Joerg

Why the metal hoops for the barrels? I thought there was an agreement that those would be unlikely for the amount of metal available in Glorantha. I miss baskets on your list of packaging items, both in hard (stackable) and soft varieties. Also common are strong boxes for valuable cargo (the Argan Argar cult provides a spell for those, too). Having worked with consignments put together by specialist packers, the dimensions of cargo items are an issue, too. Especially if you propose fully decked vessels. Density of cargo items are a big deal when loading a ship, too. Metal ingots, millstone raws and similar heavy stuff doubles as ballast near the keel line (provided the vessel has such). Light but voluminous stuff goes on top. This may require some additional work if you are unloading only part of your cargo at a given stop. Some of the perhaps weirdest cargo to package are shipbuilding timbers that have natural (or artificially enforced) shapes suitable for ribbing. I reckognize that you wrote this for personal use, but the rare occasions when I see terms like "gallon", I draw a blank just as much as when I see biblical measurements like shekels or Greek distances given in stadia.

Gears and cogs are part and parcel of the Mostali mythology as we have been presented it. That makes me somewhat reluctant to have them readily available for mundane human use. Leonardo the Scientist uses pedals and some form of transmission (no data whether chain or leather belt) to power his pedalcopter, so the advanced alchemical sorcerer will have access to mechanics like those pictured in the woodcuts to Agricola's book on mining. Horizontal windmills that don't need any translation might be acceptable. Possibly as wheel mills like in the olive pressing industry. Pulleys are a logical extension of blocks, once someone has the genius idea to pull a rope through a series of these. Legend ascribes this knowledge to Archimedes, in a wager that he would be able to pull a warship out of the water all on his own, a feat worthy of Hercules. Unless you used pulleys... Saronil used winches in his cranes, which angered the Mostali when he applied those to his Orlanth temple. It isn't clear whether this natural philosophy was secret royal magic or made freely available to all the builders employed by the dynasty. Given the ability to finish their projects despite sometimes very short reigns, I tend to freely available, which means that Dormal could have known about pulleys and winches when he started the re-discovery of the seas, and all his imitators might have inherited such technology alongside the Opening (and might regard that as part of the Opening package). I wouldn't worry too much about strange material in a setting. It is like the small size of the hobbits in the Lord of the Rings movies - in the first movie, Peter Jackson pulled all sorts of optical tricks to make the hobbits and Gimli appear smaller than the rest of the cast. In the later movies, the size of the hobbits had been established and was sort of projected by the watcher's mind with only the occasional nudge to memory. If you look at the material culture of e.g. Raymond Feist's Kelewan, the metal-poor parallel world invading Midkemia, their material industry serves for a few plot points and then disappears in the background. I know very few people who started thinking about the atomic number of Mithril when discussing Tolkien's Middle Earth. If enchanted gold or lead can obtain the hardness and tensile strength of bronze, we have left conventional material science anyway, and nobody is upset, so what is the big broohaha about tools and weapons that traditionally cast terrestrial bronze cannot produce in stable variations? If we just state that the comparable gloranthan item requires a process involving alchemy or other such magic to provide a viable item, what is the difference to enchanted gold or lead? There are plenty outwardly mundane materials produced in Glorantha with the help of magic, like most crops. Sometimes the mind boggles at other weirdness, like the concept of items as re-usable sacrificial gifts to the god. Quite nifty, such an item that receives a ritual marring which may be removed after some pious waiting time until it can be sacrificed again. And again, and again, and again, with no significant material investment, for good magic. Other sacrificial components double as ingredients for the holy feast. That's not really limited to Glorantha. There are some ritual food sacrifices at a volcano IIRC on Java where there are people descending into the caldera of the (active!) volcano to catch some of these sacrifices for food. The sacrificer doesn't mind, the sacrifice seems to lie in the tossing of the gift, not in what happens to it afterwards, and the volcano hopefully remains placated.

Beetle wing windows: Possible sources: Pavis, Nochet, Boldhome, Naskorion - basically any place where trolls and humans cohabitate for them to recognize a "get wealthy and influential" opportunity. I am with the Martins (Hawley and Helsdon) on this topic - something like that has to exist, and will in all likelihood be an outright plague in the Sea of Worms. The Middle Sea Empire will have spread this across the known shores, if the Waertagi have not done so before to thwart their wooden-hulled wanna-be rivals. Western ships will have sorcery dedicated to deal with this threat, Kethaela has troll cooperation. Secure it on the rib-heads supporting the railing, like a hide stretched over a model. I don't see evidence for the use of nails in Kethaelan ship-building, so nailing it on (as would have to be done with metal sheeting) doesn't seem likely. You were the one to point me towards giant insect (or crab) legs for innovative materials. The only use I envisioned earlier were giant crab legs for spear shafts in my Volcanic Cave Under the Glacier setting that was discussed on the HeroQuest Yahoogroup just before there was a Glorantha Yahoogroup, a technology contributed by the Vadrudi males/selkie wives portion of that trapped population. All of which not canonical at all, and not yet written up in a gameable format. If you are a yahoogroup member (I never cancelled my membership and got Yahoogroups to react very surprised at me revisiting these old hunting grounds of mine), here's a direct link that should work once you are logged in: https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/HeroQuest-RPG/conversations/topics/16980 That thread discusses a few other innovative use of materials in a situation of exctreme scarcity, too, like lava cast into ice moulds.

A ship the size of a Hanseatic Cog would not stop for a delivery for a hamlet of 60 souls unless enough people form the crew hail from there. Viking merchants did use piers where present, but their keeled craft would beach on sandy beaches next to significant settlements or markets where available or stay out of the flats (depending on the coast they found). They wouldn't make the tour to each and every single stead on an island like Hinnöya in the Vesteralen (sorry about the wrong umlauts), leaving that to locals with smaller boats that could be pulled up even at rocky shores. Tubs the size of the grain ship would stop for full-sized colony cities that had something to offer. They wouldn't stop for five amphorae of olive harvest at some small isolated beach. That's what boats are for. Or donkey backs, or carts. In Greece, the portion of the local harvest set aside for trade (or rent/taxation) would be transported to the polis, which is where the trade ship would stop. The local potentates (or democratic councils acting as such) wouldn't have it any other way. Your idea of the Tramp Steamer making stop after stop at individual island hamlets isn't how such harvests are collected. Small vessels similar in capacity to river boats would be sent to central market places where the big ships would visit. A few smaller "ports" nearby might be used for tarriff evasion, but usually by smaller vessels and not by the "big liners". Ships would make regular stops at freshwater sources regardless whether there were habitations there or not, for instance, but calling such places ports is like calling highway parking lots or fuel stations in the wilderness cities. So yes, there is a call for being able to approach a more or less featureless coast that provides a know resource, like freshwater. But no, that's not a port. Now that's a different term than port. Harbor, anchorage, wind shadow - places where you would re-provision, sit out bad weather, or hide from pirates are a necessity. And if you do it on a boat operated by two people, with enough cargo space for the entire production of that place, and some to add, that's what you do rather than send a ship that requires almost a dozen crew plus "dock handlers" to beach and unbeach. Using existing waterways is always the cheapest form of transportation, and in the absence of other infrastructure usually the fastest way, too, unless two otherwise distant bodies of water are separated by only a rather short stretch of overland journey. There is only one caveat here. In order to require the capacity for bulk transportation, you need goods in bulk amounts. You don't stop the ocean-going ship for each barrel or amphora of local produce, but you let smaller boats do that, and collect from central places, which are usually controlled by the local authority and taxed and tarrifed accordingly (or, in less modern words, you had to gift the local ruler to get his blessing for trading with his subjects). That's the function of the proto-urban centers that spring up in the late Bronze Age, sometimes from local concentration, sometimes from foreigners establishing a colony polis in previously uncharted land. Timber was another major bulk cargo, while marble and similarly sought after stone probably was more of a rare luxury transport. Rome was dependent on outside imports, having outgrown the food producing capacity of the neighborhood with a few days of transportation. Athens with its tribute payments from the Attic League members may have been in a similar position, but apparently managed to survive a long siege (without a functioning sea blockade) for years without any access to production in its direct neighborhood, too. Thank you very much for that authoritative suggestion. May I suggest some advanced reading on the formation of proto-urban structures north of the Alps for your delectation? What's the social and economic unit in Maniria? The clan, of about 500 people. That unit will have a communal place where the harvest (surplus) is gathered, and where the clan authorities or their deputies will make deals with outside merchants interested in bulk. A small time peddlar who has maybe a donkey but more likely just the basket he bears on his back might be allowed to do his minuscule business directly (after declaring his business to the clan council or their deputies), but a major trader cannot just visit all the outlying steads, bid for the local harvest, and leave the clan center's storages empty for that year. Germanic social units may have been smaller if you go by the term "hundreds", though I doubt that. For individual farmsteads or fisherman's steads acting as their own economic unit you need some form of isolation, and even then trade was centralized by the chiefs or kings of that outback region, like the Steigen or Skrova kings on the Vestfjord. No bulk trader ever approached the inner Tysfjord. Delegations of the local kings went there to collect tribute and trade, then dealt with the traders interested in bulk. If I look at the settlement structure on Crete, for instance, I don't see evidence for such isolated beach sites. The "palaces" are the local centers of commerce, and any trader would visit those for trade goods, leaving isolated shepherd places maybe as a place where to refresh the water containers, but never to take on significant amounts of export goods. A spot to disembark a hunting or water party is not a port in anybody's vocabulary. North of the Celtic language region, trade was conducted in the Viks - harbor places where the local goods would be accumulated through local transport. In the Danubian region, the Fürstensitz had the same function. On the Mediterranean, the colonies, whether Greek or Punic. Of the Etruscan cities, there were only three or four port sites. Those had quite significant industrial activity, as the thousands of tons of iron slag testified that were put into recycling in the 19th and 20th century, at times up to five meters high. But those goods were collected in those three of four spots, and overseas traders went there, not to the individual smelter. That's what a port means. Everywhere where overseas merchants went, they sought out centers created by the locals, Where the locals didn't provide such centers, they created them - which is why the Vikings are responsible for most of the coastal cities of Ireland. And you find exactly this reflected in the activities of Sartar when he instituted his cities or the three trade posts in the Grazelands. The issue of Gloranthan sea ports is one of a 600 year interdict, the Closing. Places like Kethaela with their inland sea or the Quinpolic islands kept at least local trade, but similar places like the Mournsea stopped all naval activities except fishing. Ramalia has demonized everything approaching from the sea and doesn't even allow fishing. If anything, this has created a greater reliance on smaller vessels collecting local goods and transporting them to the cities. There is no place or rather function for grain-barge sized ships on the coast of Heortland except in the places that are shown in the Guide. They even show Sklar, a glorified fisherman's hamlet that might be of interest for smugglers, but never for bulk traders. And places like Jansholm or Durengard may be approachable for smaller vessels, but not for those grain tubs - those will use the transshipping places on the flats in the estuaries. On the Esrolian side, you might have a point about not all places that might warrant a port being shown on the map. However, tell me this: Where can you load grain? Only in Nochet or Rhigos. Places like Pedastal don't have that privilege, and it takes a Lunar forward base there to change that. The Rightarm Isles funnel their foreign trade through Seapolis, where their Ludoch overlords can observe the transactions. Other places might have facilities or amenities, but no wares to speak of. Stopping for longer than it takes to take on fresh water and food or to spend the night will most like put the locals into deep trouble with their authorities. You are correct that a vessel like the grain barge may be too small to have more of a dinghy than a tug or watering skiff. But you overlook that people on the coast will have boats of their own. A popular anchorage off the Tangle below the Shadow Plateau will in all likelihood see local hagglers making a decent profit out of bringing fresh goods to the anchored ships, creating a bit of the Sansibar atmosphere where friendly locals in colorful boats greet the sailors on their big overseas ships. Even if those locals are amhibian or beaked rather than exotic human. But those places are just provisioning stops. If any transshipment occurs, it is directly from big vessel to local small vessel. Where you don't have tides twice a day (like everywhere on Glorantha), you avoid beaching your vessel, unless you are fine waiting out the next two to five days without being able to leave. Getting stuck that way in Nochet is fine, your crew will probably need that time. Getting stuck ike that in a shithole like Sklar might mean that you need to hire new crew in the next decent port. And a stop to take on fresh water for the next two or three days had better not last that long, or the entire point of making that stop would be sort of moot. In many ways, the Baltic Sea with its absence of tides except for level changes caused by constant strong wind models the Gloranthan seas better than the Mediterranean. Beaching in Glorantha means you better do that at the highest tide, or the continuouos rise in water level will carry off your vessel in the middle of unloading. Beaching at the highest tide means a wait of at least two days until the water gets high enough to leave the beach again. So, where is the benefit of a flat-bottomed ship able to beach? If you need water, you set off the skiff with enough containers and maybe three of your crew while the rest of the crew holds position with the help of anchor and occasional poling or rowing, or you take the friendly locals up on their offer to do the water run for you for a small payment. If you want to load significant amounts of cargo, you better find a decent port with better amenities or at least enough manpower to put water under your non-keel again. Everything else, a smaller vessel gets alongside your ship, and you heave stuff over the railing.

Wow, someone else writes diatribes as long as mine... Ok, go into that crocodile nest to get some eggs while the mother watches. I'll happily sit by and mop up the remains... Not all reptilians are like sea turtles. But then, dragonewts are not reptilian. They are warm-blooded. One might classify them as a variant branch of the dinosaurs, one that eschewed the feathers. (Note that during the ages of the dinosaurs, lots of other big tetrapodes with more reptilian traits existed, too. Neither ichtyosaurs nor mosasaurs nor pterosaurs are any close relation to the ancestors of our birds. And there were monster-sized crocodilians, too.) Forget about reptilians. The dragonewts are evolutionary as far from the rock lizards as are birds or mammals if you insist on putting them onto the same evolutionary tree as terrestrial organisms. A relationship that doesn't work for Glorantha, anyway, but I'll play along since I have used dragonewts in a RQ setting of mine which did obey evolution for the most part. And what is racial memory that slowly emerges through learned things proven wrong by this. My first encounter with these critters was the Dragon Pass boardgame. I might confuse this with the Glorantha booklet of the RQ3 DeLuxe box, but I think it said they were the neotenic offspring of immature (True) dragons. RQ2 misleadingly talks about warm-blooded reptiles, but that was not in the original source. I think that Lawrence Whitaker did have some short insider notes when he wrote the MRQ book on dragonewts. One of the better MRQ publications, and while some interpretations may have since been re-visited and some details never confirmed, I think that that presentation of the last-born and horny female dragon that left clutches of neotenic dragonewts all over the place may be Word from Greg, or possibly word from Stephen Martin who had fairly full access to Greg's Glorantha notes at the time. I suppose they hatch for (not so) good, destroying their egg in the process. Dragon Pass had something about some of them redeeming themselves spinning a cocoon like an egg, from which they emerge as Pteranodons, to an almost dragon-like existance. No idea about the magisaurs, though, which start out effectively as defect scouts. That's one of the draconic traits that they lost. Dinosaurs don't emanate anything (the Trachodon/giant magisaur regimental spirits in the boardgame are something different). New OS: Mostali aren't computers or Pratchett-style golems, either. What I meant by this comparison is that the new incarnation has a difference in basic outlooks and thought processes. A lot of identity (and especially dragonewt social identity) is retained, but if the individual progressed as supposed, it works closer to the draconic Absolute. In my model the physical form is an expression of the slowly forming mind, so we aren't that far apart in that aspect. Comparison to human development of personality and mental capacities as age groups: Oh, I agree. The analogy is far from 100%, it is just a hint at the mental and moral capacity of the developing mind. Better than two thirds of the Genertelans plus the Teleosans have heard about the dragonewts. The original Malkioni colonies may be the great exception, but they too were involved in the opposition to the Middle Sea Empire by the EWF. While the EWF wasn't dragonewts but began as humans imitating dragonewts, some memory of that plus the world-wide experience of dragons rising everywhere, even where you never expected any, to fly to Dragon Pass would be in the common lore. Pamaltelan's might wonder why all those ginormous beasts suddenly manifesting flew north without knowing anything about dragonewts. Vithelans might be less ignorant, but only slightly so. In Pelanda, far from any living dragonewt nest, where the last contact with that species was the Dragonkill war, there are nonetheless mentions of dragonewts in their myth how humans failed to participate in immortality. If one can believe the numbers, there was one invading soldier for each human inhabitant of Dragon Pass. Yes, a few humans found refuge as slaves of Isidilian, and Delecti's magic unmade an entire piece of the land, but apart from that, the human lands were scoured for good. The wilderness obviously a lot less, which explains how the Aramites (stalwart warriors for the EWF in the Machine War) held out. First time I see this claim. The EWF inherited the location of their council from the council of Orlanthland, the entity which started into the Second Age receiving tribute from occupied Dara Happa. It is quite possible that that council met at an itinerary of holy mountains around Dragon Pass, according to the Season. These holy men (the chief priests) would likely have been accomplished flyers. Sure. When the dragons struck, all humans were targets. Those who were friendly had fled or perished otherwise, or were waiting for worse fates, like slavery. Sure. There will have been individuals from most clans in Nochet or in similar mundane places of Kethaela at any time, who may have had some half-correct family tradition about what was forgotten 78 years earlier. In comparison, that's the memory how the US got dragged into World War 2, from now. What do you know about the conditions at that time, about the political constellations and the rivalries? And that's without a total manhunt which not even the Katharan crusade or the elimination of the Knights Templar achieved. No, that was the human (or rather yet human, though already quite draconic in look and habit - think Elderlings from Robin Hobb's Golden Fool / Living Ships series) population of Dragon Pass who now had this strange crop instead of the good old Ernaldan food. Which they returned to after 1042, which possibly was made easier because quite a large portion of their population did not survive that assassination. That lizard thing again... and while there are a lot of insectivores among the smaller reptiles and prominent predators among the larger ones, there are also tortoises and sea turtles, iguanas and Galapagos sea dragons which are strictly herbivorous. Scouts are herbivorous gatherers, and provide for the omnivorous higher stages above warrior (mainly tailed priests, winged priests spend most of their existence in meditation which obviates such trivialities as intake of food). There is no evidence of any pastoral or herding activity apart from keeping demibird steeds and exerting some control over the "wild" dinosaur herds. Those may be as "wild" as the reindeer in Scandinavia (meaning they all belong to herds that have registered owners, even when they appear solitary in the wild). Even if this was true for Dragon's Eye (which I don't think it is), how would they do something similar in the lesser cities in such different locations like the city among the Quivin Peaks, in the Stinkwood, at the foot of the Indigo Mountains or opposite of Dunstop? Eating the dead bodies of their utuma'ed or otherwise demised fellow newts might be a thing, although I find the concept of autophagy - the newly hatched newt devours what is left of its previous body - as irritatingly different. Something like this was hinted at in connection to those dragonewt armor stories. Sign here, here, and this property release form. Gouging out someone's eyes will alter that person's perceptions, too... Those awakened jolanti of Aggar are the least of my doubts. How did they hope to make the Elder Giants of the Easter Rockwoods comply? From what I have read about the EWF mystics, utuma was a one time only option, preferably when you achieved True Dragonhood. At least that's how the most successful draconic mystic, Obduran the Flyer, did it. Obduran was the first Wyrm's Mind Collective leader who was an Orlanthi, but there were quite a lot of draconic mystics who had been at their meditations and transformations before him. Obduran may have overtaken them, but I think only a minority of the most advanced draconic mystics participated in the Third Council, leaving someone comprably junior like Ingolf Dragonfriend to take that position with all its entanglements. According to the Dragon Pass rules, Pteranodons are redeemed dinosaurs. Still not quite dragons, but way better than e.g. brontos or triceratopi (or however you form the plural). Somehow it is important that the dragon follows unnoticed. Which may be a way to say that it is Orlanth's Other, the imperceptible part of one's self that one cannot acknowledge without mystical realisation, like Yelm's shadow. Or, in opposed pairs like Rufelza and Sheng Seleris or Arkat and Nysalor, which they can acknowledge only through masks even with mystical awareness. An experiment gone wrong, so one eradicates the ant farm. "This is not how to proceed, even though that Obduran specimen performed brilliantly." Cragspider may have a primeval understanding of the world beyond so irritating things like facts through her one-ness with Arachne Solara. The ancestors of the dragons may have met the Goddess Glorantha during Creation, and they may have come to an agreement for the goddess to serve as the nesting ground (for eggs that hatch as True Dragons, without that neotenic nonsense). Possibly two such agendas. The Kralori dragonewts elevate a human exarch to their functional equivalent of the Inhuman King (like currently Godunya). Their experiment with Immanent Mastery (the path also pursued by Isgangdrang aka Drang the Diamond Storm Dragon) backfired just like the one in Dragon pass did, in the person of Shang-Hsa May-his-Name-be-Cursed. Their correction of that mistake took longer than the 1042 assassination. Sandy Petersen once said that in order for new Dragonewt eggs to be produced, individuals from all age stages need to participate, which puts a stopper on expansion of dragonet-less populations, and puts Godunya into a strange sexual position. If this was the case, so what about the dragonet-less Kralori 'newts? No new eggs for them? Not to my knowledge, and the dinosaur-born nomadic nests of the Elder Wilds may also be more of a rumor than a fact - while dragonewts are repeatedly mentioned in the history of the Elder Wilds, none are mentioned for the now of the place, and they don't appear in the population listing, either. The only dragonet apart from the Inhuman King of Dragon Pass that I know about is the ruler of Ryzel on the border to Ramalia. Interesting theory. But then equating Rashoran (the Godtime incarnation of Nysalor) with Metsyla is kind of obvious. Why would there have been dragonewts in Hell? A dragonewt whose body dies goes straight to the egg, and doesn't receive 400$ for passing the start field. No detour through Hell required. That would be Death,

@David Scottbeat me to this topic. I did a little research on this, and found this interesting article (though I differ on a couple of points made in it): https://www.tor.com/2017/09/25/using-archaeology-in-fantasy-fiction/ Basically, much like the other aspects of history, a lot of the technology of Glorantha is based on mythic precedents. The iconic sailors of Glorantha all use weird material. The Waertagi use "living bodies of slain sea dragons", the Sendereven cut their outrigger catamarans from special rocks (sounds rather similar to creating Moai), dwarf paddle-wheeled floating castles use opus caementitium (aka concrete), a material also attested in use for Pelandan architecture (as per Entekosiad), and the elves breed and grow special trees into boat shape. The original Artmali and Helerite boats and ships were solidified clouds, purple for the Artmali and tan blue for the Helerites. I already speculated in another thread about the architectural possibilities in such a material. In face to face conversation with @Jeff I learned (or at least got the impression) that at least some of the earliest seagoing vessels in myth were little more than a good-sized piece of barch for a hull, a huge leaf for a sail and a branch for a mast, held together by the will (and creative power) of the creator and sailor. If you look at the first boat myths, we get the Sofali Diros with his sea-turtle shell, we get Kogag with his giant beetle carapace, and Varanorlanth too. We have reed boats from riverine Peloria and Maniria (including the Zola Fel valley here) which are almost dully normal. There should be humungous dugouts, possibly in the Maslo copies of the Sendereven design. Possibly widened through application of superheated steam - a technology apparently already known to mesolithich spear-makers, which requires water, fire-heated rocks, animal skins, and more fire-heated rocks. If you manage to heat timber to 120 degrees or more, it becomes malleable like putty without losing its year-ring lamination. Manipulating something that hot requires some ingenuity, but that's a quite commonplace quality in humanity. Malkioni really should be (or have been) using coracle-based technology rather than planked hulls, in imitation of the Waertagi hulls. The Free Men of the Seas might have changed that with their radically new designs, leaning on Manirian knowledge acquired from the Olodo. Likewise the Yggites with their access to seal skin. The earliest naval activities occurred on the "coastal parts" of Sramak's River. In the west, the experiences of the Waertagi have survived the Gods War. In the East, the wager of the Prosandara and Venperesha (Revealed Mythologies p.74) created land in the seas and sea in the lands before any other water invaded the land. These outermost islands were soon populated, and whether the people were created in loco or ferried there, they soon started taking to the seas and to meet the neighbors. It is from this oldest tradition the Sendereven came. The Keets appear to have been drawn to the beaches of the southwestern corner of the world, which is how the sea gods were enraged by the "blessing" bestowed by the keet sage who was trod upon by the dancing sea god who received lightness and couldn't return to his sea any more. (Sounds somewhat similar to the myth of Heler...) Rivers are there in the Golden Age, IMO this starts with the Birth of Umath, which pushed his mother down and his father upward. The ever-hungry waters were only too happy to return to the sixth side of the Earth Cube which had been inaccessible to them for too long. Rivers expanded into lakes, wetlands and smaller seas, providing opportunities for the earliest boating above drowned land (seas, rather than bottomless oceans). The God Learner maps show the Solkathi current that goes around the Spike meeting the Neliomi current, establishing the sea north of the Spike even before the Great Flood that followed (and that covered highlands with huge standing waves). In a way, the dry lands of Kerofinela and Kethaela (and Saird) may have been the result of a huge downward wind blowing the waters to either sides of these lands. Those extremes retreated, and some balance of sea and land was found on the surface of the cube, until the seas dried up later in the lesser Darkness - possibly through the agency of Valind building his glacier, possibly for other reasons. The mermen as we know them are the youngest of the Elder Races, younger than mankind. They were born when the Vadrudi ravaged the invading seas, picking wives from the waves without asking for consent. The earliest Diros stories would come from this period, too, as they require an interaction with Sea above Former Lands. (At least that's how I see this. Others might disagree.) This puts the start of naval history outside of the outermost East Isles and the Waertagi coast (or at least surviving and accessible memories thereof) in the Storm Age. One problem with assessing which technologies were conceived (or willed into being) way back when is that narrators of a mmore modern age will replace terms that they don't really understand with technological terms they are familiar with. That's how the ceramic storage vessel that Diogenes inhabited when he was met by Alexander has become a cooper's barrel in western European tradition and imagery. The same goes for mention of other technological inventions for ages past. Even when avoiding the route of von Däniken and his ilk, there are tantalizing images and models of things that would not have survived as material leavings because they were made of perishable substances. We infer the archaeology of textiles from weights that we assume were required for a hanging loom. We have not the slightest idea when baskets or basket-held skin containers were first used. Unlike ceramics, these didn't survive. Finding copper-age Ötzi as an ice mummy has expanded our knowledge of earliest textiles by 100%. Similarly well-preserved remains are only known from bog finds or salt mines, and usually younger by millennia. For other data the textile archaeologists look at depictions in durable materials, like ceramic dolls or fresco paintings like those of the "Minoan" culture, or possibly wall paintings invisible to the naked eye but detectable with modern spectroscopy and datable by analyzing minuscule chalk crusts forming over them, like the recent discovery of definitely Neanderthal wall paintings about 15000 years before the arrival of the African immigrants that provide the majority of our European DNA. So, let's examine our discussion whether certain technologies are bronze age or not (and keep in mind that bronze age didn't end simultaneously everywhere - in my mind, the Bronze Age lasted until about 500 BC, regardless of early iron industries e.g. by the Etruscans starting well before 800 BC - and yes, I am aware that BC isn't the politically correct term, but I'll use it nonetheless). "Barrels require metal hoops, so they are definitely not a Bronze Age thing." Paraphrasing from a comment here lauding the insistence on amphorae as standardized containers. Probably well and true for the Mediterranean, but when a Roman author testifies the use of barrels in transalpine Gaul, he describes a well-established technology of the La Tene people, and quite likely stretching back to the Hallstatt culture or even its precursor. We don't have any literature about that. Oral tradition is treacherous, as the Diogenes in a Barrel misconception shows (quite on topic), but that doesn't prove a negative. It is extremely likely that the army that attacked at the Tollense crossing came from a barrel and bucket-using material culture, just not proven. And that battle predates Khadesh, and hints at having a similar scale, so we are looking at a huge organized human endeavor in a region that historians relying on Greek and Roman authors have labeled benighted Barbaria, and that label has stuck even to modern pre-historians. When we find durable evidence for a culture in that region, it can be stunning, like the gold hats or the Nebra disk. But most of that culture's activities appear to have been made in perishable material. Human remains are among the less perishable material from that region, as are certain grave gifts. Unfortunately, body burials were rather few in that time, and remains in urns have seen thorough destruction. So basically, a culture of great recyclers has recycled allmost all the evidence for their activities. Post holes can only attest for what was within the soil. But it is that period that means "Bronze Age" to me. Whenever I see Greek Hoplite armor, it shouts anachronism to me. To everyone in the Anglophone world this seems to shout "Bronze Age", but it (and contemporary ship building) is about as period appropriate as the late mediaeval armor in that Arthur flick with Connery as Artus and Richard Gere as Lancelot for events that are set in the crumbeling remains of Roman culture in Latinized Britain - off by a millennium. So, if there was a coracle or paddled canoe-based advanced naval technology on the Atlantic and Baltic shores, we don't have much evidence of that. We get the Hjortspring Boat dating from around 400-300BC, and it was accompanied by presumed contemporary iron weaponry - that's La Tene culture further south, the Iron Age successor of the Late Bronze Age Hallstatt culture. We see rock carvings that are somehow (no idea how exactly) dated to 2000 BC, give or take a millennium, which show objects with double protuding stems very similar to the shape of the Hjortspring boat, so one might assume that there was such a naval culture in the northern seas. We don't have any findings from this period, though. But we know those were warmer times, with a local climate comparable to Tuscany now, so it is possible that the boreworm (which started the discussion below) was native in those waters back then. While the Baltic Sea has a few anoxic pockets where wooden remains might have survived, no such lucky find has been made yet in those much smaller areas than the vast anoxic underbody of the Black Sea with its very own story of flooding preserved in an environment hostile to all surface life. Varchulanga's realm, only without the big organisms escaping. Or possibly some other deity of darkness and deep sea trapped in a locked bottom of aerated water. Think of a (possibly shapeless) marine vampire lifeform (or undead, or chaotic) whose vulnerability is aerated water rather than sunlight. Something like this must exist somewhere on the sea floor of the Homeward Ocean... and it might guard some lost holy Earth place to rival Ezel or Seshna's Temple. Food for a merman campaign, maybe. Once you start looking at giant-sized insects as source for construction material, quite a few weird ideas might work. Who needs glass windows when you can frame the transparent wings of giant insects and put those in the wall openings? Surely better than parchment. The carapace shielding doesn't have to be water-tight - it needs to be bore-worm proof. And it might only work in combination with those charmed bait boards (think galvanic anodes in modern ships and containers for liquids, like warm water reservoirs) that end up on the menu of the troll providers. Silky cocoons are produced by quite a number of pupae, and while that stuff won't necessarily be up to par with bast or spider silk for tensile strength, the sticky bits of these might be just the material to be put between overlapping pieces of carapace lashed together with some stronger fibre. Or maybe someone has found a way to use insect legs for rivets - put a thinner one from the outside into a wider one on the inside and put a splint into a hollow through both of these. That recorder played by the troll wind lord in the 13G illustrations? I would bet that it is made from an insect leg rather than a bone. Take enough hollow insect legs, and you might get useful tubing. Then there are insect excretions based on specific feeds, like e.g. laquer. Troll giant insect herders might be able to produce this on (ancient) industrial scale. There has to be a reason why cities like Nochet or Boldhome tolerate man-eating monsters in their midst. This might be it. Then there is the perennial "Gloranthan metals aren't quite their terrestrial equivalents". Gloranthan metals probably corrode differently than terrestrial ones. Still, I like to suggest sulfidic corrosion associated with Darkness, and oxidic corrosion associated with Sea and Storm. Earth and Sky might claim that they don't corrode but transmute to something better, but then I am fairly certain that sulfidic corroded metal can be quite tasty to uz palate. The standard metal is brass or bronze, a naturally occurring alloy of earth metal and sky metal, either of volcanic or of storm origin. Lodril's descent created the first brass, and that's how mostali metallurgists will classify this kind of alloy. Brass is solidified liquid, whereas bronze (at least in gods' bones) has growth rings, something anathema to Maker dwarves even though it provides an additional durability. As far as my theory of metals goes. You can melt air-descended bronze, and after cooling you will get a metal undistinguishable from brass, and probably one that suffers all the weaknesses we associate with bronze vs (contemporary) iron (although few of those have been proven - the main consequence of the introduction of iron may have been a much greater availabiity of metal objects from local production, although usually inferior unless it underwent the refining hinted at in the Wayland myth re-melting the sword he made in contest with the King's previous smith). Storm-descended bronze will be of a better quality than brass much like normal (non-refined through oxidizing) steel is inferior to damascened, layered terrestrial iron, for IMO the same mechanical reasons. What else do we have in anachronistic material? Let's ignore iron, it is as fantasy a metal as is Mithril in Tolkien's Middle Earth, and from a very similar source (dwarves delving deep, then too deep). But we have glass, and more to the point, we have glass-blowing, and we had that for centuries, already in the time of the Autarchy. Possibly even earlier. But again, the Mostali had it way before that. Already their second caste, the lead dwarves, know the secrets of molten rock not returning to its mineral graining. That means glazing (and implies ceramics), although blown glass possibly might have had to wait until the brass mostali provided the non-unique tools for heating a glass drop and then pushing exhaust gas (not necessarily "Air", as Mostali tend to dislike that concept) into it. Whenever the humans develop something that has been pre-empted by Mostal the Maker, the mostali and dwarves accuse the humans of theft, or of unlicensed plagiarism and duplication (which, if one believes Hollywood's lawyers, is a crime with higher damage sums than all the homicides and bodily harm with guns in total). Once a concept has been imprinted on Gloranthan reality, it cannot be unmade. It may be suppressed in some form for extended times, possibly requiring huge rituals or cataclysmic spells, but it will creep back. Take Nysaloran illumination, or take writing (as per the Fourth Age or late Hero Wars Illiteracy curse in King of Sartar). Is the God Learner secret really gone for good? Or do the de-deifying events of the late Hero Wars render it without any meaningful material to work upon? I wouldn't be outraged if the Umathelans somehow managed to re-discover that secret and use it against the mostali advance, making that cataclysm even greater.

Obviously your idea of a "port" is my idea of a fishing hamlet that doesn't regularly see any sizeable ship, except for slavers and similar raiders. Such decentralized places use boats for trading, or overland routes. If you look at the population numbers for Heortland, you will notice the rather small population for the County of the Isles. I would be astonished if the bayward coast beneath the cliffs had half as many inhabitants. Life below a cliff brings an additional risk of rock slides and nowhere to run in case of storm floods - even the islands offer better protection. Most of the fisherfolk population stick to the wider lowlands around the estuaries where their farming and gardening on the side has better conditions, too. You also over-dramatize the beaching of a keeled boat. So what if it tilts by a few degrees, the sailors are used to worse angles when fighting waves. Cargo can be secured without any additional problems. These small hamlets don't have any cargo that would require a grain barge sized ship to drop anchor. If they still are the destination for such a ship, these hamlets have boats that go out to meet the ship, take on the cargo, and that's it. If the crew wants to make landfall anyway, they probably make use of these boats, too. I have been a coast dweller for all of my life. I have some hands on experience with coastal fishing from boats, using boats on coasts (or avoiding to do so on other coasts), and I have taken a special interest in the separate fisherman communities next to cities which rarely allow strangers into their ranks. Fish and other seafood is hard to conserve if you don't live in very cold conditions (where air-drying of cod is an option - I lived there for a while, too, and took an interest in their ways of life in old times). Admittedly, my experiences of the Mediterranean are limited. But there isn't any sea approaching the Mediterranean in Glorantha. The Homeward Ocean is an ocean, with conditions like the Atlantic coast. The marshlands south of Prax are in all likelihood saltwort-bedecked mudflats of rather treacherous footing, with tidal pools and channels where rocks or rocky outcrops create some places that traps water. Occasional beach ridges (where sediment from against the dominant current are deposited) will protect genuine marshland with brackish water, a few possibly stable enough to be the home for a small adult newtling population. Some such places might even have sand dunes. Even without rocks sticking up now and then, such coasts are extremely treacherous, and sailors avoid landfall unless they have an estuary or other bay offering some protection from the wave action. Flat bottom or not, if a storm drives a ship on a sandbar while there are significant waves, the hull will be shattered - even modern steel hulls. A little bit of statistics here. The Jutland coast between Römö and Skagen saw 3608 registered beachings in the years between 1850 and 1925, with 2111 of these total losses. That's almost one ship per week, on average. There is a good reason why people sought alternative routes across the peninsula, even if that meant multiple cases of transshipping and even some overland transport, or building canals. Actual ships rarely were moved overland before there were artificial waterways. A few instances are documented, however. Drag i Tysfjord, the place where I lived in Norway, had a similar history. It used to be a coastal Finn (i.e. Sami) settlement that traded with and paid tribute to the Halogalander (Viking) chiefs (self-styled kings) of Steigen or Skrova. Both of these accessed Drag not from the Tysfjord, but entered the southern neighbor fjord Innhavet and used boats to travel on two lakes that covered most of the distance to Drag. The (very small) city of Garding on Eiderstedt had a "sea harbor" that was served by poled barges that transshipped from a side inlet into the Eider river through enhanced ditches, some of which may have started out as natural drainage routes while the last part definitely was dug by manpower. The distance to the transshipment point was about 10 land miles. Overland transport was not an option as there were no useful roads, even the great cattle herd trecks to Flanders had to start across trackless land before joining the Ochsenweg south, as cattle didn't really take well to sea travel, and were perfectly capable of walking the distance. One of the scenarios in the German HeroQuest scenario collection touches this region. So, in conclusion - there were no settlements anywhere near the outer coast in this region, although some farming hamlets without any useful access to the sea would come within two miles or so. Fisherfolk who also doubled as whalers, seal hunters or merchant navy hands lived on inlets or sheltered bays. (For given values of sheltered, as the great changes wrought to that coast by the Mandrenkes showed.) In Norway, some isolated steads would be accessible only by boat or small ship, but for trading they would load their own boats and sail or row to the nearest port where merchant ships would deign to make landfall, or where local merchants had pooled to construct and operate a merchant vessel of their own. And that for a region where most of the grain was imported (even though people would sow it for yields that varied between 80% and 120% of the seed amount rather than losing even more of it to vermin and rot). These people were dependent on overseas trade for their health if not bare minimal survival, and they did not expect merchant vessels to drop by. So basically, I find your definition of port ludicrous. A settlement of less than 500 people wouldn't be called a port. It might sport a harbour or useful anchorage, but that's a different proposal and has nothing to do with loading or offloading significant amounts of goods on the beach.

Ports located on river estuaries: Take a look at the Kethaelan ports, which would be the home ports for these ships. Other than Seapolis and the City of Wonders, they are located at river outlets. So is Handra, or the few sea ports of Maniria. Both major Esrolian ports are situated on the major river mouths - which makes sense as transshipping point. All Heortland ports are situated on river mouths, and some of the cities further upriver are documented as having been attacked by Jrusteli-designed fire barges, which means that smaller trade ships would be able to get there, too. River estuaries use tidal current to allow ships to enter, which admittedly is rather weak in Glorantha (despite the use of tidal waves by the Waertagi). River esturaries also offer (often the only) sheltered anchorages or beaching sites with reduced wave action in the absence of rugged coastlines provided by rocky promontories. With the Gloranthan Annilla tides happening only twice a week, I wonder whether in-rushing tidal currents may be a natural phenomenon on the Gloranthan coasts independent of passive water movement, echoes or ancestors of Worcha. If so, what makes them roll in somewhat periodically? Wikipedia tells us about standardized sizes for wine amphora with about 39 litres, or the Roman use of the Amphora as a volume unit of a cubic foot (about 29 litres). This means that a wine amphora will weigh about 60 kg, which is within the carrying capacity of a single dock worker. The pointed bottoms of these containers suggest that they could be rammed into loose sand to stand somewhat reliably. For transport in ships they may have been protected by straw or reed from direct contact to reduce stress, or they may have been sturdy enough to survive some shock in direct contact if stowed like in this reconstruction image: If someone had to provide straw and rope to bind the amphorae together, you need another packing master on board. It is possible that loading used a bucket-chain method, meaning that each dock worker would just pass on an amphora over a short distance. That would depend on the type and size of river boat used. Maybe the Venetian gondola is a good measure for a lighter boat operable by a single rower in tolerable currents, in that case I would guess at maybe twenty wine amphorae of 60 kg as a boat load. Other standard containers would include baskets (which may have been used as a more permanent shock protection for amphorae, too), animal skins (again possibly protected from mechanical stress by baskets), or barrels. Barrels are documented (by Romans) as an established technology for La Tene Celts. A well-made barrel has the advantage that it can be rolled. Barrel hoops would be made from bast fibre, the prehistoric and ancient nylon equivalent in tensile strength and weight. Any culture that uses planks for boat building, possibly sewn with bast rather than using nails, will get the idea to produce little boats as containers, and to enclose them. But then the technology to make a coracle will also provide a container if you put the supportive framework on the outside rather than the inside of the leather skin, and may quite likely have been there before the water vessel. (I wonder whether there ever was a naval design using pottery for lift. The dwarf "opus caementicium" floating castles are just a variation on this principle.) The "barrel of Diogenes" was in all likelihood a ceramic pithos storage vase. This is a fine example how tradition will replace unfamiliar technological terms with familiar ones. Constructing a permanent quaye is often thwarted by tidal variations. I wonder whether ports without a permanent quaye would use pontoons or rafts instead. Such constructions may have left little more archaeological evidence than underwater post holes, which aren't as easy to detect as post holes on dry land.

If they use them for coracles, they will have recognized the value for boat-building, and the boat-builders will surely trade some of the less suitable material for good food, good leaden coin or material they have a harder time to obtain with human shipwrights. Like e.g. decent oars from Tastolar timber. Sure, the price might be heftier than expected, but I think a hull sheathing of beetle carapace will still be less costly than one of lead. There might even be troll shipwrights on Diros Island off Nochet providing this service. I am not quite sure how far the warmth-dependent boreworm will be spread along the coasts of Genertela. Umathela most likely has them, Jrustela quite likely, and Teshnos and further east quite likely, too. Solkathi is a branch off one of the Togaran doom currents, so it might be just warm enough. Choralinthor might cool down enough in the winter to keep the critters from becoming permanent guests. For real world distribution, due to slight warming (nigh imperceptible to the people braving the water in what goes for summer here) and bilge water transfer, the bore-worm has just recently made its way into the Baltic Sea and is starting to damage centuries old shipwrecks, creating something of a feeding frenzy among marine archaeologists in the region. That means that vessels restricting their traffic to the Neliomi Sea probably are safe without such precautions.

It is Martin's own, and I don't quite agree with all of it. I wonder whether these boats would use side swords, like the dutch coastal vessels which were made for conditions just like these. "Fully decked" would be unconvenient when stowing amphorae, and I know of no ancient merchantman design using this. At least in my Rightarm Isles there are sons of Lodril peeking through the sand, so falling dry cannot be done just anywhere, even with a magically enhanced hull. Lead-clad hulls in the vicinity of trolls and their sea-troll allies, who can create coinage simply by chewing a bit on the metal? Copper-sheeting sounds more likely, or possibly more exotic solutions. Why not use ham beetle chitin plating? A lot lighter, and you need a lot less lead to get these food leftovers from Shadow Plateau. The Molakka spells warding off bore-worms might be stencilled inside already, or possibly you use a bait bar magically attracting all the nearby bore worms which can be sold in port as a troll delicacy. Mixed operation with sleek galleys and tubby sailships are a nightmare to keep together, and then to get anywhere. Galleys on escort duty usually would use sails, but the tubs sail at their own timetable, and military needs be damned. In shallow waters, the tubs often are poled rather than rowed. Hiring draft teams of whichever muscle power is available is a common tactic, too. Newtlings and ducks are available in coastal Maniria for amphibious duties, and friendly ludoch might, too. Using a distant anchor and a winch might be another slow but steady way to move forward. Newtlings might provide an underwater infrastructure for this where river currents are difficult similar to the rings the river boaters used in Donaudurchbruch upriver from Kelheim (they wouldn't interfere with sea currents, though, those are the realm of the Ludoch). Here's an image of the rings that allowed boaters to use hooks to pull their boats against the considerable current in Donaudurchbruch: I envision something similar on the sea floor, with rings that a diver could place a hook in, and then a rope pulling event or a winch drawing the vessel ever so slowly against the resistance. Or you hire a river priest to create a local counter-current, but that might be too expensive if you run a low margin cargo - maybe you might join a convoy led by a local river priest/pilot for less, but then you'll have to wait. The Waertagi of old rode their tidal waves instead, pushing the river currents back into their channels, or overlaying them, but I doubt that the Ludoch allow the Rightarmers this privilege. Most of the ports are situated on river estuaries, or even upriver, away from the sea. The river priests' influence would thin out as the water gets saltier, but extends some distance from the shore.

I do miss NPC stats... not for your everyday goon, but for characters on a comparable (or higher) competence, and possibly to toss in as spare characters if someone drops in and doesn't want to retrofit a new person into the narrative. They do convey some idea what the author of a scenario or campaign thinks the characters should look like. And while the consumer is free to ignore them when he makes a scenario or setting his own, at least the author has a way to communicate how he envisioned the scene when he wrote it. But that's just simulationist old me.

Hungry Plateau has a canonical elevation of 5000ft, which corresponds to 1.5 "key" miles rather than 15 miles. I guess that decimal point was lost in transcription.

18 scenarios, not quite as many settings, and no deep setting descriptions (but then, do you need any for a FBI game when you have resources like "X-Files" or "Quantico", or for Viking Age Europe?). I contributed one Glorantha scenario (collaboration) and some editing. There are plans for more scenario collections. Like Robin said in the interview, producing such a book brings quite a lot of work people don't really see, and basically the authors, editors and artists worked pro bono. Such a project comes in several steps, but one initial step is to go around and get scenario submissions. That part isn't too dissimilar what has been done in the Organized Play section for Cthulhu and upcoming RuneQuest Glorantha. There is nothing to stop us from getting a similar initiative here on the forum. (And I know for certain that Robin won't mind translating English language submissions or pass it off to someone willing to do so - my initial offer was the English language proposal for my scenario.)

And do feed the trolls. (When you meet them, offer them some food and a greeting in Darktongue...)

Well, there are tusks involved, and breaking of bones. Basic cosmetic surgery before an induced coma.

After the unfortunate real world history of the swastika, it is fairly natural for us to be somewhat concerned, so it is good to have this as an official statement. Might be even better to have it stated in an official publication presenting the runes - if that is too late for the Glorantha Sourcebook, maybe in RQG.

Moirades personally researched high level Lunar magic, according to the Fazzur piece in WF, which I took to be the cause for the moonbeam which served Terasarin to the dinosaur. That takes master class scrying if that was a planned attack. I assumed that if you are a research magician who founds a university you want to lean on that institution for support in your research. But then it is astonishingly hard to find solid facts on Moirades. Sartar Kingdom of Heroes for instance has Moirades personally asking Fazzur to step in with the Starbrow Rebellion in 1613, contradicting the info that Moirades remained dead after 1610. (Glorantha being a magical world, I won't doubt that Moirades experienced more than the Little Death when siring Phargentes on Jar-eel, ascending to the Red Moon. The question is whether he stayed there for good, or whether he was available for occasional appearances in Tarsh e.g. dealing with Starbrow's rebellion in 1613 or at the Fall of Furthest. Aronius Jaranthir managed to do so, too. That 1610 death date for Moirades discredits a lot of the information in King of Sartar - even the new Fazzur fragment that was added to CHDP in the hardcover edition. But the data on his involvement with the university is in the only portion of CHDP which agrees with the 1610 death date, right next to the information on starving folk in the Heartlands. I notice that you haven't deigned to comment on the ILH1 text. Is that beneath your canonicity rating? The theory isn't exactly new, and neither is the source material I have based it on. But apart from the Mirin's Cross university datum in The Coming Storm, I haven't seen any counter-proof so far, only lack of evidence in other publications. I don't doubt that Mirin's Cross will have an educational institution catering to Provincial Lunars. I only doubt that Moirades was involved with it. It is a feat of Lunar magic that is reasonably traced to Moirades. But then, the topic at hand was the grain support of the Lunar Army, where I brought up the grain support of the Heartlands emitted from Tarsh. I was told that there was no need for it, and I reacted to that by bringing up the wealth Tarsh made from it, and the numerous ways Tarsh invested that wealth. This university disagreement about Moirades' involvement is a distraction from that topic. Nope. Just a reminder that I do read sources, contrary to your allegations. ILH 1 p.55. Scholars and artisans flocking to the Kingdom of Tarsh. Also the Tarsh section of CHDP. Where would they go but to the capital? And wouldn't scholars be attracted by an institute of higher learning, whether you call it university or great library? Apparently not that helpful. Mirin's Cross: Population 25k. A metropolis. Furthest: Population 20k. A large city. The difference between Furthest and Boldhome (which has 11k) is way larger than the difference between Furthest and Mirin's Cross. I see some justification to my (irrelevant to the main topic) statement that outrages you. For how long has Mirin's Cross been a metropolis, anyway? Do read the discussion, please. The dispute is whether the wealth comes from the Tarsh grain exports, and that in turn from whether the Heartlands are depending on the steady flow of grain barges down the Oslir. Which I point out that they must be, or there wouldn't be any shipping away from the troops in Sartar and the Holy Country that rely on grain deliveries. All the rest is me getting distracted to show the volume this trade must have by pointing out all the expensive projects financed by the Tarshite court, and you taking offense at my conclusions. Ok. Let's start with the Guide, p.175. I read "as a Lunar colony" like the way Massilia or Colonia Agrippina were colonies, settlements where people from the mother culture emigrated. It is possible that the majority of Heartlanders who followed Phargentes into the outskirts of Dragon Pass were from Sylila, where he and his brother's followers (and the Orindori family) had spent their exile during the reign of Palashee. (Philigos spent most of his reign in exile as a sycophant and petitioner in Glamour.) Information on Palashee's Furthest mostly comes from the Exile POV in the CHDP. That text states that Palashee made Furthest his capital, after the Lunar account of the Tarsh CHDP claiming that Palashee destroyed the place. The Guide suggests that Phargentes razed whatever structures were inhabited under Palashee when he established his colony. Possibly excepting earth temples. Of course my conjectures are more authoritative than yours - said with a tongue in cheek. Your accusation that I don't read the sources is what riled me up. Tarsh has been delivering the corn since Phargentes got his kingdom back to working order, so there is no hunger. We don't read about grain exports other than in tribute/taxes from any other place in the Empire, with the possible exception of Oraya. The other provinces deliver their tribute to the Empire, Tarsh delivers more, and makes big money from it. ILH p.55, and that comment didn't come out of nowhere. What was your source for Phargentes exploiting the other Provinces to the benefit of Tarsh? Other than the statement in Glorantha - Introduction to the Hero Wars, I cannot find any. I don't contest that conjecture, but it stands as an authoritative statement. Apart from the northeastern corner of Aggar, there is only Holay on the Oslir downstream of Tarsh before the Heartlands begin. Southern Holay and northern Tarsh should have the same success or failure of harvests unless the Tarshite Hon-eel cult knows things that the Holay cult doesn't. And what happens north of Mirin's Cross happens in Sylila as well, as far as weather, climate and fertility magics go. All within the Glowline, too. I agreed with Martin Helsdon that starving peasants wouldn't be a normal state, whether in the Heartlands or the Provinces, unless someone in the Empire duplicated the failure of the French kingdom that led to the revolution. Starving urban mobs however are a distinct possibility. No idea how much the Lunar demagogues that were described when we still had people working on Imperial Heartland material are deprecated now, but I found the notion of a religiously roused but otherwise unproductive rabble fed on imported maize convincing. (p. 14 ILH2, for instance, although I would replace the soapbox with something more period-appropriate. The use of soap in the Heartlands still is somewhat contested, anyway...) Terasarin pushed the borders from the Creek to the Dragonspine, and his reign saw major campaigns. Hardly a period of peace for Tarsh as a whole, although the Oslir Valley saw little of that conflict. Other troubles like the Tusk Riders were there, too. Which is why Aggar and Holay aren't wealthier than Tarsh after nearly two wanes of peace? Much like Sartar imported culture and craftsmanship from Kethaela, Phargentes and Moirades imported from the Empire. Maybe including Mirin's Cross, maybe mainly from the Heartlands. It has been suggested before. If you don't disagree with the plunder of Boldhome not being part of the secret of the wealth of Moirades, ignore the statement. Like you ignored the ILH1 reference. Apparently it added your displeasure. Not the result I wanted, but the one I got. Terasarin's death is the magical achievement of Moirades, a triumph of Lunar magic made in Tarsh, when you compare the Fazzur background in Wyrm's Footnotes with the circumstances of Terasarin's death. So this isn't relevant? Nochet outgrew its status as a large city to a metropolis in a time frame comparable to the combined reigns of Phargentes and Moirades. Given that Phargentes effectively re-founded the place after his victory over Palashee, erasing whatever the previous settlement had, Furthest had a spurt of growth that hasn't quite reached metropolis size by the onset of the Hero Wars. It is possible that Moirades departure in 1610 stopped that growth, but metrololis size is just around the corner. I shouldn't have to spell this out, but need to do so anyway in the interest of quelling your outrage. On the matter of universities, I see a distinct possibility for Furthest having a University of the Provinces and Mirin's Cross having a Provincial University. Lhankor Mhy Great Libraries (functionally the same if not in name) are spaced with less distance than that, and places with strong local governments tend to have lots of universities. like the Holy Roman Empire and its successor states in Germany. And for universities claiming similar names, the US institution of their Cambridge is better known as Harvard, I suppose to avoid being mixed up with the more venerable place of learning on the Cam.

Tarsh was rich and expanding already before the conquest of Sartar, which would have seriously weakened the access to slaves from Prax or the southern Orlanthi, except through trade through Sartar. and only a side mention for one in Mirin's Cross. If you were Moirades, King of Tarsh, and regretfully not heir to his father's office of Provincial Overseer, where would you put your money to found a university? One where you have the say who gets privileged access? In your new model Lunar royal city, or in a seat of an administration that undermines your dynastic claims? Just asking. Which may be a different institution than the University of the Provinces mentioned in CHDP, or which may be an institution distributed over several places. Fazzur's middle brother cooperated with Moirades in the spell that killed Terasarin according to his article in Wyrm's Footnotes (or was it Tales, or did Tales reprint it?). Doing so out of Furthest is already a great magical feat. Doing so out of Mirin's Cross would obviate the presence of Imperial College magicians in the Lunar army. It is possible that Moirades' battlefield magics were more akin to the personal magic of the Red Emperor (though probably not quite as powerful) rather than regimental magics of the Imperial college, but I remain to be convinced that Furthest was not the source of this magic research and execution. I agree that Mirin's Cross is the center for the other Provincial kingdoms (Aggar, Holay, Talastar, Imther, Jarst, Garsting) and lesser territories (Elkoi, Tork), but I doubt that it has that much influence over Lunar Tarsh. None of those provincial kingdoms have direct dynastic ties to the Goddess or Moonson, only Sylila (which has become a Heartland adjunct, and keeps meddling in and through Mirin's Cross). The Guide doesn't quite agree with this. p.339: If Moirades beggared his kingdom while still building up a modern Lunar city in Furthest, the rest of the Provincial kingdoms must be way worse off. Checking out the entries on Mirin's Cross, I find the connection between Urar Baar (a troll stronghold at the Dawn) and the Berennethtelli founders surprising, to say the least. Berenstead lies considerably further west. Also, isn't Jillaro a contender for the former position of Nivorah? Mirin's Cross would correspond to Elempur in Anaxial's Heptapolis.

I relied on the Wikia entry which says "presumably in Tarsh". I just spent two hours trying to hunt down the connection between Moirades and the "stray moonbeam" which (together with a hungry or enraged dinosaur) spelled the end for Terasarin, so far without success. Furthest is a still growing Large City, on the upper end, and about as big as Nochet was when Sarotar died. You will most probably disdain any mention of the Imperial Lunar Handbook, but p.55 does have this information. And as far as I am concerned, there is no need or reason for newer information contradicting this paragraph. The sources speak of Heartland immigrants. Your conjecture above (and that is all it is) probably can have contributed to the rapid growth of Tarsh. On the other hand, we know that both the Orindori and the Lunar dynasty of Tarsh possess significant holdings in Sylila which contributed to their wealth, which is hard when those holdings are routinely famished, so I take the mention of the hungry Heartland to mean the Dara Happan portion of it, and not some impoverishing Provincial kingdoms nearby. Also note that Tarsh continued to grow richer after the demise of Phargentes and the loss of the office of Provincial Overseer. Either there was a successful pyramid scheme in place, or the wealth did not come from the other Provinces but from the Heartland. If the wealth came from the Heartland, I agree with Martin Helsdon that agricultural regions are less likely to be hit, which makes overpopulated cities the most likely assumption. I could look it up in the digest archives, but to what avail? I provided the verbatim quote in an earlier post, but did omit the page number. But with a searchable pdf, naming the source along with a verbatim quote should be sufficient for anything but a scientific publication. ILH 1 p.55 spells it out. The statement has been around for longer, been repeatedly confirmed in face-to-face or private email discussions with people with access to the canon. There is of course one statement in the Vault of out of print publications which supports your provincial pyramid scheme. You wrote it: (Introduction to the Hero Wars p.129) But even there you mention a significant surplus wealth that Tarsh can spend to buy up land. And in the light of this paragraph, I find the placement of a university founded by Moirades outside of Tarsh rather doubtful. Good point. Still, even without the office of the Provincial Overseer, Tarsh keeps having excess wealth to spend on dozens of ambitious projects. And while northwestern Tarsh does have a mining community, there is no indication that Tarsh gains that much wealth from metal exports. Inheriting the control over the trade routes to the Holy Country from Sartar for selected luxuries is another possible source of wealth, but the Princes of Sartar who controlled more than half of that trade before it entered Tarsh did not have such extravagant spending beyond the building projects of the dynasty, and those are easily matched by the build-up of Furthest as a new model Lunar city. There is no point in bringing up "Tarsh in Flames" with you in this debate, so I won't check that out and rather go directly to bed, not taking in 400 lunars.

Moirades spent immense riches on becoming King of Dragon Pass, on making Furthest a nascent Lunar metropolis, and on instituting a college of magic able to compete with the Imperial College on the research of new Lunar magics (under his personal supervision). All of that cannot have come from a single event of disaster relief, and however wealthy the princes of Sartar may have been, the plunder of Boldhome (that had to be shared with the Imperial forces present) cannot have been sufficient for all of that, either. (Besides, a lot of Moirades' investments occurred way before the Fall of Boldhome.) So there must have been ways of getting rich fast and solidly, and agricultural exports as per the description in Griffin Mountain is a solid way to get there. Forget the CHDP details. Phargentes recouped Tarsh from rebel rulership, and unless he put up dubious subsidies without the Tax Demon complaining, the land of Tarsh must have been really productive to provide Moirades with the money for all of his projects. (That, or a Lunar version of Patreon.)

Nobody trades in bulk just for profit, if there isn't a regular demand. No farmer produces food just to let it spoil (beyond the amount which is inevitable). If you have sufficient over-production of rice to provide for your populace and put a bit away for emergencies, you don't pay for inferior import maize. But pay Dara Happa did, and paid well, too. Once you start relying on grain imports, you take them as a given, and expand to the maximum that new resource can offer. Since 1555, Tarsh grain has bolstered the food supply in the Heartland cities, and the Heartland cities have adapted to that fact. Basically, the Dara Happan cities have a sizable non-productive underclass regularly following Lunar-inspired populists, doing rallies, street meditations and what not, and like in Woodstock, food comes in weird ways and from sources nobody looks at - and the maize from Tarsh with its Lunar origin sounds like the ideal propaganda free lunch for those mobs. The established Dara Happan society probably is well cared for by their traditional rice farming, but the unstable elements of Lunar society may be dependent on this.

The reason is probably that this is the place for discussing the setting for Glorantha, but only a place to discuss the Cthulhu Mythos. And some people just throw out more posts than others, but still will only buy one or two copies.

Star gods of the highest level often only have one (often male) parent.

Few modern Gloranthans have a clear idea about what happened an age ago, let alone two ages ago. What Arkat and his contemporaries did is mostly forgotten even by those who worship Arkat in the Modern Age. Harmast's efforts are best known from alliterative verse or poetic lists. Lokamayadon's methods are forgotten (much to the chagrin of the Lunars, assuming they remember that barbarian companion of Nysalor and Palangio at all). Unlike the Godtime, historical events usually cannot be visited in heroquests, although timeless events when gods walk the earth might be an exception. If so, there don't seem to be widespread quests to get to say the battle of Night and Day, although the uz efforts to undo D'Wargon's damage may have led them there. Godtime events may be better known even though only experienced through individual context of the questers.

Yes. Unless you have a rules lawyer in your game, few people will notice any inconsistencies. Dorastor has two kinds of monster stats - within player range, and insanely beyond of player capabilities without extreme magical preparation. The Riskland campaign should be playable with mid range experience characters, and rune level characters might actually be a little under-challenged. The encounters and horrors of Dorastor alternate between somewhat survivable and "run as if hell was on your heels, because it is". Quite a bit of the background information from the Dorastor book was included in the Guide appendices, but overall that book is one of the solid high quality products of the RuneQuest (3) Renaissance. There was sort of a companion volume, "Lords of Terror" which was mostly a reprint and partially a re-interpretation of Cults of Terror. If you have access to the Cults Compendium, those RQ3 changes won't matter. Do read the saga of Paulis Longvale to get a feel for the Hero Wars events in and around Dorastor.