Joerg

Those Sea Master summoner lords did inherit from Moorcockian elements, but IMO just as much from Palladium rpg with its magician classes which slowly entered the Midgard rpg system for the third and subsequent editions. I had gone on to RQ by that time, but friends from my early days as convention organizers who cooperated on my Midgard tournament scenarios continued to play that system and had me as guest player ever now and then, so I have some peripheral knowledge of that. Yes, the tonality of the "now" of that setting is quite different. However, if you took that setting at the Seemeister period, with demon races "(that happen to have similar elfin features as do the Melniboneans) the two settings aren't that far apart. Of course, you have a sub-layer of Kulluhu, the tentacle-headed elder deity sleeping below the waves. (Now why does this sound familiar?) Overall, Midgard does come across as a classical EDO setting, much like Midkemia (which has no orcs, but goblins). The setting does have quite a bit of unique points to make it non-vanilla, drawing on the inheritance of the ancestral setting of Magira. Not so many Germanic elements, really, apart from a mildly Anglo-Saxon sounding name for the title character. His use of Celtic elements around Corum is a lot stronger. No, Midgard as a setting and rpg is a purely German phenomenon, one which Jakob as a fellow German roleplayer will understand well. First published before the big German rpg boom of 1984-89, it inherited from the magic system of Empire of the Petal Throne while maintaining a class system which determined skill advancement cost and eligibility, and has an elegant system of non-raisable hit points and raisable activity points which are spent as sort of fatigue/stun damage or for magic. Level is raised through acquisition or increase of skills. There still is a sworn Midgard community about as tenacious as the Glorantha tribe, and I learned that they get to use Burg Stahleck in Bacharach regularly for one of their conventions the weekend before Eternal Con takes over at Whitsun. My main reason for dropping this system was the absence of experience points in RQ and an unfortunate loss of my campaign notes on one of those conventions I organized. I don't recall any drug abuse in Melnibone, but certainly there was sophisticated drug-use. Drug administration is a privilege of the upper echelons of that decadent culture, much as it is in Glorantha's Fonrit. Drug trading and production was an important imperialist activity, practiced on a scale comparable to modern illegitimate drug trade by the British Empire exporting to China alone. Not to mention alcohol deliveries to corrupt native cultures within the empire... For some unscrutable reason, "visionary" drugs remain illegalized while prescription drug abuse including opioids and pyschopharmaca are seen as a problem, but not one to include in the war on drugs. I really wonder why there is no "everything goes" kind of olympic games where the military tests their booster drugs on volunteer athletes in the open, well documented. Possibly with other augmentation technologies, too. In a fantasy setting with rather different ethics and morality (and negotiable value on human lives and dignity) I see no reason at all to assume a "war on drugs" mindset. Yes, this is fascism and racism/exceptionalism turned up to eleven and even higher, like playing Gloranthan ogres. I think it is quite healthy to have a game that lets you fall into the trap of perceived necessity and disregard of non-tribal life, to fall into the mindset that led to the failings that were justly prosecuted in the Nuremberg trials. It is healthy to acknowledge these demons in your potential, and it helps to get the perspective on those characters who ordered entire villages of vastly inferior military potential massacred for new land, or to establish a colonial nightmare regime with arbitrary punishments for minor failings and utter ruthlessness in the face of real resistance, as in the Belgian Kongo, the Herero uprising, or the Indian wars outside of the then United States. It could be healthy to experience how evil can lie in perceiving yourself and your objectively reprehensile actions as being the "good guys" in a conflict, as long as you include an element of reflection or moments of jarring recognition what your characters just did. There is of course always the danger that some people don't get the complete message, but that's no different from political reality these days.

The term is tied to a hero exerting mystical domination of the magical energies around them on the level of a fully enlightened mystic or a True Dragon. Few capital H heroes have such an ability. It isn't clear when and how this "mastery of the Infinity Rune" is achieved. It may be a mystical experience, or it may be an innate ability, possibly triggered by some event. Given Harrek straying through separated parts of the Ban, he may have possessed this as a latent ability long before he slew and bound the White Bear spirit, and Jar-eel's presence in the Lunar Thawing expedition may be an indication of an abiity she had at least from her birth onward. I agree about the bad associations with Marvel or DC superheroes, and that another name for this category of supra-heroic individuals would be desirable. They remain a category in themselves for purposes of strategic boardgames at least, however, so I am careful not to ditch the concept before seeing the new edition of Dragon Pass in print. Speaking of which, there were numerous articles in support of those boardgames in Wyrm's Footnotes, also some with Greg defending the exceptional power of these units.

Some "Chaos deities" are evil or bad deities lumped in with Chaos, really. I agree that both Malia and Vivamort are "conservative" in their approach to existence and Glorantha, and so are Gark, Ikadz and Ompalam. They stand for a status quo in corruption. In a way, this goes for chaotic aspects of the Lunar Empire, too. Most chaos baddies promote a very specific angle of destruction and corruption.

I guess it is mostly about the setting history. If you have full control over setting and optional rules, there is nothing to stop you from adding weird magics playing around with the mechanics of the game. And of course a limited set of such spells provides limited ranges of gross abuse in the hands of minimaxers. Having played with ruleplayers who delight in finding optimized spell use, you will need quite a bit of playtesting to adjust temporary POW cost and memory requirements to the efficiency of the new spell. And there is such a separated approach in RQ3 sorcery.

Does a bear god fur count as a cape? Otherwise, no full body armor. Whether boobs or man-boobs, superheroes follow the bikini chainmail rules in Glorantha.

There are human and Morokanth ZZ cultists without such appetites. Delecti: sure. But I don't see Ralzakark as a necromancer.

From what I understand, superheroes are a whole step further than heroes. Strictly speaking, there are very few of them. Androgeus for instance is more a cosmic monster or demigod who degraded to a power level similar to a superhero than a superhero in the regular sense. Harrek and Jar-eel are the real thing, and so was Arkat, and probably Elamle Ata and maybe Tada, maybe Sheng. I used to think that Hon-eel was a superheroine, too, but I no longer think so. "Mastery of the Infinity Rune" is a way to describe a direct "uplink" to the Absolute, the ability to draw upon that, overriding all other magic that only comes indirectly, through runes. It is an ability shared by True Dragons and possibly Ascended Mystics. And Androgeus. Even so, each superhero has a core rune which expresses his or her nature. Sandy elaborated on that at his Kraken seminars, and while not everything Sandy says conforms with current canon, Sandy is one of the creators of significant parts of Glorantha. And, like Greg and the folk around Jeff, he is on a journey of discovery that hasn't ended yet. Sometimes an insight carries a literal truth, sometimes it is just a concept that needs more exploration, but it would be wrong to simply dismiss those remarks. Plenty other now canonical facts started out with what now are clearly non-canonical statements. Take the Thawing of the Syndics' Ban in Fronela. Dormal's Opening Journey contributed to it by opening Loskalm coming across the Sea, where no such barriers of mist extended. The Lunar expedition of infants including Jar-eel and Harrek's journeys after awakening contributed across those impassable borders, and (in case of the Lunars) along them. Androgeus may have been in the region, too. It is my impression that these three characters had a lot to do with weakening the Ban further, and unifying parts of the land before they reconnected with the parts of the land connected to the outside of the Ban. Androgeus may very well be the agent for the Thaw around Charg. Capital H Heroes are a rare breed, too, with those in the Dragon Pass boardgame probably making up more than a third of such entities throughout Glorantha in the early Hero Wars era. Unlike in the Imperial Age, for most of these their support is no longer organized by a state support (still so: The Red Emperor, formerly so: Renvald Meldekbane and Varankol the Mangler). They may drag destiny along with them, too, becoming the icons they get worshipped as, reinforcing their patterns sometimes to a point where they get railwayed. Worship, whether supportive or propiative, is what feeds the heroes, Heroes, and Superheroes, and it defines them in many aspects.

A couple of oddly familiar business letters preserved in cuneiform. https://www.forbes.com/sites/kristinakillgrove/2018/05/11/meet-the-worst-businessman-of-the-18th-century/#63a053b32d5d I have seen similar extracts from one a little too enterprising Hanseatic merchant from Luebeck, too. Trade context may have changed a bit, but certain problems are older than money.

The division between RuneQuest and Glorantha threads is getting harder to maintain. I started to write this yesterday as a new thread for the Glorantha subforum, but seeing the discussion continuing here, why bother. Brondagal (Clearwine) and most other Second Age urban centers in Dragon Pass and Saird were built by the people of Orlanthland in the aftermath of the Gbaji Wars and the emancipation of the troll tribute following the Tax Slaughter. The EWF movement started as a fringe mystical path in the distant outback when these places were expanding into the hill forts, and by the time they openly allowed draconic leaders these cities had been there for as long as the draconic movement had been around. Even though the Heortlings had a post-apocalyptic start into the Imperial Age, they had come out of the Gbaji Wars as the winners, with the riches of Dara Happa brought in as tribute and reparation for all the suppression by Palangio. This meant riches, fresh impressions of their architecture and urban life-style from the short but lucrative occupation of Dara Happa, and a general desire to catch up on all the missed opportunities since the Battle of Night and Day. The victory over the homeland of their hated occupator tyrant Palangio was cathartic. Think of the congressional observer forces in France after the collapse of the Napoleonic regime. It was time to start up bigger and better. I wonder what know-how transfer occurred during the generation of the occupation of Dara Happa. Was it a transfer similar to the occupation of the Ruhr area after WW1? But let's get to the core of it, what architectural influences were there. Nearby Nochet and Old Karse both survived the Darkness within their cyclopean walls (although the population of Nochet eventually evacuated into the Obsidian Palace). Both were port cities, however, without the benefit of a natural elevation like e.g. Ililbervor. Someone in pre-Darkness Kethaela obviously had the art of building cyclopean walls down pat, or neither Nochet nor Karse would have received them in time during the Storm Age.The Vingkotlings did have cyclopean walls on a number of their royal steads, but apparently not on all of them - Ulaninstead hasn't been reclaimed, nor has it been reported destroyed by dragonfire. If there had been such a wall system, someone would have mentioned that, I guess, even if only referencing a reason to avoid settling in that place. The Red Cow campaign has regular trips to Ulaninstead to maintain their herds, and while it doesn't go into details of that place, it appears unsettled yet not too cursed to avoid starting a ritual raid from there. Ziggurat or otherwise step pyramid temples are common in both Theyalan and Pelorian cultures, and traces of them are found in a few Praxian places, too, possibly extending into Genert's Garden. These artificial mountains were built even on the flanks of real, overtowering mountains, like the Ivory Plinth just below the Greatway portion of the eastern Rockwoods, or the Wasp Nest just below the Storm Mountains, although both of these possibly only rather late, the Ivory Plinth possibly in the Silver Age. Both of these types of edifices involve a great amount of masonry and quarrying, but we have seen no mention of either in any previous publication. The closest we get is the giant wall continuation between the Quivin Peaks and the Storm Mountains across Sambari Pass mentioned in Dragon Pass: Land of Doom. You don't need masonry if you can use burnt bricks made from clay, but then you will need a brick-making industry with quite significant traces left in the landscape, too. The only place where I have seen such activity anywhere in a Gloranthan context is around the Aeolian exclave at Nochet. Building with burnt clay bricks requires the production of mortar, which means someone is calcinating chalky rock to produce the basic material for such mortar. Nothing of that has been reported in the Sartarite activities, either. This means we have been lacking such information up to now. Going back to the roots of Gloranthan publishing, the boardgame White Bear and Red Moon established the lesser settlements of Sartar as stockades, indicated with wooden palisades (like you would expect from a Roman legionary camp or any bronze age or iron age culture north of the Alps), although we learn about walls and stone gates for Runegate, which only get re-inforced by the Sartar dynasty. Given the easy access to rock (unlike the great glacial plains of northern central Europe), access to slabs of stone is fairly easy throughout Sartar, except maybe near the Upland Marsh or in the Donalf Flats. Baking clay bricks and calcinating chalky rock sounds exactly like the activities the lowfire husbands of Ernalda's handmaidens would do, so this is fine for Esrolian culture, and some of this will have carried over to the highland tribes of Kerofinela, too. Applying a chalk coating to a wattle-and-daub construction probably is common in Sartarite settlements, too, providing some water proofing and sealing the outer structure. (But then Orlanthi might favor homes that let in at least a selection of good winds...) The Downland Migration mentions Orstan the Carpenter as the general provider of all kinds of construction, and he gets referenced by practically all other deities requiring a special item not made of metal. Durev raises the loom house by himself, or with the help of his maker Orstan the Elder, from wood. Kethaela was exposed to western architecture, through the Ingareens and the Waertagi (who built drydocks in Nochet and Sog's Ruins using technology most likely borrowed from the Kadeniti). The Aeolians of Nochet appear to have taken over the brick-making business for Nochet. I wonder how their colony started. Did they get settled there to provide maintenance on the dry docks? But then the Esvulari don't leave any traces in the Silver Age or earlier. Brick-making clay has somewhat different requirements than pottery clay, but either are gifts of the earth or the rivers (who robbed it from the earth). Quarrying might be associated with Vestkarthan rather than Ernalda. Typically, a mountain-side gets quarried rather than a deep hole in the ground, except for Brondagal was an Imperial Age hilltop settlement within the Orgovaltes territory, and not the central place of government or worship, although quite likely not unimportant, either. I don't think that it dates back to the Vingkotling Age, or if it did, it was little more than a fortified stead. But it might have been started already in the Bright Empire, under the governorship of Palangio the Iron Vrok and a strong Pelorian influence, as may quite a few of the cities dotting the EWF era map. Given the extent of the Bright Empire, the architects responsible for the structure of the settlement might have been Dara Happan or Pelandan. The segmented nature of the settlement feels quite untypical for the mostly egalitarian Heortling society, and I cannot really discern different building phases and expansions of the earliest settlement. But then we don't know anything but the name from the Imperial Age settlement of Brondagal, which may very well have been a place with Heortling land owners and not-quite Heortling minorities occupying one half of the lower levels. The Colymar Book tells us that the Colymar clan cleansed the hill fort around 1325, after their settlement in the valley bottom was deemed undefensible against those potentially aggressive newcomer folk. Given that the old settlement had been burnt down in a raid, we must assume that it was primarily constructed from combustible materials like timber and thatch, and that whatever circumvallation it had wasn't to write home about. I find myself thinking "quite successor states/Germanic conquered Roman Empire" in look and feel. E.g. Visigoth Gaul or Pontus. Or a smooth-walled version of the Whitewall map created during the Whitewall Wiki project. For once, I find myself almost completely in agreement with Martin's elaborations on settlements and gate architecture in Sartar and surrounding lands. I do wonder about over-spilled fortified towns developing into more sprawling cities. The 15th century Caernarfon map that was the basis for Midkemia Production's Carse shows such a situation, which I blamed in my usage of that map on the increased trade through the formerly forbidden Dragon Pass after Belintar suppressed the Volsaxi revolts, and then expanded by a shantytown harbor area borrowing from Bergen's Bryggen for the effects of the Opening. Despite the Edwardian origin of Caernarfon, the Clearwine image shows that the basic outline of Caernarfon castle might fit into a more archaic environment, with the mediaeval origin only apparent to people familiar with the Gwynedd city. Which means I see little reason to discard what I wrote up on that place for my gaming as MGMV. Nochet with its riverside community and slum and the Aeolian exclave is another such case. Exclaves/satellite villages of slightly different ethnicity would be common especially in coastal and riverine Kethaela, with many fisherfolk or nonhumans (durulz, newtlings) living somewhat separated from the dominant human ethnicity.

Chaos is ever jealous of the non-chaotic entities inside Creation. Their ability to be complete and at ease with their environment is something they covet but rarely achieve. Full illumination might grant them that wish, but will at the same time make that achievement meaningless in the face of the Ultimate. Whatever Chaos does, it won't achieve unity with Creation. The Lunar Way might be something exceptional from the view of Chaotics. It promises almost this unity with the world. We All Are One, what a great promise. And that might be why some Chaotics are willing to attempt suppressing some of their basic impulses in order to partake in this Lunar unity. Attempt to... not necessarily completely succeeding. I see a possibility that a few Chaotics may achieve momentary bliss in performing their defining vice - a broo in the act of reproductive rape, an ogre taking in the life of a human victim, a Thanatari consuming a tome of knowledge. That could be their overriding motivation. Gloranthan Chaos doesn't really have heroes, but it does know avatars and demigods. How would a Krarsht heroquest look? Sqirm in a crevice, be observed by Larnste, dodge the stomp and bite the offending foot, seed another Chaos Forest? Not much to that, really. Dodge subsequent countermeasures (all those Stone Forest Creation feats) and undermine country and society? Should there be heroes of Krarsht? Thanatar has a hero cult. Treack Markhor is an apostate LM who succumbed to the severed head Atyar. But then Tien was a highly atypical Chaos deity. As a rule, Chaos quests can be derived from anti-Chaos quests. Whenever there is some identifiable chaos opponent (as opposed to the rather random Chaos encounter that King of Dragon Pass put into the intertwined Issaries/Lhankor Mhy quests), work out where that opponent came from, and how it may have carried on after suffering a defeat or a setback as part of that quest, or how the opponent would benefit from heroes failing that quest. Voila, a Chaos quest.

The donkey breeders of Glorantha remain anonymous. Anaxial's roster has a mythlet about offspring of Lodril gifted with donkey and onager, with the onager humans failing to survive the Gods War, but no indication where the donkey folk may have persisted. Somewhere on Genertela within the Bright Empire of Nysalor and/or Genert's Garden, but that excepts only Akem and Old Seshnela in the west and Kralorela and Teshnos in the east. I haven't read anything about crossing non-domestic donkeys or onagers with horses, and whether such hybrid offspring could be domesticated as beast of burden. There is a distinct possibility that there are herds of wild donkeys somewhere on the Pentan grasslands, probably hunted by the horse nomads rather than domesticated, a welcome source of additional meat. Another good place for wild donkeys would be northwest of Griffin Mountain, explaining how the griffins there survive when not receiving the mounts of adventurers. Mule breeders might have bred special donkey races like the poitou-donkeys (a nowadays almost extinct race of donkeys bred for the purpose of breeding big and sturdy mules which happens to be one of the iconic beasts of the Arche Warder zoo for ancient domestic beast races near my hometown, a genetic preservation initiative). Some pictures (and a bit of information in German language) here: https://www.arche-warder.de/tiere/poitou-esel/ Given the availability (and apparent popularity) of Praxian beasts in Dragon Pass, it looks like the donkey breeders would be found further from Dragon Pass, both in Maniria and in Peloria (and further west) since the Issaries cult continued to breed mules both north and south of the pass during the Inhuman Occupation. Donkey and mule breeding would be a sedentary task of either the Spare Grain or the Garzeen subcults, since the Goldentongue merchants who are best known to using the mules usually don't have either horses or donkeys in their caravans. Mule breeders might be viewed with some distaste by horse breeders...

I read the two Elric trilogies as a German language omnibus edition in 1987, and followed that up with the Corum novels before I got my hands on the Stormbringer RPG in the Games Workshop edition. While the extent of the demonic integration did surprise me, I thought it fit well with the few named items I had come across. I seem to recall another meeting of several such items from the same universe in one of the other series. The fact remains that there are more than one such item in the world of the Young Kingdoms, and possibly elsewhere too. While not impossible, it would be strange to have both Stormbringer and Mournblade as instances of the same weapon, with Mournblade never wielded by the Eternal Champion. Few of the other weapons were as bad-ass as either Stormbringer or Mournblade. Hard to do with an item like Jerry Cornelius's pistol, too. There are diluted versions of the Stormbringer concept (sorcerers conjuring up demons powering island-based naval empires) that have been included in a setting that I would call "thoughtful generic fantasy", e.g. the setting of the (German language) Midgard roleplaying game which has a period in the past of the setting which corresponds quite well to at least a Pan-Tang-like culture of powerful summoners. Parallel universes with a time-flow somehow connected to the primary point-of-view universe, or a universe with planets that have magical connections while having distinct forms of magic aren't that seldom. The setting of Hârnmaster or the worlds of Midkemia and Kelewan are examples for different universes, while the latter is found in Brandon Sanderson's stories. Most rpg settings borrow from more than one such inspiration, and may tie different forms of conflicts to different periods. What would be a core component of an Elric-like setting? You seem to want to de-emphasize the Chaos-Order duality, yet retain the distasteful concepts of summonings requiring human sacrifice. When I designed a fantasy setting as a backdrop for my RQ-Vikings-inspired RQ3 game, I created a continent with two interior seas in the center separated by a mountain chain, and I placed an empire on that divide that created artificial waterways fed by huge summoned water elementals that could cross that divide, with a summoners magic that treated their ancestors in similar ways to the elemental and demonic entities summoned from magical places. The afterlife was influenced by my understanding of Hades (the realm, not the deity) and the (Republican) Roman worship of household deities, which I tied to ancestors in the Hades-like afterlife receiving worship. These people treated deities and spirits worshipped by other cultures just like their own array of demonic entities that they would summon (with some risk to the summoner) to do their bidding. Demons in that setting were entities from a corrosive/entropic otherworld, although that corrosion was different to the source of Chaos in that setting. Compared to Gloranthan terms, the Fourth Layer of Hell, inimical to life and leaching it (and souls), often associated with evil as the communication with these entities and their demands for manifestation on the world required the destruction of human souls, but no complete elimination like the Chaos effects that devastated Genert's Garden. There were a few other cultures using similar magical techniques, several of them also infected by Chaos (like the ogre culture that I placed next to my Hebridian-like Viking colonies using the Fomorians of Irish myth as a source for names and mythos). This gave me an urban culture using hellenized Roman influences, with institutionalized slavery (also from prisoners of war) feeding human sacrifices keeping up their technology, with well organized infantry/marines, a fleet of demon-reinforced galleys patrolling their canals, connected natural interior waters (lakes, rivers) and formerly the two inland seas, then crushed by a charismatic syncretic religious movement which the empire opposed, but which made it to the semi-conquered barbarians in their back regardless of their persecution and a re-invigorated return to a former cross-cultural and even cross-species unity which had prevailed in the cataclysmic war preceding the empire by millennia. Not terribly original, quite a distance from the Stormbringer setting, but close to the magic of Stormbringer 3rd edition. In my campaign they remained slightly distant antagonists whose ruins would draw some of their more disreputable magicians digging for lost treasures or knowledge. That campaign petered out as I was finishing my studies and working on my diploma thesis, like most of my players, too, giving me much less time to do the world-building and prep-work. Overall, the setting and its pre-history isn't that different from that of the German Midgard rpg (which switched from an earlier setting that I had expanded to play in before discovering RQ3 to its current setting without me staying informed except for a game or two with a group of former students I had met through organizing the local convention). Having just returned from such a reunion game, I did a short research to catch up with about 20 years of setting development, noticing the similarity between my RQ-based setting and their rpg setting for a hybrid class- and skill-based rpg. It would be possible to take my premise for the canal-builder summoner culture and build a setting around it with sufficient amounts of story-hooks in mythic pre-history, leaving most of that RQ3-based standard cult magic out of the setting, although I would still want to provide an antagonistic magical system or two to provide conflict out of magical incompatibility of the cultures. It could be a magical fantasy setting without any non-abstract deities but low-level summoned ancestors receiving sacrifices. I guess I'd enjoy participating in developing such a setting, leaving the actual rpg-design to others. Just imagine a navy with ship classes like "80-souls hull" galleys... A rival school of magic might use a form of sacrifice that leaves a modicum of remaining souls in the sacrifices, using them as barely living automatons, giving them weaker demonic manifestations but a horde of spear-fodder or rowers. The question is whether such a setting would satisfy your "Stormbringer with serial numbers and order-chaos antagonism filed off" demand. What other elements of Stormbringer would you want with this? Re-incarnating heroes with destinies (which could be done borrowing from Nephilim, too)? Eternal Champions - plural rather than singular. Maybe with a mechanic that encounters between these create flashback scenarios in other periods, with open outcome and limited impact on details of the setting. That way player characters could play recurring heroes or recurring companions (heroes being more powerful but also more railwayed, while companions being less powerful but able to break out of those rails of destiny). I guess I'd like to play a bit in such a setting.

No, he isn't. There are siblings of his, like Mournblade. At the end, after Elric kills himself using Stormbringer, the sword gives up that shape and emerges as a demon, too. The whole "demonic beings summoned into items" magic by Ken St. Andre was derived from that unraveling of this weapon, I think. Stephen Brust's Jhereg saga set in Dragaera has a similar way of making a greater demon weapon, with lesser Morganti (demon) blades being a common choice for assassinating the many highly skilled immortal (unaging) sorcerers in that setting, and a small selection of greater demon weapons fighting in the greater struggle for that world. Now that's a setting I would like to see in a similar format as Stormbringer.

After Jeff's improvised Melib game at Kraken 2015, I would really like to see that island developed. Small enough in geographic scope to give it a full gazetteer treatment, quite a few different local and immigrant cultures to choose characters and NPCs from, lots of history, and involved in two of the great journey arcs of the Hero Wars (Harrek and Gebel). What more to ask for?

Nice panorama map, although now I see this, I want a 3D-model. I do have to ask who is the god of masonry in the Heortling pantheon. Previously we had Orstan as carpenter responsible for house raising, but a structure like that requires quite a bit of different masornry and/or brick-making skill. I think it is appropriate for the strong Esrolian influence in the Colymar history, but I hesitate to make the foothills of the Storm Mountains or most of the rest of the Quivini settlements such Pyrenean Visigoth era settlements. I'd be fine with something closer to the Nuragic civilization, which works fine when such sandstone is freely available, but normally I would expect timber to be the main building material for housing, at least for the frames, and much less say cypriotic tourist trap mountain village in appearance away from the river bottoms of Esrolia. I would hate to have to drive the dairy cows kept close to the settlement in and out regularly, and also hate to use the rampart after such a drive. It lookys very much as if those people in Clearwine aren't cattle farmers but specialist vintners and grain farmers, with cattle and swine mainly kept away from the settlement, apart from a small number for direct use in the settlement.

In the Eastern creation myth, the Parloth of the seas is Oro, and from the names, Ivaro and Togaro sound like children of it. Menterina is not mentioned in the Guide, alhough shown on the map. "child of a Doom Current" means fed by it rather than parented by it. IMO Togaro has few direct children but Sshorg and Sedlazam. Most of the seas between Solkathi and the Ivaro family branched off from Sshorg/Blue Dragon River. In the west, Neleos was the pioneer sea.

Gebkeran is the mother of the first Adpara, by Vith. I think that is as much as everybody will agree upon. There are entities ranked among the Parloth and among the Adpara who aren't descended from Vith, like e.g. Govmeranen. Unless we have a convoluted form of re-incarnation of Erdires (an Avanparloth) as child of Vith and Laraloori to become Yothenara as a Parloth - possible. In a way, parenthood through the second coming of the entity. A bit like with Malkion as son of Aerlit and Warera, too, and possibly a similar "born several times" approach might account for Rathor as storm born and Rathora as tilnta-born while still being children of Fralar. (These mentions are distributed over two different threads from yesterday, and divine genealogy has been all over the place.) But then there is this comment on pluripresence even of heroes and demigods, so why limit even more powerful entities to a single entry into Creation? To make Dogsalu a child or grandchild of Gebkeran, the abstraction of Fear must be a form of one of her children. But somehow this amount of abstraction doesn't sit well with the rest of the usually anthropomorphic myths of the East, with Dragon a possible secondary manifestation (Harantara, Dogsalu, and all over the place in Kerandaruth starting with Daruda). Interestingly, eastern myth has little notion of parthenogenically born goddesses. Usually, there is a father, in a few cases there are more.

We have two children of Fralar taken out of circulation. Basmol was reported slain by several gods, demigods and/or heroes, most notably Tada who wore his skin. Rathor was skinned and bound by Harrek. Rathor's demise stopped the Fronelan White Bear magics, but didn't stop the magics of his children who fathered/mothered the various breeds of grizzly, black bear and blue bear (or the sun bear of Teshnos). This makes me wonder whether Basmol left offspring to maintain the magic of the groups he left (Tarien, Seshnela - whose a fair bit too civilized offspring moved to Basim and the Solanthi Valley). The Praxian Basmoli either had no offspring to take care of their magic (yet), or both ancestor and founder father were slain. (In that case one might speculate whose hide exactly was worn by Tada...)

The Basmoli are Hsunchen shapechangers, or would be if their ancestor hadn't been killed. I had never chalked them down as beast riders, but as cooperative hunters on the ground. But this reminds me of an old inquisition of Sandy on the Daily to give a clear distinction between totem-beast riding Hsunchen (like the Pralori which were known back then, or the bull people of Fronela or the Lofak yak people of eastern Pent) and the Praxian beast riders. Result: Waha's covenant doesn't convey shapechanging, Hsunchen have no ties to Eiritha and Waha's covenant. And that's about it. The Serpent Beast Brotherhood of the western Hykimi which persisted well into the Dawn Age was as much tied to the Land Goddesses as the Praxians are to Eiritha. A few Gray Age/Dawn Age cultures in the west (Enjoreli in Fronela, Pendali in Seshnela, Enerali in Ralios) were more "civilized" than that and held urban cultures beyond mere temple cities. These (or the southern bear folk of Fronela) sooner or later ceased to be Hsunchen, except for those who left that earth-folk embrace. The West still has many of these formerly Hsunchen traditions in the form of warrior or secret societies, but they aren't the real deal at the time being. (There might come a time when they might return to true Hsunchen ways, but that requires a collapse of civilization around them.) Carnivorous hunter/raider groups aren't that affected by the devastation of the Wastes as long as they have enough covenant/Eiritha descended herds of beasts to prey on. Any plant gathering activities will be limited, though.

Yes, that's the understanding I got when I discussed quite a lot of Sea stuff about 20 years ago, based on the Sea Gods classification that was in Missing Lands (more comprehensive than what made it into Tales 10, and too little world information to make it into the Guide - I would have expected this material to go into the originally planned, systemless Gods and Mythology of Glorantha, but Jeff's companion book to 13G and now RQG have taken quite a lot of that kind of material in other format, and I don't know where to look for such cladistic sequences now. (I'm quite behind in acquiring the latest publications thanks to some major undelayable investments into the house I live in and rent out.) There is an even closer definition of Triolini that only refers to merfolk descended from Niiads and Storm ancestors, the Cetoi and Piscoi mermen, of which two Cetoi and three Piscoi races are extant. Tholaina's descendants aren't Triolini in this sense. The Sea Tribe systematics with its threefold combinations of Zaramaka's first generation children who embody the mind, soul and body of the waters (plus a mystical rest) creates three different groups of triplets as ancestors/rulers of the following generations. A single body of water may have various associated deities, including currents, bodies of water, rivers, waves, elementals... The task of taxonomy isn't made easier by the ability of waters to exchange energy, substance or roles with one another. Only where there are clear separations (like Lorion leading the celestial waters into the sky) we may have a better idea of the identity of those entities. Worcha, the Raging Sea, with four parents sort of breaks normal genealogic sequence. The nice page of the merman pantheon by Kalin Kadiev shows only two of the three groups of offspring, the children of Daliath (mind) with his siblings Framanthe (soul) and Sramak(e, body). The (mind-less) children of Sramak and Framanthe are mostly missing.

If she is the mother of Siglat, I guess it is. All I know from Siglat's Saga is what was published in the Guide, and there she is named as an Altinelan. Having created an index for Glorantha almost 30 years ago, I am curious about the data structure you are using. In my old structure, I used labels only for typing the entries, and used "see also" links for group nouns or whatever other cross-linking connections I had. I had just started to add a description field for the "see also"s where I would say why I thought that other term was worth looking up when I lost access to that incarnation of the data. Losing about three years of work on the index was what broke my persistence. I have since made some minor contributions to Peter's Wikia project, and I still need to find enough time to break up all the digital text available now into chunks that will give all the relevant source texts to a topic, pushed into my old data structure (or an upgrade thereof), but finding the time and persistence hasn't worked out yet.

The Lady of the Veil is the only Altinelan that I have ever seen mentioned by title. Her halfblood son Siglat isn't really an Altinelan any more. The Tilntae sort of defy classification. They can give birth to basically anything, with or without fathers. Few of their offspring retain the pluripotential of their tilntae mothers, especially those not born parthenogenically. I have serious doubts about Rathora and similar ancestresses as Tilntae. Offspring of Tilntae is possible and is called nymph, but any form of specialisation in the type of their offspring makes them a subclass of Tilntae descendants, but no longer Tilntae. The Malkioni ancestresses are nymphs or minor earth goddesses (and the distinction is hard to make). I don't think that the collective noun "Tilnti" has another meaning than "mother goddesses".

Without doing a text search on a couple of documents, I can identify only a few of these (and I did index and cross-reference all the water entities listed in Missing Lands and other such sources less than 15 years ago). I think Tanian shouldn't be in this list, he is the child of Lorion and Boveluru. Lorion is a sibling of Triolina, a primal river, and Boveluru is a body of water. Tanian should be grouped with seas or currents. Triolina is the source of Life in the Waters. Currents and Rivers are different from Life - animated, some of them sapient, but not alive. At least IMO. There are deep terrors of the waters that don't originate with Triolina yet have some claim to life. These are children of Varchulanga, probably by Drospoly. But almost all other life in the Waters are either invaders who made some arrangement with Triolina, or otherwise somehow children of Triolina. Thrunhin Da/Harantara is yet another source of life in eastern waters. Her offspring with Kahar, the Zabdamar, are doubtlessly alive, but they are not descended from Triolina. King Undine is a terrible systematic name for that ancestral elemental entity. I don't think that elementals count as Life, hence probably not a Triolini. Through Warera, a good-sized portion of humans can trace their ancestry back to Triolina. Not all Wareran humans, but quite a lot. But that doesn't make Wareran humans Triolini, and not even Waertagi. It is possible for descendants to lose an ancestral identity. There are descendants of Kyger Litor who have lost that connection, and which are now mere monsters - mostly found in Pamaltela. Prior to the raids/rapes of the Vadrudi, the only Triolini merfolk were the demigod Niiads, multi-shaped entitites organized in mer-tribes like the Wartain. If you like such cladistic exercises, you might have fun participating in the Glorantha Wikia project by Peter Metcalfe.

Quoting myself so that I can expand on my thesis there. At the bottom of the universe/Creation that is Glorantha, there is Darkness. Somewhere within the bottom of the bowl formed by Darkness, there is the Chaosium, an outlet for creative Void that keeps firing Creation within the universe. There are other places where the separation from the Void is weak. Death in its current meaning came through one of these places, deep within Subere's deepest Darkness. Within the outer void there is endless potential, but there are also entities not of the world hungry for entry into this world, often predatory or otherwise malevolent, and those entities are chaos rather than formless void. That's how Glorantha is formed. From early on, some of these unbidden visitors made it into the world, and usually their first interaction with Creation was with Darkness. And some of the early victims turned perpretators were beings of Darkness, like Bagog or Vivamort. Thanks to the midwifing of Mallia, Wakboth was born into Darkness, too. So yes, by nature of its entry into the world, quite a lot of Chaos has taken on Darkness traits or taken over Darkness entities. And the heyday of Chaos inside Creation wasn't called the Greater Darkness for nothing, either. There are cases of bright or glowing Chaos, but many of these were born inside Time, like Nysalor or the Crimson Bat. (I was told that the Crimson Bat originally was the Scarlet Bat, a demon of death from Rinliddi, until Arkat skinned and cursed it into its current shape and condition.) Darkness is the fundament of Glorantha. The first of all elements (or matter), the separation of Creation from the Void. It is also the sink for all energies flowing from the Ultimate into the worlds of Glorantha, passed on into the oblivion of the Void. In a very cosmological sense, Darkness is the boundary to not-Being. In what sense? Darkness is quite divisible, but free to alter shape, and to re-form and re-unite, usually drawn to the Bottom of Creation, but thanks to Xentha and other leaders now present in the lower Sky half of the time, too. Chaos is the unnatural presence of the omnipotential Void within Creation. It annihilates definition, either leaving behind corrosive yet animated matter (gorp) or gaping holes of void inside Creation. Division of Chaos is meaningless. Containment of Chaos is possible, and that is what keeps most chaotic creatures existing within Creation. Although probably containment is too optimistic a word for a slowing of absolute corruption. Most of the known Chaos deities and greater creatures give Chaos a definition, a preferred target. Those are Cults of Terror, the barely conceived waves of demons that flooded Creation throughout the Greater Darkness, until the Ritual of the Net deep in the (also badly mangled) underworld, when the web of Arachne Solara becan to re-inforce the shards of Reality and to bring them into contact with one another again. Creation: no, that's what the Void does. Chaos only creates a mockery of Creation. Destruction: all the way, complete annihilation, even of memories. Change: Ho hum. Mostly Destruction. The rest is Mutation rather than Change. Change usually is directed. Mutation is random. Chaos can be cleansed. Inside Creation, it can be seared away by the essence of the primal waters, or burnt away. Following the mystic path into realms beyond Creation, Chaos will become meaningless and even reversible. But not within Time or even Godtime. I can agree with all of this. I still disagree with your "atomic" Darkness. Primeval, yes. The fundament of Creation, yes. Fluid of form and identity, yes, but capable of preserving identity and form when guided by sufficient will. Darkness is demonstrably separable into Shadow (without Cold) and Cold (without Shadow). That's why Subere (All Darkness) has the two siblings Himile and Dehore. Darkness is the Boundary, and the Boundary may waver, or be absorbed by what enters from beyond. Darkness is no more Chaotic than is the distant Sky. Both are exposed to the Void, although in different (and differently destructive) ways. The rest of Creation is supposed to be shielded from the Void, but apparently that shielding never has been perfect, and through the deeds of the Unholy Trio was bypassed, increasing the older wounds within Creation manifold, and almost dissolving it. Our views on Darkness differ. I think our views on Chaos are mostly compatible.

That's a bit of a non-sequitur, really. They severed the connection to the mass of the Adpara, but I don't see how they severed their ancestry. As with Govmeranen, the dark side of the ancestry remains a defining feature. Such as Barntar... No idea whether Barntar was counted among the Thunder Brothers. But there may very well have been other sons of Orlanth who were more like their mother. They may have been among the many victims of the Gods War, though. Veldru and the offspring of Oro (look at the naming similarities between Ivaro and Togaro) end up being counted among the enemies of or rebels against Vith. It is likely that other Parloth stumbled, too - quite possibly all of them before the Dawn.