kin to marry into the Storm Tribe. Prior to Orlanth liberating Ernalda from servitude with the Bad Emperor, lots of outsiders married into the earth tribe of Ernaldela.

The whole concept of Malkioni liturgists may have gone into non-canonical territory (which is admittedly ironic for a profession that consists of interpreting canon...). I still feel that orthodox Malkioni (Hrestoli or Rokari) should have something like Battle Magic in a sorcerous way rather than from spirits.

My point was rather that there is a population of Orlanth and Barntar initiates which make up 85% of the male initiates among the Orlanthi. Most of the time they attend the services interchangeably. When you become a godtalker, you will probably have to make clear whether you're Barntar or one of the Orlanth aspects. When under oppressive rule (like e.g. the Vendref), people worship Barntar (until they rebel). I blame Palangio being the Warlord of the Bright Empire for both the Janubian and the Ralian presence, although the Ralian temple(s?)s may also have been established by the EWF. Nochet attracts all manner of folk that don't belong there, including Vadeli, Kralori, Fonritians... and Yelmalians do have a mercenary branch, and will have mercenary halls with their lesser temples everywhere, even where they aren't that popular. Perhaps especially there. I made my suggestions for tribal Yelmalians already during the first Elmal-Yelmalio debate, and I haven't seen much to alter my position. Neither rural clans nor Kerofinelan cities really field trained hoplites. The wealthiest tribal Yelmalians may own the equivalent of a set of hoplite armor, but they will be trained as champions or bodyguards rather than as phalangists. It is pretty clear that they do - there are even some places which still follow the Adjustment to normal Heortling more or less equal roles, patrilocal marriages etc. in southern Esrolia. The Sartarite houses in northeastern Nochet don't normally practice matrilocal marriages among themselves, although they may do so reciprocally when marrying to local Esrolian houses. I see a lot of the same tone that Zero had with Barna Zak, the werewolf resident of the Nochet underworld.

Sorry to disagree, but Goldedge was founded as a Sun Dome Temple, and the Dinacoli and Princeros probably already were Yelmalians when entering Dragon Pass from the north. Tribal sun worshippers are most likely in these two northern tribes and in the Colymar (Runegate). Tribal Yelmalians are rare south of the Creek, and moderately normal north of it. Elmali dominate south of the Creek and in Kethaela, except for Sun Dome County. There is the "problem" of the interchangeability of Orlanth and Barntar, too. Ernalda, Esrola, the other five sisters of Esrolia are another bunch of unclear relationships. Yeah. All those Barntar initiates...

Note that Saird is the place of origin for the Elmal worship among the Orlanthi, too, with the Berennethtelli (and presumably the Orgorvaltes) bringing Elmal into the pantheon of the Vingkotlings. Yelmalio or a cognate thereof is prominent further north, too. Palangio brought the cult of Daysenerus from Rindliddi, where a troll-fighting cult has its merits if you live north of the Arcos River, next to the Blue Moon plateau. This brought the Vrok Hawk into the religious imagery of the Yelmalians. There is no data on vrok hawks playing any role in Elmali imagery. Interesting enough, the Yelmalio worshippers concentrate on the western half of the Far Place, with more traditional Orlanthi living in the direct neighborhood of the Indigo Mountains and Skyfall Lake. It doesn't really look like troll-fighting was high on the solar tribes' and clans' agenda. So you expect to find Elmali in Saird next to Sun Dome Temples? Monrogh unified a majority of the disgruntled Elmali in Old Sartar. His influence did not extend into Heortland or Esrolia. King of Dragon Pass plays in Quivinela from 1330-1492, whereas Monrogh rallied the disgruntled Elmali around 1550 to his revelation of the Many Suns. It is possible that two generations of greater peace in Sartar eroded away the importance of the guardians of the stead/tula while still providing the "villains" in all the quests and rites which require a hostile representant of the sun. Much prestige and influence was lost, and the sun worshippers were unhappy enough that violence was about to break out. Tarkalor and Monrogh funneled that away from interior conflict in Sartar towards a campaign of conquest of Vanntar and liberation of Whitewall from Kitori domination. There are lists of deities worshipped in Nochet, where Elmal may be known as Harono when Harono is not identified with Yelm (inferred from Esrolia, Land of 10k Goddesses), and Thunder Rebels/Storm Tribe inform us that Esrolia has rites wherein Elmal and Heler compete for the role of the year husband of Esrola. Yelmalio is regarded as a continuation of Palangio's cult, and is far from popular in Esrolia, which means that there is little to suggest that Monrogh's conversion may have caught momentum in Esrolia. The Orlanthi west of Esrolia are mostly known for their raiders, although the Ditali get raided from both sides, and may be more strongly invested in defensive warfare, something the Elmali have a mythical advantage for. Heortland is where the folk who settled Runegate and much of the rest of Old Sartar came from. The changes wrought by Belintar may have affected Elmali less adversely than Orlanth-worshippers, which makes a good case for a pre-Monrogh prevalence of Elmali in the clans there. South of Jansholm, the likelihood of meeting trolls in the wild is rather low. Dealing with the scorpionfolk of the Queendom of Jab doesn't really call for close order hoplites, but may have a good use for horsemen. What is the Egyptian name of the sun and its deity? Did the Greek look towards Helios or towards Apollo? The Orlanthi call the sun Yelm much of the time, as a conquered and tentatively befriended enemy. When they pray for solar blessings, they pray to Elmal, the friendly sun, the foreigner who has become kin. I don't know what exactly Lightfore was up to in the Greater Darkness and the Gray Age. There was Kargzant running around unbridled, but I have no idea whether this was what Lightfore did. The Perfect Sky document doesn't really give any conclusive information.

Like I said earlier, I think that the Sun Swirl may have redistributed power from the smaller to the bigger one, shrinking the smaller sun(s). The Darkness suns may well have been twice to four times as bright each. I think that this is true for the majority of the Gloranthan planets - brighter and a lot more colorful than the ones we see in our night sky (when we have the rare chance to see one free of light pollution).

You are aware of the POW cost of 21 additional rune points, in addition to the point of POW you need to start the Enchantment? You might have to settle for a 40 point Swallow matrix... The object for that matrix should obviously be a golden or maybe leaden tooth or similar artificial dentition. If Jaldon had one, why not your Trickster? And in the best tradition by Tricksters all over the world, why don't you bet another trickster he couldn't make one by this method, and let him do all the hard work?

That would mean that a clear Gloranthan night would be at least as well-lit as any RW night even without the glow of the Red Moon in the sky. I recall to have read that the rise of the Red Moon was a major issue for the uz because it made their night considerably brighter. If Lightfore already has that much strength, the Red Moon wouldn't matter much. MRQ Glorantha book stated that the night would be significantly darker, like new moon nights. Not a canonical source, but there is a logic to that. In its "Planet and Deity" aspect, yes, much like Zaranistangi see Tolat as the red-bladed warrior, and Mastakos as the mother of their folk (while at the same time they know it as the homeland of their distant ancestors, where Loper beasts roam). It isn't just the Red Moon that is perceived in a number of different ways. The Red Moon is special because (IMO) it is immaterial beyond the Crown Mountains. The Sunburn used by the Char-un to clear Erigia from trees and aldryami may have come from Kargzant or from Yelm.

Apart from the perspective in the last image I was rather thinking of the Dragonspine hills or similar draconic carcasses left lying around in Gloranthan geography, maybe the Lead Hills blocking the path of the Creekstream River. Another site with similar features might be the Crater in the Lunar Empire, though a lot higher.

That's not quite the case as three of those are actually the sun and one of them is a separate planet. Note that "planet" doesn't necessarily mean "a ball of rock or gas orbiting", but rather "a celestial body giving off light that is not affixed to the rotating sky dome populated by the stars". In the story of Umath invading the Sky, the northeastern planet Makestina ceases to be an entity separate from Yelm. Two flames become one. in the Sun Swirl, two small suns circle one another, and leave one separate planet (Lightfore) and the sun. Both have the same essence, only different amounts of that. A bit like the prehistory of our real world Earth and Moon formed by the collision of two rocky bodies. It is possible (though undocumented) that Elmal's Cold Sun resting on (or above) Mt. Kerofin rose to join the Sun at the day of the first Dawn. Lightfore is (or has become) the antipode of the Sun. It is the most sun-like of the planets. Unlike the sun, the rising and setting of Lightfore are not accompanied by the two jumpers of the gates of the Sunpath. I suppose that Lightfore is about as bright as Venus, the morning star, which is still visible when (in RQ higher latitudes) the dark of the night gives way to the blue of the dusk. In terms of dusk and dawn, Glorantha is a tropical world. The sunpath goes more or less directly overhead, and not in the "southpath" people in the northern hemisphere are used to follow the sun. Theya and Rausa cause a diffuse reddish or orange glow around sunrise or sunset. The sun itself adopts and intensifies that glow when rising and setting. Possibly the Sun and the Jumper merge for the transition. (The color lore of the Gloranthans is likely better developed than that of Homer (whose writings show an intriguing lack of the concept of blue as a color). Without the linguistic concept of blue-ness, apparently there is no conception of blue-ness, either, as has been shown with color comparison tests performed with people of the Himba tribe (whose language has three different terms for green, which gives them a very acute ability to discern between shades of green, but hardly any ability to discern sky blue from certain shades of green). The Lunar color scheme includes blue, and the Malkioni caste colors do include blue, too. Thus, the colors of the celestial body and the sky background should be similar to mainstream modern human perception.) Planets are known as balls of rocky or even watery surface in Glorantha, at least the modern ones. Mastakos and Veldara were inhabited by blue-skinned humans who sailed (or teleported) down to the Surface World. The Boat Planet may manifest as the keel wave of the archetypal boat. I don't know whether anybody quested to visit Lightfore, and what exactly to expect. Conditions similar to Umiliath, the Fireberg, or Mt. Enmal deep south in Pamaltela? A forest of Fire Elves, formerly found around and below the Celestial Palace of the Spile? Which brings me to the role of Yelmalio that is overlooked when asking just about the human perspective of the cult. Green elf worship of the sun acknowledges Yelmalio. Brown elves and yellow elves share in his worship. Green elves don't get to see much of Lightfore, or any stars. Their circadian cycle is stronger than in humans, and nighttime is the time for resting. Brown elves on the other hand are awake for the entire growing seasons, day and night, and Yellow elves don't ever sleep. The Lightbringer missionaries were also called (or accompanied by) the Awakeners who returned the Brown Elves to Time. The Brown Elves are children of the Storm Age. They participated in the Gods War, led by Genert and Yelmalio (or Yamsur?) when Gore and Gash led their portion of the Uz refuges across the Surface World to Dagori Inkarth, but fell asleep collectively after Ernalda did in the Greater Darkness. I doubt that this elf-Sun God cooperation was limited to the western border of Genert's Garden. The expansion of the Yellow Elf forest into northern Pamaltela and attempts to expand further into the Veldt must have been spearheaded by a Halamalao, too (and pretty definitely not by Kendamalar, the sun god of the Veldt).

I see Lhankor Mhy as the survivor of the Tadeniti massacre. How this rhymes with his "son of Mostal" identification is a bit confusing, although I think that "son of Urtiam" might mean "son of the Celestial Mountain". I won't deny that the Vadeli had a valid grief against the Tadeniti, who either taught or inspired Zzabur to flay his enemies (Vadel and his tribal ancestor sons?) alive to write the secrets of magic on their skins. Oh, and his companion Goldentongue/Silvertongue is a Kachasti. There is one big difference between the Lhankoring method (relying on inspiration) and the Malkioni method of deductive logic. LM was the provider of data for the God Learners, but for the number crushing, they turned to devices that the Mostali claim were stolen or at least copied from them. That's also a back-track to Slontos, where the Entruli pig folk originated from. Entru and Mralot are the divine names of the boar, and Entra and Mralota of the sow. Nowadays, Hykimi (hsunchen) Mraloti inhabit northern Ramalia. I am fairly sure that the Entruli who fell under the rule of the Serpentbeast Brotherhood (led by the Pralori) weren't Hykimi, but rather Earth folk with a storm protector. Back in the days of the RQ-Daily, we brought up Mralonth, the Storm Boar. That may be a name for Orlanth, or a son of Orlanth, or just the Storm aspect of Entru (who was pointed out to be rather similar in consonants to Genert, and might also have been an aspect of the Earth King). Most Umathelan mountains are really far away from human habitation, and probably extremely dangerous to travel to in physical form. Mount Vedra, the birthplace of Desero, the (demigod) leader of the horde, lies on the border to Fonrit, again very far from most Umathelan Orlanthi habitation. Other than Kallima and parts of Kormarkan, no Orlanthi tribes have any holy mountain within range for their rites. Which leads me to the consideration that their storm god may not have that much of a mountain aspect, but something else. A lightning-torn tree may be the usual holy center of a tribe, and it is possible that they have a myth how a lightning striking a dryad's tree led to the birth of Orlanth (by whichever name they know him). Balumbasta raising the Fensi mountains is very much a parallel to Larnste sowing the Rockwoods, although the seed/growth meme of Genertela goes pretty much against the Doraddi hostility to tree-like growth. I think that the mountains are more the result of a feat of raw strength than they are poured out by fire. I don't see any hint of volcanism for the Tarmo Mountains. Balumbasta the Mountain Raiser was First and strongest of the Bomonoi, humanoid demigods or deities of fire, and not so much associated with volcanism. Even though Baraku is presented as the Pamaltelan version of Orlanth, I don't think that the horde is comparable to the almost urban Vingkotlings. These pastoral invaders are an earlier form of Storm worshippers, not that different from Storm Bull leading his people (two-legged and four-legged) down the Spike, or early Storm invaders into e.g. Pelanda. The Andam Horde or the bull riders of Charg are very similar to Desero's attack on the Artmali. There were no humans in Umathela after the Vadeli empire was flooded in the Breaking of the World. The earliest Orlanthi arrived shortly after the end of the Gbaji Wars, around 475, when the last of the riverine reptile folk called Lascerdans were exterminated by the aldryami. There was no Orlanthi presence prior to the Second Age. If there were any suvivors from Desero's horde, they might be found in Fonrit, but we don't see any pointers in this direction.

If you combine Swallow with Remove Head, do the people swallowed get teleported into the trickster's belly? In that case, give the Trickster a massive laxative before casting those spells... Perhaps a messy rebirth, but there are worse fates e.g. if the alternative is a dinner invitation with the Crimson Bat. On the other hand, I see a problem here. What Trickster could fail the temptation to start the Swallow with its own headless body?

Something like this would have been the letters we know from Bronze Age cuneiform. A bit like the old Fadabius dispatches. So why not start a thread here with such letters? Take campaign events, and let your adversaries or allies to the player characters report the mishap (of their not so esteemed colleagues/immediate superiors) to their far away superiors.

I don't see the necessity to limit the number of spells that can be activated in a strike rank for spell matrices. Each such spell matrix acts as its own magical entity. Of course, if I want three disrupts to go off simultaneously, I would need three disrupt matrices. These could draw on a joint pool of MP, and the trigger condition could also make them drain that pool for boosting the spell for penetration against Shield or Countermagic (or similar barrier magics). Adding Multispell would bundle those three Disruptions into a single location. That would be a way to overcome the limitations of Warding but requires rune point "refill" in worship ceremonies. (And I don't think that such worship refills could be included in a linked spell construction unless at a place of worship, and possibly only with a bound cult spirit in that linked set of enchantments that also qualifies as initiate tied to the linked complex.) You could produce a cascade of spells with the conditions that spell B gets triggered when spell A is cast from another condition. An argument could be made whether there is a delay between the activation of the trigger and the release of the spell commensurate to the magic points poured into that spell, whether for spell strength or spell boosting. A quick search didn't yield the rules for replenishing rune points in matrices. Does a character transfer/use up a rune point when activating one in the matrix, or does the matrix need to be taken through a worship (deity) service by the person refilling it?

The Mongoose material isn't "all wrong" because a lot of it was based on work by Greg (published in Revealed Mythology and The Middle Sea Empire), but there are concepts which have been abandoned, like the entire "church" approach to Malkionism. If you are looking for canon, the Mongoose publications aren't the best place. If you are looking for ideas and inspiration, you could do worse, but there are a number of blaant deviations from canon (even at the time of publication) in the material. That is based on the two Stafford Library books I mentioned above. The most official use of the term God Learner is the formation of the God Learner Collective in 845 ST in the timeline box on p.135. At least at this time the God Learners must have applied the name to themselves. They take credit for the Goddess Switch, though not for the side effects.

No. The technology predates the oldest bone finds of what is assumed to be modern humans in the region by 80k years, but the Moroccan finds of modern human remains push the formation of Homo Sapiens further back. It wasn't Homo heidelbergensis who made those tips, but at worst an intermediary form which had evolved the kind of shoulder anatomy that could do spear throwing contortions. Since our cousins, the Neandertals, don't appear to have used javelins, I don't expect their and our common ancestor to have done so. Yes. You can make a mediocre javelin shaft from suitable whole branches or trunks of wood, and it doesn't take that much balance to get a spear to fly straight for a few meters. It does take quite a bit experience with both the material and the spear-throwing techniqes to provide a balanced shaft, and even more so as the shafts got thinner and the throwing range got longer. A javelin suitable for an atlatl spearthrower does take as much care as does an arrow. That's a fallacy. A spear or a lance shaft may require more wood by volume and length, but it takes a different quality of wood. A missile shaft needs to swing equally throughout its length if you do more than point blank spearing. Hitting a target at 30 to 60 meters requires a lot of fine-tuning of the shaft, good fletching and excellent balance. Your one- or two-handed long spear just needs to be stout, the shaft doesn't have to be knotless. A javelin shaft had better be knotless.

Depends on the purity and original shape when deposited, I suppose. Since you can still dig up godbones which have been in the soil since before the Silver Age, Gloranthan bronze appears to be somewhat less prone to this form of corrosion. The question is whether this extends to cast bronze alloy refined from non-metallic (stone form) ores. Subject to strong corrosive substances like alchemists' or monsters' "acids", Gloranthan metals corrode (magically fast and complete). Gloranthan humans will doubtlessly have witnessed iron rust and slag created when shaping iron into weapons or armor, but other than the Third Eye Blue smiths won't have any idea how to reverse that process. That means that iron sold by the mostali of Seshnela will dwindle away over the centuries, as is proper for any dwarf gift.

You know, I said so much not that long ago when discussing how I would equip Praxian Sun Domers with cultural skills. There I argued for the Solitude of Testing folk to have a greater influence on what the Praxian Sun Dome skills and behavior would be. Yet I got pointed to a population speaking Heortlander rather than Old Pavic, the same cultural skills as the Sartarites, and numerous other strong indications that Sun County and Sun Dome County have pretty much a cultural union. A few generations (say five or six) is a bit over a century in my reckoning. In a rather hostile environment like the Grantlands, that's quite an accomplishment which would require a sufficiently large population to get to that continuity, a few hundred at least, especially if those settlers obeyed Teshnan caste laws which require specialist populations of several families in order to reach the next generations at all. Selenteen would have been thwarted by the Deathline to follow Avalor's journey to Fronela (but would have been in time to predate the Syndics' Ban from preventing him entering Loskalm). The population isn't shown separately from Sheng's empire in the historical map on p.142, but neither are Sun County or Teshnos, so we cannot say for sure that Selenteen's settlers had disappeared around 1450. In 1489 Sartar mediated peace between the Pol Joni and the Praxians, and that led to the establishment of the City of Thieves at Badside of Pavis. I don't know whether that event already may be seen as the end of the Solitude of Testing, or whether it was Dorasar arriving (in 1575, according to Pavis and Big Rubble, ) with presents, offers, and an alliance to clear the valley of nomads, although the same source has Varthanis as Count of Sun County from 1567. It is possible that the pygmy counts forcibly moved a thriving Teshnan community to Sun County, or that some of the outlander counts came from there. The Sarissa training returned already under Narokoris the Wise and didn't need Varthanis. Narokoris likely began his reign under the envelope of the Seleric Empire. Are you referring to the Dallas references in Sun County here? Or did I miss jokes inherent in names like Varthanis or Selenteen? Lese majesty probably means you get to fight alongside unlucky visiting Lightbringers in that Strikes of Anger heroquest.

From practical experience, the recovery rate of arrows is dependent on how much time you are going to spend combing the undergrowth. I have seen arrows recovered from a well-mown lawn after a year or two when looking for someone else's arrow. Arrow breakage is an issue, even when hunting. Your line of sight between you and your target may be free, but somewhere along the throw parabola there is some branch deflecting your expensive missile into a glancing contact with a few tree trunks, resulting in you recovering the tip and maybe the fletching. Any archer who values his arrows should include some uncommon substance in their construction and learn the detect spell for that substance. The repair spell may help reduce the loss of arrows, but won't improve the hit probability or the damage. When using a metal tip, you are going to want to reclaim that. In a battle situation, you are only going to recover any arrows if your side takes the field. In a siege, each arrow fired is an arrow lost, and while your opposition might grace you with volleys of their arrows, those are likely to break upon impact on fortifications or other hard material, and won't be good for any aimed shots either. Shooting an arrow not made for your bow is a good lottery game -- it might take a right hand or left hand turn halfway to or a meter from the target. A master archer might use such arrows to shoot around corners... exaggerating slightly here. For trick shots with a lot of preparation, shots like that might be possible.

I was talking about a blue dragon river invading the land. The one ripped apart a bit further uphill, at Aroka Lake north of the Creek. Is that mythical enough? Choralinthor and his father Faralinthor suffered from being dried out. Faralinthor was officially slain by Vadrus (originally Umath) before his waters disappeared in the dry spell of the Ice Age when Valind conquered much of the north. The impending Great Flood of 1650 has been treated as a rise in water levels, without any mythic action to it. It may have been an epic feat for trolls and merfolk to gnaw off that much of the glacier, but there is nothing mythical about it. But then, this may be fine, setting the theme for the next Age of Glorantha. Look at the Ice Age down here in Quivinela and the Storm Mountains. I don't have much in the way of physical evidence for that glaciation - Inora's snow cover on the peaks would be ok, too - but I do have a myth about Thryk the Winter Giant attacking Orlanth's lands, and having been overcome. The Storm Mountains have a double origin - as children of Veskarthan lining up from Quivin down to the Leftarm Isles, but also being pushed up by Larnste's Footprint impact. I used to have trouble imagining how uphill-flowing rivers would deposit sediment. Then I realized that it was wrong to regard these rivers just as a linear flow of water. They were alive, liquid organisms with a complex body structure, tendrils sent out from the seas to discover and deliver the riches of the dry land that have been unavailable ever since Bab aka Gata finally rose out of the bosom of the seas. At the same time, I am sticking to the pearl-in-an-oyster analogy to account for the oldest layers of marine sediments on the earth. This gives me a very long "geological history" without having to fit it into the Green and Golden Age. Bab was both the food born and grown from the Spike, and the intruder that had to be cysted away by the Sea. The Godtime rivers flowing uphill were like the tentacles of a medusa, and they fed on the good stuff they encountered carving into the dry land, leading it on downriver into the seas and oceans, where they would deposit the matter separated from the good magical stuff as sediment. Voila, uphill flowing rivers, and still a geography and geology that would be familiar. You don't have to agree with this approach, but it works fine for me.

Tarkalor fought his war against the Kitori when his father Saronil was still alive or shortly after, and he established Monrogh and the Yelmalians in Vanntar already back then. The temple appears to have been re-established then, likely with Monogh as leader, but the recognition as a separate political entitiy appears to have been postponed to Tarkalor becoming ruler of Sartar. P.246 of the Guide states that but that doesn't mean that this war may not have been started earlier with the Elmali exodus claiming Vanntar earlier. The Kitori were a powerful and tenacious tribe, and liberating the territory for good is likely to have taken more than a single year's campaign. It isn't clear whether Belintar would have just sat by to see his Kitori allies pushed out of the Volsaxi lands formally inside the Holy Country (according to the Centaur's Cross treaty), and already the conquest of Vanntar may have seen Holy Country interference against Monrogh. Vanntar wasn't part of Sartar when Tarkalor and his allies (Monrogh, the Volsaxi) chased out (or enslaved) the Kitori. It is possible that Tarkalor had to become King of Dragon Pass to be entitled to give away the title of that land. There is a chance that the establishment of Monrogh in Vanntar may have been a result of Sarotar's death in Nochet, which appears to have happened at the time when Tarkalor and Monrogh were in Teshnos. The list of governor-kings of Heortland (History of the Heortling Peoples p.94) has Verenama (from Esrolia) until 1553, probably with ties to House Norinel, which would have made her a target for the vengeance of the grandsons of Sartar while Saronil was paralyzed in grief (and then died rescuing Minara from dwarves - possibly also tied to this Cold War conflict with Esrolia). There are quite a few governor kings in subsequent years, with a lot of trouble around 1571-72. And yes, the Red Emperor had no such qualms granting Black Horse Country to Ethilrist. This may be a significant difference between Lunar imperial machinations and House Sartar honesty. We don't have a date for the end of the colony, only for the rough time of its establishment (which appears to coincide roughly with the expulsion f the Pure Horse People after Alavan Argay). While there are no hints of direct contact between Pure Horse folk and the Teshnans, the Teshnan intrusion into the Solar magics of Prax may have weakened the sun magics of the horse folk. Sun priests may even have been allies of the Praxians at Alavan Argay.

Tharkantus + Yamsur + ? All true - there was a Nomad influence. There is likely to have been a Teshnan influence, from the 1250 settlements in the Corflu/Grantlands area. And there was a sizable contingent of Vanntar Sun Domers coming to Sun County, establishing themselves as counts, and telling the templars how to call the deity. With "Monrogh's folk" I mean the half-company of Templars (or more) sent by Monrogh from Vanntar to Prax, ending the Solitude of Testing by installing a new regime, and not the initial passage of young Tarkalor and companions on their ways to and from Teshnos.

Why Yarmalum for Sun County (aka Mo Baustra)? Is this a nod towards Yamsur? I would have expected that Monrogh's folk would have brought the name Yelmalio with them, and that it would be currently in use. The Pavis locations talk about the standard name, too.