Joerg

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.

Detouring into the "nature of the Adpara" still is sort of on-topic, I guess. That's simplifying Eastern deities a bit too much by making all of them descendants of Vith through one of his wives, or foreigners. However, there are three sets of Avanparloth, with different dualities/composits, and there are entities that result from interaction of those other Avanparloth couples (Majadan/Iste and Erdires/Yothenara for sure, less sure about Chaquandarath and Genderatha). Then who were the Adpara children of Vith and Gebkeran that mingled with the Parloth at Vith's humble hut in the Celestial Mountains? Dogsalu isn't, he is manifested fear. He provided leadership to Adpara (who may be unnamed children of Vith and Gebkeran), but he wasn't a sibling of theirs. And that makes Govmeranen no offspring of Vith, either, but of Yothenara and something else. Given this origin of Dogsalu, I am unable to trace Bandan back to Vith and Gebkeran. He claims to be a cousin, but Yothenara has only Iste and Oorduren as siblings, and Dogsalu doesn't have any kin. "Cousin" is distinct from half-brother. Bandan could be one of the many children of Iste (think of the Wild Man myth among the Kralori). Possibly with a daughter of Gebkeran and Vith, making him a second generation half-adpara under your definition. Or the cousin could be a much less direct relationship, only a distant acknowledgement of kinship. Later on we learn that Parloth like Veldru did offend Vith, too (RM p.80). Parloth as Adpara weren't free of failure and rebellion. What children of VIth and Gebkeran can we name, then? Does it? Both Govmeranen and Venforn study under Oorduren, and gain from recognizing Atrilith. Rereading the first myths with genealogy in mind, Harantara daughter of Ivaro would be the granddaughter of Oro, and thus a great-granddaughter of Vith and Laraloori. The Keltari war has the Babadi with their metal creations as one of the antigod tribes. Babadi is the eastern name for Mostali. Martalak might well be a synthesis of Vadeli and Kachasti/Kachisti, the two westernmost tribes of Danmalastan. I don't think that there were any meaningful "west parts of Vithela" other than overlap with the other realms. If there was a singular Spike, its slopes would have been where those western parts could have been. If there were several such instances (four, one for each composite of myths, and maybe a central axis), the Vithelan Spike would have been there. "Orthodox sorcery" is an interesting and slightly misleading phrasing. Zzaburite sorcery? Mostali sorcery? Are there other types, or are the other types derivatives of these? (Or did Zzabur steal from those and then claim primacy? Just owning/incarnating the Rune doesn't necessarily mean that one has access to all the variations of it.) Demons etc. appear to form from abstract concepts. Some gain object permanence, like Dogsalu, others don't. I guess it is the gift of the power of Creation and the restrictions implied in that which creates Gloranthan object permanence. But illusionary food satiates and energizes as long as the illusion lasts - repeated intake of illusionary lemons would be fine against scurvy. (Deter the spirits of scurvy from taking a home in the gums of the afflicted person, if you want to say it in an animist way.) The gift of permanence that Avanapdur granted the great mass of its non-permanent followers wasn't all bad - I am convinced that without Avanapdur, the East would have suffered a lot more than it did through the Greater Darkness. Avanapdur provided a form of stability when permanent reality failed to do so. Letting go of the bounty of the dreams was a painful but necessary step in the awakening. In the end, Avanapdur destroyed itself by seeking (and gaining) exposure to the Ultimate.

Whether Tyram or his son (or portion, or whatever - sometimes these distinctions are meaningless for conventional deities like Orlanth, even more so for chaotic ones), there was a Sky Terror overcome by Orlanth - one of only two victories against Chaos that I can find in Orlanth's myths, the other being the Westfaring encounter with the Lesser Kajaboori fighting the uzlord of the west. There are Adpara (antigods) that qualify as Chaos deities, but there are plenty which are only the Eastern negative view on ordinary Gloranthan deities that don't conform with their order. The entire Sea Pantheon with very few exceptions are labeled as antigods. Is there any proof that Tyram was "discovered" by the God Learners, or is this just a deduction? There were lots of desperate alliances forged in the worst parts of the Gods War, and I doubt that the Artmali and Vadeli were the only ones openly allying with Chaotic entities. Several Adpara races like the Huan-to are on the record, too. Blood letting needn't be limited to Ignorance. I see some potential with other Red Baddies like the Shadzorings of Alkoth or the Red Vadeli, although the Vadeli wouldn't have worshipped. Their slaves might have been forced to do so, however. The Pujaleg vampire bat might have been friendly to a non-bright sun, too. I think Hon-eel's research in the region may have pioneered this, see above. Blood letting and earth worship aren't really that distant, either. We don't have proof that Ernalda is anti-Chaos. She is only very against losing her domain to chaotic destruction, and as such has a few cleansing magics.

The divide between Darkness and Chaos is a rather thin membrane. A lot of Chaos creatures or deities are also creatures or deities of Darkness, like Bagog (originally a Darkness Beast deity), Krarsht (underground), Vivamort (hurt by the sun) or Thanatar. The trolls have a history of fighting Chaos, and of losing part of their population to it (cave, sea and mountain trolls all have the Chaos taint and lost quite a bit of their previous nobility as mistress race or dark trolls). They still are sufficiently relaxed to tolerate these victims of Pocharngo in their midst. Other than some of the children of Kyger Litor and Zorak Zoran, I know of no specialized Chaos fighters among Darkness deities - Argan Argar is a general defender of Esrola and the surface dwellers rather than a dedicated Chaos fighter. Tolat and Shargash are destroyers and robbers with no regard for the exact nature of their victims. Neither does Humakt demand of his followers to hunt Chaos, his concern are only undead, whether Chaotic or from other sources. I am not quite certain whether there isn't a connection between the Red Planet and the Blood Sun. The Uz may be able to claim worship only of the Darkness aspect of that deity. There are Lunar trolls, too. And "Chaos that hasn't harmed uz" needn't be an enemy. I think that either Black or Blood Sun are based in the myths about the Greater Darkness or maybe Lesser Darkness or the Gray Age. By the nature of the world in the Greater Darkness, the myths about that time are fragmentary and disjointed only, allowing no consistent greater picture to observe except lineally for a given population or location (how things went from bad to worse, until...). The main theme is loss and unpleasant survival tactics. The Blood Sun is in all likelihood known by other names elsewhere. Hon-eel's maize questing might have tied it into the Lunar Empire, or the connection may have been there all along, only unrecognized - who is to say? It is quite likely that the upcoming Artmali enterprise in Fonrit will develop or re-discover links to the Blood Sun in their pursuit of chaotic allies, and possibly through old Tolat connections. The Pujaleg are another place where having a Blood Sun sounds like a good idea, and who knows what the lesser adpara peoples like the Andinni are up to. Then there are possibilities for Red Vadeli connections, too, and the great unknown Chaos erupting from the Nargan Desert. You should take a look at the history of the Fifth Wane, aka Hon-eel's Wane. And there is a mastermind behind the changes in Chaos threats that are emerging gradually - schemes that may have been in place for decades or centuries, but triggered to relevation by recent world-shaking events like the Dragonrise.

When thinking about how to make a potential "Revenge of the Trollkin" inverted life action trollball game, I had the weird idea to create a troll that might be dismembered along velcro seams from cushions filled with balloons. Something similar might be created with some kind of wicker (or wicker-like plastic) frame under textile with a thin latex coating (or such latex coated textile velcroed to a frame below). I would hate to have to transport such a contraption, however, even if most of it was inflatable/collapsible. But for posing purposes, it might come attached to a duplicate of the shield, with maybe a lightweight tent pole or two inside for support. No idea whether a cardboard 2D-reproduction of the lizard (possibly two layers, with a glove attached to the shield) might work for photo-shoots.

Talking about cotton and linen, I notice that we haven't discussed textile fibres and the technologies involved in this thread, yet. The materials from terrestrial woven textiles are present in Glorantha - wool (not just sheep), silk (various insects and spiders), cotton, and linen. Hemp for canvas is likely, too. In addition, soft basket weaves are used as textiles, too, and there are feather cloaks which may be within the fringe definition of textiles. So, let's speculate, and get creative. Spiderwebs probably predate any human (or divine) weaving even on Glorantha. Arachne Solara, sort of the reincarnation of Glorantha, did use a spider web to capture Kajabor, and later the remaining shards of the world. Spiderwebs don't use any interlacing but fuse or glue the single-dimension threads into a two- or three-dimensional structure. (Silk cocoons apparently simply wrap around long fibres. Ernalda's weaving uses interlacing rather than glue, and I suppose almost every weaver all over Glorantha sort of received this technology from the Earth Queen. (The Veldang may be an exception if they have a native weaving tradition brought down from Veldara.) Terrestrial weaving probably started out as a variation of basket making, and some basket-making material should be included under the heading of textiles. The usually rectangular pattern of textiles nicely corresponds to the shape of the Earth rune, or vice versa. Human net-making may have the same origin, baskets with bigger pores and wattle-constructions have been used as fish traps before soft fibre became available, and continue to be in use in some places. (Although the sheets have a woven look, papyrus for writing is made of two layers of non-interlaced fibres in different orientation bonded chemically, possibly by sap from the fibres emitted under pressure, possibly by the addition of cellulose-based glue. Papyrus sheets thus aren't textiles. Papyrus strips used for soft basketry are.) In hunter-gatherer and pastoralist cultures, textiles are often trumped by animal skins (leather) or furs, and most cultures combine these flexible non-textile materials and skins. Few fibres come long and thick enough to be directly available for weaving, most get drilled into composite threads by spinning. This may include other fibres used for building or for high tension threads, like animal tendons or bast, or leather ropes (e.g. sealskin ropes). High tension fibres are in high demand and (other than silk) rarely ever used for weaving, although they may make useful warps. Releasing the fibre from the basic material may be as easy as combing your dog or rabbit with your fingers or as sophisticated as fermenting the linen stems just right for removal of the unwanted lignin-containing parts or cooking out the builders/inhabitants out of silkworm pupae. Linen and silkworm silk almost qualify as synthetic fibres. Various types of looms are possible within the technological bracket of Glorantha, though no mechanized ones. The only culture that might produce mechanized looms is the one least likely to use plant or animal fibre, so that development probably never happened. Attested textile crafts in Glorantha are spinning, weaving, sewing and stitching. I don't know about knitting or lace-making, however. Any thoughts about that? Terrestrial historical sequence needn't be the k.o. criterion. I wonder whether canvas could be made from feathers. Sails like that surely would create some magical opportunities for flying ships or chariots, at least in Outer World or Hero Plane environments. Speaking of textiles and flight: Kites were established as a Gloranthan fact with Hero Wars. Is this still canonical? Mineral fibres are known to the mostali - spun glass, metal wire and possibly asbestos come to mind. Wide-spread use of plant or animal fibres either promotes vegetarianism or openhandism and might be avoided by the octamony and the decamony. I have no idea about the processes that create metal or mineral animals like the few examples mentioned in Anaxial's Roster, but none of these appear to have had any fibrous integument, but from all appearances quite flexible one, at least near the joints. Still, creating such beasts and immediately dismantling them again for material and possibly food purposes might be a way to get leather- and tendon-like material for protective clothing or crossbow strings. Or just creating surplus construction material and using it for other purposes if that's how metal beasts get assembled (I assume mineral creatures to be carved or cast from rock with high residual "aliveness", concentrating the slow traces of former life in the final shape. Think of the special properties of the organstones. In a carved rock body, those qualities could have been created through transmutation when imprinting some Man Rune principles to the automaton.) Metal wire or thin metal bars can be used to produce chains, an alternative to fibres. I wouldn't rule out a sorcery that allows copper dwarves to draw chains out of molten metal, although I hesitate to have a self-prolonging chain of draupnir-like qualities without providing a supply of (molten) metal to draw from. Any other ideas for material which might be used to produce chain loops? Horn spirals might work, or any other hollow long material that can be cut in spirals that provide enough flexibility to be separated into key-ring double loops (e.g. giant insect legs or plants), which may be used to connect simple, closed loops. Bast chains are possible, but spun bast fibre probably is superior in tensile strength. Can you imagine some material that may be shaped into loops from originally linear stuff and then treated to create closed loops arranged as a chain? Perhaps cuirboullie? Chain links could use runic shapes. Fire/Light/Heat, Moon, Earth, Fertility, Disorder, Stasis and Infinity offer closed loops. To some extend, Man, Plant, Beast and Dragonewt do, too, but interlinking those feels a bit like abusing the detail of the rune. The Air rune may be used to create an interlocking chain, too, although one easily unraveled.

The collective term I use internally is German "Getreide", which has no connotations with a Roman earth and fertility deity, but probably yes, if you include varieties of rice, too. I remember taking exception to reed huts in Pamaltela because reeds basically are just another form of grass single leaf plants, but absent grass as contenders there is no reason why there shouldn't be a "parallel evolution" creation from some non-single-leaf plant into reed-like forms. P.538 of the guide makes it clear that there is sedge growing on the veldt. And I will accept that my knowledge of botany barely scratches the surface... Like you taught me a new collective noun with "pulses". That's where different native languages shape different idea rooms, I guess... in my mind, the lowest common denominator between pulses and cereals is "seeds", along with lineseed or sunflower seeds. Having had to read up on pseudocereals, I agree with the concept. Cotton is grown at least in Kothar, so cotton seeds will be part of the diet, too. Unlike linen, the cottonseeds get harvested together with the fibre, creating no conflict between the desire to get the fibre and the desire to get the food. Apart from the distracting fact that sugarcane is a real grass, I always assumed that this sweetgrass would be harvested for the sugar and/or starch inside the stems rather than for any seeds. A bit like a single year form of the sago palm. Given the hostility between the Doraddi and the aldryami, I think that sago harvesting should be something done by nomadic clans of Doraddi near the Taluks. Killing an entire tree for food must be jarring to the aldryami, and feel like doing the gods' work to the Doraddi. Processing potatoes, yams or cassava can produce starch "cakes" which, when dried, can be stored more or less indeterminately (i.e. until eaten by mice, mealworms or similar "vermin"). Basically the "flour" form of the harvest rather than the seed form. No objection to royal seats, but my picture of a Doraddi traveling group is that of a few extended families (or huts) with a chief and a council of matrons. Still, there is this general trend for Pamaltela, like e.g. dinosaurs being a rather recent addition to the western Pamaltelan fauna, preceded by mammals and birds, according to Sandy. (Which makes explaining the dinosaur "hsunchen" interesting - will such beast totem humans form whenever a new (animist world) beast enters the stage? I have no idea when the dinosaurs entered Pamaltelan ecology - it may have been as far back as the Storm Age, or it may have been as recently as the Dawn or even Second Age (possibly triggered by the extinction of the Lascerdans). But then, again, Pel-mre predate the Agimori in Doraddi creation myth. I sort of misremembered the chief's stool, and confused it with carved hardwood exponates in those colonial anthropology collections I am sure everybody has visited at some time. The image of the chief is reprinted on p.582 of the Guide, showing a leopard-like fur cushioning the seat, and three out of presumably four legs that almost look like basket elements rather than carved wood. That elephant carving is interesting - I didn't expect such pachyderms south of the Tarmo mountains, but the Elephant Mountain of Labuhan may actually be a beast of geographic dimensions rather than a mobile geographic feature. Rhinos or triassic megafauna might be more appropriate. Also the origin of that leopard-patterned fur or skin is a bit puzzling. The mammalian predators that I would associate with such fur have been mostly located in the Jungle, like the Andrewsarchus. Molibasku does border on Taluk Tabanos, and the Taluks are where veldt ecology and jungle ecology some hybrid, so it is possible that these are trophies from expeditions into that region. The elephant might be a Fonritian ivory statuette that was traded across the Tarmo range. This concept of "hereditary" chiefdom comes to me as a surprise. Pamalt is the outsider who became chief by merit, not by blood relation. He had no family or lineage when joining Aleshmara's hut. As the concept of medicine plants, I think most lineages are ancient. Tracing them back to a mother doesn't quite fit the myth of male Dorad being the first person to produce a medicine plant, however. And Sandy spouted some interesting notions how a child of two lineages might belong to a third lineage back in the RQ Daily when presenting some elements of his Pamaltela campaign in the context of discussion of Tales 11. I wonder how ecological changes further or threaten these medicine plant habitats, and with what repercussions to their human relations. And how much of that persists in Pithdaros or Prax, or north of the Fense mountains in Laskal and Fonrit. And possibly on Teleos.