Joerg

I think we can safely assume that whoever was resettled from Slontos to Jrustela (by the name of Olodo) and finally Umathela had been in contact with the Theyalan Lightbringers. Whether they would have had other names for Orlanth and Ernalda I am not sure. Ehilm was the Ralian sun god known to the Malkioni (and probably the Brithini), and identified with the Fire Rune erasanchula (original runic being) that was among those who fell to the temptation of receiving worship, hence the False Gods according to Zzabur's propaganda. That name may well have bled over to Slontos from Galin and Helby. Worlath doesn't show up in Ralios, but that name may have been in use by the Dawn Age Slontans (who had contact with the Serpent Kings if I read that stuff about the wife from the east correctly in the Seshnelan King List). Baraku is a name from the Doraddi myth cycle. The Umathelan aldryami might know about Baraku. I doubt the immigrants brought there by the Waertagi did, although their descendants may have learnt it from the elves. In a way, Baraku is similar to Bisos or Storm Bull, and even more so to the god of the Andam Horde. We have no data what kind of herd beasts he brought, only that they didn't agree to the fodder available on the Veldt. A herder deity, and by extension also a raider deity. Elf Yelmalio is a must have. Sharing that cult with humans may have come when God Learners made the connection with lands formerly ruled by Palangio and transported that idea over, some time after Tanian's Victory. The cult may have garnered new momentum with the new platforms purging the God Learners at the end of the Imperial Age.

The difference between deity and spirit appears to be mainly its preferred habitat - God World or Spirit World. Now Spirit Travel gets you through the near Spirit Plane into deeper regions, and across boundaries delineating domains of various great entities. Take for instance the Lowfires. Mahome, Gustbran and Oakfed are children of the god Lodril, and known to the Heortlings as gods. The Praxians worship Oakfed as a Great Spirit, and are able to manifest him as such (without shattering the Compromise every time they do it). The problem here is that once an entity has amassed a certain level of power/godhood, it may be encountered in various aspects. I have no doubt that the great spirit Oakfed is the same as the god Oakfed, but the entity you encounter in Prax when released is definitely the great spirit, not the deity. On the other hand, when called forth by a worshiper of Gustbran, Oakfed is the divine presence of that lowfire, possibly embodied by the worshiper, possibly using a fire elemental as its temporary body. Some tricks pertaining to that Great Spirit may fail to work against the divine entity, and vice versa, but on the whole they are the same. In the end, we are faced with the elephant's ear, leg, tusk, trunk and belly all over.

Yes on the de facto #2 among nobility, no to the 3rd most important god - that would be missing out on Barntar, the god of Orlanthi farmsteading, who regularly eclipses Orlanth himself when Orlanth is a deity non grata. Or at least that used to be the case among the Heortlings. Pelorian Orlanthi have been exposed to a variety of other sun deities and are much less impressed by a cold sun sitting atop Wintertop Mountain, or another horse-friend sun god. To be fair, Heler isn't much better represented - mentioned as worshipped in Longsi Land, as an associate cult of Orlanth, and giving the name to the fluid gender. Barntar amasses a whooping six mentions. There is the Monrogh/Yelmalio effect which has bled away a vast number of Elmal worshippers, at least as much as Sartar is concerned. Esrolia knows Yelmalio too and isn't too fond of him, but has an ancient sun cult (Harono) and Heortling Elmal, too. On the other hand they are so cosmopolitan that they even acknowledge Yelm in places. Tribal Yelmalians aren't really that different from Elmal worshippers IMO. They will be horse breeders and riders, practicing the same Kuschile mounted archery the Elmal folk do, using the same sort of spears and armor. They usually aren't full-time warriors but mounted herders, horse breeders, farmers, or nobles. Elmal and Vingkot (and his heirs) shared the stewardship over the Orlanthi (of Dragon Pass, Saird and Kethaela). In many ways, Elmal has become a Thunder Brother, as the son in law of Orlanth. Or, if not Elmal, then Beren and Ulanin, the Rider husbands of Vingkot's daughters. But so has Heler in the role of Helamakt. This way, Heler's skills are available in a substratum of the Orlanthi magic. Elmal as defender against Darkness is a role rather underplayed in King of Dragon Pass, but IMO of greater importance than his role as defender against Chaos. On the whole, for a culture professing to be so anti-Chaos as the Orlanthi, they are fairly helpless against it. Orlanth had one big victory in the Upper Air (aka Sky), and a joint victory with an uz force over a lesser force on his Westfaring. That's it. He survived other encounters, but didn't emerge victorious. Elmal offers a fairly impressive "thou shalt not pass" where Yelmalio only offers "I'm still standing" against Chaos, but this pales compared with Storm Bull, or the secret of the Star Heart used by Heort. Elmal is one of several sky companions in Orlanth's hall, and there are companions from other (usually unfriendly) elements, too, like Heler and Mastakos for the seas. The message here is basically no matter who happens to your parents, you can earn your seat at Orlanth's table. I am quite curious whether Six Ages will have the Foreigner Wedding or rather the escape to the plains and Pent. (Waiting for the Android version...) The location on the Black Eel River is neither Berennethtelli nor Pentan.

Yeah. Old Veskarthan was enraged, and he sent a ripple which helped Slontos roll over. There was no breach of the Compromise, though. Volcanic blasts are a known side effect of worshipping volcano deities, whether local ones or the almighty big one. The number of survivors was exceptionally low, but population would rebuild to previous size within 10 generations or so. Nor did the cult of Caladra and Aurelion disappear (at least not from Caladraland, Slontos and Jrustela might be a different subject, although the cult write-up does mention the Manirian site in the present tense). It apppears to have always been strongest around Low Temple and the western parts of the volcanic chain anyway.

So when the God of the Silver Feet was murdered by Prince Snodal and his co-conspirators, the Compromise was broken? And how did that feat leave Issaries unimpaired outside of Fronela? Was this just the local godling rather than the greater god? The Compromise was broken at the Birth of Nysalor not by the birth of Osentalka but by the sun stopping in the sky, counter-acting the flow of Time. It was broken (first) at the Battle of Night and Day by the manifestation of Daysenerus in Palangio (before the manifestation of the Black Eater). The Only Old One summoning the Black Serpent to defend the Obsidian Palace against Belintar, while not succeeding in its purpose, doesn't register as breaking the Compromise, or does it? Monrogh's revelation of Yelmalio did not break the Compromise in any way. He elevated a forgotten and at the time extremely minor cult among the Heortlings from less than a spirit cult to a fully fledged divine cult again. Bad things happen when others break the Compromise, as the Heortlings learned at the Battle of Night and Day. Forming the Cult of Caladra and Aurelion did not break the Compromise, and it did raise worship of Aurelion from a minor spirit cult (at most, possibly at Meetplace in Slontos, as the Seshnegi of northern Jrustela weren't really theist worshipers at the time of their settling) to a full divine cult (or at least half of one). Orlanthi heroes re-introducing a magical or divine beast to the ecology of Dragon Pass is another such example, whether the songbird returned by Moirades, the aurochs returned by Argrath or the leopard introduced by Enjeem. Re-awakening Tada or Genert won't be breaking the Compromise, unless Genert is manifested in the Middle World (no need to do that, really). Tada always was a demigod who was part of the Middle World.

Sure, it's messy, but it is also a lot like Schrödinger's Cat - alive and not alive, while the first victim of Death should be DEAD all over, not a little bit dead. Every being made of the Man Rune aka every mortal being shares the experience, and Flesh Man had a front seat view of it, and experienced the certainty that Death would come for him, too. They all are instances of Grandpa Mortal, but they aren't the original experience (until the moment they die).

Not necessarily - Arkat received the unhealable wound from meeting himself on the hero plane. But I do think that it is stretching split identity a bit if the witness who goes crazy from seeing Darhudan's Death is Darhudan himself, still alive. One or two generations distant works better for me.

Or on some other newt's last ever incarnation.

Hmm. Since you are already in the Underworld when you come up to the Styx, you have already died. You might play that card to receive some immunity. On the other hand, the Styx is likely to have similar purifying powers as Daliath's Well of Wisdom (the two may be adjoined). If you take the Greek mythology back to Glorantha, the bath won't destroy your body, but dissolve your identity - memories, passions, ...

Vamargic Eye-Necklace was half Great Troll, half Cave Troll, and full ZZ Rune Lord. He might have become a Kitori before becoming a Death Lord, though, thereby avoiding the CHA limit. See

I don't think that their eggs leave any fragments when they "hatch" - I doubt they even break the shell. I can see scales of True Dragons as triangular or kite shields, to cover an advance against missiles, but I think that in melee they will use a sword-breaker or a dart-thrower (think atlatl) in their right hands.

I was using both that and Anglo-Saxon immigrants lording over Romano-British subjects in my original approach to the Aeolians. Since (Roman) chain mail is no longer appropriate for the visuals, I might go Bactrian as one influence: https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/572520171371878528/ We do have three castes of Aeolians and a non-caste of non-Aeolian Orlanthi, some of whom may still act as rural nobles within the southern tribes.

The Blue Man lost face, and the knights established their access to sorcery. And the Man-of-All is the one who has mastered the approach to sorcery (a technique, a rune), not the person training for it. Having mastered the training for sorcery (literacy, technique, rune) doesn't make you a Man-of-All yet, there are other things to master, too. It can be assumed that a non-zzaburi who approaches the path of the Man-of-All will have mastered her own caste's proficiencies, but that leaves two more castes' proficiencies besides that of a sorcerer. When I studied chemistry, I met enough people good at chemistry who failed to master the math test, even if they could apply the math to physical chemistry, despite being allowed to use whatever literature they brought into the test. I assume that it will be little different for talar caste applicants failing to get their dromal assignments done, and vice versa. Hrestoli society has a place for these aspiring or flunking aspirants for man-of-all status. The two sample societies in RQG don't have them. The Rokari do have a soldier caste and a noble warrior caste, but neither are encouraged to encroach on the zzaburi privileges. The Esvulari Aeolians don't even have a soldier caste - every Esvulari is expected to be able to pick up weapons and fight, although they do of course have professionals, both among the commoners and among the nobility. In a way, that's a fair step to the Man-of-All. The concept of Men-of-all is a development which arrived in their lands only with Arkat's crusade, and by that time Arkat had already moved on and was about to move on even further, adopting an uz mother, and his followers after the Gbaji War appear to have been able to use the Kitori shapes and magic. There is a possibility that the real contact with men-of-all occurred only with the Slontan invasions of Heortland, and by that time the Esvulari noble cavalry may have been long established. There were numerous things in HQ1 which weren't quite as I would have liked them, but I did like the possibility of having an "order" of guild magics under the general heading of sorcery, with "orderlies" invested deep enough to use their scripture for their magic. The RQG sorcery rules work fine for what was RQ3 apprentice and adept level - for these, they are indeed a step up, with less paperwork though highly increased MP cost. The combination of Technique and Rune is a solid concept, one already used (but under-explored) in HQG, and great for the specialist user. It isn't something a non-specialist could even approach. There is bound to be a pre-Apprentice stage of sorcery. The question is how these people perform sorcery. I wonder whether the Menena caste is tied to the Earth Mother, or whether they are tied to the very principle of motherhood, regardless of element. There are a significant number of sea-wives in Malkioni history, too, starting with Malkion's mother Warera. Not all Tilntae are tied to land or trees. Immortal Malkioni society apparently started out with a much lower number of women, and it isn't clear what concept of marriage they had. A few generations later, there would have been about the same number of female as male Malkioni/Brithini/Danmalastani, and the ubiquity would have been reached. These few generations later may very well have been born in the Grey Age. Malkioni society is sufficiently patriarchal that children are supposed to be born within of wedlock or acknowledged concubinate. On the other hand, Rokari society has been discussed as lustful and concerned primarily with keeping reproduction inside the caste, and less obsessed about keeping sexual affairs within the marriage. Menena certainly looms in any debate about caste restrictions and mores. The Brithini custom of assigning the sons into castes depending on birth order suggests that Hrestol and Fenela would have had two older brothers, one a Dromal and one a Horal. Likewise their cousin, the King of Brithos after Hoalar underwent the ultimate sacrifice, does appear more like a firstborn than like a third-born son. But then, maybe the count-up starts with the father's caste? That would produce an awful lot of Horali-born Talars, though. By the time of the Gbaji Wars, the Seshnegi kings clearly considered all of their sons as members of the talar caste, as the two-generation dynasty preceding Gerlant's reign proves (Seshnelan king list part 1)..

A person's magical aura isn't limited to that person's skin, but should extend a few inch outward. That makes most clothing a part of the person's magical self control, excepting long robes or cloaks. That spell might better be called "wedgie". Given the proximity of private parts, it is not so much about lifting an opponent but about distracting him (or her) significantly.

Thrown spear or atlatl is distinctly different from thrown axe, which is different from thrown knife, as visitors of the Kraken will be able to attest. Bows may use different styles and releases - if you are using the English draw, a release behind your head is quite impossible, whereas thumb release as used by the Parthian on that frieze discussed a while ago here seems to allow such. I own have shot a small variety of bows, but usually using the English release, and only a few times using the sling release that fully-teched up compound archers use (maybe not fully, I have yet to see laser visors at work). That said, if you stick to your release style, you can pick up just about any bow and use it after acquainting yourself with its properties and ammo. (Which in my case often enough means not to draw it to full length because the arrows are way too short, reducing me to using the opera release way ahead of my face.) Instinctive release and aimed sniping aren't completely exclusive, but might be treated as separate skills. Sniping will come easy with crossbows as you don't have to exert force to keep the tension in the bow as you aim, and it works well with not too heavy bows and some means of matching the line of sight across the point of the arrow and an anchoring in relation to your eye (such as face walking or string walking in barebow field archery), or a "visor" in the shape of stripes on your lower arm matched to a distance for completely horizontal shots. (If you are defending a fortified position, you will probably have distance markers out there in the killing field, and corresponding markers on your bow.) Missile quality plays a big role. A stronger bow will need stronger shafts or way more fletching. Using perfectly matched arrows (craft(Fletcher)), your accuracy will be great. Using run-of-the-mill military issue arrows will require some experience to correct for different draw lengths or individual strength of a bow. Weapon quality and familiarity cannot be more than a modifyer to skill, though, and skill may easily surpass 100% for archers used to firing under deleterious conditions (e.g. from unstable platforms like chariots). Picking up an unfamiliar weapon (or ammo) in the middle of a fight should come with a penalty. Using a weapon after a few shots to determine its oddities should eliminate most of those penalties (it's like "shooting in the sight").

Yinkin is part of the Storm Pantheon, as are (nonlisted) deities like Elmal the Sun God, Mastakos the Charioteer (a water deity), or Chalana Arroy, Issaries and Lhankor Mhy, and most of Ernalda's Earth pantheon. He has one Middle Air aspect, as father of the Toling clouds. Other than that, he is a down to earth lover, fighter and hunter, patiently waiting for prey to show up (other people might say he's napping).

Looking at Raw Greed as a spirit of reprisal, addiction may be a curse contracted when overstepping things man wasn't meant to do. In case of forbidden substances, the curse could be an aldryami or mostali one. Eurmal has broken countless taboos, and has attracted and even willingly embraced curses that affected the entire community.

There is no shortage of EWF era or earlier ruins in Dragon Pass, or ancient tombs, which may hold if not artifacts then magical clues or secrets to discover. 13th Age Glorantha has a number of new takes on dungeons, too, if for a D20-like system.

But Daka Fal is about Man Rune ancestor worship. It appears that Yinkin (in the shape of Tol) did sire a number of human lineages, at least one of which ended up in the Berennethtelli tribe and among Harmast Barefoot's ancestors. Sartar's lineage may have been affected, too - not just his granddaughter Onelisin but also her daughters were alynx-women. Ancestor spirits are an entirely different company than (hsunchen) beast spirits.

Yinkin isn't an air god, either - he is a mountain child, like Orlanth, Quivin, or Inora. That (and the otherworldly height of his mother) is how he became a father of clouds. His link to the spirit world is problematic. Sure, he shares his father with Hsunchen spirits like Telmor or Basmol, but he chose to stick with his mother's kin, and with his half-sibling Orlanth. This means that the spirit beasts tend to give him grief at times. Much of this story stems from the strictly separated Three Otherworlds that dominated the publications of the Hero Wars/HeroQuest1 period, and this has been toned down quite a bit. His problem with Telmor has another source - Telmor is a canine, and the Bad Dogs are old enemies of Yinkin and Orlanth's village. (IIRC Mastakos was a victim of them once, too.) Yinkin sided with the Vingkotlings against the Enchanter (who controlled all the beasts in one conflict in the Storm Age, but was thwarted by the Plundering of Aron, a venture of the Thunder Brothers to bring back all the beasts), once again siding with the gods rather than the shamans. I don't think that there are any alynx shamans or alynx spirits to ally (not even to Kolat's shamans). If Yinkin ever had a spirit side, it may have been lost when the Bad Dogs wounded him. Yinkin's amorous exploits wouldn't stop him from mating with spirit entities, but any hypothetical offspring from that may be alienated from their father. There are plenty beasts that aren't tied to Hsunchen. Odayla's bear aspect is quite separate from the Rathori bear hsunchen of Fronela (from whom Harrek comes), and there is a Pelorian bear king god further west, Arakang, and a bear mother further north, Ertelenari (who appears on the Gods Wall). All bears share an affinity to storm, but not necessarily to Orlanth.

Shop keepers are likely crafters or cooks, possible in the business to preserve whatever they sell, so in all likelihood Dromal, even if wealthy. A peddler with just a basket or similar backpack probably wouldn't count as a Talar. The equivalent to a spare grain manager of rural resources might very well be the lowest of the Talar administrators, although the Sedalpists appear to have delegated low level administration to their Horal caste. Among the Rokari or Aeolians I would say Talar, among the Loskalmi possibly Guardian (commoner eligible to train for Man-of-all).

The spell only affects magic cast by the Ernalda worshipper. Short of Spell Trading or multiple cult membership, that limits her choice of rune spells to those granted to Ernalda to those she gets from her own cult and associated cults. I would only use the spirit spells from the "definite" list, Shield, Spirit Block. Defensive is what reduces the chance to be hit by enemy magic or attacks directly through the magic. Parry and Great Shield affect defensive abilities of the champion, but not directly his defense. While this spell is part of the Arming of ... ceremony, I don't think that any weapon bonus would be affected, but might be convinced. Absorption might be defensive in nature, and looks like too good to be true in combination with Bless Champion, pumping the caster with additional magic points. I am curious about the definition of "Enemy magic" in this context, btw. Does Absorption let healing magic through? And what happens when hit by a sufficiently high dispel or dismiss magic spell? Inviolate reads like a special form of Dismiss Magic. While the spell is temporal, it is cast on the caster herself and has an area effect of 3m radius around the caster, for the duration. It isn't entirely clear to me whether the Inviolate dispels such magic or just cancels it while the caster is within reach, similar to Neutralize Magic. If boosted with enough MP, the caster will tear down all Countermagic in her neighborhood unless stacked with enough Shield (or only if the person has cast such a spell on themselves?). This is not a defensive spell IMO. A case might be made for Reflection, which would be available to an Ernaldan who also follows the Seven Mothers, but the spell doesn't really block incoming magic, it only returns magic that failed to overcome the target's POW. Not a protective spell IMO as it doesn't prevent the hostile caster from attempting to overcome the champion's POW. Fireshield is defensive, but not really in the normal array of Ernalda cultists. Warding or Create Market might be defensive in nature, but aren't cast upon the Champion, so don't count.

There was a preview about the Blood of the Gods (magic crystals) and the Bones of the Gods (rune metals) which explicitely repeated that enchanted iron doesn't dampen magic that way. Available for download to all who subscribed to the newsletter about RQ releases. I would count this as being given official rules. You are entirely correct, YGMV (or YRQGMV) may make a rune-lord's iron weapon provided by the cult impossible to combine with his cult's magic. The master is in charge of the rules interpretations for his games, and can alter them - preferably after consultation with his players, or at least notifying them of how he handles such things. During the session, this shouldn't cause a major rules debate, either. After the session, the issue can be debated, and GM and players can work out whether and what effect such rulings have on their enjoyment. Things get a little unpleasant when a GM confronts unfamiliar players who may have brought their own characters with house rules in the middle of a game. Personally, I don't usually play characters from cults which have rune lords, so I don't expect my characters ever to wield an iron weapon. I would be seriously disturbed by that ruling anyway if it affected someone else's rune lord, and might vote with my feet.

That's unenchanted iron. Rune Lords use enchanted Iron, which doesn't have this effect. There might be of course some fringe folk in Glorantha not using personal magic who would don a suit of unenchanted iron gear to become rather impervious to magic. That is, magic directly cast onto them. They would still be as susceptible to magic which just altered the world around them, e.g. an elemental opening the earth below them. Not so. A sword made of iron may be the death rune shaped token of death metal, but that doesn't mean that death rune magic cannot take it closer to the original tool of Death, in all likelihood without ever reaching that. The rules explicitely allow Bladesharp, True Sword, Boon of Kargan Tor and Neutralize Armor on a single weapon, possibly of enchanted Iron, which may well be carrying multiple blessings of Humakt, and attack using Sword Trance. Only Fireblade doesn't work with this combo. The rules state that True Sword won't double anything but the damage of the weapon, not the damage bonus, and by extension none of the other spells I listed above. The effects still add up, and a single hit will send one of the limbs of Bigclub the Giant flying, or at least falling down separately. On the topic of Humakti munchkinism, have you heard about Humakti Lottery Swords?

Or these spells exist as part of the curriculum despite the pacifist posture. Possibly as spells they teach to non-Sedalpist sorcerers to do their dirty work. A similar illogical religious requirement might be some combat dance element in their soldier caste which might give them some initial weapon skill. It is easy to be a vegetarian if all you have for food is plant-based. It is a lot harder when someone digs into tasty-smelling food with gusto, although what smells tasty is clearly colored by your acculturation, as I learned from my vegetarian tenant from India. What I find lacking in Sandy's spell excamples are spells that would affect Malasp, the one group of non-humans that are actively hostile to the Sedalpists.