Joerg

No. Hrestolism never was a target of the Rightness crusaders - if anything, the entire God Learner movement is condemned as the logical outgrowth of Hrestoli Adventurism by the Rokari. All the Makanists were just another brand of Hrestoli. Admittedly different from Dawn Age Hrestoli, but not that different from Silver Empire (3rd century) Seshnela.

The image is coherent with the Orlanthi depiction of the hero, but the details make me wonder whether Arkat was dark-skinned, or whether his massive tattooing had altered his skin tone from reddish to black. Apart from the third eye, he looks a bit like the Painted Man (or better: Warded Man) of the Peter Brett Core series (which I happen to have finished just today).

I don't think that the Return to Rightness was as much a campaign against Seshnegi Henotheism and Ancestor Worship, it was a campaign against Hykimi Ancestor (i.e. Beast) Worship beyond the "allowed" parts of the battle orders (and even those could have been under scrutiny for a while). There were non-Seshnegi rulers, affiliated or allied with Arkat's Dark Empire, and that was an ignomy which had to be purged. Seshnela belonged to the Flamesword Dynasty, after all (never mind that there had been just three kings of that dynasty before the interregnum). The Seshnegi practices fell under similar scrutiny, and may have been curtailed, but it may have been a backslash of hatred for the beastmen who had usurped their sacred fatherland several times in history. (Again, never mind that they were at least as native as the Serpent King dynasty, not to mention the Froalar folk who had come from Brithos. There is something about not minding the natives that may be an inheritance from our world's Migration Age, whether the German expansion into the Slavic and Baltic areas, the displacement of American natives, or other such colonial highlights like the Antipodes.)

Yeah. So I give you a running house to house combat against trollkin in the Pavis Rubble, with ducking from javelineers or slingers sniping when leaving cover, and you need to re-cast your magic for every group of opponents you face. If you are lucky, your divine magic will last through two encounters. Let's be generous and let the magic spirit have enough juice for four castings of Bladesharp 4. Now which of these let's say eight combats do you want fight without the magic? Especially when there might be a Death Lord in one of the later combats?

Enchanters are people who tap themselves to create some item. For an item that is on as long as your magic spirit has MP, so you had better add an MP matrix to make sure it lasts beyond the first five seconds of a tribal moot, and a couple of POW spirits to refill it. On the bright side, the attuned wearer of the helmet might tap into the same MP reservoir. So you have to resheathe it every few dozen combat rounds? I would make the condition "make sure the spell is on when I intend to strike with the weapon." The Mindlink to sense the intent is usually implicit in a triggerable enchantment. Your solutions provide readiness, but no permanence. To have a single item a bit more reliably powered you need about 10 POW (and that's before armoring enchantment on the item so it doesn't get destroyed upon first contact with an enemy blow), and that still will run out of juice after very few hours. Some battles last significantly longer than that. So basically, your +4 broadsword had better eaten up about 15 POW to last beyond a few parries, and possibly on enchanted Rune Metal to give it further durability. And even then it won't last for eternity, although if you place the echantment in the grip of the sword, it might survive and gain a new blade. How long does it take a priest to regain those 15 POW? About three years, if every seasonal holy day provides a POW gain, and going without expanding his rune point pool (except from maybe a bit adventuring, and if that's the case, he will keep the item to himself). And you need at least acolyte rank to get that benefit, meaning a supporting group of better than 100 initiates. Or a couple of volunteers selling their own POW through extended Mindlink when performing the enchantment. RQ3 POW logistics are prohibitive against this kind of magical items.

Of the lowest order. Divine beasts. Or spirit beasts. Divinity is found all over Glorantha. Sometimes it concentrates in individuals, creating a godling, or an avatar of a greater being. And that's what I think these creatures are. A herd man reverted through the Waha magic inverting the fixed intelligence imposed by the Compact gains membership in the man side of the Praxian beast rider society. A herd men awakened by sorcery becomes a familiar or similar magical construct. And a herd man awakened by a deity or greater spirit becomes a servant of that entity, and gains some divinity. First, there's the Hsunchen point that beasts, especially their own totem, are people, too. There are numerous rites where beasts participate as active worshipers, not limited to Hsunchen - check the Ylream caption in the Guide, or the description of the Wild Temple rites. Beasts may have a collective divinity (similar to the Protectresses) that may empower some of their kind to act as a divine (or spirit) messenger, a divinity of the lowest kind. There may be humans touched this way, too. Usually we call them heroes, but when they come e.g. from the moon, we call them demigods.

The easy way to deal with this is to say that such individuals aren't mere mortals, but demigods. Their sapience is one of their demigod powers, and usually they have more, like the ability to curse those who don't respect their beast constituency.

For a project starting in Adari, the absence of the trolls is interesting (and ultimately fatal to his city).

So, then what is the Grandmother Mortal story? Husband underwent a terrible trick of Eurmal, and now old age takes all of us? Grandmother lay with Eurmal, still drunk with euphoria from retrieving this Death thing from under Subere's vigilance, and infected her with it, so that she made him persuade Humakt to show it to hubby, too? Are there versions where there is only a Grandmother Mortal? I note that the Kralori Mother of Mortals is Allgiver, who remains an immortal deity even after her mating with the WIld Man (as close to Grandfather Mortal as I can identify in Kralori myths, unless you place that role on Aptanace the Sage, the bringer of Civilization). In Doraddi myth, the first person to die is Dorad, a male, and source of the first Lineage Plant. The Agi aren't made as mated pairs or anything, and gender more or less is an accidental by-product of Kendamalar and Nyanka trying to outdo one another. In Thinobutan myth, Soli made 4 matched pairs of differently colored ancestors, who promptly went on to perform all permutations of colors and creating the 16 mixed tones of their second generation (which probably evened out to a continuum in later generations, unless you get a Mendelian distribution with mixes and throwbacks to the original coloration). Dara Happan myth has the original men made in concert by Yelm and six other deities, evading the trial and error stages Pamalt had prior to Kendamalar's involvement. Yelm claims the leading role, and I can see no Pamalt equivalent. Mortality comes to them when their god emperor Murharzarm dies. Other places have humans as the lesser children of original immortals. Including the Westerners, the Praxians, the Orlanthi (regardless of Darhudan), the Pelandans with their log carriers meeting the women's tribe, etc. Mortality comes when Humakt and Eurmal return with a power from the Darkest Below that changes a pre-existing Power Rune, or reveals a meaning not even its origin knew about. But that's the Theyalan myth, really. Outside of Theyalan influence, it comes when an ancestor undergoes Death (or worse, as in the case of 5th Action Malkion). Or the charming Pelandan myth about humans being kept away from the secret of immortality through shedding the skin (or current body), as practiced by dragonewts, spiders and certain other arthropods. Grandfather Mortal is a case of "It's our own fault, now we deal with it" Orlanthi myth. Most other myths mainly blame outside influences, Deathbringers. It was probably spread by the Theyalans and their successor, the Bright Empire. The Hsunchen tell how Telmor ate the sun. That's blaming the Death of the World to Telmor, but not necessarily the aging and passing away of the individual. But the Hsunchen also notice that Death claims beast and man alike. In the West, Zzabur (and others) sabotaging Malkion's Fifth Action is what leads to mortality (at first by cataclysm, but consequently by old age), unless the outcome is exactly what Malkion expected (from the description of that event, that is doubtful, though). So, is Malkion of the Fifth Action the western Grandfather Mortal?

Interesting. Do you have a source for herd men retaining the Man Rune? Herd men do of course have all the physical attributes that are described by the Man Rune. More so than the Baboons of Prax, who do have the Man Rune (they are the example given in Biturian's Travels for Daka Fal worship, not human Praxians). And Morokanth have a claim to the Man Rune, too, by virtue of winning their contest. Are we discussing a weird Praxian anomaly, or does this in connection with the lost uz kin of Pamaltela mean that the humanoid body plan is not enough to grant the Man Rune? And what about the Newtlings? The Pelmre/Slarges (and possibly Lascerdans) and Jelmre are part of Pamalt's learning experience to make humans, and can be considered to have a limited connection to the Man Rune.

If that's what it takes to keep you on this trail, fine. I am still adamant that "Humanist" stands side to side with "Materialist" when we discuss the Westerners and their origin. The Mostali are the real Materialists, the Westerners really are Energeticists. Mind and Energy are laudable, Matter has to be suffered and dominated. I compare Seshnegi adopting Earth deities into their ways with the way the Waertagi adopted the Sea deities into theirs. Hrestolism is Caste Crime. What is the biggest beef the Zzaburi have with the Vadeli? That every Vadeli is a sorcerer, regardless of Caste. (And still immortal.) The Zzaburi somehow managed to wrestle a monopoly on sorcery (or at least the sorcery of spells) from the other Castes and to make that mandatory for the Right Conduct, and the Vadeli show that that's bogus. And (according to Hrestol's Saga) there is a somewhat autonomous community of Horali on Brithos that looks with interest on a warrior (Faralz) displaying (a degree of) mastery of spellcraft and bearing the title of a Talar (lord of one of the minor cities that used to be beset by the Pendali). Scott brought the Rokari into this discussion. While we get details how the Rokari interpret original Malkioni ways, I think that they get most details wrong. Neither the celibacy of the wizards nor the use of the talar caste as shock cavalry are in any way acceptable Brithini ways IMO. But that makes reconstruction of Grey Age and Dawn Age Malkionism from modern day Tanisor all but impossible. It probably needs more editing or at least footnoting than it has text now to bend it into current canon, but the basic plot stands. Description of the society of Dawn Frowal might need some de-Malloryzing. As far as I know, all those early writings were "distributed" to the four digit kickstarter supporters as a five or seven volume collection of unedited source documents. (My own copy of Hrestol's Saga was won at the 1994 oConvulsion auction for a commensurate price). Frowal does have families - Froalar's head sorcerer sends his son-in-law to accompany Hrestol onto his campaign against the Pendali which made him realize that he needs to strike at the Pendali bond to the land to enable the Malkioni to survive in that conflict. Froalar has one son and one daughter from Xemela at the Dawn. (If Ylream had any full siblings, sisters, remaining in the Temple, we aren't told about it anywhere.) Garzeen and his wooing of Fenela (mentioned in Cults of Prax) are absent from Hrestol's Saga, probably written later. But then, we don't get the full vita of Hrestol, just his quest to slay Ifftala, Froalar's quest to redeem his son, and Hrestol's visit of Brithos about a decade or two later. It breaks off with Hrestol's and Faralz' flight from Brithos after slaying the Talar of Brithos, a son of Hoalar. While not indicating primogeniture (Hrestol's absence would have disqualified him from being a ruler anyway), both Frowal and Brithos clearly have dynastic succession, indicating a belief in (or a reality of) ancestral power and virtue transfer harkening back to Talar son of Malkion. Part one of the Seshnelan King List is part of the document collection that is Hrestol's Saga, and that part has been published on the net, and presumably is canonical. The list of Pendali kings also included was taken into doubt by Greg, but at least to me that works out fine if the cities have non-Pendali folk under a Pendali dynasty. It is sort of weird that a lineage tied to the source of fertility in the land has such little procreation rate, although there are siblings lacking the serpent legs, at least in later generations. The last rulers of the Serpent King dynasty are ordinarily shaped humans, although descended from Hrestol's grandson who somehow Arkat's role in the Gbaji War still remains a Crusade, as far as I see it, and the Return to Rightness war probably does, too. A claim to a higher authority to go all out in war, strengthen the spirits of the combatants beyond normal human limits. While that is correct, there being something to connect to at all is IMO a success of the Compromise. Without it, all those otherworlds might be lost to the Void, impossible to connect to - the status quo of the Greater Darkness. If you had that much of an awareness at all. Learning that the Lightbringers did more than just spread a mode of worship was something of a game changer. The communities that have (ancestral) memories of the Gray Age are a minority. Many, like the Talastari (who are the documented case), have made no experiences or memories until their contact with the Lightbringers. It is as if their Man Rune was suspended.

That's Grandfather Mortal/Darhudan/Daka Fal, and the experience of Death. Don't confuse the deity with the rune. It takes Death to make Grandfather Mortal be about the mortal condition (which is, by the way, shared by the vast majority of beasts). Man and Beast share a lot of traits - forming family groups, getting offspring, a degree of nest care. Yet Man stands out from Beast by being sapient. (Which is sort of a problem with all those sapient beasts around like the fish cultists of Zola Fel, the talking fox in KoDP, and the Hsunchen disregard for the distinction in other regards than shape.) Then there are the potentially immortal people of the Brithini and the Vadeli, evading mortality (or rather the mortality that comes from old age) through a strict regimen. (Not unlike those likewise unaging eastern sages, although many of those stagnate in a state that would be horrendously old to Brithini or Vadeli.) There are philosophies that don't earn much more distinction than that. But it remains that Man in all its variations is supposed to be a creature of embodied intellect, of rational decisions, and of making experiences. Including Death. So the ancestral spirits of the Daka Fal cult have lost the Man Rune completely, trading it for the Spirit Rune? Then why are they different from say a plant spirit? Are uzuz mortal? We know that immortals are killable, Yelm proved that. Both Yelm and Daka Fal continued their existence in the Underworld. Daka Fal became Judge of the Dead.

Taking this over from the Man Rune discussion. Do you have to add any other runes that stand for intellect? Making that statement and not following it through feels like a cop-out, David, sorry. Some read it as a rune for cosmos, yes. But outside of the Malkioni, Law and intellect aren't necessarily connected. To the Orlanthi, the Law Rune denotes learned knowledge, or with the most xenophobic ones, evil sorcery. Man is what separates the sapient races (except the dragonewts) from beasts. That suggests that it does stand for sapience. I am not talking about the Malkioni in Seshnela, I am talking about serious dissonances between different population groups in Brithos. The Seshnegi did with Earth what the Waertagi had done with Sea, and the Waertagi are as welcome to Brithos as they always have been. They aren't counted among the Brithini any more, but that's what both Seshnegi and Brithini were fine with. Some other colonies (like Neleoswal) were less willing to follow the new ways initially, but when the Pendali threat turned around, they became part of Seshnela rather than an outpost away from the Brithini mainland. (Some of this is actively described in Hrestol's Saga.) Twin brothers, equally qualified to take on the succession, and their supporters ready to go all the way. Froalar chose exile in independence over weakening his people further by civil war. No idea when in the Gods War this happened - presumably after the Expulsion Walk. No, henotheism doesn't seem to play much into the internal differences in Brithos. Part of this is due to the leaders of the other castes being sidelined by Zzabur, with son of Hoalar (Froalar's brother, who was allowed to take up the throne of Talar unchallenged by Froalar's departure) a mere puppet and not a ruler like Froalar. Zzabur usurping the leadership in the West appears to have been an issue even before Hrestol invented the Men of All. Look at Sandy's choice of two different groups representing the Malkioni, sorcerers and "knights" (warriors). I'd need ro reread that part of Hrestol's Saga, but Hrestol visits the parts of Brithos where the Horali Duke rules either before or after Faraalz (a warrior caste companion who became a Man-of-All and later a Baron) slew the Brithini king, and there is mention of dissatisfaction by the Menenans. I say it is post Breaking of the World, and while it may not be an issue to you, it is to me. The Great Compromise which allows the parallel existance of the various Gods Ages to what remains of the World predates the Dawn by quite a bit. Effects of the Ritual of the Net and the Great Compromise were what allowed the Kingdom of Night to organize the surivors of Unity Battle and I Fought We Won into a patchwork community even before the Dawn, and it likely allowed Waha to start righting some of the wrongs in Prax. Most peoples who somehow survived outside of such civilizations probably were still caught in their traumatic nightmares, some well into the second century of History. It may be the Compromise which allowed use of the Axis Mundi. And I am curious how and when such practices started to work differently from cohabitation with the Dead. All ancestor worshipers agree that the ancestors they contact aren't the complete beings they used to be while living, but that they represent aspects (partial souls, or the spirit) of the ancestors, and usually they stay rather anonymous for the Orlanthi. Spirit society Daka Fali may contact ancestors with more individuality. Ancestor doesn't have to mean progenitor, either. Some sort of blood kinship is normal, but it can be a different branch of your ancestral tree than yours. But that's the case for the Orlanthi. Unless the ancestor was of heroic (or demigod) stature, usually he won't be called back as an individual, but as part of the community of ancestors. And if I look at the Ancestors units in Nomad Gods, the non-Daka Fali among the Beast Riders have as diffuse a relation to their ancestors as the Orlanthi, and only the specialized Daka Fali get to contact individual ancestors. As an individual, you mean, and not as present but not individually expressed amorphous member of the Ancestors? Every culture honors and sort of worships its ancestors. The Daka Fali (at least per RQ Cults of Prax and RQ3 Gods of Glorantha) require exclusivity to be able to contact individuals. And it is possible that these individuals need to have been Daka Fali, too - this wasn't detailed. But then there are the really ancient ancestors who died before there was a Daka Fali tradition using the Axis Mundi. I think that the Axis Mundi couldn't work as long as there was an open, bleeding void occupying the center of the world. Only when the maelstrom encapsulated the Void, the vertical connection to the Underworld that used to be Wonderhome became available. What's the Waertagi take on these things? Although with the Mermen facing a similar dissolution into the All Waters after Death, with loss of individuality, it is possible that they required the message of Solace as much as the orthodox Brithini. Still, the origin of the Brithini is a lot less pure than Zzaburism claims. Last thing I heard, first sons (of a Brithini mother) get to be a Dronar, second sons get to be Horali, third sons talari and fourth sons zzaburi. If that means from the same father, the ratio of the special castes diminishes a lot more. The parthenogenic Menenans are just an idea which came to mind when reading about these parthenogenic fish. I like weird scientific facts to inspire my Glorantha. I blame @scott-martin for planting such weird ideas about Menenans in my brain. The basic wolf pack/monkey pack/lion pride. There are of course plenty counter-examples in the animal kingdom, but our social structure in family groups really is not what makes us different from beasts. So Waha took the family structure from the Herd Men when they lost the contest? Doesn't look like that to me. Herd Man family structures are the same as for slaves - subject to disruption by the whims of the owners, but overall following the normal pattern. Daka Fal is all about summoning spirits of family members to share their magical possessions (remember this is animism, something you have) with their (expanded definition of) descendants. In RQ2 this meant access to Battle Magic spells that could be stowed in foci. In HQ it means charms holding spirits. And that's the Harmony bit of Pavis' rune magic. Nothing at all to do with the Man Rune. But ancestor worship comes in quite different flavors. The way the ancestor interaction is presented for the Heortlings is completely different from that of the Praxian Daka Fali. Heortlings worship the ancestor community. Daka Fali interact with specific spirits of ancestors. Hence the communal effects of the Heortling ancestor interaction. Daka Fali magic is mostly personal magic inherited from some ancestor (and quite likely each individual ancestor has only a limited store of magic they can leave to one descendant at a time. Only when uncle X dies or unlearns it, you get the chance to receive the healing spell inheritance of great-grandaunt Y. I think this is a Very Weird stance, and a clear indication that you are getting lost in abstractions and overthinking this (if parthenogenesis in fish had not already made this clear). Note that I said this in the context of discussing Westerner origins. It doesn't apply to Praxian Daka Fali. When it comes to Clan Ancestors as in King of Dragon Pass, I am not quite sure, really - many a mother (although a minority, unless your clan bears a special curse) may leave the clan after a temporal marriage runs out or after a divorce, leaving no ancestral imprint if the clan she dies in is the clan where she serves as an ancestress. (For Esrolian males, a similar situation might exist, so this case is not really a question of gender, but of defining who is clan/kin, and who is not (any more).) For the Westerners, this is an astonishingly valid question. And family structures on Brithos need looking into. Does this mean a Menenan woman that has had no children yet must choose a Dronar as father for her children until she bears a son, and then turn to a Horali (rinse and repeat for Talar and Zzabur caste)? Does this mean that a father may only have intercourse with a woman who has born the correct number of sons in order to claim her son as his heir? And can he have multiple heirs by having sons from various eligible women? The immortal Brithini don 't marry for life. Now, within Time, they appear to avoid getting children, too, although things may be different on Brithos if that island is somehow held outside of Time. Agreed. Except for magics like the pregnancy transfer offered by Xiola Umbar, it is usually in no doubt who the mother is. (But then mythology has this modern problem where a child can have multiple biological mothers already, e.g. the mothers of Heimdall.) But if you look at the Malkioni, I get the impression that male lineage is all that counts. There are maybe half a dozen historical Malkioni women mentioned in the Guide, and maybe a few more in the Seshnegi king lists. But then, Motherhood and maternal magics are the realm of the Fertility Rune. Males strong in this rune may be able to bless their partners with fertility, but they still cannot create new life on their own, unless they go to similar lengths as Orstan the Elder. A different version of the Sword Story? Earth mythology has its own judge and keeper of the Underworld, Asrelia's dark sister. Darhudana appears more like an afterthought, and might be an aspect of Ty Kora Tek. Female mysteries in Glorantha go as far as making the participation of males optional for procreation if done so on the Other Side. And then there are the in-betweens (Jernotia/us or Androgeus) or the shifters (Heler and his cultists).

With Lanbril operating on the fringes of society, it is just as likely that they would bring in a misfit outsider shaman. Could be a Gorakiki worshipper, a renegade Damali from Pralorela, or a merman.

I didn't want to open a new thread, but I just read my ENWorld Weekly and found an announcement for Cults of Terror almost as if we had 1982: http://www.enworld.org/forum/content.php?4976-New-Hobby-Releases-In-Stores-PDF-Spotlight-19th-February-2018 (about halfway down the page)

Multiple arms, multiple selfs - the Norse depiction of Sleipnir as eight-legged horse may have had to do with the problem already present observing horse legs of fast moving horses in real time, and an extra fast horse may appear to have more legs. Deities break limits of ordinary mortals. Assigning them multiple body parts in artistic representations is one way to show this fact. Artistic representation needn't reflect reality. I strongly doubt that Siglat and his fighting companions faced the barbarians who had the bad luck to be enclosed in the same bit of Fronela that contained Loskalm sky-clad. Meriatan's get-up from his encounter with Congern is way more likely. Personally, I don't recognize the multiple head depictions as showing Arkat, but they might work out for me in a gif which shows these heads in sequence, merging from one to the next. But that's just my personal approach to visual media. I am fine with two entities in the same place, each one the halo of the other, but I couldn't pencil even a simple sketch of that concept. I might be able to use translucent layers of two separate images to approach that effect on the screen, however, and I might have an idea about two stained glass layers of either picture blending from one to the other depending on the color filter behind the two stains. And I guess some ingenious Gloranthan artists might have done similar things, or multi-layered mosaics using transparent crystals or pieces of glass to achieve such an effect. Basically, we are the children of an era with a multitude of visual media that we may find more appropriate to depict a concept. In some cases, that hunch may be right, in others, the limitations of low tech, low magic artwork might provide more honest depictions of the un-depictable. I liked the formalized depictions of the Orlanthi deities in Thunder Rebels and Storm Tribe as carved (and presumably painted) relief in wood. But that probably is too Slavic for the "Bronze Age vibe" meaning the temporally displaced Greek city state hoplite amor for the Ilias (about as in-period as the use of 15th century plate armor in that horrible Arthur flick with Sean Connery and Richard Gere, never mind that Mallory's ideas may have been close to that - my image of Arthur is Roman Iron Age, with some Roman leftovers). But then, while I seek deep immersion in my roleplaying, I am often quite detached from visual representations of the Other Side or the Godtime. Not to the level where one sees abstract power lines, or the primordial runes piercing whichever visual representation of gods and antagonsists are provided (or on how many levels). I might perceive a giant humanoid on a platform as one visual (and possibly physical) representation of a deity in Genert's Garden, to use the imagery David Scott suggested for interaction of less divine inhabitants of the Garden with the Greater Deities of Genert's court, but such manifestations are just one mask, and not necessarily the one representing the entity behind it best. So, how many arms does Orlanth have in bed with Ernalda? Two, and as many as necessary. Not to mention other parts of anatomy. Will this get depicted? Some weird shrine, guaranteed. Quite likely in an earth temple. In an official publication? Not likely, due to US censorship rules dictating the main market. One thing often overlooked about Godtime: This is when and where things get created. Establishing an extra arm or head in a situation is nothing impossible. A deity could lose its head, and keep it (although that would make the cult of Thanatar as presented a bit pointless, so not really). But the beheaded deity and the deity before the beheading are the same.

The Lunar College of Magic has only two WMD units, the one-use exotic effect of the Crater Makers, and the Crimson Bat. The rest of their magicians are of the "manifest and project your regimental spirit" type, like the Sartar Magical Union, the tribal magicians from the Barbarian Horde, the Trachodons, the dragonewt priest units, or the Exiles magicians. Much that the Lunars developed was done in response to the Carmanian sorcerers who had dominated Peloria prior to the birth of the Goddess. Before that, the best magical attack may have been coordinated Sunspears by a group of Yelm priests. Palangio's host may have had ranged-attack magicians in its ranks. He had the support of the Greatway Dwarves and of Aldryami, and grudgingly but then consistently of dragonewts (of which he placed a colony, along with their own dragonet, in Ryzel, making that western approach more difficult). The dragonewt priests had been able to project some spirit entity onto their foes from a distance since before Time. Possibly some not quite materialized Dream Dragon. I wonder what shapes the Trachodon spirits would have taken. (And whether dinosaurs were involved in Dragon Pass warfare outside of dragonewt control before the EWF at all.) Cragspider is a long-established power in Dragon Pass. We first hear of her when she creates the Great Trolls as a way to redeem troll mothers who have given birth to a litter of trollkin. It isn't clear when she adopts that drider body, when she subdues the Black Dragon, and when she first manifested her Pillar of Fire, although she certainly did so in opposition to Ingolf Dragonfriend somewhat later in the Second Age. EWF and God Learners did use WMDs, like Tanian's Fire, or draconic manifestations of EWF leaders (Drang, Lorenkargatan the Mile, the Sun Dragon, Great Lord Burin and possibly others in more offensive manner than Ingolf). Similar events are exceedingly rare - the burnings of the Rist and Eol forests and whatever happened at the Night of Horrors are the nuke equivalents of the Lunar Empire and the nomads, with the manifestations of Chaos or the Four Arrows of Light secondary events paling to these scales.

Jeff has leaked Art Direction before, when he didn't use the text bits for image captions anyway, but I am all for teasing his real world inspiration links out here.

You need deep roots to remain standing with that kind of lifestyle. Flowers are shed regularly, so are leaves, but the roots remain - often even after the rest of the person has gone, and sometimes able to return the person. I am Groot.

So, what Runes do we have for Intellect? There is Fire, featuring in the Creation of Men in both Peloria and Pamaltela. Hoolar doesn't get it, Jelmre, Pelmre and Agi do, but only Agi get the Solar one that sets them apart from the Pelmre. (Which has interesting implication for the Tarien Slarge...) But it is brightness, not experience, and often quite naive. There is Law, flaunted by Zzabur's recitation of Malkion, and by Lhankor Mhy. But that's just knowledge and learning, not intellect. I think that the Man Rune stands side by side with these, and it might signify Experience (and learning from that). Like I said, Dawn Age Brithos needn't have been monolithic. There is a reason that Zzabur sent waves of irritating dissidents out to the Malkioni colonies, it is pruning the population until it fits the doctrine, and that can be said even without access to limited distribution Malkioni documents from Greg's exploration of the West which leave their traces in numerous Guide entries. Ancestor worship from beyond the veil requires the veil to fall. That started with Humakt trying out Eurmal's newest acquisition on Grandpa Mortal, but it ended only with numerous heroes like Heort or Waha in the Gray Age separating the Living from the Dead. Prior to separating the Living from the Dead, the dead could stick around with the living, and often did. Ancestor worship may have begun as propitiating these revered pests for those trying to lead lives. The Esrolian March of the Dead sort of recalls that intermediate period during the Dark Ages. The Zerendel/Endernef wars saw lots of enslavement and destruction of the living at the hands of the Vadeli and their Mostali part-time allies, most notoriously the Tadeniti annihilation. Plenty of formerly good (if not necessarily Zzaburist) Malkioni ended up as drudges of the Vadeli, and I dare say a portion of those joined Zzabur's antagonists. Froalar began as a Brithini, and probably most of his followers were from Enrovalini background. Their ancestors were demigods, and the emigrants had most likely less than four generations distance from them, well within the envelope of Greek Mythology for their four generations of demigods (if you count Perseus and Tantalus as generation zero, the Argonauts and Nestor as generation two and the heroes of the Ilias as generation three). This means that the earliest Malkioni ancestor worship was little different from say Vingkot worship by the Orlanthi, or Sartar worship by his own dynasty. I sort of wonder about the gender balance among the emigrants, too. Classical Brithini society had one female for each four males, with an unclear role for those sisters. All of the original male children of Malkion were born to lesser goddesses, which appear to have been fairly abundant in Brithos and/or Danmalastan, and not at all objectionable to Malkioni doctrine. The Menenan lineage would have needed ouside fathers to avoid inbreeding for the first few generations, too (if they needed fathers at all - parthenogenic reproduction is always an option in the Godtime, and I recently shared this article on G+ about gynogenesis in certain fish, clonal reproduction with a random, off-species sperm donor just to initiate mitosis: https://plus.google.com/109555234149174501149/posts/9dLeZKxQpYt) It is fairly clear that the Froalar colony did not have easy access to local land goddesses prior to Froalar's quest to free Hrestol and atone for his son's slaying of Ifftala, the Pendali ancestress daughter of Seshna Likita by marrying that goddess (and becoming the guardian serpent of the land in the process). It is well documented afterwards that the Frowal colony converted Pendali cities to their ways. My explanation of this seemless conversion is tied to the Kachisti survival after the Vadeli Nidan uprising. In a role similar to the Oasis folk, these sedentary folk would provide sustainable urban structures for the great Serpent Brotherhood cities, and probably much of the hands-on work on architecture etc. too. The Pendali lion-folk never were more than a ruling nobility of invaders. Their urban subjects were heirs both of Danmalastan and generations of land goddess/priestess mothers. With their lion masters (and later other Serpent Brotherhood beasts) gone, they could adopt ways similar to ancestral tradition quite easily. But back to the role of the Man Rune in Malkioni society. There are runes for community building and society, too: Earth, and Harmony. Man is hardly the most prominent in this triad, either. Man doesn't seem to be tied to female mysteries (Earth, Fertility) in any way, so it really might be a Man and not necessarily a Woman Rune.

And that is why all the cultures in Glorantha have warfare traditions that send in preliminary fights by champions or heralds or similar, to get a taste of what they are facing. Also, all cultures in Glorantha are survivors of the Chaos Wars, descended from folk who figured out (whether by intent or by sheer luck) when to fight and when to hide or submit. The cultures which did not aren't around any more. Now I don't claim by "virtue" of being a second generation refugee to have good knowledge, let alone experience, how to deal with being on the run from an unstoppable invading army with a vengeance. But I know the tales, and the cautioning, and I'll try to pass them on. If you are thinking pike regiment vs. automatic weapons (as in the 1632 series of temporal displacement novels) you are right, and there was a similar effect at Liegnitz when the Mongols denied melee until the local forces were sufficiently softened up for their own well-disciplined heavy cavalry. But in Glorantha, a shield wall or other such formation becomes an entity of itself, usually actively promoted by bonding and pre-battle rites, that makes such formations feasible where a non-magical world would mow them down like daisies on a lawn. There are some risks you cannot avoid. There is always the Black Company (Glen Cook) or Order of the Thirty (David Gemmel's Drenai series) way of securing a kernel for a new incarnation of the company away from the battle if your unit is professional or religiously dedicated. Short of accompanying a Superhero or Dragon, there is no escape from the (one) annihilation strike of the Crater Makers, Cragspider's Pillar of Fire, the Storm Walkers spiritual utuma storm, or the circular Earth Shaker Falling Hills effect. But these have been extremely rare on battlefields, some getting battles named after them. Suffering attacks by the Cannon Cult, the ordinary Crater Maker moonrock shower or the Wind Children sylphs are much less lethal. They do form a physical attack that can only passively resisted, and may result in a unit losing coherence due to massive casualties, but many of those non-lethal casualties can be saved by healers. In the boardgame, you had to roll reallly well to pick more than a skirmisher or magician unit (the latter would of course be the favored victim) as consequence of the attack (and the Sartar MU magicians have a much stronger bodyguard detachment, or are able fighters on the side). Not at all convinced, since these are troops that can expect to be summoned to fight chaos a couple of time during their period of service. If you have fought Chaos and survived it, you may have some PTSD, but you will be ready for foul tricks with enemies unknown. And you probably have a few that you hold back from honorable battle, too.

Not really a Praxian answer, but very much yes - the western Hykimi all were deeply grounded in the Earth Goddess network of Seshna, Ralia/Green Lady, and presumably Frona, which extended to Eiritha's Prax, and also found in Ezel in Esrolia. All of the Western Hsunchen are sort of Earth Cultists by default, though rarely approaching agriculturalism or even just horticulture. But there ought to be agricultural or at least horticultural enclaves in their lands where the centers of Earth Worship are located. Possibly by a part-serpent Elder Race.

While it is true that I am basing this in some of the oldest Glorantha publications on this subject, as far as I know the text in Cults of Terror and in Uz Lore is still considered canonical. (Much of the Cults of Terror cosmology text made it into the Guide, IIRC.) I am bringing up Troll Pak because of the business of having or losing the Man Rune (and that's coming back to the topic of this thread). While nobody will accuse the standard trollkin of being a intellectual giant, it is still a quantum leap ahead of the Pamaltelan Midget Slasher. Then there is the Praxian Covenant, again making the Man Rune the difference between herd and herder, placing the burden of eating your bestial kin on the ones who drew the intellect in Waha's contest. I don't. Zzabur says of himself that he is the equal of the (False) Gods (like Genner/Genert, Ehilm/Yelm or Worlath/Orlanth), in the abstracted Erasanchula classification. Then there is the other set of myths about the Malkioni origin, as children of Malkion or Malkion's children with goddesses. (One reason that the Malkioni ancestors are predominantly male is that they married land goddesses or sea goddesses left and right, almost obviating the need for sisters.) And I like to think that the Cults of Prax and Cults of Terror references play to this Malkion Aerlitsson heritage, which is as true as the Zzaburist Erasanchula abstraction, and which applies to the Enrovalini as much as to the other Malkioni. Following the example of Malkion and the tribal founders who took Danmalastan/Brithos goddesses as wives. (But then too much of Malkioni philosophy seems to assume that "Man Rune" involves male genitals...) Pure Brithini practices? There are barely distributed old sources from which Revealed Mythologies was distilled that suggest that Zzabur usurped the single interpretation of doctrine. Zzaburism is a philosophy that was formed under the duress of the Gods War, both the conflict with the Vadeli and the "False Gods" like Walindum/Valind who beset Danmalastan. The Lhankor Mhy tribe of the Malkioni (aka Tadeniti, the people who flensed the skin of living enemies to make their first books) and the Issaries tribe of the Kachasti/Kachisti were among the first casualties of that war, the Kadeniti makers were driven out of their architectural marvels by the advancing Vadeli, seeking refuge with the Enrovalini, and the Waertagi took to the seas. Hrestol's Saga paints Brithos shortly after the Dawn as a land of dissident populations just enough obeying the doctrine of infallible (because he said so) Zzabur. Living without Zzaburi sorcery, but with the magic of the land, the mystery of growing and making, or the female mysteries - both subjects which Zzabur and the sorcerers are painfully limited in their understanding. And there we are at the topic of folk magic. By books inscribed on the flensed skin of enemies (Tadeniti magic, enthusiastically adopted by Zzabur), by instructional (Kadeniti), by communicating (Kachasti), by exploring (Viymorni), by entering the vastness of the (outer) sea (Waertagi), or by contemplating existence while doing your job, the Socratic ways of the Enrovalini which Zzabur chose to surround himself with. It is an all-encompassing term, really, and might be synonymous with Malkioni. Taking just one of the Greek schools of philosophy, and ignoring Confucian, Zoroastrian and Kabbalistic schools is a bit limiting to define the Malkioni as a whole, isn't it? Even reducing just Zzaburism to the Platonic branch leaves out e.g. Pythagorean mysteries which are clearly part of their sorcery. Oh - and Zzabur is both son, sibling and uncle of Malkion, whose Fifth Action makes him Grandfather Mortal. That's Storm Age Zzaburism, the philosophy under siege, severing itself desperately from the final teaching of Malkion, and in fact a major contributor to the fate of the Expulsion March. Ancestor worship Rune magic wasn't around for the God Time. People revered their (immortal) ancestors in person, or in deeds of creativity and beauty, applying their wisdom to their lives. The Gods War changed that. All of a sudden, there was loss - of entire populations, of ancestral lands (land goddesses, remember?), and ancestors became inaccessible except through their teachings (writings, plans of architecture, or oral tradition for the Kachasti). There is that interesting throwaway mention of Hrestoli believing in reincarnation (in the Galvosti paragraph in the Guide). This has been under-explored, to say the least, and allows the question whether it leads back to Hrestol, or to older dissident Brithini practices.

I am referring to the enigmatic first introduction of the Seshnegi under the Daka Fal entry in Cults of Prax, and the designation of the sorcerous world sight as "humanist" here. If magical ties to the ancestors can be made through the Man rune, then the Malkioni have some access to the abilities and knowledge of their demigod founders, whether of caste or tribe. That's a pretty big deal, accessing Danmalastan. Not as big as Zzabur's access to the One World, but still a source of considerable wisdom. Being a philosopher enables you to ponder your role in the big scheme. All the Enrovalini tribe were philosophers, and they are the core ancestors of the Brithini and the original Malkioni of western Genertela. Later their ranks were expanded by reuniting the Kachasti lineages which had mixed into the Serpent Beast folk of western Genertela after the Nidan uprising, but the core of Malkioni culture is Enrovalini, and that's where to be human means to be a philosopher.

Yes. Sacred serpents. Not serpent guardians. If not an older form of Ernalda. The increasing association of serpent with water was one of the bad surprises I encountered in Glorantha. The serpent is the Earth Beast because it moves slithering, remaining in full contact with the Earth. (Even the sidewinder.)