Joerg

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.

As per Guide, they formed the God Learner Collective in 845 ST in Jrustela. That doesn't sound like using a derogatory term used only by outsiders. In German, the term for heretic ("Ketzer") is derived from the neutral word for the Katharian movement in southern France. "Hun" used to be the neutral term for the riders of Attila before world war propaganda projected this on the Germans. "Political correctness" used to be a positive term. "Communist" isn't eponymous with "Enemy of the People" in every culture. Neither is Neo-Conservative or Neoliberal, although they should. Any term can become poisoned when propaganda gets its ugly claws on it. Try "Highlander". You can of course turn it into "hillbilly" or similar bad diminutives. Or you can make it into a proud tribal definition to distinguish yourself from those "southerners".

Oh come on. Wrestling, kicking, boxing and dancing were a thing way back. Heracles was an athlete and master of all kind of weaponless as well as armed combat styles. Are you telling me that the pre-Columbian Americans did not have their wrestling and similar somewhat ritualized combat styles? Define "advanced martial arts", then. While I am in no way a martial artist, a friend of mine is a middling rank Wing Tsun practitioner who lent me his style's literature, which includes a history of weapon styles like Greek Pancratio spread in the wake of Alexander beyond his conquests into India and north of the Himalaya, where elements of that were picked up by the buddhist monks. Albrecht Dürer drew boxing and fencing styles which could be used as illustrations for Chinese martial arts. There are only so many ways a human body can be used as a weapon, and while the buddhist styles have taken the use of "non-weapon" tools as weapons to the extreme, the weaponless techniques have only gone extreme ways with e.g. Taekwondo designed to unhorse riders with high kicks. Availability of weapons may make combat styles go out of fashion, but body shape and physics lead to very similar solutions with combat schools completely out of contact with one another. What I have seen of the Strasbourg school of 2hand-sword fencing (inherited by the Escrima styles of the Philippines) wasn't really that different from what I have seen of kenjutsu through the lense of its "sports" derivate kendo. Kargan Tor, Celestial Court deity of the Conflict Rune (before it meant Death) had a divine court of combat where all martial deities showed up at some point prior to the destruction of the Spike, sharing and learning combat styles, or competing with one another for their own perfection. With this mythic underpinning, I would be extremely surprised if there were no such traditions in Glorantha where conditions would further them. I will grant you this - while the rules of RQG are fine for armed conflicts and may work for unarmed combats with both sides restricted to dagger, cestus or less, they don't really work well for cinematic conflicts between unarmed advanced masters of weaponless arts and sword or axe fighters, giving the blades (or clubs) an unfair advantage. Reading the kung fu books on this topic, that is very much in keeping with the teachings of those schools. Going unarmed against knives is a good way to end up badly cut up, and you recognize the victor of a knife duel by him being carried alive to the surgeon by his friends. Other such techniques work when you have the numbers and the death-defying morale of unarmed people taking on armed opponents. RQ has always been able to provide this form of realism, and breaking it by allowing the martial arts skill to parry more or less unarmed "absorbing" damage through skillful deflection of blows. Martial arts btw is not synonymous with unarmed combat, although the RQ rules have usually depicted them as such. I think that a middle ground between what the RQG skill for natural weapons and RQ3 Land of Ninja Ki skills offer can be used. The Martial Arts skill in RQG is limited to natural weapons. The distribution of such schools leaves out exotic (but present) places like the Red Dragon dojo in the Provinces (Tarsh or Aggar) mentioned in Arcane Lore. There is a distinct possibility that all of these martial arts traditions originate in the mystic east of Glorantha. With the False Dragons Ring, Sheng importing Kralori to the Lunar Empire and Godunya's influence on the EWF, the distribution pattern in RQG can be explained.

And the scars you get to show from those love bites... provided you survive them. On the other hand, being chosen by multiple powerful females to father their children is a different form of ultimate reproductive success. With the uzuz, you cannot be sure that you were really needed to produce that offspring, even if you were the only male attendant.

The Lightbringers - regardless which batch - are reckoned dead as soon as they pass the Gates of Dusk. The path down to the Hall of Judgement may be just a pre-Hell, but as soon as you've passed Sinjota and Kaldar, you're dead, wouldn't boom if someone put four thousand volts through you, you're bleeding demised, you're not pining and you_re passed on, you are no more, you have ceased to be, you've expired and gone to meet your maker, you''re a stiff, if you hadn't gone down those stairs you'd be pushing up daisies, your metabolic processes are now history...

Correct, manipulation limit isn't affected. But the number of runes plus techniques you can master still is limited by your INT minus 11. A sorcerer with only slightly above average INT could already max out his maximum capacity with those initial points if receiving that many techniques and runes.

I thought the Gates of Dusk, going down Magasta's Pool past Last Stop Island or a couple of other such passages mark that border. The Styx permeates the Underworld, but doesn't really form the border to the Surface World.

Without wanting to jump in on the issue of whether career and cult should add up (the same question will crop up for other sorcerous cultures), is it exactly beneficial to know more than one technique? There is no way you can unlearn a mastered rune or a technique. Is there some other advantage than paying half the MP for having exactly the required technique(s) for a spell? (And, in resonance with the unfortunate way "misapplied worship" and "concentrated worship" worked out with Hero Wars and HQ1, wouldn't using a different technique than exactly the one used for the spell be the normal situation? Would "you save half the MP when using the exact technique or rune demanded in the spell" have been a good way to describe the game mechanic, doubling the basic cost as the standard case?) INT cannot be raised (permanently) by non-exceptional means (although you could work on your Fire Rune development). That means that learning additional techniques will limit your ability to manipulate your magic even more. Spells can be "tucked away" by inscribing them (blowing a few points of POW, which can also add to manipulation). Runes are the real bottle-neck. In order to be able to cast just about any spell, you only need one technique (if it is command or tap) but a dozen runes or more - two elements (not counting moon, and overlapping only in one derived element) to cover all five, four powers to have all four pairs, four forms (man beast plant spirit) and two oddballs (chaos, moon). That is of course beyond normal human ability - you'd need an INT of at least 24 to learn this many. Every extra technique reduces your ultimate flexibility wrt mastering runes. Roleplay may suggest you to take choices that go against this minmaxing, too, but it would be nice to know whether the rules offer incentives to learn more than either Command or Tap as a technique. E.g. researching spells. Can you research spells using an inferred technique, or should your character have exactly the techniques and runes for that spell? If there is no such benefit other than saving MP, can a sorcerer receiving multiple techniques decide to leave extra points unused in favor of more Runes to master?

As far as I can see, grappling is not designed to cause direct damage but to immobilize an opponent, or to place him on the ground (preferably prone). Apart from wrestling, the grapple rules also come into play as result of a hit with a lasso. There are (thankfully) no rules for dislodging a limb or for breaking ribs in a bear hug. I don't see any rules for actively breaking free from someone having a (non-immobilizing) grapple hold. Other than the attacker failing a grapple roll, he keeps clinging. Grappling doesn't appear to be a good close combat option unless you get lucky and capture the weapon arm of your target. Hold on to anything else and you will be punished by your adversary using a weapon, or boxing or kicking you. As the rules stand, they appear to be designed for a "friendly" wrestling match with all kicks or strikes barred, something you do when tentatively neutral jocks meet and step forward to test one another's mettle. All very Graeco-Roman or Freestyle Olympic, and nothing like judo or jiu-jitsu where you attempt to use the force of non-grappling attacks or even just your opponent's movement to add to your own strength. From my limited exposure to using something like grapple in unfriendly conflicts (during school) throws don't usually mean you lift your opponent uo in the air and crash them down (only did that once). It is more an attempt to put the opponent into a disadvantage "fallen", from where you continue to subdue. Without ways to modify those resistance rolls, I don't see that coming through. The question is whether detailed rules for this are required. I guess one could write an entire book about unarmed combat maneuvers and how to port them to RQ combat, and entangling attacks or similar martial arts assisting weaponry. But that's like "gun porn" in contemporary period rpgs.

Discussing Varnaval, the Shepherd King/Iron Ram owner/Great Andam/Ordeed charioteer, is a bit of a side-track here where our focus should be on the Lopers (who btw would make decent steeds for the chariot, too). Orlanth's chariot could have been drawn by just about anything, like hawks, wyrm, thunder beasts, lions, bears, ordeeds,. aurochs, sky bulls, cloud rams.