Joerg

I disagree. They were nomadic tribes of joint beast and humans, much like the Uncolings or the Damali, only without the shapeshifting between the two forms of people. They didn't slaughter either of their tribal members (permanently, there may have been ritual feasts of their own with the eaten returning to life the next morning, or whichever event would announce the start of a new day-cycle). That very much depends on how broad your definition of the Garden is. I have taken the "Storm Bull and his Sons" to be already beast sires and human sires trekking down from the Spike, much like other groups like e.g. Desero, the Andam Horde, or the Ram People. Not to forget Hykim and Mikyh... and not as God Learner constructs, either, but as very real serpent and/or draconic entities. Yeah, my source exactly. A Downland Migration of Storm folk, deities and demigods, humans and beasts. Like with Orlanth, the wedding both predates the migration and happens when the migrating folk reach their destination - the cyclical nature of Godtime, not just timeless, but also logical loops. An utopia already with edges. The Beast nomads never experienced the Green Age directly, unlike many of the Garden residents. That image brings to me the Chroma "deities" of Brandon Sanderson's "Warbreaker". Only from a certain angle, and for certain observers. Personally, I find a lot more identification with Kalin's illustrations of Elusu's storytime. A different sort of weird trip, mixed in being overawed/wowed while at the same time not quite that distant from these entities. I am sort of wary of the "perfect utopia", too. A hefty dose of J.M.Barrie's Neverland with its serious while they last excursions into conflict and drama while returning to the campfires is required, too, and I cannot see how the Storm Bull or any of his followers would refrain from such stomps. This is Late Golden Age, the era when Vadrus leads the Vadrudi howling across the world. Perhaps not directly into Genert's Garden, but then again the definition of that Garden might vary for different observations. And there begins a need for the protection by these mighty entities, the foundations of worship. Still an utopia, but no longer a guaranteed utopia, but an actively supported one. (And that throughout the Storm Age, too, with the amount of support required steadily on the rise.) But keep the footstool deities /godlings levitating the Earth King? With that serpent tail, I would expect the throne to be a ramped ziggurat (no tiers, but an ongoing ramp, though probably not a round spiral) instead. Made from living earth, blooming and blossoming where the divine serpent tail doesn't cover it at the moment. A certain similarity to the Sun Dragon on the Footstool... When it comes to visual inspirations, I am closer to some of the more idyllic and alien episodes of the Valerian and Veronique comic books or other French-originating comics presenting fantastically alien worlds, or a non-dystopian take at Kill Six Billion Demons. That's when they became Beast Riders and herders, and IMO not at the Dawn, but in the Grey Age, and probably just cementing unsavory survival efforts from the Greater Darkness. But that's just me.

This sounds like the old chaos dragon "misapplied magic" rearing its ugly head again... Quite a lot of practices work fine sitting on the edge between magic systems. The Orlanthi aren't that far from animism, IMO much less so than shown e.g. in the King of Dragon Pass computer game (which came from the height of the "Three absolutely separate worlds" dogma). Pelorian Theism with much less of personal initiation than the Orlanthi have might be a purer form of Theism. If not for the mystical crap shooting up there every second century. We tend to compare the magics for their benefit to the individual, as that is the way how roleplayers experience it. Magical build-up in or for a community is weakly treated - there are some rules for Heroquest support in Hero Wars and HQ1, and there were some thoughts on the chain of veneration for Malkioni (of all possible cultures...). The wyter rules are quite unhelpful, too, tying access to it and its power to the leader of a community, only. So, for much of magical contribution a Gloranthan provides to his community, there is little if any feedback while things work as they are supposed to. There may be sudden backlashes seemingly out of nowhere if there are some bumps in the contributions or the administration of those (through the leaders). But for quite a lot of magical activities, the Gloranthan individual just has to trust that his contributions work, and that they are meaningful. Not quite so different from religions on our planet.

I think that Ronance's Roads, which create a network of ley lines between the oases, along the main directions of the hex grid overlay, serve as the (possibly only remaining) connection between the oases and the associated catchment areas. This gives him a rather indirect connection to the waters. Other than that, I am perfectly happy to have Earth Serpents draw his chariot in the Godtime. And I disagree with David's earlier comment that they are similar to the serpent guardians from the old WF counter. Ronance is one of the few entities in NG which have an adequate illustration. I found it quite inspiring, and wouldn't depart from it without deeper mythic need.

"Having the Man Rune" as a racial trait is what allows you to make a character from that species. It doesn't really require any individual special tie to this rune. You can be designated "Storm Worshipper" for being part of that culture, even if you (like Biturian Varosh) don't have any personal ties to Storm. (Although one can say that by cheating this way the Yelmalian doomed his quest to failure.) If you have the man rune as your personal rune, it emphasizes a couple of things. One is your tie to your ancestors. Another is an affinity to civilisatory achievements - crafting, advanced agricultural techniques (irrigation, better plows...), and possibly even some intellectual or emotional effects. Among the Malkioni, it might qualify you as a philosopher, possibly regardless of your caste. (Much unlike the warriors who inherited the Hsunchen war magics, and likely display some Beast traits.)

Hard to answer, really. A unit may survive battle encounters (as per Dragon Pass boardgame) intact by the look of it and still have suffered heavy casualties, although probably few permanent if they maintained cohesion. Victims of "exotic magic" like Cragspider's fire pillar or the Crater Makers annihilation strike will have seen the equivalent of a nuke. Units lost to Chaos magic (Hydra, Bat) are lost, except possibly for a few who broke away just before the encounter. And while some of those may be wise, there will be more who simply broke and aren't fit for any kind of battle any more, unless they join a wandering chaos mob like the victims of the First Battle of Chaos, leading to Tork becoming a magical prison and Dorastor inhabited by the Grey Ones. A unit losing cohesion may face heavy casualties afterwards, especially if their foe is cohesive yet mobile. But it is as likely that the flight gets covered by other friendly units, and only the breaking point casualties were sustained. Facing Harrek or Jar-eel may turn a unit (or several) into a bloody pile of carcasses topped by the superhero, or they may simply break before their divine presence and run before the superhero can have much slaughter. Another question: What do you count as a casualty on a personal level? A non-serious but debilitating wound that could not be magicked away on the battlefield? A temporary madness or panic? A period of unconsciousness? Or only permanent death or crippling? Holding the field makes all the difference for the temporarily disabled. Getting tied up while helpless and shipped away to a slave market could be counted as a casualty. Access to one's healers literally means the difference between life and death. The older Nomad Gods and White Bear and Red Moon rules had battle results like push-back or similar, while the Dragon Pass rules had something like "covered retreat" for units no faster than the attacking units, provided they leave a (most likely) sacrificial covering force to delay the enemy advance. Faster units could retreat without such covering forces. These tactics (and Zone of Control) were a major tactical factor in the invasion by turn X scenarios, where "turn X" describes the time until a full fyrd and/or powerful allies could be mustered. Such covering rearguards usually suffer significant casualties. They are the stuff of war poetry, whether Roland, Huor and Hurin, the nameless Viking axe warrior of Stamford Bridge, or Terasarin, and, to be honest, somewhat incomprehensible to civilians. The longer Dragon Pass scenarios also had a "reserves" rule that allowed a portion of the lost units' battle power to be fielded again after a number of turns, indicating some rallying and sped-up healing of units lost (in addition to neutralizing attrition in surviving units). There are a few "count the survivors on either side by the fingers of one hand" battles in Glorantha, but they are rare. The Dragonkill and the Night of Horrors are the most famous/notorious. The storm of Boldhome was one of the bloodier battles, with heavy casualties on both sides, and the storm on Whitewall was atrocious when you look at the Lunar casualties. The Building Wall Battle is a major troop killer, too, on both sides - Esrolian regiments sacrificed to become part of the wall, and Lunar regiments whose orders got meaningless yet unremanded, dying useless deaths attacking a suddenly appearing fortification. On the other hand, Fazzur's campaigns appear to have been fought usually with minimal losses on both sides, creating tactical situations where the opponent would rather yield than perish. Even the total destruction of the (remaining) defenders of Karse was a very limited death toll.

That would be true for Early Golden Age, but Genert's Garden lasted all the way through the Storm Age, seeing changes and reacting to them. Like integrating the Beast Nomads who could only have joined the Garden population earliest in the Late Golden Age, after the dismemberment of Umath. I see a certain continuity between Genert's Garden, Ezel, the Green Woman of Estali, and Seshna Likita in distant Seshnela. These earth temples were both caves and elaborately carved entrance walls. There are no naturally occurring cubic caves, so the earth cultists would have carved out holy chambers in the shape of their grandmother, too. Quite likely not using tools, but magic. I also see a lot of room for snake-bottomed earth folk similar to the figures of Genert and Pamalt in the upcoming Gods War boardgame, almost another forgotten Elder Race. (Pretty much like the bird folk everywhere but in the East Isles.) The snake guardians of the paps (only featuring a female human head) might be such a remnant. I think you are semi-correct in this. Much of the sculpting of the outsides of those temples may indeed come from the various husbands. I do disagree with "almost untouched remarkable natural landmarks". Some of the most holy caves may have been grown rather carved out, like organs grown in a body, but all are intentional. Some may have been eroded out by one of the partners of the Earth, whether rivers, lava flows, or wind erosion. But that's restricted to the birth mysteries. If you look at Genert and the Earth Walkers, they all take great pride in being shapers (a trait taken over by Lodril, too). They may start out as paleolithic shapers, but that's even before the Golden Age. It is hard to keep the Earth Queen pleased, so hubby has to acquire new tricks again and again to show them off, as a part of the foreplay. Or at least that is his perception of his status in the relationship. So, we get Tada not only as a raiser of mountain chains, but also as a shaper who left things like the Sleeping City, and many of whose creations were destroyed along with the Garden when Chaos invaded. The Paps survived. The outer wall of the Paps would be of recent, Storm Age origin anyway - that's when Tada raised the Eiritha Hills to cover his goddess wife to trick Death. Before, there may have been an underground structure, possibly also a ziggurat (they are earth inventions inherited by the Solars), but everything that may have been behind that facade line was covered with the Eiritha Hills when Tada hid Eiritha. Prax itself has at least two ruins of former "cities" - Monkey Ruins and Winter Ruins. Ex is rumored to hide possibly flattened ruins of a city, too. I don't expect any uniform architectural styles in much of the Garden. It has always been a patchwork of numerous different cultures, rudimentarily known from some of the Eternal Battle units or from the Tada-Shi counters for Nomad gods.

Any activity does, really. All crafts have a sorcerous/alchemical component to them. Smithing the gods' bones is a highly magical activity, due to the subject material. I am still unclear about the non-god bone metal deposits. Are there any? Do Gloranthans smelt and reduce metal from ores? This process of transmutation is the very real magic. And if the metal comes from ores, do the ores in return come from corroded bones of long forgotten gods dismembered long before there was the concept of Death? Much of the Gloranthan everyday metal is "brass" rather than bronze, the metal remains of sons or cousins of Lodril, Turos etc, molten sky metal mixed with molten earth metal, and possibly consolidated as bones at some time. Brass is less suitable for smithing swords, but is great for casting shapes in molds, mass-producing blades for spears and shorter or heavier swords. Actual material ratios between sky metal and earth metal may vary both in brass and in bronze. Not much of our terrestrial 5% admixture of tin (or similar alloy components) to copper here. (And before anyone in the know complains, terrestrial brass is a mixture of two fixed ratio compounds of copper and zinc, a metal unknown to the makers of brass, although they could tell the ore apart from tin ore.)

All of this makes the players take exceptional roles, and doesn't play a battle, only uses a battle as backdrop for your scenario. Which is entirely fine for having an individual fighting romp, but doesn't answer my question how to give the players an experience of a battle as part of a cohesive unit. And this is something every Yelmalian worth his salt should have experience with. And it should be one of the first steps of a future Orlanthi warrior in the Hero Wars, too. That's basically what went on at the siege of Whitewall. In a way, you ask for the game that never was - Masters of Luck and Death, the third part in the hex wargame series featuring WBRM/Dragon Pass and Nomad Gods. If sufficiently large and coherent units walk over a battlefield, they can be abstracted as their wyters/regimental deities/standards manifesting as a spiritual entity, and it is these which are targeted by the Dragon Pass spirit magicians. So, how do you give the player a meaningful feedback that his (and everyone else's) determination etc. feeding the wyter is of critical importance to the fate of the unit in the battle, and possibly for the outcome of the battle, despite units to your left and right being taken apart, with the individuals making up the units a mix of people fleeing in disarray, unable to rally, casualties on the field, or prisoners led away into ransom incarceration or slavery. And possibly your own unit becomes a casualty as well. This is similar to supporting someone else's heroquest, without participating on the other side yourself. What you do can be crucial, but you are socially alienated from the entire process (to borrow the Marxian vocabulary). So how do you turn such participation in a personally rewarding activity for the player and player character, and how do you transport the drama into a role-playing session? Escpecially one that rolls more than one pair of opposed dice, as in HQ.

Nope. If Palashee has any family relation to the Lunar Tarshite dynasty, it would be through Sorana Tor - he was a native Tarshite rebel/usurper from Shaker's Temple who ousted the Lunar king from his land for 17 years.

So, what exactly was the role of your players' charcters? Were they a small independent band thrown together with other such bands to make up an irregular force, or were they part of a coordinated unit trained to be more than just five bands of adventurers doing some mercenary stuff? As much as I hate that movie, Mel Gibson's Patriot shows how a militia is made o hold up like professionals under enemy fire, and to just stand there and take damage while from enemy skirmishers other units do their stuff. "Hold, don't break away" is a situation of individual and collective horror, especially if the enemy fire becomes Lunar (or Pentan) magic. The mere stable presence of that unit might be the hinge of the battle. It is as honorable a role in a battle as followers of a mighty king might wish, but it doesn't necessarily mean much individual combat, if at all. It does mean sustaining casualties, often enough without being able to strike back. And never, ever, break off as your familiar small combat unit called "party". Now make an enjoyable roleplaying activity out of this using RQ rules. I won't doubt that your players had a lot of enjoyment of their characters' situation in the battle, but basically they did _not_ act as part of a battle unit, but as their usual small scale specialist fighter/mage irregulars. That's a scenario on the fringes of the battle, however decisive it may feel. But it is not participating in the core of a set battle. Basically, you created a situation where the battle dissolved into normal RQ combat, and let them excel at what they were good at. But what about being put into a unit that doesn't get these "let's step out of the set battle" moments? Sure, you could say that's poor railroading on the GMs part, but I would expect every participant in a war with such bigger coordinated units to survive one such day of battle, and it would be nice to give this as an in-play experience rather than an off-stage new background narrative.

The Arkat parallel is fairly good, but then there is also the Nysalor parallel to consider. Are there any Pentans trying to emulate Sheng's achievements? You bet. Are they doing it right? Not likely. There are bound to be various approaches to become as badass as Sheng, and "clean nomadic living" is way too wimpy to gain the necessary austerities, so expect various variants of self-mutilation or assisted self-mutilation. Some will lead to some mystic insight and magical benefits to reap from it. But when Sheng returns, will he recognize such practitioners as ready to serve him? I don't think so. He will welcome them in his ranks, and have those willing to walk _his_ paths administered the right amount of suffering. Those who make it through that harsh school will be the new Jolaty. Those who don't... there are always others eager to follow.

Staging a battle with meaningful input from the player characters is easy if the player characters qualify to step forth as champions. It fails abysmally if the player characters take a place in the ranks, reducing them to little more than goons with a front line point of view on events. From that perspective, the battle is a set of railroads and mary-sue champions doing their thing leaving the player characters to cheer or jeer, and then experience the terror of facing an inhuman wave of bodies on a collision course. No place for individual heroics like in the defence of the Cradle, just trying to maintain formation while hell breaks out. In a non-commanding role, there is hardly any way to make a battle a satisfying wargaming experience if your point of view is fixed to within the formation. Roleplaying the personal horror is easily done in narrative mode, but not in the gritty combat simulation that RQ excels at when player characters can act individually. This is what made me avoid the trope of the Sun Dome militiaman.

If you really alter the nature of something, it doesn't revert back. If you just stabilize a temporary alteration by application of stasis, it will revert. Coming from a chemistry background, I would apply the Change rune to irreversible processes, while the Stasis rune forms the basis of reversible processes through ongoing equilibrium. But while thermodynamics can be used to describe all manner of processes (not limited to chemical ones, but e.g. also computational ones), its application to Gloranthan magic may not always be useful.

Ok, so you do have the kind of hands-on experience I often miss when looking at people's imagination of archery. Hitting a man-sized target at 100+ yards/metres: if the target is caught moving in a steady line or ideally stationary, the shot is possible. Not that likely, but possible. If the target is moving in not quite a straight line (like avoiding patches of wet/slippery/sucking ground) and you cannot predict the course, any hit will be due to sheer luck. That doesn't mean that you cannot gauge the distance and loose four or five arrows, two or three before the first one comes down somewhere near the target, and with such a salvo, your chance of hitting returns from random to maybe your decent 25%. But not with a single arrow, you must be willing to waste several hours of work on your arrows to force this one semi-random hit. While I haven't done any hunting with bows (forbidden in this part of Europe), I have been to competitions that involved trick shots on moving targets. If you are confident about a vector, you can hit a distant target with some confidence. If the vector is not that steady (at least between your release and the impact, never mind whether it was constant in between as long as it evens out), you miss, unless you failed your to-hit roll. Which brings me to arrow retrieval, and how lucky you need to be to retrieve any arrows. If you use a dovetail composite arrow where the part with the tip may break off, you can reuse 75% of the arrow that hit a hard surface (like bedrock or unyielding armor), and the work involved. If the ground is more forgiving to arrow survival, you need to have a mastery at spotting hidden things, or else a detection spell or device. And bring a small spade or chisel. Personalized equipment is the rule, not the exception. You always shoot the bow that suits you best for the style of shooting, and the arrows to fit the bow. Hence the "standard bow" assumption in the rules is as much bogus as was the "average pilot" set-up used by the USAF after WW2, leading to numerous crashes due to wrong adaptation of the steering gear. Trying to hit with arrows too soft or too hard for your bow will be a near-automatic miss as you watch your arrow take a sudden detour maybe a few metres before impact. More fletching or a heavier tip can compensate a bit at the cost of flight speed and accurate estimates of distance. And grabbing someone else's bow and arrows doesn't mean that what was a good fit for him will be a good fit for you. Slight differences in draw length will make an arrow to hard or too weak. Compensation by tilting the bow so the vibration plane becomes vertical only goes so far. Which leads to different kinds of upper body strength. An archer won't necessarily do well at weight-lifting or bench-pressing, but a well-muscled strong-man may have to capitulate at drawing a strong bow to its full extent due to a different set of muscles required for this, not to mention "locked joints" to take on much of the force without applying muscle power (and vibrations). There's also the problem of exaggerated chest anatomy or clothing accentuating that getting in the way of the string, applying to female chests as much as to over-muscled bench-pressers' ones.

Phosporescent, possibly radioactive character sheets should remain the domain of Call of Cthulhu. Fluorescent ones legible under a darklight might be an idea, however.

I think that permanence is something different from stasis. Change causes permanence. Illusion doesn't. Stasis may prevent change, so could be conservation of effects, but that could be different from stability. Users of spirit magic gain familiarity with the ever-changing spirit world. That's not an environment which encourages permanence. A while ago, there was talk about certain animist integrating spirits (especially low identity, effect spirits) in their self rather than binding them or putting them into charms. What has become out of that concept? (Ruleswise, it does sound a bit like the Stormbringer 3rd ed demon rules...)

I did take a double-take at Suren being unavailable to Lodrili. My first impression of Suren is Surenslib, a deity (or spirit) no Dara Happan noble would ever pollute himself with.

Last thing I heard about Dwarf Knob is that while it is an interesting feature in the Chaparral, it is not an oasis (as in a spot of preserved fertility in the otherwise barren land), but as barren as the area next to it. If there is anything magically different there, it might be mostali in origin, but that doesn't usually promote fertility.

I was trying to get the newtling benefit from potentially being eaten during indenture, and the only thing I can see making up for loss of yet asexual individuals is draconic magic for brood protection. The dragonewts get helpers for whichever chores usually placed on the scouts, leaving the scouts more space for self-discovery. Child care is part of our primal programming, seated so deeply that we even care for creatures of other species displaying similar traits. Which is mercilessly exploited by the likes of Disney. Maturing through childhood and puberty is in a very big portion learning to manage your emotions and to apply consideration before impulse. And I find this an interesting parallel to the dragonewt conundrum, and to be honest one I just stumbled over, so I am still trying to get grips on this. Most of the time, they play at defending their cities and clutches of eggs. Their caretakers (including the dragonet aka Inhuman King) have taken measures to teach the neighbors the folly and Darwinian misstep of tampering with dragonewt nests. Yes. And note who fought (the adults), and who was protected (the hatchlings). I have come to consider the mobile forms of the dragonewts not as hatched from the egg, but as emanations of the egg, similar to Dream Dragons. The real dragonewt never leaves the egg, only its emanations do. Hence they have a very strong urge to protect their origin. A dragonewt whose egg gets destroyed may continue to exist, but it is a pointless existence, much like an undead. Like I stated above, I don't think of the end of a mobile stage as a death, and the appearance of the improved model as a rebirth. It is the new OS, with the hard-/wetware adapted to its new purpose. In my (definitely not 100% correct) parallel crested 'newts or scouts are the equivalent of Kindergarten, beaked newts are primary school, tailed priests are now entry level high school and winged priests get to grips with their puberty. That's referring to their emotional development, not any other abilities. Come on. People who have not even heard of dragonewts are irrelevant for this discussion. That affects mainly the Pelorians, who had conflicting emotions towards the 'newts anyway. The pro-newt Heortlings fled from the True Golden Horde, and found refuge in the Kingdom of Night. Their contingent sent to the aid of the 'newts may have been wiped out by the advancing horde along with the 'newt bodies that they aided. I don't think that there are many Heortlings south of Dragon Pass whose ancestors were eaten by the dragons. Those who lost ancestors to this war lost them to the True Golden Horde. When the dragons finally struck, the Golden Horde had reached modern Sun Dome County, making sure not to leave any live Heortlings in their back. The way the dragons did end the Golden Horde did strike fear even in those whose folk had fought that ruthless band of murderers, abusers and pillagers, but I see that more like the Cold War trauma of the Overkill going off any day now. There was one moment of "treason", when the (aberrant) draconic elite of the EWF was eliminated over night. Now, few of the Heortlings whose ancestors survived the Dragonkill would confess to their specific ancestors having been betrayed. It is a bit like admitting that you had dedicated Nazis as ancestors. (Trust me, I know how _that_ feels.) They are alien, have hardly understood powers, and they don't accept the Great Message of the Goddess. What is there not to demonize? Yes. And I say that even Tailed Priests are still pre-pubertary in their development, or just entering the great final re-wiring of both brain and personality. I don't know about 7-year old future monks in Japanese Buddhism, which is why I chose the Himalaya example. The Aztecs already provide a lot to the material culture of the 'newts. I don't see much how Aztec culture really maps on 'newt proto-culture. The Aztecs were a highly productive agricultural society, something absolutely alien to the 'newts. The Buddhism parallels work inasfar they require a detachment from the material world. I don't see that in any Aztec parallel. I see more Lord of the Flies than Mary Poppins in the dragonewt upbringing. A heavy side portion of Peter Pan. But, like I said, this is a recent insight. Still trying to work it out. I am considering myself to be rather divided in terms of interconnections already, and empathically challenged. I feel that makes me less qualified to learn a language with empathic components. I did learn quite a few languages, but in a way that wouldn't aid me with Auld Wyrmish. It was a huge and for a while fascinating ant farm. Then the ants got uppity, got things wrong, and even tried to interfere with the dragonewts' own progression, so the ant farm had to go. Good thing that they had an arrangement for getting rid of those pests from early on in this game. The EWF proper lasted how many years? Hunting and Waltzing bands started in the 590ies, and roused the curiosity of the 'newts. By 650, they had pet humans who sort of approached an understanding of the games the dragonewts played, and these humans had a strife with other humans which lasted for about a century, before they established themselves as the leaders of the local humans, and began to contribute to the dragon dream in new, colorful and for a while interesting ways. Think an introduction of psychedelic images, movies and music. How long did that last in human culture? Dragonewt culture moves slower by a factor of about 100. So, between 750 and 1020 there were humans who did dragonewt things, in somewhat different and for a while fascinating ways, providing some creature comforts to the 'newts, expanding the range of their dream (their Peter Pan realm) greatly. They tempted the 'newts into establishing new nests. I do wonder where these nests came from. Were they taken out of existing nests and transplanted elsewhere, or did new dragonewt eggs get created to populate the EWF lands? And when those new nests (and the irreplaceable eggs therein) were destroyed, how did that change the dragonewt perspective (and the dragonewts' caretakers' perspectives) of the benefits of the EWF? Considering the difference between the Kralorelan and the Kerofinelan dragonewts, the Kralorelan ones claim to have weathered the Gods War in Strength, whereas the Kerofinelan ones did so in weakness. It is well established that the Kerofinelan ones participated in I Fought We Won, which might be seen as weakness. It is also a fact that dinosaurs are common where the Kerofinelan nests are, but are rather rare or even unknown in Kralorela. It is possible that the 'newts might have hoped to return the victims of weakness - the dinosaurs - into the dragon path through their EWF experiment. They did get all manner of creatures put onto a dragon path, but reclaiming dinos may have been a failure. But yes, 400 years observing humans is what passes for a game for creatures whose life-span is basically unlimited while they refrain from maturing into an adult. Another Peter Pan element here...

There is a strong precedent in the Seven Years Build-up the Carmanians did, sacrificing an entire army and the shah's own brother to get the magical benefit against the Dara Happans. Tatius does build up a grudge, and the besieged Heortlings take up his concept and run wild with it. Basically, Tatius provides magical support to Broyan in order to manifest Orlanth. While not exactly the same, he does use a Summons of Evil-like method to create the magical tension he requires for his über-rites. Sylilans are as qualified, and despite their often boorish ways they are reliable Heartlanders now. In Hendrikiland, I would expect. You don't place mercenaries where they may get too comfortable.

Basically, the siege would attract a veritable garrison city of units or at least meaningful detachments from all over the Heartlands. Hardly any provincials, though - Tatius wants professionals to participate in the siege. Fazzur originally used Tarshite and Cavalry Corps units for his rush to the sea, and he would have left a few of his slowest units behind with Jorkandros to keep Broyan and his Volsaxi army inside the old but (at least to Fazzur) insignificant mountaintop fortress of Whitewall. Broyan's army would be around 3000 men strong, initially, so the covering forces would have to match that, and then a bit. As long as Broyan stays behind the walls of Whitewall, Fazzur has free reign to occupy the rest of Volsaxiland and to take Karse, gaining him (and Tarsh) the long wanted foothold on the Mirrorsea Bay and thereby to the Homeward Ocean. The magicians under Tatius have a totally different agenda, they want to crush the last free king of the Orlanthi (that matter) and his temple city. That's why they send for the Bat, the usual WMD of the Lunar army. It failed only once, when a dragon rose to keep it from reaching Boldhome 17 years earlier. This time, no dragon interferes, so what could possibly go wrong? Indeed. Broyan does the impossible, the Bat is slain, and heads roll. Tatius assumes command of the siege, and what used to be a relaxed post becomes a series of militarily wasteful ceremonial attacks, sacrificing Lunar soldiers in the thousands for some magical build-up. And Tatius makes sure to let as many Imperial units or detachments thereof bleed on the white walls. So basically, it would be more noteworthy if a Heartland unit's standard is absent from the siege for its duration. Tarshite and other Provincial units draw garrison duty in Karse, Smithstone, and later on the New Malkonwal cities. Many of these wouldn't be in the Dragon Pass boardgame because of their presence at the New Lunar Temple dedication in 1625. The Native Furthest forces describe the Tarshite reserves, not its veteran front troops. Too many of those are loyal to Fazzur and probably hang back for part of the action, or participate as e.g. the Bush Children.

Dragonewts certainly have a different body structure from the Man Rune scheme which does appear to come with a bunch of emotions shared even with the Elder Races. Their brains probably would be different. Asexual newtling bachelors may enter dragonewt service as "slaves", or in other words for a term of indenture which may face them with potentially lethal out of context situations and with the promise of some dragonewt magic as their reward for the rest of their bachelorhood and possibly for their child-rearing time as sexual adults. (The latter is the only thing that makes some sort of slight sense in giving them a biological advantage from that risky indenture.) If they require such an operation to function as assistant scout dragonewts, we aren't told about it. A lot of human emotions are the biological consequence of providing child care. Dragonewts as individuals don't provide nest care, and even as a society they are more the recipients of nest care than caretakers themselves. A bunch of unfinished individuals who are given some chores according to their degree of maturity, but who mostly go about growing up, and taking their sweet, unlimited time to do that. A lot of what they do is pre-pubescent and pubescent paradoxical activity. Undoubtedly, our young children are full of emotions, overflowing with them, and puberty escalates that again. At a guess, so are dragonewts. Don't look much further for irrational behavior than this. The common conception of dragonewts as eternally wise and noble creatures. And not children at play, if as some sort of very junior monks in a Himalayan monastery. Dragonewt politics might share structure and interactions with self-organized youth groups before and in puberty. Actually, the brain split would appear to lower the human abilty for empathy, whereas Auld Wyrmish supposedly has empathical components. I don't think they care. Humans are a strange external factor in their games. Sometimes they can be fun, at other times they are annoying like hell.

That's the crux here, isn't it? We are discussing battle magic/spirit magic, off the cuff magical charms rather than sophisticated magic.

If the magic was always on, it would be technology rather than magic. That said, RQ2 offered the common rune spell extension, which was stackable without any real limit IIRC. (RQ3 notably did not offer this.) If you have enough rune points to burn, you could stack up a few weeks of always on combat magic. The question is whether it is worth the effort - if you can afford to maintain a priest doing nothing than keeping your Bladesharp 4 sword operational, you could afford an enchanted iron sword as well (which might be the recipient of this spell anyway), and live in a palatial manor with a few Ulerians to service you. (Now where did Gringle hide his palatial manor?)

So, for a glimpse of High Llama Eiritha, we should look at Elusu's story of the Cradle instead?