Joerg

Mallia of course was originally a spirit of darkness and healing. The Malkioni originally weren't the best at discerning supernatural beings. "Krjalki" was about any not completely human, hostile entity. Dehori was any magical creature with darkness ties, from an animate pool of shadow to full-fledged deities of Darkness. The beauty of the Malkioni scheme of classifying whatever they encountered by observable properties made their magical targeting quite flexible. Yes, Mallia is present wherever disease spreads, just as Orlanth is present wherever wind blows. She may have been summoned by some of those forces of Darkness. I guess that Froalar's Malkioni would have classified uz, shadzorings (the Alkoth underworld demons), andinni or actual dehori all as dehori.

There is an easy way to hit multiple targets with a Multimissile - treat it as shooting into a melee if you have any excuse to do so.

Joy is not limited to Irensavalist Malkioni. Basically all Malkioni but the most orthodox Rokari and the Brithini accept the state of Joy. Hrestol's revelation of Joy brought a very limited form of liberation, and allowed him to transcend the caste system with the formation of the men of all. There is no evidence whatsoever that Hrestol regarded the material world as evil, and neither is there for Talor, or for the followers of Syranthir. IMO Irensavalism is a non-heretic yet also non-canonical heterodox concept for a majority of the Loskalmi Hrestoli. There is no necessary evil in the physical existence. It is in harmony with Solace and Joy. It might be comparable to Priscillanism in late Western Roman Empire Galicia - condemned by some distant patriarchs, tolerated by closer ones. I wonder what the Irensavalist position is on the widespread Hrestoli concept of re-incarnation. Do All of this has been complicated badly by the "news" that the vast majority of Malkioni only contributes to sorcery through the "Worship (Invisible God)" rites on Goddays. To learn a spell, you have to be either a zzaburi or train to be a man-of-all. The rest of the Malkioni are Daka Fal cultists or worship e.g. regimental deities or local deities, possibly through veneration rather than sacrifice, but the effect of granting these entities magic is hardly different from Lodrili layman sacrifice and worship of whichever deity comes in handy for a problem, and initiation reserved for priesthood fanatics. Neither sacrificer nor worshipers are initiates of the deity in question when they sacrifice for its magic. I would suggest that the Hrestoli concept of Joy is better described by theoria than by henosis. It is the delight in recognizing the divine truth from afar. The Rokari and Brithini concept is closer to nepsis of an ancestral and unreachable henosis. The Paseren emerged from the First World, and entered Danmalastan, where Oneness no longer was achievable.

That list includes a few more deities which are only skirting outright Chaos - Gark, Mallia, Ompalam, Sedenya, Seseine. The Guide was quite generous assigning the Chaos rune to cults which used to not have it. By this definition, Arkat, Vith and a few other deities should be assigned Chaos, too. In a way, some of the troll gods may be included, too. The chaos-tainted cave trolls and sea trolls are part of Kyger Litor. Boztakang is a bit suspicious, too. (As is Hengall the Second Son...) And then there is Death, the entropic power on the border to Chaos, and Arachne Solara, the mother of Time. A huge number of antigods of the Eastern Myth can be included in the Chaos Array, and by extension Vith and Gebkeran might, too. Indirect chaos is not a discerning concept pretty much anywhere outside of the Storm Pantheon (Orlanthi and Praxians). There might be chaotic dehori, to come back to the original subject. If uz could be tainted and subverted, why not dehori?

The Esvulari "knight" is in all likelihood the local talar caste administrator, as all Esvulari are warriors (or war mages in case of their zzaburi). This is quite similar to the noble heavy cavalry of Rokari Seshnela, which in turn inherits the Hrestoli Man-of-all inititiation that most talar caste leaders of the pre-Rokari west used to undergo. It was possible for an Old Seshnegi talar to be purely an administrator or bureaucrat without any martial or magical abilities, but the higher offices sort of required the man-of-all status. It isn't entirely clear whether the village belongs to a single clan or whether it is shared between the Esvulari administrative unit and the clan the local Heortling villagers belong to. Personally, I think that the lowland clans on the coast really are Pelaskites using the Heortling clan model, with distributed settlements not unlike the Red Cow folk, and that village actually being something like a twin village of Heortling/Pelaskite fisherfolk/coastal herders and farmers and an Esvulari domain. The strictly endogamous caste system of the Esvulari makes it quite impossible for the talar leader and his free (commoner) folk to be actually blood-related, although it isn't clear whether that applies only to marriage, or only to sex. Unlike Rokari peasants, the freeman status allows individuals or families to leave their place of birth/residence and to seek out another talar or even another place without any talars to set up their business/farm/service. In praxis, the property laws may be extremely similar to those of the Heortlings. In a Heortling clan, the clan property is supervised and allocated by the chieftain. The land, the majority of the herds, the buildings and the majority of the harvest or cottage industry products and even spoils of war are clan property. Most of what isn't is household (blood line) property. Personal property comes as a distant third. For the Esvulari, a domain (tula, guild?) probably is tied to the (talar caste) office of the local lord (dominus?), whichever title he may have. There are likely a few offices tied to a domain, possibly also a number of offices that must be held by members of the free caste - foremen. Administrative stuff, resource allocation etc. is handled by the talars, while resource accumulation is handled by the commoners. In a fishing community, the boats are likely to be clan property, although wealthy households may have boats of their own. Communally used nets to trap swarms with several boats cooperating will be clan property, single mobile fish or crab traps probably aren't. A household milk cow or oxen may be owned by the bloodline, as will a few sheep, pigs, or poultry. Much of the gear like trident spears, harpoons, and even knives will be household items on permanent loan to household members, although adults will start to accumulate personal property, too. Horses or donkeys probably belong to the domain and are assigned by the dominus or his assistants. Legally, an Esvulari therefore relies more on his domain (representation by his officiating talar or his legal deputy) than on his kin (although the talar will put a significant portion of the load of fees incurred onto the household of the culprit, and will take his share in any form of recompensation. In short, a rural Esvulari domain works pretty much like an urban guild that consists of people from various clans or even tribes. in Esvulari-dominated lands the domain often takes precedence over the Heortling tula. Mixed clans cannot really work, but mixed tribes under hereditary Esvulari leadership can work. It might be similar to the Far Shielings/Fordstone meta-community described in The Coming Storm p.30, although with much less of the flirting. In case of almost urban cohabitation of Esvulari and Heortling clans in a rural place, the guild model might be drawn on once again. Communal (e.g. fishing) activities will involve participants of both the Esvulari and the Heortling population, and there will be rather clear distribution schemes to the clans and domains participating, such as maintenance and harvesting of permanent fish traps in estuaries or bays (including a measure of the tribute that will go to the Ludoch). I wonder whether the lord of a domain is automatically a tribal officer (Heortlings would speak of thanes), alongside specialized officers for specific tribal activities. The use of "comes" as a plural form is another of the (all too common) Latin fails in Glorantha, along with the apple goddess of disease, Mallia. Should really be "comites", pronounced in three syllables (co-mee-tais). WIth the non-zzaburi Malkioni in RQG now using spirit magic (quite likely from Ancestor Worship) and rune magic (the Esvulari sort of associate spells from the Orlanth pantheon), they have lost much if not all that made them different from the Theyalans. I preferred the Midkemia-like approach of unsophisticated rote-learned spells, possibly requiring a written instruction, over this "pagan" version even for nobles and urban folk.

When the winds are blowing, the worshipers' storm souls join the winds and blow there, leaving their bodies (and other souls) behind in trance at the site of their rites. That trance might continue as a dance or progression, but the participants are quite oblivious of the mundane world around them. Normally, the worshipers breeze through any kind of token resistance on the way, although they may take detours to avoid obvious enemy terrain (e.g. Snake Pipe Hollow). The WIndstop obviously interfered with that, and I wonder where worshipers from eastern Holay ended up. Those of Aggar and Skanthiland probably got drawn to the Top of the World. In order to be able to interfere, you would have to be in the Middle Air, or Lower Sky, and few enemies of Storm enter there on Storm's High Holy Day when all the cyclical effects are stacked against them (although the Lunar phase is the Empty Half in the direction of Kero Fin) . At Kero Fin, they pass on into the God Realm, and make landfall (similar to the cover of RQG) at Karulinoran, the Great Hall of Orlanth. If you have ever been to Oktoberfest, take one of the biggest tents there, only way larger, expand to the horizon. The music might feature a few more bagpipes, just like at German mediaeval markets (our version of Renaissance fairs). It's eating, drinking, and stupid boasting, banging on tables, lifting or throwing impossible stuff... It is about being (with) Orlanth, being Orlanthi, having a good time. Which may include a raid or something similar.

That entire "horned serpent" business can easily be re-interpreted as draconic, and the old description of the beast rune does mention a dragon's scale, implying that even the Malkioni thought of Hykim and Mikyh as dragons of some form or other. According to Heortling Mythology, the EWF practiced Immanent Mastery as a continuation of the Ten Step Program (which might be derived from the Long Mountain one practiced by Obduran and Ingolf, p.138): In the aftermath of "Between the Dragon and the Deep Blue Sea", the techniques of Isgangdrang and his cotery were equaled with the Immanent Masters in mystical purity. Nope. Great Utuma survival bias, 1042. No human able to fully understand a grimoire in Auld Wyrmish survived, but sorcerers with less draconic ties reained untouched - in other words, God Learners had nothing to fear from the Great Utuma unless they had invested too much in Auld Wyrmish. Of course, they had to distance themselves from whatever had gone on a bit over a century earlier in Kethaela, although the Lylket library appears to have survived even the Dragonkill, with documents dating less than 100 years before Belintar's arrival. Pavis' grimoire was written in Old Pavic, a Heortling dialect influenced by Auld Wyrmish. "Complacentine" rather than truly draconic, and thus not targeted by the 1042 utuma. Darudism aka RQ3 Godunya's Magic appears to rely on the Dragon Emperor as intercessor, pretty much like the EWF relied on the shared Dragon Dream which may or may not have relied on the Inhuman King of Dragon Pass. I seem to recall that there was a change in the person of the Inhuman King at the end of the Second Age. Could that have been in 1042? There certainly was ordinary Malkioni and even Brithini sorcery practiced in the EWF, as shown by the person of Akgarbash of Laurmal, the (Brithini?) zzabur with his giant stork familiar (or whatever) in Aggar. Laurmal lies in Arolanit, and that heritage might easily explain why that sorcerer still is around. The Arolanit Brithini had accepted God Learner rule, however, and didn't participate on either side in Halwal's civil war/crusade. I think that grimoires would have been written in the language of the teacher, although once a sorcerer would have reached the stage where he took on pupils and apprentices, he may have started his own grimoire in whichever language or code convenient to him. We don't hear much about female sorcerers, or female draconic leaders.The only female magician from the EWF period which comes to mind is one of the two contestants for who would grow older, in KoS.

Courtly etiquette is hardly something you learn from meditating on a mystic practice. Thrunhin Da is the Blue Dragon of the Deep. That clearly is not a reference to the Suam Chow, but to the seas beyond Hum Chang, which means the Sedeni Ocean and Kahar's Sea. May I point you to p.746 which has plate 35 depicting Can Shu fighting a blue dragon aided by Zabdamar. P.153 doesn't give any qualifiers at all when giving the runes for Harantara / Thrunhin Da in Kralorela. P.57 (Kralori Culture) doesn't mention anything about the Cult of the Orca,, but does confirm her role as mother of the Zabdamar. The Cult of the Orca is mentioned only in the Dragon chapter of the Guide. The extension of the water above the surface of the sea makes the Sea of Fog something of a special case. Your quotations are limited to the Kralori war fleet, and don't take into account Sheng's Vormain expedition, which again brought in some form of mysticism which may have ignored otherwise impassable barriers. Sheng's fleet had no problem until (almost?) within sight of their destination, and at least some vessels appear to have made it back for the news of the unseasonal hurricane to be spread. You would expect that the inhabitants of a fishing port would have noticed that their boats don't return from the Sea of Fog any more. (The Rightarm Islanders sure did notice the absence of blue water fishing.) The nature of the fishing activities from an inland river port like Diao Yu Cheng does require a closer look when they may have been affected by the Closing. The battle of Diao Yu Cheng basically happened in the inland. The place being a fishing port (at the time) indicates that there was naval activity extending to more than just the river estuary. River fishing doesn't exactly require a fortified port. Taigang, further up the coast, also mentions the naval traditions, without any reference to the Closing, indicating that coastal shipping wasn't interfered with during this time.

I have a quite mechanical rules fix to this - a weapon dealing more damage than its AP will suffer some damage from doing so, much like a weapon damaged by a parry. The wielder's limb might be a limiting factor, too. Another approach is to make this car-lifting strength a feat rather than normal stats.

Why weren't you upset with 13G making that decision, and the Glorantha Sourcebook supporting it? RGQ makes that (much more affordable) book usable for its official timeline. The Guide was produced in 2014 or so. In the meantime, we got two books detailing Sartar in the time from 1618 to 1625 for HeroQuest. The RQ2 campaign materials have you set up for 1613 to 1619 or so, with the Cradle of early 1621 the final point in the chronology. RQ3 Renaissance material placed you in 1621, or slightly later if you played the Riskland Campaign. 13G starts in 1625 or so. The Guide to Glorantha is anything but an introductory book to the world. It is a book that summed up all the knowledge on the world available at that time, minus a few details from "Orlanth is Dead" and "Gathering Thunder". We don't know yet when material for the other regions of Glorantha will be set, and how much the scenarios in the GM pack and in the planned scenario book for the Dragon Pass region will push the timeline forward. It is nice if new players come to a point of fascination with the world that they will shell out 50$ for the Guide pdfs, or 120$ for the print edition, but they are likely to look for less expansive and less expensive items first. If you play in any region of Glorantha, 80% of the Guide will be rather irrelevant to your game. Are your Sartarite rebels likely to explore Slon or the Nargan Desert, or to venture to Vormain? How much of Fronela will they see? The Guide is a tool for people who want to build their own campaign setting, and people who do that will be free to choose any date for their campaign. If you play in Teshnos, the dates and deeds of your parents' and grandparents' actions will need to be defined by you when creating detail for that campaign. You could very well start with the first arrival of the Holy Country fleet in 1587, and/or Harstar's rebellion. You could set up a game in Pent and the Lunar Empire after Argrath returns from his Lightbringer's Quest with Sheng Seleris. Neither will be directly supported by the Guide, and yet the Guide is the source for all of the background info you have on that. New players are encouraged to enter the Hero Wars in Dragon Pass. Finally. We haven't heard much about the makeover of the Dragon Pass boardgame as a less obsessive, non-hex movement game lately, but the battles of that boardgame are the subject of that campaign, and there is supposed to be some synergy effect. There should come a campaign following the steps of Harrek, and there should come one following the steps of Jar-eel. Stuff for the Holy Country is in the works, system yet unknown, although quite a bit has been tested using HQ. I have no idea which time frame will be used for the Praxian campaign. It might cover some of the intermediate years and follow the path of Jaldon. We don't even have rumors about what might happen after that. Every other corner of Glorantha has remained the province of personal campaigns. Some of those may have bled back into the canon, like Sandy's Pamaltela campaign, others may be turned into canonical campaigns. If we are lucky, there will be collaborative efforts to flesh out a setting around some events again, carried by fans, and possibly influencing future publications. I'd love to see some of that spirit of happy exploration and subcreation once more. The Guide offers a couple of huge arcs based on some of the named heroes. I'd love to see the story of Gebel the Teshnan quester for the Red Sword as a campaign. I'd love to see the Harreksaga as a campaign. Saird might get new attention with the Six Ages computer game and the future direction of the Hero Wars. All of that will make use of the Guide, but will at the same time require lots of creative writing or even more creative on the spot inventiveness. And I hope that much of that will be shared, creating a useful body of fan-produced material of similar quality as the past experience did, even if not that much of that eventually became canonized. The gaming and the world building still was fun. For a gaming reference, I find the Guide as printed pretty unusable. I'd prefer an electronic resource which could re-thread all that info and that could be expanded by additional material. The gazetteer problem with "until four years ago, Fazzur Wideread used to be the Governor-General of Sartar, Prax and Heortland, but then..." is something hard to overcome, but a re-threaded combination of gazetteer info from various sources with time stamps could produce material you could use for games set in the future of the Guide's 1621. Re-writing the data for a campaign dealing e.g. with the journeys of the Opening would be a lot more work, with quite different descriptions. Yet other periods would require a rewrite of at least 70% of the information. I would love to tackle such a project, though I know that even if I could do a full-time job on that, progress and production rate would be too slow to cover all of the world. I like the challenge of producing an infrastructure for such a project and a few campaign background lines with just scenario hooks or maybe cameos provided, but that will take a year or two of intense work, or longer when distracted by other stuff. The Guide as published is far from being the final word that can be said on the setting. It is a good starting point to engineer data for other times, or for campaign lines with more detailed gazetteers, NPC data etc. Creating an engine that offers a how-to for a traveling campaign would be nice. Too many ideas, too little time and programming experience to do it...

Why? The Guide is one snapshot in time, and offers a history up to that time, with more recent (Third Age) history better documented and earlier history left patchy and incomplete. If it was designed for a game to play with, that was HeroQuest Glorantha at the time it was produced and published. RuneQuest was licensed to The Design Mechanism at the time, and neither the RQ2 reprint nor the RQG project were more than ideas at the time. The next game developed for the setting was 13G, and the decision to make the leap to the start of the boardgame White Bear and Red Moon/Dragon Pass was made by the design team of 13G and the owners of Glorantha at that time. Without the smashing success of the RQ2 kickstarter, the development of RQG might have taken a different approach, possibly remaining with TDM. The Glorantha Sourcebook had already been finished by then. The Sourcebook is system-less, but more of a game aid than the Guide. What would your reaction have been if you had acquired the Sourcebook and found out that all of its content refers to a future your game hasn't even begun to approach?

Kahar, already armed with Veldru, attended Nenduren or one of his disciples for long enough to attain the Blessing of Atrilith through Perfect Stillness (RM p.83). His wife Thrunhin Da is a True Dragon or otherwise a major Sea Deity. That's plenty of mystic power, if short of Mashunasan or Venforn. Enough to ignore the wavefront of a weird spell or curse originating from an island a continent away, also because the Sea of Fog doesn't have a well-defined surface. (But then Waertagi attack craft which travel under the water surface appear to have been affected by the Closing, too.) The effect of the Closing being that no ships would carry stuff between Kralorela and the core countries of the Empire any more. The naval connection to Eest never was broken, as there are straits between Fanzai and the Genertelan mainland in the west and behind a belt of offshore islands in the east. Thus, the threat of more adventurist men-of-all and sorcerers from the distant west remained credible even though there was no way to make that happen any more. Diao Yu Cheng is a river port fairly far inland on the Kawai Tan Kang river. Its importance as a fishing port must come from seasonal fishing or whaling or similar long range activities which are basically fishing .expeditions. I have no idea whether there were any such in the Yellow Sea, but the Baltic and Atlantic coasts of Scandinavia had such seasonal appearance of huge swarms which made it worth sailing 200 miles to reap the bounty of the sea. Which makes me wonder whether there was a Kralorelan fleet during Sheng's reign which might have opposed Sheng's reign. I think it is more likely that Sheng's Vormain expedition was the only naval operation outside of the Suam Chow during the Closing, and that after this near total loss the fleet was rebuilt. And anyway, keeping a wooden ship afloat for the 540 years of the Closing should be an impossible feat, even if you work with piecemeal replacement. Maintaining the fleet may have been a ritual requirement for the defense of Kralorela, although that didn't work so well against Sheng. It isn't clear from those two places in the Guide whether the confinement of the fleet to the Suam Chow was because of knowledge of the Closing or because the extent of the Closing into Kahar's Sea of Fog was tested. The map on p.139 does show a wavefront which seems to wrap up to the middle of Hum Chang, but no further north - the map on p.463 calls these waters the Sedeni Ocean. No later wavefront is shown for the northern edge of the East Isles (the Menterinan Sea, only named on the maps). It almost looks as if the wavefront stops before entering the Sea of Fog. The "sweep" which captured all ships afloat and drove them before the wave-front of the Closing probably did reach into the eastern coastal waters, penetrating even between the offshore islands, but those islands remained in contact with the main islands. The unseasonal hurricane encountered by Sheng's fleet to the Hinter Isles may have been an effect of the Closing, or it may have been caused by the magic of Kahar or the Vormain pantheon. My theory that Kahar's Sea wasn't affected hasn't really been addressed by the statements in the Guide. We know of one fleet that almost made it to the Hinter Isles, and was caught by that hurricane only when emerging from the fog. We know of no other attempts to sail the Sea of Fog.

Break even, or (though not a common solution used for damage dice in RQ) up the number of sides on the damage die by two (turn D4 into D6, or D6 into D8). I had the chance to play around with an atl-atl, and for me it is a projectile weapon rather than a technique to toss a normal javelin further or for more damage. The projectile is more like an oversized arrow, with fletching to keep it aligned along the throw, and even as a bloody beginner I felt able to hit a bale of hay at medium bow distance. The extra length of the arrow requires some quite tough shafts, but still way thinner than your usual hand-thrown javelin. I would use a normal javelin for parrying, but I wouldn't bother with an atl-atl missile. Atl-atl penetration is from higher speed and narrow points, javelin penetration is from missile mass and probably wider shaft and point.

Hastatus (the source of the "son of Yelm" connection for Yelmalio) fetishizes the spear, so I wonder whether something similar to an assegai might be used - basically a gladius-like short sword with a wooden haft at least again the length of the blade, acting as a sword when you grip it short and as a short spear when taking a longer grip. The kopis (which seems to have made its way into the hands of the Ghurkas) appears to use a more mobile style and doesn't look too effective in a phalanx shield wall.

Established canon is rather weak, and the Guide probably sums up most that is known about that region, with plenty of material first canonized in the Guide - check out the Group Read thread about Kralorela to catch obscure references outside of your own pop culture background. Apart from the Guide, Revealed Mythologies and obscure mentions in Middle Sea Empire there isn't much specifically Kralorelan. There are speculations on whether the dragon emperors really came as a succession or whether several contemporary local ones were put into a sequence by later chronists. There are obvious sources, like Marco Polo or other European "first contacters" to Cathay, like various Jesuits. Much of the Mongol dynasty might be useful for Sheng's interlude in Godunya's Kralorela, and what remained of his enforced interaction between Pelorian and Kralori subjects after the new mask of the Red Emperor solved Godunya's Pentan problem. I have come to believe that the Closing was refuted by Kahar, and never extended into the Sea of Fog. That would make Sheng's nearly successful assault on Vormain much less surprising. (Not that sailing the Sea of Fog would have been any less dangerous without the complication of the Closing, with potentially hostile Zabdamar swimming through the denser parts of the fog, able to attack from above...) I will admit rather blissful ignorance on the topic of Bliss in Ignorance. A bit of Fu Man Chu (and other such worst "WOG" stereotypes) meets the demon-world, mixed with a clueless trollkin and troll population. The huan-to appear to be the resident top chaotics/antigods, claiming some of the same highland regions as the hsunchen populations, giving room for three-way conflicts between the Dragon Empire, the Korgatsu shamans and evil sorcery.

Most Greek notions of combined arms were the strategic combination of phalanx warfare and naval operations. Apart from possibly the Thermopylae defense and much later Agincourt, I cannot think of any land battle where a side didn't use any skirmishing/missile forces, but those usually cancelled out. Battles in which missile weapons contributed decisively to victory were rare, or combined with a "new" technology or innovative tactics. Nobles on horseback were common, but them being an effective force was far from guaranteed - the Roman equitates were more of a status class than a positive military contribution through much of the Republic. Good for having an elevated view over the battle. The secret for having an effective cavalry force was morale or discipline - ideally a combination of both. Wannabe champions in no longer heroic battles usually are a weakness rather than a gain, although they could be used for luring the foe out of the planned and prepared positions.

The forward kick is also used in boxing or kendo, and basically is about using a forward motion for the strike but without moving forward all the way. The foot is put down after the force has been exerted through the weapon (which may be the fist), taking up the remaining force to prevent the body from continuing onward (like stepping over the release line in Olympic javelin competitions). A rider has this forward motion already. Suddenly leaning forward in the saddle won't increase this much, and would possibly break the stride or balance of one's steed. Javelins from elevated positions benefit from the downward half of the throw parable, as does the release motion. That's the same principle that makes the two-handed strike with a shinai, katana or bastard sword somewhat faster than the one-handed strike which has to provide both force/speed and direction, compromising on force. Discussing the physics of the RQG rules may be overridden by Gloranthan metaphysics, although the runic properties of heaviness etc. should generally do little but confirm observable physical or magical properties. But if these rules are also to be used e.g. for Mythic Iceland, considerations of the effect of a fully powered Cataphract or Steppe rider lance attack on a shield wall should be working, too. Sooner or later, physics will win. Same as with global warming.

While I am slightly over 6'5" tall, I fear my SIZ has grown closer to 20 from the original 17 when I first discovered RQ (without much of any advantage but all the disadvantages, like higher wear and tear on furniture). Nowhere near Conan levels of STR, for example. The RQ rules are quite forgiving on the subject of overweight. Maybe that's just accumulating a Darkness affinity?

From the blog entry, this looks like a private initiative by these fans, with scenarios of their own, and not (yet) an Organized Play initiative. Finland has the Kalikos Society, possibly the biggest registered organized group of Glorantha fans right now (the German RuneQuest Gesellschaft e.V. aka Chaos Society remains active, but has shrunk in the number of members), other groups who organize conventions may be friendly towards Glorantha, but don't necessarily have it as a core activity.

It isn't just Tarhelera, it is also the Blue Woman rescued from Enkoshons (mother of Iphara, IIRC). I realize that you have a big stake in this matter, with your contribution to Storm Tribe. The subcultitis times may have gone, but I still see room for Heler identity hiding in the envelope of Orlanth or Ernalda. As to their sexual relations, I agree - Orlanth's love to Heler is usually described as that to a male comrade in arms and bed, and Heler acts as husband to Esrola. Doesn't "sticking to that shape" make a person less like Heler? To the Water Tribe, Heler is the tragic loss. It isn't entirely clear what exactly made him an atmospheric water deity - it may have been that keet sage encounter that prevented is Togaran incarnation from re-joining Sramak's River, leading to the Togaran invasion and the destruction of Ganderland, or it may have been an encounter with Umath breaking him free of the waters. What used to be a bold advance into realms formerly unavailable to the One Water led to a separation from the One Water. I don't think that any animal shape but the ram is widely acknowledged among the Sartarites, and that ram is shared with Orlanth and Voriof. What happens on the Other Side doesn't necessarily stay on the Other Side, but doesn't violate anything legally in the mundane world. I don't see why Heler would be the only source for magic rams - Orlanth has been around, too, and has been known to dabble with animal shapes, too. Water fills any mold it is given, and the Blue Woman is a powerful mold. Barntar goes dragonslaying for her, too. In Esrolia, Heler probably is connected to irrigation, praised for his gift of life-giving water held back in reservoirs. That's not his male, cloudy side to me, but the Blue Woman. Rain still is some form of active water, but irrigation (and cistern water) is passive, without any motion energy, the kind of water which gives birth to other things. I would have placed the shapeshifting power that allows to take the form of beasts etc. with Heler's sister Triolina, and Heler only being a "contractor" and associate user of this specific power of water. The fluidity of gender expression is a common occurrence with water deities. In the watery triplets, there is always at least one fluid sibling. Daliath comes across as constantly male, Triolina is always the Mother, and Heler fills both aspects. Shapeshifter, yes, but also the (humorously) phallic character. Losing his phallus and letting that take activities on its own, even on its owner, is part of many a lewd story about Eurmal. Crossdressing, too. Giving birth - never. This distinct Blue Age is a rare philosophy among the builders of the monomyth, but it may have meaning inside the immortals of the Sea Tribe (up to and including the niiads, but not their mortal offspring among the Cetoi and Piscoi, or the Malkioni and Ygglings). The Blue Age is the Age before Food. This is really Creation Age according to the Monomyth. The elemental emergence sequence doesn't quite map to the Ages (Creation, Green, Golden, Storm, Darkness), and the Green Age really is just the state before a major innovation. Grandfather Mortal volunteering to undergo the new power Eurmal and Humakt had liberated from deep within the Underworld was a Green Age event which ended the Golden Age. Except where they practice irrigation from runoffs stored in capture reservoirs. This might be the case for much of Saird and Sylila, and definitely for the Lodrili-operated lands of Peloria, but already Orlanth's taming of Oslira was an irrigation myth, most likely from Saird. (And its result is pretty much the opposite of the Aroka Quest outcome, except for getting water for the fields. Water is chained rather than liberated.) There are only a few water deities that are friendly in the Orlanth pantheon. In Dragon Pass, the most common ones are Heler and Engizi (the local name for the wounded aspect of Lorion aka Sky River Titan, the lord of all rivers). There are of course lesser genii loci, like the Creek and the Stream, but they are completely localized. The Orlanthi probably have a few categories of water. Good waters: Falling water: rain. Heler. Flowing water: rivers. Lorion/Engizi. Collected water: reservoirs, cisterns. Heler, but not active - the female aspects. Protective mist. Huraya. Neutral waters: Occasional allies, occasional trouble Salt and brackish waters. Choralinthor, Faralinthor, Syphon. Searing waters. Daliath, Syphon, Sounder's River. Dark waters. Styx. Warding off the Dead. Bad waters: Stagnant, foul water: marshes. No direct deity (surprisingly), but often associated with whatever badness is lurking there, like Delecti or the Devil. Floods. A whole array of watery foes of Orlanth (and Ernalda). Bad (murder) fog, Iphara.

This is what allows you to advance to rune level a bit faster than others. Plus, there are cults whose cult skills aren't part of the listed occupations, so this is a way to get them up to a decent starting value. Getting one cult skill at plus 40% basically shows the mutual dedication of the individual to the cult and vice versa. The cult is interested in having capable members to further the cult's agenda, and the cult member benefits from this teaching. In Vasana's case, it looks like "Sing" received the extra plus 20%. The other 15% I cannot allocate, neither Orate nor Speak Other Language (Stormspeech) appear to have it. She does have the extra 10% on broadsword granted by the subcult. Her Meditate 5% appears to lack the skill category bonus, and I don't get how she arrived at Worship (Orlanth) 25% if the rules as described were applied.

Sure. But this "problem" of a statement in a fringe (if strangely popular) cult description in a rules-light and "forget the rules for narrative flow" type of a system, applying to a specific portion of the setting (I doubt Kingdom of War Humakti will bother thinking about something like this) comes across as bordering on OCD. Paint it up as one reason why BBT's Sheldon Cooper never would play HeroQuest second edition. This doesn't break the game in any way. It doesn't render anything unplayable. For me, the rules are a great idea, but an uncomfortable fit, so I am liable to house-rule a lot in the spirit of getting my idea of narrative imperative and player enjoyment out of it. Any rpg rules set is a suggestion, and outside of rules-playing competition situations not a binding one. If my Glorantha is going to vary, boy will my rules systems.

Why the hell shouldn't it? Your idea of errata has repeatedly been shown to be way over the top. Maintaining such a standard would mean two or three full-time editors, layouters etc. kept with the sole task to redo older publications for diminishing returns. Chaosium already works with contractors and freelancers. If the sales figures were an order of maginitude higher or two, your concern might be based in something like reality. But this is a niche section of a fringe market, It is a good thing that Chaosium can pay survivable rates to its full time employees at all. I don't see any mansions or luxury cars for the VPs. The product is going out of physical print - print on demand still is an option, and the SRD with genre packs are going to cover an even crisper set of rules. Dealing with trolling was handled fairly well, though. It is logical that the effort of the team goes into making the upcoming, money-making products as flawless as humanly possible. What you perceive as "bugs" in the rules is what Microsoft declares as features in their alpha-release products called Windows. You're welcome to submit a flawless version of the books to prove that it could be made, but be ready to be taken apart mercilessly. The HQ2 core rules aren't that thick a book, could be done in a few months.

As Kurgan vs. Connery showed, a partial beheading will leak stuff, but isn't necessarily permanent if the head can plug the wound again. Thanatari vs. Highlander immortals would be fun to watch. Highlander immortals joining Thanatar... too awful to consider. There is more to it - an almost shamanistic awareness of the power and intent around him, and apparently an abilitiy to tap into that, although to much lesser extent than taking in a beheading. I am not sure whether I would allow a DI to fix a decapitation in RQ. Some combat results (like "evaporated" in the old Paranoia game" shouldn't be tampered with. Besides, why doesn't the hero have a backdoor out of hell yet? That works regardless of the condition his mortal remains were left in. Maybe the DI could grant that as a single-use boon. Those combat skills typically are both trained and inherited. You'd need a guideline how much taking in another immortal's leaking essence will raise ability scores, and which ones.

They crop up in teams, and are on the hoof just as every other Praxian.