Joerg

There is no realistic way to produce a 1000 ft dyke even with modern technology, except for very small dams for hydroelectric power. Current sea and river dykes are less than 50 ft high. Anything that holds back a flooding of 3000 ft will have to be magical rather than material, and possibly trap pockets of air underwater rather than keeping it away from a region completely. The seas encircling the Vingkotling lands were of a different character, huge bulges that didn't care about contour levels of the mountain ranges they covered. This flood is a lot more passive, although it may be slightly powered by a Tidal Wave deity. Imagining a storm that might push away such an amount of water would be powerful enough to eraze any earth surface it might touch without any additional effort, too.

I appreciate your providing Greek sources, and I already qualified my statement to allow for war choreographies. Parades and katas may be seen as part of the Dance skill. The Sun County Yelmalians do come across as quite puritanic, though, especially in comparison to the other participants in Melisande's Hand. Rowdy displays of boozed fun appears to be as out of character to devout Yelmalians as it does to Humakti. That said, they will consume beer and wine, but they are expected to keep a modicum of formality even when intoxicated. Likewise, I imagine the Sun Domers to be stonger in Stasis than in individual Mobility. It is different for the Phalanx as a whole, there the Yelmalian formation is likely to have few equals and hardly any superiors. (Immortal Brithini Horali or organized Luathans aside...) The Phalanx rules as written disregard the experience of the forces forming the phalanx, abstracting it with the leader's battle rolls. While there are some things a Sun County citizen should succeed at automatically, I would like to see a difference between highly trained Templars or Stonewall phalangists and green Sartarite carls pulling up in a shield wall. But then, stuff like that can be abstracted by the average Battle skill of the phalangists, with cultural boni for hoplite cultures. There will be Yelmalians on constant outlook for the spirits of reprisal, no doubt, but I don't see such outliers as typical of the culture. On the whole, the impression I got from Melisande's Hand (and Biturian Varosh's visit) confirmed me in wanting to play or GM Sartarites or Pavisites rather than Sun Domers. I did have a (Vanntar) Yelmalian in the Heortland campaign I ran, who very much filled the role of the straight man in the party make-up.

No, after re-arranging my house I can only pinpoint my shrink-wrapped copy of that supplement. Belvani is a weirdo with his draconic mysticism revival. I bet he knows how to waltz, too. True for the Ernaldan side of the cultic activities, but completely out of synch with my picture of "Spartans in the Wild West" and the stoicism displayed in Melisande's Hand. Herding is far from a core activity of the Sun Domers. Keeping some lifestock in your backyard is completely different from driving herds from pasture to pasture. Getting enough draft beasts to plow your land is hard in the vicinity of Praxian cattle raiders who don't mind roasting oxen well trained to the plow. Maintaining the horse herds works thanks to the aid of the two clans of the zebra tribe, and the presence in New Pavis. At a guess, I would expect less horses than god talkers in the whole of Sun County. Do they have a uniform dialect? How many of the current Sun Domers are of Elmali Sartarite stock, and how many are survivors of the Solitude of Testing? And who do you interact with when coming from Pavis County? I have no stakes in the region, so I will yield this to people who have personal experience playing there, but if my gaming ever went to this part of the Zola Fel valley, I would have at least two thirds of the Sun Domer population of Solitude of Testing stock at the time Dorasar brought the Monrogh former Elmali to end the Solitude of Testing. The Solitude of Testing produced a (probably tiered) melange of old Vanntar Sun Domers, Teshnan refugees from the Grantland area, and Praxian-descended folk who joined the sedentary Sun Domers under the pygmy counts. My Sun County would have families of stunted growth, with very dark skin, who were "very friendly" with those pygmy counts, occasional bluish or yellowish skin on other families, probably low ranking except for maybe one or two lineages of non-martial sun priests, almost pure Spear Heortling families, and an upper crust with Sartarite male lineage and plenty of native brides to establish a link with the upper crust of the population of the Solitude of testing. But then I like to add complications to the complexities of Glorantha, and even more in-depth family background than the RQG rules provide. Old Pavic is as close to Tarshite as it is to Heortling - it was the language of the undivided Dragon Pass population. The differences between Pelorian Orlanthi dialects and Kethaelan ones aggravated badly when the communication across the mixed form went missing. There is a similar phenomenon which probably contributed to the separation of Norse and Low German with the evacuation of Anglia in the 3rd to 5th century, leading to immigration from both from the south and from the north-east with unrelated dialects, over a similar time of almost complete depopulation (and immigration of unrelated groups, like the Frisians and the Wendic Obodrites, creating a zone of little to no direct linguistic exchange between the Danish kingdoms and the remaining continental Saxons, who then got all but dispersed by the Franks under Charlemagne, exacerbating the problem. The Saxons who remained in place spoke a heavily Frankish influenced Low German, not that different from the Ripuarian Franks. Dragon Pass had of course the Inhuman Occupation, the immigration of the Pure Horse Folk/Grazers, and the Kitori. Pretty much the same situation. Those were in all likelihood comparatively recent immigrants from Saird, immigrating by the company, mingling with whatever remnants of Palangio's even less Heortling Daysenerus peasant followers may have survived in the Amber Fields. They stayed just outside of the Hendriki lands and their Foreigner Laws by Aventus, and provided a deterrent while the Hendriki kings hid from the Slontan occupied lands of those Heortlanders who had been subject to the Foreigner Laws. After the fall of Locsil, the Hendriki re-instated the Foreigner Laws, and extended them to the Dragon Pass refugees following the 1042 mass utuma, but prior to that, the Vanntar Sun Domers were a welcome disparate population keeping whoever had the power outside of the EWF in check. This would make the Vanntar dialect and culture of 877 Sairdite, influenced by the dragon craze and central Dragon Pass dialects, but quite different from Hendriki or resident Heortland foreigners. Compare how the Dinacoli maintained their Pelorian Orlanthi dialect through their membership to the Jonstown city confederation, for a comparable length of time. At the time of Joraz Kyrem, the Sun Domer horses were little more than an afterthought for the Pure Horse Tribe herds that populated pretty much the same range the Pol Joni did until 1610. The Pavis Zebra riders were of course relying on non-striped horses to breed their (infertile) cavalry zebras, but the Sun Domer stock just added to an already existing huge amount of available horse flesh. Between Alavan Argay and Derek Pol Joni, the Pavis Survivors had serious problems maintaining their cavalry for lack of breeding stock for cavalry zebras. Every lost war zebra cost them dearly in breeding stock. It is hardly surprising that half of the surviving zebra folk shared their pasture with the Pol Joni after their arrival in Prax. They probably sold cavalry zebras to their cousins that roamed the lands around the Rubble as heralds in exchange for war zebra breeding stock. Unlike Sun County, I do have a personal affinity to the zebra riders through exposure in the 1997 freeform People of Pavis where I got to play Cyrilius Harmonius. Following that experience, preceded by some research before the freeform and a blast promoting and eventually consummating the ritual marriage between the Pavis Cult and the Red Goddess while defending the true interests of the zebra tribe against that bandit chief of Zebra Town, I did write up a bit of background for that (which never got played, though). Strictly urban Pavis, however. My only experience playing as a beast rider was an experimental multi-party RQ game (also at Tentacles) where I ended up playing a wannabe Waha Khan of the Impala riders. Who needs ducks when you can play Impala Riders? I guess I would have identified a lot better with a High Llama, Bison or Rhino rider, and possibly even a Morokanth. It was interesting, but not at all what I would play in a campaign.

The dykes may well be flooded but keep the watery invaders from plundering the area protected haphazardly, invoking ancient pacts turning the local water entities into guardians. The extent of the catastrophe depends strongly on how unexpected the flood comes. With prophecy, and especially prophecy in player character hands, hundreds of grandiose schemes may be carried through. Nochet alone has two supernatural backdoors, the Fish Road and the Blackmaw. Seapolis should be immune as its city area already is part of the seas, magically, as the Fish Road terminus. And the Pelaskites will have boats for their entire population, and possibly space to spare. The situation will be exacerbated by the Waertagi, though, and possibly Vadeli and chaotic Artmali contribute to the damage, too. No idea whether there will still be wolf pirates by this time, or whether they will have re-organized as coastal warlords elsewhere. On the other hand, the cult of Faralinthor might be revived in time, and provide a wet but non-lethal embrace e.g. for the temple city of Ezel. Coastal Pamaltela, including the oldest Elf Jungles, will set up a different kind of resistance, too. Kimos might become a game changer. We are talking about an event 25 years in the future of the Gloranthan now, however. There is a good chance that it will be 2052 before official publications for any of the systems get to deal with this, and few campaigns are as long-lived and far in the future as the one recently come to an end for @soltakss (and that one took more than two decades, too). Destroyed as in drowned with all the inhabitants, or flooded out and temporarily left behind, badly damaged by the hungry seas? Especially with Nochet and its Great Library I can see desperate and heroic action drama. Argan Argar's Safe spell might play a role here.

It's complicated, with all the exogamy, the in-laws, and the children of your sisters etc. Let's start with property. You don't inherit much if anything - ownership of land and most of the herds rests with the clan, not the bloodline, and even less so the individual. The house you live in was raised by your immediate kin (if you were born into the clan) or by your in-laws you have moved to, but on clan land. The clan chief is the sole arbiter for which clan member gets to occupy which stead, but this is tempered by the outrage of the rest of the clan if he overthrows established occupation or assignments. Still, if a member of a bloodline has severely displeased the chief, the bloodline may see a severe cut-back in their share of clan-owned cattle. There will always be a few head of cattle that will be owned by the bloodline rather than by the clan, and calling on these for purposes of sacrifice or taxation will usually infer an obligation or some replacement - unless there is bad blood between the bloodline and the chief. In that case, mobbing can be quite bitter. The storyline of The Coming Storm/The Eleven Lights is designed to bring the player characters into dissens with their clan chief, and a petty GM can easily enforce a petty reaction by the chief and his cronies. Disputes like these are the bread and meat of intra-clan politics, leading to weird alliances, personal favors owed, and if things escalate without any side relenting, the split of the clan. King of Dragon Pass provided this problem whenever the clan outgrew equal participation in clan decisions, but also had the case of a bloodline overriding the clan's peacemaking and pursuing their blood feud, leading to eviction from the clan (or split of it). They cannot. Their in-laws from the neighboring, not always friendly clan can, and might if your sister/aunt(s) living there are sufficiently offended and sufficiently influential in that clan. Plus the games of favorites with the clan chief. There's no point in doing so. A marriage is a legal contract between two clans, specifying the residence of the married couple and thereby the clan membership of any of their offspring with the clan of residence. In case of a temporary marriage, the marriage partner will return to their birth (or adoptive) clan when the marriage term ends, and any children will be left behind. It is possible that consecutive temporary marriages leave children of the couple in both clans - blood siblings, but no legal kin. Think of Yoristina and Saronil. If Saronil had had ambitions to follow his father as King of Dragon Pass, he would have had to woo his own sister (or possibly his own mother) as Feathered Horse Queen. The Twin Dynasty of Arim's Tarsh had no qualms to do so. Saronil went for the next best thing and took a high ranked priestess (or two) from Shaker Temple for his wife (and possibly also for his second wife). If an unmarried woman of one bloodline in the clan has a child from an unmarried man from another bloodline, that child will be raised as a member of the household of that woman. The same when a married woman gets pregnant from a religious rite with whomever - taking on a divine role overrides even sibling or parental blood ties, and any marriage vows, although those extremes usually will be avoided. If that mother marries into another clan, the child will remain with her bloodline, and raised by her mother, aunts, or sisters in law. Any child she has in that other clan will be raised by the father's bloodline. If the bride about to marry away is pregnant, marriage may be delayed if the husband is not the father, unless the marriage contract between the clans explicitely includes the unborn child. A parent married off to another clan will retain visiting rites to their birth stead, even in times of blood feud between those clans. Crossing the border safely may require an escort of a neutral third party, though. A child given over to a bloodline not of your birth place may be lost forever - something which makes divorces a lot rarer than the laws for divorce make it seem. One of the divorce rules would be that any child conceived during a marriage has to be delivered to the clan of the marriage partner, and probably at that clan, too. In case of a fresh widow the legalities get interesting, once again - story hook material. Forget about Cramer vs. Cramer or the Rose Wars, this gets serious. A runaway pregnant wife might arrange that the persecuting husband suffers an accident, making her a widow. From incidents like that, entire clans were wiped off the maps. The only case where such a marriage would be taken into consideration would be a ritual marriage where both partners marry not only as themselves but as the gods in the rite. Such a marriage for magical reason may the the way out for Romeo Tormakting and Julia Bolthoring, and be harder than the case of the unfortunate couple with the Dinacoli neighboring clan, or the incident with the water nymph. If the participants aren't blood cousins, they can have as many children as they wish, as long as both are adult and not sworn in any other way, or divinely legitimated. Members of the Niskis or Yinkin subcult may have provided children within their own clan, and on holy days even with married women. Likewise, a god talker of Ernalda may undergo ritual marriage with subsequent pregnancy multiple times, and her husband may not be the blood father of any of the kids added to his household. This way, a Vingan "husband" may "father" a whole bunch of children to her household. A marriage would be rare. The couple wouldn't share a household - there are no single-person households in Sartarite society. A widow will be taken in as a cottar, or if of thane or prestigious carl rank, will take in cottars to her household. Sex between unmarried members of the same household will be an incest taboo, even if the two people have no blood relation whatsoever. Fertility rites with orgiastic free-for-all may still be possible, but I don't know how loose these things get with the Sartarite earth rites. Unheard of, yes. Encouraging Chaos and a crime? No, just a possibly spicy little scandal. Breaking a marriage oath or two to have such a relationship would be a crime punishable by exile. On the other hand, exile for both partners would open the way for such a marriage, and with city guilds a new start not far from the former kin would be possible, though far from guaranteed. True. But having bloodlines unrelated by direct blood can make it possible to marry a daughter to the son of a woman born to this clan without causing any biological problems. Children will regard all children growing up at the same stead as their siblings. Chances are that one in three will only have one parent living at the stead without either parent having died. The children aren't raised by their mothers after being weaned, unless that mother has a special knack for raising the children. Most likely they will be raised by their grandmother or grand-aunt, the steadmistress, and whoever she appoints to the current task of watching over the kids. The concept of a core family (father, mother, full siblings) as the sole population of a stead house is fairly alien to Heortlings. Usually there will be uncles and their wives, grandparents, grand-uncles and their wives, and possibly another family, possibly of lower social standing, occupying the same stead house. I addressed this above already. In the old triaty system, this was much less of an issue since your marriage partners would be at least one generation away from having been born to a member of your clan. "Day Marriage" is a polite term for casual sex. I would expect this to be fairly uncommon outside of fertility rites, and extremely common during these. In an officiating role, marriage vows are considered suspended for the time of the rite. Sex is the prerogative of adulthood. Sex while not initiated can have serious magical consequences. Underage (i.e. uninitiated) shepherd boys seduced by spirits of the land may be lost to the clan, or require an adoption rite. Girls are a lot less likely to experience "underage" sex since their adulthood rites follow their first menstrual blood, even if that means that a 12 year old girl may gain the status of an adult. The implications of this aren't anything to publish, either, if you want to avoid your product being sold in brown paper bags. It is quite possible that the boys' adulthood rites err on the side of safety (too young), too. In case of the Red Cows, there is the additional problem of the rattle-born... I have embraced this problem for my pilgrimage HQ scenario "The Homecoming of Norinevra", the first part of which has been published in the German HQ scenario book. There the party consists of matrilineal descendants of the deceased Asrelia priestess of Esrolian descent who get charged with her dying wish to be interred in the crypt of her matrilineal ancestors, House Norinel, which she had to leave in disgrace around the Saronil assassination. Basically, this is a mixed clan party, and right at the start of the game there may even be a legal claim between her matrilineal descendants and her husband's bloodline's clan about the release of the corpse for this pilgrimage. Writing up the Nochet side of this scenario has turned out to be a lot harder than I anticipated, and I am still stuck in research about how to introduce helpful and hindring NPCs for this second part of the scenario. I would probably run this not as a one or two session scenario, but as an "on the road" campaign with lots of stops with yet other clans at least some of the characters will have in-law relationships with, and side quests due to favors due or wanted. Maybe I should as a play by forum game.

That's when you teach tradetalk, or learn the local lingua franca. Given the stalwart preparation of the God Learners and the Theyalans before them, the Issaries trade language is rudimentarily spoken everywhere outside of the East and inner Pamaltela. Otherwise, you try with the language of the folk you just met a little distance from there and see whether anybody has a few words you can understand in that language. If that doesn't work, you can try to find a language on those two trees on p.172 of the RQ rules which has some relationship. Making first contact with Hsunchen won't give you anything like this. There it is "teach Tradetalk". And I wonder whether that is an option in post-Syndics Ban Fronela, or whether there is a language used by the Kingdom of War which has taken over. WIth older editions, there was the Spirit/Battle Magic spell Mindspeech, but according to p.435 that is currently unavailable.

Looking at the twbles on p.60-63, I guess I would start with the Esrolian rather than the Sartarite table. The Sun Domer culture doesn't strike me as indulging much in male singing or dancing, and while herding may have become somewhat feasible with the arrival of Dorasar, I don't think it would be any more prominent in the river valley than in Esrolia. Their language might be somewhere between Old Pavic and Pelorian Orlanthi - the Sun Dome Cult originated in Saird, and while they may have adapted somewhat to the local southern Heortling over time, these guys may have been sufficiently conservative to speak more of a Tarshite than of a Heortling dialect 200 years after establishing the Tharkantus cult at Vanntar. I doubt that they had adopted the Hendriki dialect or the Esrolian one at the time, but then the linguistic divide was much lesser because there was no separation between the populaitions north or south of the Dragonspine. It isn't clear to me how much Pelorian Sun Dome Templars wander between temples, or whether they stick to the same temple for their entire career. If there used to be regular exchange between Templars whose caravan duties etc. may have ended them up at distant temples, the case for them keeping a Pelorian, Solar-influenced dialect would be even stronger, but this really depends on how the temples recruit templars from communities outside of their own. Even though temple-based, at the end of the battle day they are mercenary companies who will recruit some stray elements to make up for casualties suffered in battle. Their non-Templar rural folk still remain their main source of recruits, but templars picked up from elsewhere might stay long enough to enjoy a vetaran's plot and maybe a Sun Domer widow for company. I don't really see a case for exogamy outside of the temple lands when it comes to select wives for their rural population. In "Melisande's Hand" the veiled Sun Dome women did join the female judges, but didn't really mingle with the wives of the Garhound clan or neighboring Pavis County clans, and even less indication for any chance of marriagable youths making contact across the cultural divide. Sacred marriages probably are the only occasions when females from outside of their culture join their ranks. Given the celibacy values implied in Yelmalio's geases, I see a possibility for templars to remain married when joining the force, but not really for them to pick up wives during campaign. That means quite little cultural contamination/cross-pollination with the neighboring Hendrikiland Heortlings, even more so since their cold sun cultists had not been co-religionists that far back. Maybe replace "Intrigue" by "Meditate", given the slightly mystical leanings of the Praxian Sun Domers. So: Farm +25, First Aid +5, Spirit Combat +15, Speak Own Language (Old Pavic/Sun Domer Heortling) 50, Speak Other Language +10 - odds are that this may have become New Pelorian in the last decade or so, Intimidate +5, Orate +5, Customs (Sun Domer) 25, possibly Play Instrument rather than Sing +5. Not sure about Dance - this might be the skill for marching in formation, in which case +10 would be rather on the low side. Intrigue or maybe Meditate +5. No ride, boat or swim skill, no chariots. Not much indication for being able to maintain significant herds of anything with the Praxians for most of the Solitude of Testing - possibly using buffalo for plowing rather than Heortling cattle, since those beasts could be kept in marshy bits where Praxian raiders loathe to go. As for weapons, 1H Spear should be +15, 2H Spear/Pike +10, Short Sword +10, Knife +10, Grapple (wrestling) +10, Self Bow +10, Dart or Javelin +10, Medium Shield +15, Large Shield +15. Sun Domer peasants train as miliitia to form a pool of recruitment for Templar rank and receive some basic training in formation and with the heavy gear. All of this purely from my impression how the Praxian Sun Domers may have inherited the draconic Yelmalio cult when they accompanied Pavis to their furthest outpost. There may have been some adoption of the Teshnan refugee population with maybe an exotic cult, possibly a weird form of Tolat as the patron deity for swords as sidearm. Given the sparse forestation of the region, the axe may have been less popular, also because it would have been a weapon females might aspire to, and from what emerged out of the Solitude of Testing, the Praxian Sun Domers would have none of that. The veiling of their women might have come as a consequence of adopting Teshnan refugees - Teshnan women are appealing to Wareran and Praxian males, and putting them under the veil might have hidden that fact from the Praxians plaguing the place, even taking over at times. Females can get the same expertise at weapons as can male sun domers, as exemplified by Vega Goldbreath, but it is quite possible that females choosing the way of the warrior need to be even more Yelmalian than their male counterparts in the militia. Females should have Sing rather than Orate, and might have some textile craft rather than Meditate. Possibly in exchange for Grapple. RQG is back to being completely ungendered as far as background skills are presented, but I don't think that that's that appropriate for Prax, whether among the Beast Riders or the strongly patriarchalic Sun Domers. The Vanntar temple may be somewhat less prude, and those tribal Elmali-descended Yelmalians did boost the Praxian population when Dorasar came, but would have remained a minority. I don't recall seeing any hints in Sun County which families were Solitude of Testing prominent and which were recent Sartarite additions. It might be interesting to dig a little in this family past.

Issaries communicates through Tradetalk. and might have a ritual to teach the rudimentaries. Not sure whether Lhankor Mhy has any business to provide spells for speaking another language, but probably has ones for understanding spoken languages - possibly as sorcery spells. Yelm might have a magic to make his commands understood regardless of language barriers. I don't really see the mindset to establish a two-way communication in a foreign, inferior language with any group in Glorantha. Issaries offers Tradetalk as a common ground, and his magic is based on this.

We had this argument before, but I think that stuff like preparing black powder is part of the magical practice by the Mostali, possibly their non-equivalent of spirit magic. Something where they pour their magical energies. That's not what I meant, and I didn't mean to suggest these Reprocess magics as combat magics anyway. Reprocess is about turning magic into superior matter, and IMO that's what Maker magic is about at its core. Which is fine to some point, but when we come to concepts like "energy" (btw. a term used in connection with the spirit trap loaned to Vadel and imitated by Zzabur), heat, magic and mind, let alone death, we are back in the realm of magical concepts rather than concrete physical substances, and I read "alchemy" as "pretty much any substance". I'm a bit fuzzy about what it is that they are collecting. Death as personified by Humakt is the (fairly instant) process of severing life from a body. Being dead is something different. Zorak Zoran's form of Death might be seen as "dying, and then...", also with regard to his use of undead. Then we have Nontraya, Lord of the Dead That Won't Rest, and finally we have "Guardians of the Dead" in the Underworld, like Yelm Bijiif or Ty Kora Tek, whose form of Death is definitely the state after dying, and not the process of dying. The concept of iron mostali necromancy (in the sense of tapping the release of unspent life force?) is certainly interesting. The processing of the Tadeniti during the Tadeniti wars looks like a major case of this. I do wonder how and why Iron Mountain in Seshnela received its special bounty of death (metal). It doesn't look like the place where Stone or Mostal died, and it is quite a distance from Hrelar Amali where Zorak Zoran slew Flamal. It is a bit weird (rune-wise) that the lead mostali are in charge of liquid handling. Possibly "force" rather than "work", when thinking of physics? Mostali know about magnetism, and I doubt that magnetism is limited to Gloranthan iron. Or "spirit". The four "sky" castes, after rock and the three non-sky elements. (The mostali have no place for Storm, and refer to "bronze" as "brass", the Lodril metal.) Tin for Life explains how that could go wrong with the birth/growth of Umath, containing lots of the functions now associated with Brightface the Emperor. The thing made after the demise of Mostal (caused by the birth of Umath?), and the closest the mostali get to acknowledge Storm. (Air might be an expression of Tin.) I don't quite agree. Magic as perceived by the mostali is the source of all matter. The Malkioni look at the energies of the world emerging in the Far Above and dissipating in the Deep Below. The mostali may view it the other way around, with matter emerging from the base of the Spike (irritatingly named The Chaosium) and thinning out as you go higher, but the stuff from above is good for stabilizing the matter below. Raw Matter is living Stone, and it used to be collected at the base of the Spike to be Made into the good things of the World Machine, and to replace wear and tear. It could be made into the various flavors that people call elements. Yes. Full agreement to this statement. It is something that requires direction, and Maker magic provides it with direction. Stored e.g. as angular momentum in the rotation of the World Machine and lesser (clockwork) instances thereof - static motion. I see the job of the Gold case in the case of the Tamestones as providing purpose. Tin offers animation, but Gold offers purpose. Other castes contribute in some ways, too - if you look at the Organstones of the Faceless Stature, there appear to be special minerals that refer to caste specialities. I would rather pair the six human sorcerous techniques with Mostali tooling equivalents, and making them independent of caste. Think of six expressions of Helper rather than eight plus one expressions of the mostali castes. I do agree that dwarves shouldn't be spell slingers recanting formulae, and I doubt that mostali base their magic on literacy. I don't think that mostali have much use for literacy (beyond what is used in Tradetalk - quantities, substance descriptors...), it's all in their heads, even inventory keeping. There are items like the Alchemical Transformer, though, which appear to interact with the magic of others. I think we can agree upon mostali and clay dwarves bringing weird magical and mechanical artifacts into the magical exchanges with non-mostali, things which they can activate. The mechanisms of the Repeating Crossbow for instance, or Black Powder. Possibly stuff like folded, spring-activated caltrops that distribute themselves after being tossed out. Traps for all manner of substances and concepts. So, rather than having Bladesharp or Boon of Kargan Tor, iron mostali would apply a sharpening tool to their axes to increase their damage as they prepare for combat. Few of the other castes are able to do much in a combat situation - tin mostali might direct tamestones, and gold mostali might remind participants of strategies and fall-back strategies as battle plans meet their usual fates upon contact with the enemies. Rock mostali might collapes or create/re-open tunnels, lead mostali might open or close seals or water ducts, quicksilvers might release fumes. I don't see much of a role for silver mostali in conflicts except to harvest/re-harness magical energies expended, as most of the magic encountered in the battle will be negated by the iron of the combat troops.

The mostali should have some form of pre-cast magic only waiting to be released in a combat situation. Pretty much like black powder, really. Aim, activate, take the effect. Neutralize Rune already exists as a standard sorcery spell, but without the area effect. "Reprocess (Rune/Substance)" sounds like a Mostali version of Tap (whatever), isolating an amount of purified substance or runic essence from the target entity or object. There should be at least one such spell per caste, with Quicksilver and Silver possessing wider ranges each - Quicksilver all manner of substances, Silver all manner of runes (except maybe form and condition runes). There would have to be a "Bestow (reprocessed stuff)" magic, too. "Activate Runic Property (Substance)" might be another Maker magic common to all castes, with specific applications. Something like this might also be behind the Mostali constructs, where the runic property may well be that of Man or Beast when creating jolanti or mineral/metal combat beasts. Gold dwarves might have a magic "Instruct (caste/species)" to lay down complex sets of commands and rules for constructs or subjects. Another magic in the same direction would be "Coordinate Project", which would affect all mostali and mostali creations assigned to that project. This could be an active spell. "Inspect (object/project)" might be a quality control mechanism, possibly "Detect Flaw". Caste and purpose decide which flaws can be found. I wonder about mostali tools. While there appear to be caste-appropriate tools, the first tools of Mostal were multitools, transcending any future caste restrictions. There ought to be some Maker magic addressing this.

In melee, the rule on p.218 is applied - the shield's protective value is deducted from the damage to the rolled location. The Shield Hit Location table is the text version of the graphics on p.218 and refers to missile hits that aren't parried but simply blocked because the shield was in the way. If the missile hits one of these locations, the shield protective value is deducted from the damage to the hit location covered by the shield. If any other location is hit, the shield used gains no benefits from carrying the shield in question. I would allow shield bearers in partial cover to use the shield actively to protect a head peering over a palisade, even with a small shield. No roll required, but one parry used up.

RQ3 Sun County really said all there has to be said about the Praxian Yelmalians, down to their non-Templar militia. Sun Domers in Dragon Pass have a few additional careers, like light cavalry, archer/skirmisher, and overseer (over their Kitori/Ergeshi slaves that bear a major share of the work in the fields). Tribal Yelmalians would be predominantly cavalry or mounted infantry, IMO, rather than hoplites. Still a superior shieldwall, but much less adapt in maneuvering as a phalanx.

Or taking the much lower barrier and flooding out of the Sweet Sea. If it was the year after the Kalikos expedition, he had just been in the region, and the Sweet Sea has myths about not remaining inside its shores.

Just because an area has been flooded doesn't exactly mean that all the population was lost. There are for instance the Fish Roads in Kethaela which allow land dwellers to seek refuge beneath the Choralinthor Sea, probably one of the safest place you can go while the land is flooded. There are magically sealed places like Erenplose, and similar magic could apply to other places. The Shadow Plateau may have become a place of refuge once more, too. The Underworld and similar magical refuge places were used in the bad winter of 1622, and could be used again. The Seas flooding into the Dead Place will have interesting effects. Prax might emerge changed beyond recognition. So may the seas. True, there will be loss of lives. This might be the magical map of future Loskalm that Snodal sought to prevent. This might be the big Waertagi invasion of Seshnela. By the time of this flood, Argrath was King of Saird, and his followers may have come to displace Lunar and Dara Happan folk in the region - the flood may have caused a migration there. Peloria has been the battlefield for a while now, and the sabotage of the Kalikos Quest had just given Dara Happa a fair taste of what the Windstop had done to Kerofinela and Kethaela. The Empire hasn't been left unscathed. KoS p.26 describes an event roughly in 1650: So even if this was a rainflood rather than the ice floe flood, Dara Happa had seen a frozen spring, followed by an exceptional flooding the year after, and was ruled by Sheng Seleris. There must have been a fairly high death toll there, too. There is a chance that the battle against the Red Moon following the defeat of Sheng Seleris took place in 1651 or 52, before this Mandrenke, or that the Mandrenke was an event of his fight against Sheng. In either case, Peloria had not remained unscathed.

You have to remember that Yelmalio is the god of hoplites that forbids a good portion of his most devout worshipers to wear bits of hoplite armor where they would be required. Practicality isn't that much of an option.

The place could be an Artmali ruin from the latest part of their struggle in the Gods War, when they had turned to Chaos (and probably were badly warped by it), or some race from beyond the Gods' Cliff. Neither Vadeli nor Artmali show evidence for weaponry able to withstand dwarf siege engines from their own technology, but this might be stolen dwarf technology turned against its former master, possibly by warping it with Chaos. Another possibility are the Slarges, who are shown on the God Learner Maps to have been in the region. We don't know much about the late Artmali Empire, except that it had allied with Chaos, and then suffered devastating defeats. There is a possibility that some chaotic race with a high level of sorcerous technology appeared here, and was wiped out in the Breaking of the World.

There are no winds to take off on, and there is no magic to enable this. The 1621 HHD of Orlanth is at best a memorial service inside the Windstop. What happens outside of the Windstop will be interesting, too. All the storms are bleeding towards Whitewall, which has gained an entry to the Underworld, it appears, a weak point in reality. Possibly one that remains.

Nice and scary map. Is the top of the Block flooded? I thought it would peek out. I think that Peloria should be affected, too. The Sweet Sea is hardly elevated, and beyond it lies the Pelorian Bowl. Even if you allow a delay in propagation of the upwelling from Magasta's Pool, that effect will come - if possibly only as a giga-tsunami.

People want both stuff like Petersen's Field Guide to the Dreamlands and a solid support of all manner of creatures to populate their Gloranthan games with. The Bestiary is first and foremost a product of the second category. Something like the first might be subject to kickstarting and finding out how much customers are willing to spend on custom art. And on finding artists able and willing to capture the oddness and special stuff of Glorantha. Books like a field guide may very well be systemless (or multi-system) and contain short narratives of encounters with the creature in question before adding all the various rules bits.

There should be some kind of convection in the spirit realm anyway, currents leading away from the Surface world, and other currents leading down to it, possibly emerging into it. Attraction to certain places may be selective - some spirits get drawn there, others might be pushed away, just by the nature of a place. The spirit world might be shifting, like clouds, and topography and topology might change even when traveling through it. There may be equivalents of riptides or ever stretching roads, and similar ways to escape those by taking off to the side rather than to continue to struggle against one - unless that struggle is the point of the journey. There should be transitions from the spirit world not only into the mortal, surface realm, but also into the upper, lower or outer world, and into further realms.Finding or traversing these may require guides. Not all of the spirit world will necessarily map to the linear flow of Time. Regions further away from the Surface World may be attuned to cyclical time (Godtime) rather than linear time, such as the residences of Great Spirits.

Air drag is a factor, and the arrow is following the throw parable rather than doing a direct shot, with a release angle close to 45 degrees, which increases the distance traveled by the arrow. I tried this feat in the warm-up for a clout tournament, and did at least come close, but then I never was more than a somewhat competent amateur. 12 arrows in a minute are to be expected from an archer shooting "instinctively", and even a barebow archer using techniques like string-walking or varying anchor points can come close. Archers using olympic bows with all the counterweights and other aiming aids ánd ruled by the "clicker" for release can't approach that speed of course.

Basically, if an archer shoots into a group of moving individuals at some distance, the result is little different from shooting into a melee. You don't really compensate for the random movement of the single target, but take your chance to hit someone at the point you are aiming at at the moment of release. If a bundle of magically created missiles follows your first missile, these missiles obviously don't all do the perfect Robin Hood shot splitting the original missile, but spread about in the target region, making you roll for each of the extra missiles. I don't quite see why one of your friends has to be in the bunch of moving targets to get the same effect you get for shooting into a melee. People milling about unpredictably means that your shot sent off with sniper accuracy has a random chance of hitting a random target in that position. Hitting a target making unpredictable moves (dodging) is fairly impossible at medium distance. One thing I miss from the projectile rules is the delay between releasing your missile and impact. If shooting your bow at maximum military range, a somewhat trained archer will at least have another arrow halfway to the target and a third one on the string by the time the first arrow impacts somewhere in the vicinity of the original target position, subject to your accuracy and small but cumulative unforeseeable interactions like erratic winds. But then, the rules have been playtested by Claudia, Jeff's wife, who has all those personal experiences from archery, too.

You could make this some form of "Incarnate" or rather "Integrate specific ancestor (feat)", adding it to your abilities. If that ancestor had a greater skill that you had, you might get access to that skill, possibly modified or limited by how good your integration of that feat was. A character may have the whole range of such feats at her disposal, but will be limited to one such experience per encounter. To balance this, you might demand that this awakening of an ancestral skill/ability may require an actual risk situation (i.e. one that would earn you an experience tick in BRP). There is also the possibility that you don't earn the actual skill without activating magic, but that you get the ancestral skill value as the new maximum to which you can train that skill between adventures, by the normal training progress rates. That can be quite nifty with skills above 100%.

Is this from the Ice Age survival narrative of Brithos?

The rites will be guarded by those warriors of the clan not actively participating. First and foremost these warriors will be worshipers of other deities, like Babeester Gor, Elmal, Heler, Humakt, Seven Mothers, Storm Bull, Yelmalio. If the numbers of these aren't sufficient, some of the worshipers of Orlanth will be selected for guard duty, too, and participate differently but no less honorably in the rites. Such guards from within the cult might experience any outside interference with the rites as heroquest experiences. What makes you think that Yinkini would also be Orlanth initiates? They are already associate cults. And they do - it is part of the normal participation in the rites. Yes, Elmal is the natural choice, and possibly the natural leader for this defense. But really every warrior in the clan, regardless of their cultic affiliation, will stand guard. This is not just about the cult of Orlanth, it is also about the magic of the clan wyter. Magically, this isn't so much "Orlanth has a day off today, and so do his worshipers" - it is more like "today Orlanth permeates the world at his strongest, and this is the worst time to attempt to attack him." That said, a good heroquester knows how to turn a moment of strength in his adversary into a narrative advantage for the myth he is forcing on the opposition. There are profitable ways to get a good mangling from Orlanth as part of the quest, then to come back with something learned from that encounter, and use it against Orlanth. If the myth you are pushing on Orlanth has a crucial "There is always another way" moment for Orlanth to succeed, using this date may put the clan response quest into a situation where the mood is all set for "screw that other way, this is Orlanth!", yielding a huge magical advantage to the opposing quester. One problem with this approach is that in most myths, Orlanth didn't really suffer a defeat. Only his battles against Chaos have a lousy track record, with only two clear wins (Sky Terror and the lesser Kajabori). Unless your opposition has no qualms to identify (now and forever) with Chaos, there aren't many (if any) other myths that don't need to be inverted to make Orlanth come out of the conflict as a loser. Drawing even and forced to make a concession, sure, there are such myths, but outright losing?