Joerg

That still leaves the weird "founder of the Big Rubble" as if Pavis was responsible for the ruined state for his old city.

Depends on which "Seshnela" we are talking about - the old peninsular Malkioni kingdom that inherited the Serpent King history with the Pendali and lots of local deities and demigods including Seshna Likita, Froalar the Serpent protector of the kingdom, Ifttala (slain by Hrestol), Aerlit (father of Malkion and of Damol), Basmol, Kraljiid, Damol (son of Aerlit and the daughter of Fenela - sister of Hrestol - and Duke Yadmov, another grandson of Malkion like Froalar). The other Seshnela is the modern Bailifid kingdom in the Tanier valley, descendants of the Autarchy and the Dari Alliance, who have history both with the Old Gods of Ralios and the Theyalan missionaries who came to the Dari Alliance and made them part of the Bright Empire after the Sunstop. On top of either, there were the God Learners, both with their Abiding Book message of monotheism picking up where the Silver Empire of the second century left off, see https://wellofdaliath.chaosium.com/home/gloranthan-documents/greg-sez/the-kings-of-seshnela-part-one/. For the God Learner history or the Bailifides history, click the other links in that document. While the orthodox God Learner message of the Abiding Book and the Return to Rightness Crusade (called the Makanist creed in e.g. The Middle Sea Empire and Revealed Mythologies) was indeed fueled by monotheist sentiments, the experimental side of the God Learners (strong in Jrustela, Slontos and Umathela, but tolerated and harvested in Old Seshnela) was all about messing with the ("lesser") gods of places or other peoples.

rather Earth, Storm and Darkness-worshiping Kitori humans.

Looks like there used to be quite a few Kitori axe maidens before the surface of the Shadow Plateau was showered in shards of volcanic glass by Belintar. Some "Man of the Arans" style farming might still be possible between the wreckage, if there are any temple-adjacent folks willing to try.

Mainly because the presence of Hrestoli in Seshnela since the Rokari reforms has been downplayed by the source material, and perhaps because maybe not everybody links Siglat to Loskalm/Fronela. Other than that, typical thread drift, and my attempt to get it back into the Tanier Valley.

This thread is about the other Hrestoli, the Seshnelan variant which has been suppressed since the Battle on Asgolan Fields.

Nochet has enough foreign minorities that may require the grains of their homelands for their rites or even sacrifices, which means that a certain small amount of such grain or pseudocereal is bound to be imported. Outside of catastrophic harvest failures like the Windstop (that undid the normal sailing winds, too) or in order to supply majore miitary undertakings there is no conceivable benefit in delivering grain in bulk to Nochet other than from the hinterland. Would Meldektown wish to import any grain? The Aeolians grow pretty much the same types of harvest as the Esrolians, so probably not. The Quinpolic League probably imports much of their grain from the Tanier River valley, in exchange for preserved or processed fish, or in payment for the luxuries or military necessities passed on. While Tanisor grows rice, they don't appear to have a native grain goddess for that. (But niether does the land goddess of Peloria provide rice, it is only specialized grain goddesses or ancestral spirits who support these grains.) Nolos may have some significant agriculture of its own, but the scattered Pasos islands would have to struggle to support their population with home-grown grain. Weirdly, it is the Nolosite Du Tumerines who went for the grain privilege?

The Tanisorans (not the peninsular Seshnegi) did receive the Lightbringer religion under the Dari Alliance, so there is a reason why Theyalan deities would be established in the Tanier valley. Still, I wonder why Barntar would be the plow god here, when the Malkioni had extensive contact (though often hostile) with aspects of the Lodril cult, whether Ladaral (Laddie) quenched by the Neliomi current using Brithini aid, or Turos quenched by Oronin. Lodril or a son of Lodril might be a better choice for the plowman's deity, also when we talk about the rice cultivation in the Tanier valley.

I Fought We Won was fought by heroes and demigods in the Surface World. Some of the Silver Age heroes of the Theyalans were participants in that conflict - King Heort, the Only Old One, the (future?) Inhuman King, a dwarf hero (possibly one of the few ancient Mostali instead), a High King Elf hero. Some claim that Zzabur participated, and while I think he did something major concurrently, I don't think that he was attuned to the same world-renewing mystery. The concurrent event with (nearly) all the gods participating was the RItual of the Net in the Underworld, an event enabled by the Lightbringers' Quest, and possibly other quests/chained feats of other deities. Kralori emperor Vashanti was somehow involved in the Underworld business, for instance. Failure is relative. The 1625 ritual of Kallyr Starbrow - her Short Lightbringers' Quest starting at he Hill of Orlanth VIctorious - avoided to become major failure by a hair's breadth while ending up as a resounding failure for its purpose to strengthen Kallyr's reign and Sartarite unity. By that outcome, the Lunar invasion that leads to the Battle of Queens should be an uncontested victory, but somehow that fails to materialize. Also, possibly due to Jar-eel playing with the Sartarites rather than running the imperial world-confirming quests, the Empire gets invaded by Dranz Goloi. In the end, all those quests resonate with one another, and mutual intrusions at magically very charged questing would be an expected outcome. Argrath's Full Lightbringers' Quest took more than a year, similar to those original two of Harmast.

IMO it is about who can teach you this spell, and at which price discount. Spirit spells granted by an associated cult can be taught by Rune masters of your own cult, provided the associated cult has enough of a presence in that holy place.

Humans have rather extreme neoteny, with a long-postponed adulthood (even if you allow for early teenage adulthood) compared to most beasts. Any beast brother (wolf or otherwise) would long have experienced full sexual activity by the time the human partner approaches it. Canon tells us that the shape-shifting magic is bestowed (to the human-shaped Hykimi) only upon reaching (magical if not sexual) adulthood. (The elusive goal of mental maturity is hard to define, and while there seems to be something like a minimum age for certain phases of brain development to finish, full development of social and intellectual maturity may be delayed long after the wetware architecture allows it.) Things could be different for pups shifting between the two shapes or at least mental developments.

When the idea of orthodox Malkioni was introduced, it was riffing of the waves of iconoclasm that made the ostentatious orthodox-catholic church tremble, or the similar movements during the Reformation era, or the re-design of Christian churches into mosques. The latter with its offerings of calligraphy of the holy text in place of previous idols probably is the best approach, a replacement of sacred foci by a different type of sacred focus. There must have been something similar going on in the temples of Seshnela following the victories of Bailifes - forceful removal of idols of ascended masters from the temples to the Invisible God, the editing of Abiding Book scripture in the ornamentation - whether written or pictorial - down to the licensed selection from the holy text as extracted by Rokar. In recently re-conquered city-states of Safelster this may have been less of an issue after Ulianus II had extended the Bailifide domain enforcing the philosophy of Leplain to its maximum extent. The upcoming seventh Ecclesiastical conclave seems to target the wizards rather than their places of worship, but those may simply follow.

To me, this rather sounds like it takes both a two-legged person and a four-legged person (using the Animal farm definition for weirder beasts) to make up a whole Hykimikyh person. There will be orphaned or unpartnered non-whole persons of either number of legs, regrettably incomplete people. One thing I am a bit unsure of is how being a shaman with (yet) another approach to becoming a complete person interferes with this concept of a whole person in two bodies. There are Hykimi folk who are more or less incomplete by default, like the Basmoli of Prax.

Telmori can get quite old (at least those descended from Ostling and Onelisin, few others ever received a name in history). Do these bonded beast brothers gain protection from old age like the butterfly companions of Chalana Arroy healers?

Plentonius stanned Avivath, the first urban Dara Happan to wield the power of Yelm (the Sunspear) within Time (unless the Hyalorings had that power, and later the Pure Horse tribes?) The Bridling of Kargzant ended Hyaloring power when the sons of Vuranoste (Plentonius uses a Dara Happanized Vuranostum) failed to prevent the Barbarian Warrior in the sky from putting the roving Kargzant onto the Sunpath. There may have been more than one Night Sun in the sky prior to that, or simply a Lightfore unfazed by the Gates of Dusk and Dawn, remaining in the sky come sunrise or sunset. IMG there were two such night suns - the pale trailing golden spearman Cold Sun following Hot Antirius, and Reladivus Elmal Kargzant the roving sunhorse. This event merged the two celestial bodies and their cults. Who was the Orlanthi hero who did this? Possibly a hero of Elmal? Plentonius blames Orlanatus, but then he always does.

Do characters or beast brothers whose companion dies remain orphaned, or do they form new bonds?

In the thread on Rikard the Tiger-hearted, Jeff said: Meaning Rikard was an adherent to the Seshnegi form of Hrestolism, similar to that of the Castle Coast and various Safelstran heresies rather than Siglat's New Idealist Hrestolism. What does it mean to be a Hrestoli in late 16th or early 17th century Tanisor? It seems to me that only talar caste Tanisorans have a chance at attaining a man-of-all status, with maybe one or two exceptional horali, outwardly little different from the Rokari. We know that there are strong Hrestoli sympathies among the Pithdarans, who ironically provide many watchers and lesser wizards for the Rokari sect. Controlling the police from within?

Still the Quinpolic League and Handra soon followed the rush of reconstituion of the overseas trade, a bit like the Phoenician city states after the Bronze Age Collapse, rivalled by some of the Greeks and the Lesbos people who settled Etruria. I can believe a grain monopoly into Quinpolic ports, not so much on the Nochet side but a strict set of rules for Quinpolic and Tanier basin merchants about legal purchases. Grain being a bulk good, I don't see much profit in smuggling it, so Esrolian grain merchants might either sail on to Vadeli or Loskalmi ports, or load their less valuable export on Quinpolic ships while keeping the trade with les bulky luxury items on their galleys. It could be some form of protecting Seshnegi land owning nobility while allowing them to switch to cash crops rather than basic food. The monopoly on Melib is by edict of the priest-king Harstar, in payment for Kethaelan protection from the Somash high priest Pubnashab (or his predecessor). IIRC the Kethaelan port was not so much founded but re-activated a year or two before his eviction from the mainland, as the few survivors of the Suam Chow probe probably had to return in badly damaged ships or dinghies, with Lop Nur not necessarily regarded as a safe place to return to.

So Kitori really look like Ferengi under their lead masks?

Check the Guide p.414, Duke Porfain of the Roses: These were used to settle the question of naval domination in the Quinpolic League a generation before (i.e. when Dormal brought the new magic of the Opening). Pasos lost.

IMG Minotaurs are a lot of fertility magic, much like their cousins the broos. They can mate with cattle, Praxian herd beasts, nymphs, and human females. The latter might take some extra magic, as described in Biturian's Travels.

For a while, Greg was talking and writing about the Army of Tomorrow, a regimental order of men-of-all with ten chapters in total, one of which (of about 100 core members, and up to 10 times the number of mercenary followers) active in the Holy Country and Dragon Pass. The rest probably roaming Ralios and Maniria.

Makes me wonder whether ancestral spirits could be sent to possess disease victims to drive out the disease spirits by Daka Fal practitioners? There is a good chance that Ernaldan healers prioritize the mother's health over that of the unborn or sickly child. Bless Pregnancy definitely is a drain on the Ernaldan rune pool, but probably used sparingly by rune levels. The Ernaldan one-use version of resurrection magic Seal Soul (by way of the Good Shepherd) is a drain on Ernaldan rune points, too (also with the almost obligatory "Restore Health" for the lost CON, too). IMG, most NPCs have three rune points or more like most player characters, but will have used one or two prior to the encounter, whether for a communal Cloud Call or similar productive tasks. In a combat environment, they might also have minor wounds keeping their hit point total in a location below their maximum possible score. While spirit magic heal is ubiquitious, so are opportunites to spend MP in a hostile environment, and at least my characters have been known to tough it out if they only lost one or two location hit points in favor of having their magic battery somewhat filled for upcoming challenges. (My CON 19 Ernaldan confused the GM big way by shrugging off the three points of excess damage from a parried critical hit to her leg, being a lot more worried about the sorry state of her shield after that experience...) For a (non-Gloranthan) game of RQ3, I played the only RuneQuest priest in my entire career of playing RuneQuest. 90% temple time meant officiating at minor worship rites all the time, and in that game there was a "1 day in the temple for recovery of 1 rune point" for priests without the need to attend special days. My GM usually allowed me a reasonably full armament of rune points (allocated in specific spells) on the start of an adventure, depending on how much time we had between adventuring or travel days. There is even more of a rune point economy to Chalana Arroy healers than there is to Ernaldans, as there are rather few of them. While they tend to receive significant support by lay worshipers to bolster out their temple sizes, there is a huge demand for their services as well as their charity, easily increasing the rune point prices on occasion.. Ernaldan initiates prioritize kin for their uses of Healing (dealing with injuries mainly). Heal Body restores blood loss and indirect damage, but no characteristic loss, but that Restore spell family is pretty available, too. Permanent loss of limbs without application to magical healing happens to people without (bloodline) kin and without liquid assets. (Still doesn't quite explain why the Gimpy's proprietors chose purchasing the bar over regrowing their legs, but maybe they fell afoul of Seal Wound.) Definitely. I like to run my ongoing travel quests or sandbox explorations without season-long intervals between segments, and quite a few of the published scenarios tend to chain scenarios without regard to holy days. I also have to learn to provide plot and scenario hooks with less of a sense of urgency for the "once a season" style of adventuring. Spirit cult membership can spread the rune point pool out to more (but also rarer) opportunities to regain some rune magic. The jury might still be in session whether Lightning Boy rune points can be regained in Orlanth services.

If Egaija Chewer of Flesh still was Most Reverend Herd Mother at the Paps when Jaldon became the Waha Khan of the Paps, there probably was a herdman child born in the process, as befits an Eiritha priestess. Possibly twinned with a Morokanth girl.