Joerg

Why? The effect may be a little stronger than predicted by general relativity, but photons are attracted by masses, and beyond the Chaosium deep down under Glorantha there is the infinite mass of the Void. Maybe the correct answer is similar to the Copenhagen school about collapsing wave fronts when the uncertainty arc intersects with the distant surface. I remember the discussions whether sight is the collection of light dispersed by objects, or a property of rays emerging from the observer's eye, augmented by light, that touch the objects in view. If you look at the Gods Wall, the rays of sight appear to emerge from the emperor's eyes and are dispersed over the four rows of attendants. The main criticism about this model is of course that the flight of an arrow or a javelin - either a manifestation of light - has the inverse curve, but then people may argue that both arrow and javelin are made of fuel rather than flame, while sight clearly is an effect of flame, not fuel. Or something like that, there might be phlogiston and ether involved, too.

Reading David’s sources on tanning I started to wonder what kind of containers or vats the praxians woud use. Skulls, possibly with treated interior, make good chalices and crucibles for preparing agents, if you get them in decent size. Herdman skulls not only have a good volume but also offer a good material for tanning, a win-win situation. Gourds or skin-clad vessels won’t last long exposed to the tanning agents, but they might last long enough. Holes in the ground are fine if you can line them with some material to make them watertight, like clay, dung or sludge that you let seep into pereable soil. I think that quite a few curing and tanning processes (and definitely some pof the processes producing the agents from raw ingredients) are supposed to be anaerobiic, requiring at least good water coverage, though ideally a seal against air. Other tanning processes I have seen applied involved open vats and people stirring the hides with paddles. I guess that dugout trees can make good vats, but we are discussing Prax, where such resources would be rare. Sitill, master tanners might have traded for earthware vats or barrels. (Some aspects of my daytime job taking samples or making measurements “in the field” aren’t too far from handling tanning agents under primitive conditions, which is what has me wondering about such things.) The source on making sheephorn bows has resting periods for the sinew-backed bows on the rack for a couple of weeks before they become usable. As far as I know, such resting or aging processes benefits from constant, con trolled conditions. That means taking such unfinished bows on the move will be detrimental to their performance. There were a couple of other steps which suggestlonger resting oeriods than the average stay of e herd in a place to me. I guess that the Praxians have two distinct qualities of bows or similarly complex items they produce – quick and dirty for short-lived replacements for broken stuff, or carefully and slowly for superior quality worthy of a khan or distinguished warrior. If I interpret David correctly, then a bow isn't something you buy, but something you work for, at least among the Praxians. That's certainly true for fletchery, but may well extend to all other arms and armor of the Praxians, and probably to a good deal of equipment used by the Orlanthi as well, when you don't go for highest quality. In that regard, how much time otherwise available for training does go into the making of a composite bow? Is the value in lunars (minus raw materials, unless you work for getting these, too) comparable to the training time that amount of lunars would buy you?

You're confusing that with Lokarnos, aren't you? Minting coins with somewhat constant weight isn't all that hard, and you will find that coins from a not even so narrow time of production will be rather even. Beating the obverse (and later the reverse) into the coin with dice is a process without any significant loss of material, so as long as your raws are cast somewhat evenly, you can use those coins as weights. Trust in coin traditionally was limited. The Scandinavian markets adapted to coins only after decades of contact with the Hanseatic League, and money changers made many a coin just by collecting foreign coin and translating it into locally accepted specie (and vice versa), for a fee, assaying the degree of valuable metal in the foreign coins and looking out for counterfeits. Now the Bronze Age trade didn't know coinage, that's one of the many Iron Age anachronisms in Glorantha. But there were other means of payment, like salary, the distribution of packets of salt, or somewhat standardized oxhide ingots of copper or tin. Or certain sea-shells cut to beads of a certain size, on strings. If you want to give weights, maybe karat (number of carob tree seeds) might have been the better way than troy ounces.

Praxian crafters have the nomad's dilemma - stay with the clan or stay with your special workplace. If the drying process for the horn or the curing process for sinews or hides takes weeks at constant conditions, packing up and following the herd doesn't really help with your quality. Jason's middle-of-the-night scenario (Berlin time) led his party into a gully just outside of the Dead Place, one of the most reliably dry places in Prax (alongside the Long Dry). Great conditions to age your horn parts before assembling that bow, but a lousy place to survive for more than a few days while your personal beasts nibble off all of the available vegetation. For the glue, it will probably easier to use something squirming in one of the marshes than the fish stuff used by the Silk Road bowyers. Still, you will need some liquid for the glue to become applicable. It doesn't have to be potable, though, which means that what you find in the marshes will most likely be sufficient. The other approach would be runic. Archery is a fire-related custom, and bowyers might have fire magics adaptable for preparing their raw material.

Adulthood and general pantheon initiation is initiation to the clan wyter, and if you are willing to join the cult of Orlanth (or Ernalda), it is likely that you can just go on and take that initiation along. (I have the suspicion that the same initiation is going to work for Barntar, too, in places where Orlanth is on the list of anti-state cults.) If you are going to join any other cult than your gender-appropriate deity, you will have to undergo a separate initiation for sure. If you want to join a less usual subcult of your main deity, ditto. In Orlanthi society, it is possible that a person undergoes the adulthood initiation and then becomes a spirit-talker rather than a mainstream initiate. Such individuals might end up with a spirit ally rather than rune magic, and a possible career as assistant shaman or even shaman. Such a person still is a member of the religion, and will act as lay worshiper in the clan holy days. One problem with specialist cult initiation is to get enough of a congregation of initiates and priests to be able to hold these rites. That's why initiees to these deities often have to travel to a tribal or even city confederation temple to undergo cultic initiation, and there are cults like Lhankor Mhy and possibly Chalana Arroy which demand an apprenticehood in order to qualify for initiation. This apprenticehood may have started before adulthood initiation if the candidate comes from a background that would have recognized the character's affinity to this cult early on. Is it possible to become an initiate of a special deity directly, without having undergone clan initiation previously? I think so, although a combination with a standard adulthood rite would be likely. Standard adulthood initiation for Orlanthi male and vingan gender includes experiencing the I Fought We Won mystery. The depth of this experience varies. In RuneQuest terms, I think that initiation to the wyter establishes the magical link through which magic point sacrifices are given in clan and tribal rites so that they are more beneficial for the clan magic, too. People from outside of the direct community (clan, temple) will still provide magic for the rite with their participation (see e.g. the example of Vasana's lay worshipper participation at the Paps).

Every adult Orlanthi has been expected to have been an initiate, and thereby to have access to Rune Magic, since the very beginning. The main difference is that initiate rune magic has been made reusable, so that a lot fewer rune spells are one-use. The frequency of POW-gain rolls decides how willing people may be to sacrifice for rune points. Lay membership affects mainly the less popular specialist cults. Orlanth and Ernalda do have lay members, but they tend to have at least as many initiates anywhere in Orlanthi lands. (There's a reason why these folk are called Orlanthi.) There are numerous cultural alternatives to Orlanth in Theyalan cultures which aren't exactly Orlanthi, and some fewer alternatives for Ernalda. Plus there is the Barntar escape for places with oppressive overlordship (Grazelands, Lunar Provinces) which offers a more agriculturally focussed male cult. This approach with rune magic for everyone gets weaker when you leave Orlanthi lands, Beast Riders, or active Lunars. However, that also means that you are leaving the focus of the cultures presented in RQG.

One thing I would handle different from when I chose RQ3 over any other game system available at the time (1988 or so) is to have a lot less but broader skills, going in the direction OpenQuest has gone from the MRQs. I get it that the way RQG is presented as almost fully backward compatible with RQ2 does carry over that multitude of skills. However, I recently revisited the game system which I played before switching to RQ, which probably noone outside of Germany has ever heard about, and I found that what originally attracted me to the system - the detailed skill system - has become a bit of a burden now that I have collected experience with much leaner sets of abilities in other systems. Approaching RQ the same way, leaving nostalgia aside, a RQG lite based on basically skill categories, possibly slightly subdivided, with the option to take specialisations that either opportunity or personal preference create as break-out skills (much like HQ handles it) might have been a better way to attract players new to RQ. A leaner set of skills to track with slightly higher abstraction would still create enough gritty stuff to hang on to as you take weak (or buffered) hit after hit. I am quite pleased with the magic systems, even with sorcery for specialists, as far as Dragon Pass and Prax are concerned. I have come to doubt whether RQ magic works as well to reflect the cult practices of the Lodrili (who don't usually initiate to a single deity the way the Orlanthi do) or the Westerners. It should work well enough for henotheist Malkioni, though (and given that that's one of my main points of wrestling RQ3 rules and the setting together, this is saying something). The only D&D that I have played in earnest was AD&D 1st edition and a little bit of 2nd edition. The system sucked for me for a number of reasons. No unified skill system (only the Thief class had any in 1st ed), classes, XP for gold, XP at all, levels granting endless supplies of HP, and near limitless world-shattering magic overshadowing the non-magicians after a certain level, before which the MU was nearly useless unless he directed henchmen/followers (which few DMs allowed in the environment I played D&D in). And many of these points are what people who love the game consider its strengths.

I think that Pavis is about the mythos of the Western rather than about the Western itself. The post-Dragonrise period is similar to the southern USA after Mexico has retreated as the force providing law and order. There isn't really a foreign cavalry anywhere in Prax except at Knight Fort, since the Pol Joni are immigrants gone native in Prax for certain amounts of native. They probably are comparable to the Scot and former African slave portions of the southwestern Appalachian tribes. The original placement of Pavis is quite extraordinary, and its re-occupation by Dorasar is rather similar in nature, with parallels (a horse-riding tribe dominant in northern and western Prax and a powerful political entity beyond in Quivinela). However, to me this feels more like some place in Syria - possibly Palmyra - than a place in the Wild West. The presence of the Rubble with its ancient ruins and with survivors of their builders is like nothing the Wild West period has to offer. (Unless you take pre-Columbian events where climate wiped out impressive urban civilizations, but that would eliminate both riding and the European-descended settlers that make up the myth of the West.) Henry Rider Haggard might be the other major inspiration to look at, possibly coupled with Arab colonization of Africa from the coasts. Not just Pavis, but also places in the Wastes beyond.

Where tolerated. When you have a strong centralized power (like e.g. the Roman Empire, after having dealt with the Iceni revolt), you may take a dim look at native farmers having tools that could be used against your military. The ancient world invented castes to deal with this problem. Wielding a weapon became a privilege. Doesn't it follow that rather than giving the price for a bow, the rules should give a price for the tools to make one, and the time it needs? Seriously. Much like weapon proficiency with a firearm should include proper maintenance and repairs, shouldn't proficiency with a self bow include making a replacement? That article ties its usefulness to the too moderate and clement climate. Let me note that the heyday of the English Longbow followed a Little Ice Age (the one that destroyed the Greenland colony of Icelanders), so the yew harvested following that century may have been way better suited.

There is also the possibility that people don't travel the spirit world in their normal shape, but that they assume the shape of a totem instead. (Think avatars in video-games.) This other shape will likely have natural attack forms which will be simulated by the Spirit Combat skill.

Hidage for pasture comes in two varieties - pasture in your tula, used for making hay in the summer, and upland pasture where there are few if any permanent settlements for transhumant summer pasture, or plains outside of your immediate neighborhood where your herders drive herds to fatten them. Cattle herded that far from the clan tula will be less able to provide milk, so there is a likelihood that cows with older calves will be kept close to the tula when they have milk to spare, and the rest of the lifestock will provide milk to the herders and possibly conserved as cheese, butter or similar occasionally brought home by clan folk visiting or when personnel shifts.

Getting a good stave for the strength adapted to your needs takes quite a bit of value, because yew (a natural laminate if cut up correctly) will grow only very slowly - it takes about 80 years to grow to a size when you can start considering it for a bow stave. On comparison, you get an excellent spear shaft made from ash in maybe 25 years, probably less. Wood for bows would be a very controlled resource, and the best quality will be rather scarce. A longbow is a self bow. There is no real difference except the draw weight and bow length the bowyer goes for. Self bows can be re-inforced by applying a "composite" to their backs, e.g. sinews or some other wood (e.g. bamboo), which will increase the amount of work you have to put into making one. It doesn't have to be yew or the equivalent thereof. You can go for less suited wood, which may mean you don't get to apply your damage bonus to your archery. Or you can trade with the elves, like the Rathori do. If it is just a light hunting bow, yes. Bow staves for heavier war bows are harder to get, unless your elf trading partners grow them to your specification within a season or two. If you look at the Turkish recurved bows made from horn and sinew (mostly), cheap doesn't really come into play. Water buffalo horn and sinews from moose legs were used, and at least one of those items had to be imported from quite a bit away. Those bows have a heck of kick at relatively low draw weight - a 100 lbs bow could fire 434 meters. That's manageable with sufficient specific muscle training and just above average strength. Praxians probably value sable horn and bison or high llama sinew, and possibly herdman manes for the strings. Pentans might trade for musk ox horn and use horse sinews and hair for the rest. Grazers might use wood for the basis of their bows, then add sable horn and sinews from horses. Bamboo is a great material for wooden composite bow backs. It also can serve for the points and arrow shafts.

Basically, if you want a sword, first you ask in your stead whether there is one you could take. That sword would be wielded by you, but remain the property of your stead. Assuming your stead doesn't have any surplus sword (fairly likely), you go ask your clan chief whether your local redsmith can make you one. Since a sword is an item used in sacred rites, your chances aren't as bad as they would have been e.g. in Viking society. If you can get it inside the clan, you will most likely have to give or do quite a bit in compensation - not necessarily to the redsmith, if the chief simply recompenses his needs from some other clan resource, but you need to provide something to fill up that gap in clan resources. Cattle would be fine, but the cattle you herd and breed are mostly the clan's property anyway, and used by the clan for payments like tribute or when buying new resources, or for sacrifices. There may be some cattle at your stead that the stead has a claim on rather than the clan, and you could get your steadmaster to pass on one or more of those to get your sword. You can join a raid or cattle raid organized by your clan, and if you perform well, the leader of the raid or the chief may grant you one of these cattle for purchases or assign it to your stead. That means that you have the credit of one cow for any such purchases. If you happen to find a sword or a nice piece of armor on that raid, this too goes to the leader of the raid or the sponsor (most likely the chief), who may then acknowledge your service to the clan and let you wield it. Or not, if there is someone else who is more worthy in the chief's eyes to be given a sword before you get one. You may of course take your leave from the clan and go adventuring on your own, possibly joining a small warband. Again, in the warband the booty is distributed by the leader, according to the needs, and including the needs to feed the warband. It may happen that that sword is going to be sold to feed your warband. But let's assume your warband was successful, and somehow you receive a sword that is yours to carry and even to keep after you part ways with your warband. Time to return to your clan. Your clan will of course welcome you back if you haven't parted in anger or strife. But still, while you were away, lots of work that you could have done in your clan hasn't been done by you, and the clan expects you to make up for that by sharing some of your booty. Since you haven't had a leader from the clan, it will be you to decide what to share with the clan. Quite possibly that sword might be the one item sufficient to meet their expectations, so you might be obliged to give it to the clan. And then, unless he is displeased by you and how you accounted yourself, the chief is more or less expected to return the sword to you in recognition of your endeavors, in the name of the clan, toast you, etc. But that's not guaranteed.

Some entities may be mixed because the world they manifested in was already mixed-, and some entities like Kolat even unmixed themselves from the runic source. There are other cases, too, like Yelm, who was dismembered and re-assembled, possibly using parts previously used in other dis- and re-assembly jobs - somewhere in Nida or Slon there may be protocols about the re-assembly process. And maybe the distinction only started to matter within Time. Heort - the Silver Age founder of the Heortlings - approached Orlanth as a shaman. He was busy sorting other things, like the living from the dead, and probably had little to no thoughts to spare on whether Orlanth is more anchored in the God World than in the Spirit World. (Back in the time of the strictly separate Otherworlds, Greg said that Orlanthi worship is probably about 30% animist and the rest theist). With Yinkin, we have the special case that Yinkin chose sides when the Serpent Beast Brotherhood and the Vingkotlings were at odds, and possibly earlier. The Bad Dogs harming Yinkin might have been a normal event in the Hsunchen/Serpentbeast ecology, and it is likely that many a form of beast went extinct in the Gods War at the teeth or claws of other Serpentbeast beasts. Anaxial's Roster mentions Shell Deer and Horned Wolves as part of the co-(d)evolution of predator and prey. Yinkin getting it on with spirit, deity or whatever is an excellent point. Even without a shred of spirit world from the paternal side (that might have been ripped out of Yinkin by the Bad Dogs), maternal spirit nature would be able to create shadowcat entities tied to the Spirit World. When Yinkin was healed from the damage done by the Bad Dogs, he emerged as a divine entity. (He may have been mixed or already severed earlier. Possibly even at an encounter with his father.)

The pre-history of the Four Separate Worlds model was the collision of four distinct worlds, already somewhat pre-formed with a Creation mythology and some changes having gone on, fusing into the whole that we know as Glorantha. As far as I remember this, the fusion of the spirit world and the divine world preceded all others, and there are no myths about this encounter. The two flanking parts of the Inner World then folded in on the central north-south axis, and we have some of those earliest encounter myths (Kachasti->Kachisti, Vyimorni->Vadeli in the West, the three SherAdpara of Vithela). The gliding passage from Spirit World to Divine World was inherent even in the strict separate worlds doctrine. HW and HQ1 obsessed about crossing those borders, making near-impossible encounters out of some of these. The encounters and border guardians (the archetypal knight guarding a river crossing, for instance) do and should remain a feature of questing as well as spirit travel.

Either that, or only "rented out" in temporary marriages, spreading some of their offspring to the clans of her temporary husbands, in exchange for lasting alliances etc. I think that a god-talker joining a prestigious temple will be handled similarly as an exceptional thane becoming the companion of a tribal king, or even a member of the royal household. These folk will be on extended leave, acting as the clan's voice and entry-point wherever they serve. I don't think that an Ernalda temple paying a bride price would be regarded as proper procedure, although it is possible that the children of the priestess in service of the temple will belong to the temple rather than to her birth clan. Something like this is likely for the biggest earth temples, like Shaker Temple, Ezel, or Grace Temple in Nochet. I am not sure whether the Greenhaven or Clearwine earth temples qualify as such quasi-clans with claims on children, or whether the priestesses serving there are automatically members of the clan hosting the temple. A similar quandary is membership in an urban Sartarite guild when coming from one of the rural clans. Guilds in Nochet are effectively urban clans, quite often over a number of generations, but in the much smaller cities elsewhere, retaining links to the birth clan (or marriage clan in the case of couples moving into the tribal city) would be the norm, leading to some unsatisfying double membership/non-membership.

In practice, what percentage children are born outside of formally negotiated wedlock? Sex between adults is paraphrased as "bed wife" or similar, unformal forms of marriage. In cases of unmarried conception, I suppose that the children will join the matrilocal bloodline - if the father wants to add the child to his bloodline, he had better arrange at least a year patrilocal marriage once he learns of the pregnancy. I guess there is little doubt that the Gloranthan humans are savvy to conception and fatherhood, and to the cases of parthenogenesis where there is no father. Ritual couplings at religious festivals will doubtlessly lead to childbirths, and such births most likely are considered blessed by the deities in whose name the conception happened. Apart from determining clan membership and ancestral ties of the child, what other consequences are there for being married? There is the question of bridal price and/or dowry when making the contract - basically a sort of weregeld for taking on the product of this worker from the birth clan, and an insurance for the case the marriage gets divorced. More often than not these marriages also serve as networking between clans - you're a lot less likely to raid a clan your sisters have married into, and they won't tolerate their husbands raiding their birth clan, either. I am considering writing something like a story or a campaign arc about a few women marrying into a distant clan and uncovering some major intrigue people from their new bloodline are involved in. With all the detail available on the Red Cow, imagine the story of a few brides marrying into that ogre bloodline, finding out that your future children might be drawn to that unspeakable part of the Devil. (But it doesn't have to be Chaos and can still be very Gloranthan.) Simultaneous polygamy/polyandry, or serial? And in case of two such high status individuals having one such marriage tie, will they tolerate all the side flings? How much simulltaneous polyandry is an alpha male high status Orlanthi going to tolerate if the child is supposed to be patrilocal? And how much will the magic for the wife suffer if the husband practices polygamy? Starting with the fact that Orlanthi are expected to actually enjoy sexual intercourse, rather than just performing their dynastic duty. But then, the half-citizens and lower worshiping Lodril and Oria or other alpha-female deities like Surenslib are the epitome of adultery in Dara Happa, too. And the Lunars haven't improved the morals in Dara Happan high society, either. If these marriage contracts rarely confine sexual activities, then how does adultery become a problem in Orlanthi marriages? Does this only pertain to those contracts that require clear identification of the husband as father of the offspring? And, from a bloodline point of view, does it matter which male from the bloodline the female married into was the biological father? Will the dominating mother-in-law really care? A matriarch in a patrilocal culture like the majority of the Dragon Pass and Heortland Orlanthi may well take pride in the web of daughters, granddaughters and great-granddaughters distributed over a huge variety of clans. The cult of Ernalda propagates both matrilineally and patrilocally. The Ernaldan god-talkers of a clan will mostly have been born in other clans than the clan of their children. A prospective god-talker married into the clan will bring her birth-clan's schooling in the Earth rites, but she will also get introduced into the local tradition formed by a multitude of wives having come before her, passing on a hybrid wisdom from all those various sources. There may be occasions like a sequence of mutual year marriages where a high ranking individual will spend a year (or however long it takes to produce offspring) in the clan of the marriage partner, leaving one child of the contract with the father's clan and one with the mother's clan. In these cases, a high profile Ernaldan might be powerful enough both in social standing and in magic to overrule her local mothers-in-law in terms of seniority in the cult, and introduce new ways of doing magic over the heads of the local council of mothers. For the women living in non-temporary marriages, their main work on behalf of their clan is directed to the welfare of their children. The children will thrive if the household they grow up in thrives. Chances are that the mother giving birth to a child will play less of a role in raising the child once it has been weaned than her steadmistress, who may be her mother-in-law (or her husband's uncle's wife, or her husband's cousin's or brother's wife). If a stead has hearths from multiple bloodlines, there is a good chance that the children will grow up like siblings even though not sharing a bloodline. A multi-generation household will mean a lot less direct parental influence on the children, and upbringing distributed to all the daytime residents of the stead. This might extend to sleeping arrangements in almost "communist" or kibbuzim creches. Still, the continuation of the self within the children will be a major source of pride and status for the biological parents. King of Sartar mentions the Wanderlore rites/tradition of childless clansfolk (and so does Thunder Rebels) past a certain age bracket (not too late to produce children). The Justice section describes court procedure, with jurors selected by the plaintiff. This actually sounds like procedure for complaints inside a clan rather than resolving inter-clan conflicts. Other than sacred judgement e.g. by the Holder of the Lawstaff, I would expect a majority of "cases" being solved by diplomacy between clans, weighing complaints and possibly counter-complaints and determining settlements. I was lazy and did a text search for bloodline instead. Under "Society", the concentric circles of an individual place the bloodline inside the household, then the clan. (p.210) In the Justice chapter, the paragraph under the Bloodlines heading details the legal status of conflict inside bloodlines (excluding marriage conflicts, which are subject to contractual relationship to the birth clan of the marriage partner residing within and contributing offspring to the bloodline). Any unresolvable unhealthy rivalry between siblings is best resolved by living in separate households, or taking on honorable positions with accaptable powerful leaders outside of the clan - more or less what the Froalar solution does in Western society, too. There should be no Gisli's Saga in Heortling society, because kinstrife... Thunder Rebels is a lot more detailed on points of weregeld and similar issues.

A forbidding aura is also a possible expression of high charisma. I wouldn't have thought it possible, but I experienced cornering an opponent in rubber sword fencing (someone with more experience than myself) by projecting killing intent (at Castle Stahleck) and not a single swing of my implement.

The bloodlines as presented in the Red Cow books are very reminiscent of the Germaniic "Sippe" or "hundred" in size, consisting of patrilocal patrilineal blood-kin, distributed over several steads. These steads may be shared with followers who aren't directly blood-related. The bloodlines as presented in Coming Storm are based on a set of common ancestors they provided to the clan. This set complements the sets provided by other bloodlines plus the founder and hero sets of ancestors which may have come from other sets no longer present in the clan but adopted before the other bloodline set disappeared. The Red Cow have about half a dozen headmen of their respective bloodlines that fit this definition. These headmen would automatically have thane rank, regardless of the wealth of the bloodline. I think that your narrower concept maps to subsets of the bloodlines as presented for the Red Cow. Possibly more than one stead. The Red Cow name about two dozen thanes on the inner and outer ring, including the five weaponthanes. These include magical folk, master crafters, heads of the larger bloodlines. There may be a few thane-status semi-dependents of the ring members and the chief's household, too. Then there are a number of clansfolk on permanent leave as royal companions who have thane rank thanks to their tribal positions, and their partners/offspring or other such closest kin. The "band of unrelated men" would be something akin to a warband or a joint workers gang, e.g. a group of miners or charcoal burners, loggers or similar economic activities away from the clan. Possibly also unmarried herders. I don't deny the existence of such sub-units, I only disagree with the identification of these with the bloodline. Yes. That's inside the clan (who are legal kin), where they will bear the brunt of fines levied unto the clan. However: The clan provides representation to the outside, and will have to cough up the fine when the negotiation demands it, not when the kinship group is able to pay. It acts as an insurance for the bloodline, and the bloodline will be in internal debt to the clan for quite a while. That means that they will receive only "minimum wages" from efforts that enrich the clan, beyond the bare minimum required to survive and maintain herd and seed integrity. Income due to personal efforts of members of this bloodline will be mostly consumed by this internal debt, although the chief may allow some portion of the reward for the people who contributed to the clan wealth if he feels he wants to encourage such endeavors.

A king doesn't have to be a chief, although many may have the double role. A chief's nobility is that of his office. The chief's hall is in all likelihood a structure owned by the clan rather than by any bloodline. While the chief and his (or her) immediate family may take up residence there, it is as likely that any offspring of the chief is still brought up at the stead of the bloodline. Instead, the chief's hall will house the retainers. I read the Alakorin renewals otherwise. After the Gbaji Wars, the priests formed a ruling council. The power to rule was held by the priesthood of Orlanth. Alakoring provided the King the priestly power to command the priests. The king will lead (though not necessarily perform) the sacrifices that pertain to sovereignty and royal fertility in the role of Orlanth, but the role of the priest remains unchanged providing all the other services and worship rites. On the chief level, I don't think that the Rex cult has that much traction. In the rites, the priestess of Ernalda is his wife. Outside of the rites, both king and priestess may lead a different married life. It is convenient for the two to coincide, but in the rites it makes little difference. One reason for this may be that a powerful priestess of Ernalda is likely to have an uxorilocal (Esrolian) marriage rather than the normal arrangement of leaving her clan for good. (Year marriages may be a different thing.) If that is the case, there is no point in them having a normal marriage. I have yet to see a sample Ernaldan player character who married into her current clan in any of the publications. The Red Cow NPC females mostly obey the normal marriage patterns, unless they are Vingans. Queen Ivara is part of her birth clan. The priests of Orlanth I was talking about above would mainly be clan thanes and/or tribal thanes. Temples outside of a clan structure exist, although they usually are closely tied to the clan or tribe at their location. These are most likely specialized temples, not mainstream ones, though. Specialist Ernalda temples appear to be way more numerous than specialist Orlanth temples, with the vast majority of Orlanth worship conducted by the clan, followed by tribe and city. There is little room for Orlanth temples outside of that. The only one that I can name is Old Wind. Orlanth Victorious is a shrine with only seasonal attendance. Please elaborate. If you say that the status of an office held by a prominent member of the bloodline (or several) reflects on the wealth/status/weregeld of the other members of that household only for a generation or two, I am with you. If your great-grandfather or granduncle was the last person in your household who held a significant office, you're at best a carl in status. If your uncle or cousin living under the same roof holds such an office, your status will rise accordingly, though not quite to the level of the office holder. If a member of your household is on the clan ring (a clan thane by office), your household will have status at least the equal of a carl, even if your economic reality used to be that of a cottar bordering on stickpicker. There will be some economic trickle down, too, though at the time of the retirement of the ring member, the household is likely to fall back into a less prestigious status. But, that said, IMO a bloodline is permanent. It may split into different households after two generations or so, unless a really bad calamity has shrunk your bloodline so that you share your roof with second cousins. Folk too distant from the head of the household will sooner or later carve a household of their own. That takes quite a bit of wealth or influence, so it is likely that this new household will be founded by brothers. Otherwise, a specialist may always start a cottar household, and given sufficient skill or influence may upgrade that easily to carl status, or use influence on the clan council. Except that Ernalda embraces any changes coming her way (except Nontraya), while stodgy Orlanthi traditionalists resist change with all their might. "I am all for Change when it is the right Change, but this Change isn't, because it changes what is." Steads are where wealth is managed, and a stead may have several households of varying status. Most wealth is really held by the clan rather than the stead. Clan wealth (like cattle) gets allotted to steads, and these steads usually are managed by a dominant household from a bloodline of thanes or carls, with cottars assigned unless these cottars manage outlying steadings that don't quite qualify as a stead - like e.g. a charcoal cottage out in the woods. A bloodline may be distributed over several households, but these households will be judged individually for status. In the Red Cow clan, you have this almost kinstrife situation with the Seven Oaks stead of the Osmanning. The bloodline has no legal standing outside of the clan. Only the clan has, and the clan chief is responsible for paying the compensation. Whether or not to pay a ransom can become a difficult negotiation, and when the individual concerned has fallen afoul of the chief, his kin might have to appeal to the cult rather than the clan to release the individual from captivity. Inside the clan, the bloodlines with their "headmen" (another word for chieftain, really) represent one dimension of factions inside the clan. Political affiliation represents another dimension, and cults yet another one. The clan chief will of course allot the burden of payment to the various steads in the clan, and the stead producing the individual to cause this payment is likely to be hit harder than others. These steads are of course led by members of bloodlines (but a stead may have a steadmaster from one bloodline and cottars from another). There are more modes of payment - providing sacrificial beasts, contributing to the tributes to the Prince, the tribe, and whatever other standing obligations the clan may be under. This load, too, is distributed among the steads, at the decision of the chief. The ring may advise, but the chief is the only one who decides. I think that a bloodline can spread out over multiple steads, with each stead being its own economic unit. The head of a bloodline has no say about the contribution of various steads led by or contributed to by members of his bloodline. He does have influence on them, however, possibly also magically as speaker for that bloodline's ancestors. I would use the term "stead" instead of "bloodline" in the quoted paragraphs above and below. This clearly addresses steads pr even just households rather than bloodlines. You can pick the roof you live under, but you cannot pick the ancestors you were born to. Again, that is stead, and possibly household. Once you are born to a bloodline, the only way to leave it is through marriage, adoption, severance (greater exile, joining Humakt) or dissolution of the bloodline due to excessive losses, when there are too few survivors left to maintain the ancestral connection. Marriage is only a suspension of bloodline membership - when the marriage ends, the marriage partner away from home usually reverts to the previous bloodline. Widowing is a special case - widows (or widowers) away from their birth clan may continue their bloodline by marriage, leaving their birth bloodline in suspension (but harder to re-activate, possibly requiring a re-adoption). In a way, any person who married into a bloodline leaving offspring with the bloodline joins the ancestors of this bloodline, even if the marriage was only temporal. A person adopted into a bloodline joins the ancestors, too. Matrilineal bloodlines exist in a patrilocal environment, IMO. Ernaldan magic runs in matrilineal lines, and blessings will not stop at clan membership. Matrilineal clans will be matrilocal clans. I don't think that there are many (if any) in Sartar. Matrilocal bloodlines obviously do exist, like Enferalda's line. Magical contest marriages like Sartar's with the FHQ ensure both patrilocal and matrilocal offspring. Such full siblings will have different ancestors at their call. The ancestors of the non-local parent can be invoked, but this requires additional effort of proof and maintaining contact. I do see a matrilineall network in the patrilocal environment of Sartar. The stronger the Earth magic in the bloodline, the further the matrilineal bloodline will extend. In fact, I would use Charles' description of bloodlines above which I said would apply to patrilocal steads also for matrilineal bloodlines. Maternal lineage should be expressed more strongly in female offspring, and should only very rarely be inherited from males of such a lineage unless explicitly declared (claimed, adopted) by that male. (Like Argrath claiming descent from Sartar through the matrilineal line of Onelisin.) In matrilocal clans or larger social units (tribe, queendom) the male lineages would be a lot weaker. Even in patrilocal marriages, the connection to the clan is formed through the mother's ancestral ties at the birth of the child, and possibly by her marital state at the conception. Imagine an Orlanthi Leda, mother of two simultraneous pairs of twins (through magical birth from shared eggs). Castor and Helena are demigods through their swan father, while Polydeikes and Clytemnaesta are purely Spartan nobility. Still, it is through Helen that the Spartan kingship is continued, not through the Dioscuri or Clytemnaestra (who continues the line of Atreus). The myths I have seen remain silent about any offspring of Menelaos and Helena, although there should have been some up to age five or so at the contest of the three goddesses - Odysseus has a newborn son when he sets sail for Ilias, and he was a contestant for the hand of Helena before undertaking the effort to woo and marry Penelope. Agamemnon has two teenage children when setting sail, and I think his and his brother's marriages were joint affairs. Making Helena the continuity of the Spartan kingship indicates that Leda's marital status at the time of her conception trumps even the divine seed of Zeus when it comes to ancestry. (Though that "seed" may have been largely epigenetic, giving the shared eggs of both the male and the female twins - presumably identical in their human genetics. But then this may be a case of "don't mix modern genetics with myth"...) Or Zeus claimed paternity over both the Dioscuri, making Polydeikes uneligible for the succession of his biological father. Considerations like the above digression into Greek myth would be right at home in Orlanthi discussions of genealogy. Looking forward to that.

You can go through the entire destruction and reconstruction of the universe, and emerge at a New Dawn with a chosen resurrectee. The universe you emerge to is different from the one you left, as undertaking this quest will alter reality.

If the LM cult doesn't teach those masteries (Fire/Earth, Spirit, Man), philosophers still might have access to them through their occupation if that occupation includes contact with non-cultist sorcerers (Aeolians, God Forgot, weird immigrants to Nochet, Karse or Rhigos willing to teach for a living). This really only leaves it to the GM how much he will allow in the backstory of a new character, and how much he demands to play it all out. In my games of RQ3, I allowed "change of career" in the previous experience by the year for characters who at some point had left their parental farm (and most somewhat adult characters likely to go adventuring do). RQG previous experience doesn't quite work that way, but a character in their thirties may very well have had a complete change in previous careers, and I might allow limited application of a new career rather than building up on the previous one. But that's my GMing style of playing with somewhat veteran beginning characters rather than with young guns. Possibly something I inherited from Traveller.

You really can only give an ETA once the container is through customs and on the road to your distributer. Customs can be an uncalculable delay.

I think this is missing an "n" for Inanitans - inanire "to drain", inanitare "to really drain", active participium present. Delectii with two i, looks like this is a case of not knowing when to stop spelling bananananana.

That's a very specific definition of God Learner and doesn't quite describe the Jrusteli researching the Abiding Book, the Return to Rightness crusaders, or Yomili defending the Seshnelan orthodoxy against Halwal's support of older forms of a multifaceted Malkionism, and not even of the Zistorites with their project in the Clanking City even though those are probably who you wanted to describe.