Joerg

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.

All I remember was a Glorantha kickstart, as follow up to the RQ quickstart. It might be interesting to see one suitable for all three official systems.

Seeing this, I sort of get the urge to have my next CoC session in the 1920ies like a silent movie, making all kinds of lip movement, then holding up a text tablet.

The mountains of Jord may not get much extra history, but their origin story (shorn off the Hungry Plateau by the Earth Walker named Gerendetho) does offer a few other links besides dwarves, krarshtkids and Sheng's occupation. From the scale of geography moved around by the myth, this is comparable to the Footprint or seeding Kero Fin (both performed by the Walker named Larnste), or Argan Argar's leveling of Veskarthan's great mountain north of Choralinthor into the Shadow Plateau (never quite specifying where all that stuff went). "Before Dark" is quite an ambiguous term, that could be read like Predark (the Orlanthi term for ancient Chaos, as opposed to Chaos since the Unholy Trio), "before the Darkness Age" (i.e. Storm Age or earlier in Godtime), or "The Dark That Was Before", which is what feels most on track with what Jakaleel stands for. Possibly Subere or even deeper.

I wasn't thinking of solids, but of liquids. There are few cultures which don't brew or ferment some special drink, and if it takes big pots to ferment stuff, this would be an activity for oasis dwellers rather than migratory Doraddi. Oh, I'd bet. But for a migratory family, they would be made for easy transportation, while at the oases they could be way bigger - too heavy too lift when full. Dried beans, or peas, or similar - no grains grow on the veldt. But still similar purpose. I don't think it is about everyone having chairs, but about everyone living a sedentary life rather than roaming the veldt, with all their belongings hanging from the pole between two of the wandering people. Carrying along a chair is quite the extra burden. It might be a prestigious burden to share, but I doubt there can be many such status symbols while between camps. I was thinking of that RQ3 image of the Doraddi chief, which clearly showed a low wooden bank or stool, with the chief sitting cross-legged atop. If you have such an item, you don't leave it at the camp site, and then it doesn't quite matter whether your next camp site has such a natural feature a person of status might use or not. There will be camp sites without such features, but the dignity of the chief still demands his elevated seat. At least that's what I expect. Tishamto quite likely had quite a few varieties of furniture, but none of these were usable for a migratory life. But then the "Pamaltelan culture develops backwards" sort of breaks down with the earliest Pamaltelan cultural myths, which are pretty much on spot for a hunter/gatherer/horticulturalist society on the move. That doesn't stop me from assuming some form of peak "civilization" for Tishamto and then a continuous regress to a more original way of life, though.

So is a broken off chair leg of whichever material, or any other impromptu item used in a fight (glass shards, for instance). You could hide a functional weapon inside a rubber foam weapon. As the organizer of an event, there cannot be perfect security. Sometimes I ask myself why doesn't US legislation create laws that allow unreasonable litigation to be litigated...

True, but given the other David's observation of Darkness shamans and Jakaleel's obvious underworld connections, what school of shamanism did she come from? Horse nomad? Uz-related? Wendarian? Some other?

True, but so is the Artmali material culture. I regard the origins of Fonrit as a merger of the Tishamto and Kungatu cultures, much like Eastern Rome inheriting from both the Hellenistic and its Etruscan-descended original Roman influences. One might argue that Kungatu was set up in imitation of Tishamto, or vice versa, but I expect a distinct Veldaran inheritance for Kungatu. To keep these thoughts on topic for this thread: Both these places (and quite likely all Golden Age civilizations) would have had artifacts and magics that no longer work now the cities with their societies are defunct, or whose function is severely limited by what contextual powering (through rites, sacrifices, whatever) is available.

I would guess that the oasis-dwelling Doraddi have huge containers in the ground. No idea whether those would be ceramics or simply clay-lined pits with conical covers. Having a garden that sits atop of a 2 meters thick layer of blue clay (almost ceramics-grade), I can attest to this material's water retention properties. But maybe such containers could be baked into terra cotta and glazed in situ, firing them from the inside, rather than building an oversized kiln, then digging an even larger hole to deposit them in the ground. Especially with having a fire god who might like to explore holes in the ground in the midst of their pantheon family. Gourds for nomadic Doraddi seem to be a good container of choice, given their rather low weight to content ratio. Which means that they would be grown either at seasonally visited gardens or at oases. How long does such a gourd last? Animal bladders (or stomachs, or intestines) are logical containers for hunters and pastoralists, too. (Cheese might have been discovered by storing milk in calf stomachs...) Like skins, they might require some outer container to prevent them from receiving too much pressure, but basket weaving is likely to be an ancient and quite ubiquitious art. Or they could be used as lining inside less perfect natural containers (e.g. defective gourds, or hollow branches). There is hardly any archaeological evidence of homo erectus activities in China, despite a fair amount of bone finds. There is the assumption that these hominids used bamboo-based tools rather than stone tools for their technology. Do we have a similar human culture in Glorantha? Bone and horn technology is better documented in archaeological finds (like e.g. the Ahrensburg reindeed hunter cultures), so we have a better idea what they used. Another random thought: Doraddi technological and social development has been described as progressing from technologically and "culturally" (as western people measure cultural achievements in huge organisations etc) developed society to their current hunter/gatherer/horticulturalist society. They have a few remaining tokens of such earlier culture, like the chairs for their chiefs - status symbols that take quite a bit of effort to carry along between camp/village sites in the absence of beasts of burden. I wonder what kind of artifacts you wouldn't normally associate with a hunter-gatherer culture they may have preserved in their culture. The Kresh knowledge about wheels appears to be one such item. And what could we possibly extrapolate for their Tishamto culture?

And not in an in-world document?

High Llama riders are the Praxian Beast Riders who spend most time out of the saddle, holding up fodder to their browser rather than grazer steeds, if that old description still holds true. With the recent discovery that herdmen do basically the same for their Morokanth masters, this might be no longer canonical, though, but if it still holds true, then the High Llama riders need an intrinsic magical ability rather than relying on a spell to get back onto the backs of their steeds. That, or some aid like a loop of leather hanging from the saddle providing a foothold. (Maybe a "rope" ladder for pregnant females...)

Let me put it this way - reading a Moorcock novel led one of the most gorgeous women I ever met to initiate a conversation with me while on Inish More of the Aran Isles in 1990 and a very enjoyable evening in the pub. I haven't had any such moments reading any other genre literature in the public since. Moorcock's Eternal Champion certainly was a big IP well into the nineties. I have the impression that the hype ebbed away with his later Elric novels, starting with The Fortress of the Pearl. My own involvement certainly did with the second of those books. So, with regard to the Moorcock fan-base, I think that it lost a lot of fanaticism in the nineties, and the Young Kingdoms and the rest of the multiverse got replaced by newer settings. The fans didn't go away, but they found new interests. As to the RPG, Stormbringer's concept of sacrificing souls to embody those demon powers into artefacts was a powerful idea for a magic system, and in perfect keeping with the decadence of the setting. It might have been the Melniboneans who caused Paul Jaquays to add a "decadent" fifth stage to the four culture types (which I first encountered in RQ3) in the fantasy edition of Central casting (primitive, nomad, barbarian, civilized). Empowering player characters to do so brought all kinds of dark and predatory morality into the game. The Elric! rules returning to the much tamer RQ battle magic were sort of a let-down for me with regard to magic, even though the presentation of the game system really was excellent.

The area extends inland quite a bit, and while the Pelaskites (plus River Folk) probably form the second-largest minority in Greater Nochet and play an important role in constructing and crewing the city's navy and trading fleet, they might be less protected than regular houses when it comes to their ties to the land they live on. (I wonder how much their burial traditions have been adapted to use of the Antones Estates.) However, I had the impression that the general neighborhood was one of - possibly overcrowded - insula-like multi-storied houses on both sides of the road before space was claimed for the Lunar temple, and I suspect that many of those would have been under the management of mid- to upper-tier houses of Nochet.

That would be the likeliest explanation, yes. And the Greeks were a lot more scandalized by the betrousered woman warriors than most of their contemporaries. I think so, too. I am less convinced about the horse gear, though. The term for saddle appears to be quite ancient - it is pretty much the same across Germanic, Slavic and Romanic languages, and Greek, so either it was known to our horse nomad (linguistic) ancestors of the Yamna in the Danubian plains already, or it was loaned from whichever horse-riding culture brought the notion to their successors. Gendering of urn burials has been shown to be quite inaccurate, and I get the impression that a weapon find automatically made a burial a male burial in archaeological reports of urn finds. Otherwise, it is rather conspicuous that there is lots of evidence for male burials in Anglia, but hardly any for female burials. We may be missing quite a few females buried with weapons. Whether they used them abroad or only in home defense is a different question - we don't have much in the way of written reports on the peoples outside of the Roman and Greek world. For the Greeks, female warriors stood against everything their culture told them about the relationship between males and females. The Romans appear to be cut from a similar cloth, or they appropriated this stance with the adoption of elements of the Greek culture. Etruscans might have been less strict, the family burials don't show significant status differences between fathers and mothers.

Take some orthopedic rubber instead, just enough that you have to work against a significant pull. Pointing an arm somewhere and pointing an arm somewhere while pulling back with some force are two very different propositions. Normally, archers "cheat" by locking the bow arm into the joints at the shoulder, reducing the amount of muscle activity to keep it stretched significantly (and removing a lot of instability resulting from muscle vibrations fighting to keep the force away). If shooting 120° to 150° backwards, I don't see any reason for disbelieve, either - that's just the rear part of the left broadside opening. Shooting directly backwards requires twisting your hips, and that should be impossible while keeping both on pressure to the horse flanks. I doubt there was much of the modern "draw the arrow to almost release point, then fine-tune the point into perfect alignment with the target" as there is in modern archery. Doing your shot in one flowing movement removes a lot of the mistakes that other approach forces on the archer. More likely one for war and a lighter one for hunting smaller game, or birds. Shooting the arrow fully through the target leads to annoying loss of arrows. Foot archery most likely happens only during looting or from behind defense works, and will in all likelihood use the war bow also used from horseback. I haven't tried a "behind the head anchor" thumb release with my bows, yet. I wonder whether they used thumb rings or the naked thumb. The angle between shoulder and arrow can be adjusted by your posture. For shooting uphill (on foot), I turn away from the target to a more closed posture, making it easier to keep the bow arm locked in the shoulder. For shooting downhill, I face the target, up to having the lower end of the bow between my legs for extreme downhill shots. Not sure I agree with the strength limit. I don't see huns or mongols switching bows when turning their horses around, and on their charge they started shooting at extreme bow range. If "no aiming" means "you cannot get a bonus for keeping the drawn bow on target", I agree. But it is a characteristic of instinctive shooting that you need something you target with your shot. Bow length is an issue that reduces the angle of the left broadside that you can release an arrow to. Some of this can be mitigated shooting forward by tilting the bow, but shooting backward that tilt would be counter-productive, but a good rider and decent (longbow) archer should be able to use his bow without additional penalty than for being on horseback in an angle between 15° forward and 150" backward (anti-clockwise).

Their means of arrival would be interesting. The route north of the Shadow Plateau seems the least likely, so they must have crossed Choralinthor Bay, either on ships, or using the Fish Road. I guess at least one clan/house should have a Fish Road migration in its history. Duh - that info has been under my nose. But it still doesn't tell us who their sponsors or patrons were (and are), and whether some emancipated themselves from former patrons, or moved upward in the pyramid of patron-client relations. Except in Trolltown? Burial by troll might be a form of post-mortal punishment, even if the bones are returned. Probably from quite far away, too. Meldektown has sort of an open border to the Antones Estates, so their goats are likely to be found intruding there. Pies in bread crust and pies in clay crust? Farmers from the north are dependent on water traffic, but that water traffic may bring their goods to markets that are far from the city gates. And in case of dairy or eggs, they might be at an advantage over the farmers having to take the overland approach. But then the fisherfolk are also a good source for seabird eggs. So who decided whether a plot may be built over? Modern Nochet has only one area inside the walls where there is open ground, and that is after Hendira and her Lunar allies razed a lot of the previous (presumably anything but well-to-do) quarter there. I wonder whether Hendira had precedents for uprooting a significant part of the population of the city by force and/or decree. Perhaps there was a recompensation program, with diminishing recompensation the longer the inhabitants held out. And I do wonder how the new landlords got rid of the buildings occupying their prospective temple grounds. Systematic "unbuilding", demonstration of Lunar siege engines, or how? How secure can a House be of the "ownership" of their estates? We hit upon the question of reclamation of burial ground in an earlier discussion - there is a map showing the Antones Estates encroaching the Argan Argar and Esrola temple. Basically local consensus-generating meetings for neighborhoods? So even the most destitute and anti-social elements will present a House-like front to the rest of the city. I wonder about that. Is Riverside all "slums"? I would have expected some quite respectable neighborhoods for boatfolk plying the riverine trade up to New Crystal City, including the main grain import of the city.

This figurine shows quite a few details for the rider who seems to be clad in leather scales with a short cape covering the shoulders and a conical cap which probably indicated her origin to the maker and the customer of the figurine, but the only piece of tack is the bridle and the bit for the horse. The horse is shown at the conventional leg constellation in art for a slow trot rather than in gallop. I wonder how much contact there could have been between the Etruscans and the horse riders. We know that the Etruscans kept a fleet of two-tiered "penteconters" (basically biremes) at the battle of Alalia, but their naval trade seems to have been on the Tyrrhenian and not into the Aegaean or the Black Sea where they could have encountered such horse folk. Considering the image of the elephants in that carving of an Elephant and Castle in Chester Cathedral, Coventry, unfamiliarity of the artist with the subject can produce quite an error (IIRC from my visit 38 years ago there is another one, even weirder, I think in the castle where Mary Stuart spent her last days). This artist or at least the person providing the art direction appears to have had some first hand exposure to such a rider (or at least a native depiction of one). I wonder where. This could be an image of a Galanini warrioress. The horse is sufficiently small, the armor indicates a less clement climate. All of this would apply to Pentans or Grazers, too, but I think they are too patriarchalic to put a bow into a woman's hands. The Galanini and the unicorn women are the only horse rider cultures that I can think of might allow such weaponry to women, and the armor would melt its wearer in Prax, so Ralios is where I would look.

So they would still live under Belintar's rulership, but not under that travesty of a king? Such clans would have been sceptical of Belintar's rulership, and the houses welcoming them most likely would at least have been willing to hedge a bet against Belintar's long-term success. So it might be interesting to see which houses those were, and whether they burnt their fingers. Given the cautiousness of Grandmothers, I suspect they would have made second tier houses in their client scheme take the risk, rather than expose themselves. I suppose that Hendrikiland and Sartarite origins aren't much differentiated in Nochet, and that they will likely have intermarried after a few generations to a degree that they have become a single subculture. (Renting out rooms to students from abroad shows me how notions of "home" broaden when you are living abroad.) So their presence may have started as guilds, possibly working their way up in status as they profited from their ties to the Quivini trade routes. But this arrival would be about six to eight generations after their ancestors left Heortland for Dragon Pass. Enough for the threat of Belintar to have become something abstract, with more pressing new troubles like beastmen, Telmori, Praxians or Grazers occupying their image of enmity. Such mercantile establishments would have been sponsored by the major mercantile Houses, possibly including Enfranchised ones. By taking a role in establishing new houses, their status would rise a lot even if those new houses didn't become direct clients. It would still be a risk, because when (not if) those newcomers misbehaved, it reflected badly on their sponsors. Grizzly Peak coincides with the boom of the Opening. While not a direct threat for the Principality, it opened up a huge opportunity. Even war clans could have been welcome, as the Melib venture provided plenty of occupation for mercenary work. Ok. I wonder about the urban diet, anyway. Given the presence of the fisherfolk, I expect a certain portion of protein to come in the shape of sea-food, whether clams, crabs, or fish. Geese appear to be an important factor in food, too, both for the eggs and for the meat. Pigs are another companion beast of Ernalda well suited for the city. Sheep and dairy on the other hand would be rather under-represented in the direct neighborhood of the city. Cattle less so since you need to breed oxen on a regular schedule to keep plowing the land and doing overland transportation. With the Antones Estates consuming most of the land directly adjacent to the city, farmers' markets require almost an entire day delivery to the city. The farmland north of the Lyksos may have shorter routes into the city than the farms to the west. This patron-client-subclient scheme probably defines Nochet society, only that obligations flow up to other houses, too, if I read your campaign correctly. Does this take the Aeolians south of the city and the fisherman communities into account? Both these communities appear to have an ongoing history of presence in the region. Either would have been bystanders in the Adjustment wars, possibly co-opted by one side or the other. I guess those are now subsumed in the "Sartarite" population of Nochet. So basically, the less prestigious houses (whether of native or Sartarite origin) live on leased land, and the land-owner has great influence over them? Makes sense. Any Orlanth temples besides Orlanth Hill will be sponsored by local houses, then? I was assuming that quite a few of the Sartarite houses would have male heads of the houses, but that those would be treated like master guildsmen rather than the equivalent of a house's "mother" when dealing with native houses. Sending female envoys/ring members would ease that a bit. But then it would be hard to be of Sartarite origin and a member of the polite society of Nochet at the same time, anyway. You would have to be quite rich or quite well related. Yes. That's why I started this thread. Basically a merger between a pre-existing house and a clan of Sartarite refugees. In the long run, possibly a slightly more respectable origin for the Sartarite house than starting with their Sartarite identity, separate from any Imarjan connection. So basically, a lot of my questions aim at these instances of "Clan {X}". Is there such a thing as "second storey houses" (clans, guilds, whatever) - independent factions too poor or too lacking in influence to have some claim on the soil of Nochet? So option 4 also hits our Clan {X}. Basically, a Sartarite Clan {X} would have to choose a patron from either an earlier establishment of Heortlings, a direct client-patron relationship to one of the houses in Nochet plus a hostility or two to houses that feel deprived of earlier privileges, or a significant loss of identity through a merger with an Esrolian House but resulting access to the Imarjan traditions. This looks a bit like there are quite a few newcomer clans who fail to make such connections, and who end up either as unrecognized communities or being absorbed by existing houses piecemeal. Unrecognized communities do include beggars, thieves, bandits, mercenaries, unaffiliated entertainers etc., but then I suppose those would have to face a similarly established counterpart of natives. The overseas communities would have been established post 1586, mainly by House Delaineos, I guess, although second tier houses of other Enfranchised Houses would have been "suggested" to invest in exotic clients, too. I expect that little of this will have gone to the established Sarli merchants for lack of influence in those quarters.

If you look at Voria's accoutrements, you will find innocent readiness for sex everywhere. Like her darker sister she is adorned by severed genitals, in her case of flowering plants. Where she has stepped, the bees and blossoms do it. Voria is all about the promise of fertility. Keep the trickstes chained and a good eye on the alynxes...

Conventionally, a Dragon Pass counter represents up to five hundred cavalry or up to one thousand foot. Magician units may have smaller bodyguard contingents, resulting in those lower combat factors. A Sartarite clan warband usually would be about 100 warriors, most of them not professionals. Those city militias bundle parts of those warbands, in elite cavalry units and ok infantry. The Free Army has a few units that are indentifiable as local warbands, notably the Colymar tribal warband (a rather weak cavalry unit) or the Two Ridge Fort temple of Humakt bolstered by local volunteers. But that's for the few scenarios in the Dragon Pass boardgame. You can reduce unit size as far as you like for smaller conflicts without changing the factors. The Siege of Dunstop scenario does just that. You might want to provide a more detailed hex map for those conflicts, and possibly a shorter turn than a full day if you do that. On the Dragon Pass board, the Battle of Dwernapple would be over maybe 10x10 hexes. You could give it a better treatment on a detail map with a turn covering an hour or two.