Joerg

P The Pavis Rubble notably has two surface quarries operated by the City cult with the aid of the Flintnail dwarves. The dwarves excavate tunnels, and will need to get rid of their excavated material, some of which might be used for masonry and the rest possibly for gravel. The trolls near the Troll Break have dug (or gnawed) their own tunnel systems, which may connect to others. Many of the human survival sites in the Rubble have their own underground chambers and tunnels with hideouts and nasty traps to surprise invaders. Most of the bedrock of Prax appears to be limestone or sandstone. Soil cover may vary. But the Big Rubble occupies some of the best grazing and farming land in Prax, which indicates a healthy layer of topsoil above the bedrock in most places. Limestone gravel is a good ingredient for burnt chalk, which in turn is the ingredient for mortar and plaster, but fuel might be a problem.

Safelstran is a Theyalan language with many western elements (and quite likely a lot of dialects based on the city states). Both Vesmonstran and the East Wilds speak Theyalan dialects without much if any Western elements. with Hsunchen a second influence in the East Wilds. Most Arkati ("Stygians") in Ralios are located in Safelster (or Guhan, if you count troll Arkati), rather few in Vesmonstran or the East Wilds. Delela is home of Aruzban Ironarm, an Orlanthi hero who is the opposite of a troll friend, even though he likes to hug them. That's not the place for Stygians to thrive.

The Dragon Pass board game has 12 spots as "dinosaur lairs" distributed across the map. It has one near or at Pegasus Plateau (northeast of Famegrave). There is no reason why herds of dinosaurs should not roam further south than that, but there is neither proof of a somewhat reliable presence of dinosaurs further south. If you think they will enrich your game there, by all means have some. If you want them to be rare or extinct, blame anti-EWF sentiments by the Slontan conquerors of Heortland, or the traditionalists of the Kingdom of Night. if you want more, associate them with the Nightdragon Society among trolls and Kitori who raised the Leaden Bones Serpent to defend against Belintar.

There are other possible venn diagrams, like e.g. as in "I don't dare to contradict the sacred scripture, but I am willing to expand it and use some of its apocrypha regardless". All these diagrams with "Canon" meaning "Statements of Canon I am aware of", and much of YGWV being things I misremembered from canon rather than my own independent creation. Creating against current canon, current perceived canon or previous, now abandoned canon will often be an exercise in futility. Or even just creating outside of current canon (which is where @Crel excels). Been there, done that, on the topic of Aeolian Heortland even. Hence my statement that it is hard - hard to find acceptance and a customer base for. Painting me as being against using unused Abandoned Canon feels weird to me after waffling about RQ3 sorcery being available to everybody and how I can see such a thing happening away from RQG canon that I am aware of (I still have to read all those Cults of RuneQuest books). In this case, we are not talking about canon, but monomyth and the current RQG sorcery rules (which are two different things with some intersectional area). Yes, similar considerations apply. No, Killjoy was not my stance.

If so, I would have preferred being called out to in a less sensitive environment. Issues of child abuse - be it age of consent, early motherhood, child soldiers (Household of Death) or weaponization of infants (Jar-eel breaking the Syndic's Ban) - are X-card territory for a good reason. We are playing a game where mutilation is almost celebrated ("It isn't RQ if there are no limbs flying!") and the deaths of characters and more so of their opponents are part of the game. Where we explore magic and mythology which resolves around the breaking of social taboos. Where we shamelessly appropriate religious practices of other cultures for our enjoyment, and hopefully with some reflection about what we are doing by projecting such activities. Did the authors and publishers of Griffin Mountain do the math? No idea. Do we need to re-evaluate or even re-write Romeo and Juliet?

This still leaves me with the two urban ideas of yours to choose from. Leaving the monomyth in the core Orlanthi region is not impossible, but hard. While I doubt that the Slontan invaders took a serious look at the practices of the Esvulari (other than their taxation for supporting their military presence) - the few sentences in the Durengard Scrolls might be the entire body of lore accumulated outside of Lhankor Mhy temples in the Kingdom of Night - the Esvulari lore seems to have seen some more attention by Belintar, who took the Monomyth and put it into practice for his Proximate Holy Realm in the City of Wonders. And it is the Belintar acedemy of heroquesting which shaped the Sartarite experimental heroquesting lore. That said, postulating runic interactions different from Zzabur's wheel (which is different from the one on the RQG Character sheet) is difficult with the RQG sorcery rules. RQG introduces a few false dichotomies like Man vs. Beast. These traits adding up to 100% is a weird gamist element, which would be served just as well as opposed rolls between two percentile skills above 50% or a resistance roll between traits on a scale from 1 to 20. The RQG rules are supposed to model Lhankor Mhy and Aeolian sorcery, and Rokari sorcery to some extent. For alternate approaches, I wouldn't exactly look at the Aeolian sorcerers. My own RQ3-based speculations on sorcery used by the Aeolians did have access to rune magic for all Aeolians (including sorcerer caste Aeolians), which apparently still is the case in RQG as there are bound to be sorcerer-caste Aeolians who do not qualify for sorcery because they do not fulfill INT or literacy requirements or might be otherwise handicapped. "Spirit Magic" has gone back a few steps towards RQ2 Battle Magic, which has fixed spell effects you need to learn - something you know. I can still envision a Glorantha away from RQG canon where there are knowledge-based forms of magic for the common people, whether on the East Isles as forms of martial art effects, in Kralorela as forms of bureaucracy-enhancing spellcraft, or as extensions of the principle of the Open Seas ritual for people blissfully ignorant of the sorcery techniques and runes.

Why radio buttons, allowing only one choice?

If you are fine with non-canonical stuff: There were speculative sect descriptions in Tradetalk, but still using the "church" style descriptions of Malkionism. Building on Reaching Moon Megacorp's How the West Was One, there was the German freeform Rise of Ralios which featured a number of "Stygian" sects which later saw elaboration for roleplaying. Not that "Watcher" is not an English translation of Greek Episkopos, which had become "bishop" over the centuries of church usage. Platonic philosophy entered Christian lore, too. Much like it is hard to describe moderate to cold climate pre-industrial farming houses that don't resemble Anglo-Saxon or Viking houses (or Bell Beaker houses), or 18th century farm houses, it is hard to describe Platonic monotheistic ideas outside of church teachings. The major shift away from RQ3 Malkionism is the scarcity of sorcery-users in the West, or in the East, while all of a sudden we have quite a few users of sorcery in Orlanthi society through Lhankor Mhy. The HQ2/HQG/Questworlds description of sorcery with grimoires is another thing not quite of RuneQuest. HQ1 Acolytists and Orderlies have disappeared except in Jamie Revell's HQ1 sourcebooks for the West. None for Ralios, though. Mongoose RQ for 2nd Age roleplaying had quite a few bits set in Ralios, although during the height of God Learner power. The sorcery system followed yet another concept, similar to Mythras.

That's the site of the Tentacles conventions, Castle Stahleck in Bacharach on the Rhine, the previous German convention organized by Fabian. The Kraken convention is in a different venue, Palais Neuhausen in Brandenburg. There still is a RQ/Chaosium/Glorantha-related convention at Castle Stahleck, Eternal Convention, with another international crowd. Gaming at the castle still is a thing (not just for the RuneQuest crowd, there are other German fan associations using the castle at dates other than Whitsun).

Check Drivethrurpg for the pdfs. DIY printing will result in practically the same quality as the originals.

@Eff did a great summary about the available sources.

Valley of the healers, blood beer. I always felt like this was similar to the Humakti Lead Cross heroquest.

No one might be a bit of an exaggeration if you think of the Mraloti subjects, but possibly noone within sight of the sea. My main problem with Khorst is how it manages to feed itself - Cajun-like harvesting the marshes to support an urban population?

The Weapons and Equipment Guide has a good list.

The Ernaldori priestesshood of the Clearwine temple uses matrilocality and matrilineality while the majority of the Colymar practice patrilocality and patrilineality. At least some of the Hiording nobility trace their origin to Hiord, suggesting patrilineality.

Sources: RQG GM Screen package Colymar Adventure Book, King of Sartar: Jalk's Book, HQ2 Sartar: Kingdom of Heroes, and most importantly what I can recall without actually looking at these sources right now: The Colymar entered Dragon Pass as a single clan "around 1300" in 1317 or 1318 upon the defeat of the King of Heortland against Belintar, or upon his return a year after he was slain by Belintar. The clan prospered, and split into six clans forming the Colymar tribe. Several of these clans were led by descendants of Colymar and Hareva, others weren't. One of the initial six clans was destroyed around 1350 when the Second Wave clans and tribes entered the Stream Valley. Other clans which had settled north of Tarndisi's grove joined the tribe (making it multilineal if it had not been previously), starting with the Hiordings and the Karandoli, a warlike clan also in the neighborhood which had started the Taral War (IIRC, might have been the Zarran War first) which involved one of the two triaties in the northern parts of the Colymar lands (as of prior to 1613), the Hyaloring or Runegate triaty and the Tree Brothers triaty. Both triaties each lost the integrity of one clan, which then was rebuilt by some of the original Colymar clans "lending" Colymar-descended nobility to that clan. A similar fate befell the Karandoli clan after it had started in strength (even fielding the sixth, IIRC, king of the Colymar shortly after joining the tribe). At least two more individual clans joined the tribe during these troubles, the Varmandi and the Jenstali, all in the northern portion of the tribal lands. Little is known about the origins of the Hiording clan other than the "heroic" tale of its founder Hiord stealing and hiding the swan garment of his later wife who enjoyed a skinny dip in human shape. After she had given him a few heirs, she somehow retrieved her swan garment and returned to her beastmen kin, IIRC.

Looks like you, @French Desperate WindChild, are about as dogmatic about this as I am. Which is unnecessary. Flowers are the sexual organs of plants. Mythologically as well, btw. There is a reason why lifebringers like Voria make the ground bloom. And why Voria adorns hersefl with mutilated sexual organs (flowers) like her slightly older sister Babeester. Flowers as food are a great exception. Flowers as source of flavours or of colour are known, but like every grower of buckwheat or sunflowers knows the seed follows a stage as flowers, and there are bees or other such agents involved. That's both the science and the myth about bees. Take away one, and you lose the other. Unless you think of Lotus Eating, which is a thing in Ignorance, and a potential export good if you ask Can Shu, Glory of Ignorance. Hazia is a case of flower stamen used as drugs. Saffron is a case of flower stemen used as (food) dye and/or spice. (Admittedly, there are Real World flowers which grow fruit but not seeds thanks to human interference, like the industrial banana of the western world, or like seedless grapes. These are aberrations, the kind of stuff that caused the downfall of the God Learners.) Our ancestors saw flowers before they had the capacity to think about them. But our ancestors also began to cultivate pseudocereals like buckwheat, or actual flower seeds like sunflowers, and they could observe how many berries or similar edible parts like strawberries retain the outer leaves of the flower. At some point, humans understood that following their sexual urges would result in babies. And as hunters, they observed this in their prey as well as in their carnivorous rivals. And as gatherers, they observed how pollination resulted in fruits forming, and how lack of pollination left the flowers barren. Our ancestors were not idiots, but keen observers. Whether they knew exactly what pollen or stemen were for or not, they easily observed a connection. And for the steps they did not understand, they found spirits etc. as explanations. So maybe pollen was some kind of fairy dust to them? Regardless, it had to do with carrying fruit, and fruit had to do with seeds which in turn often resulted in plants growing. From such observations our neolithic ancestors in many parts of the world cultivated certain grasses or flowers to provide them with more and bigger and better accessible seeds by processes of selection, long before a monk by the name of Mendel set out to do some math about that. Divinity can be mindless, too. Like volcano gods receiving food sacrifices on Java, with the people sacrificing the food not minding that there are poor people in the inside slopes of the crater catching and consuming their sacrifices, as long as these sacrifices have been properly offered. Is there reason behind worship and sacrifice? Is it some form of social ostentation - both among the people performing it and towards the divine? How much of that is identary (creating the in-group) rather than aiming to reassert reality? Do sun worshippers perform mourning rites each sunset? If not, why not? Read photosynthesis as creating fertility from sunlight or lesser sunlight, something mythically required by modern Gloranthan plants since the birth of Aether fairly early in the Green Age. Plants crave and require Sunlight, whether you call it photosynthesis (literally "making something out of light (and used-up or "stagnant" air, and water)" said with Greek syllables, without any reference to chlorophyll or osmosis or anything molecular) or "showering plants with life- and growth-enhancing light". So, yes, if you have plants that like Yelm (like Aldrya's), you have and need photosynthesis in the literal sense. We also have stygosynthesis by Mee Vorala, turning rot into growth. Fire elves and their habitat in southernmost Pamaltela probably has pyrosynthesis instead. You might also have aeolosynthesis, plants making stuff and harvesting energy from moving air, if you want. Pollination can be a divine or spirit act, but its presence in Glorantha has been documented. The gods have plenty justification for making such things happen now that they have ruined the Green Age when it may have been superfluous. It is their fault that this is necessary, and it is their responsibility to make it happen. Pollination seems to be part of the power of Flamal (fathering seeds). Shedding light so growth can happen used to be Aether's job but was inherited by Yelm. The gods, or at least the runes wielded by them, are required - even your most materialist and atheist sorcerer will corroborate that. So, again (and again and again): Glorantha is not a world without "spreading growth-enabling dust from blossoms" or "making stuff out of light". These myths are foundational, and removing them will crash the world. They have deities associated with this whose very being is to enable such stuff. You don't empower these deities by taking away stuff that results in bees being useful to flowering plants, you castrate them and the meaning behind them, making them cartoon versions of themselves. Do you want Yelm Squarepants?

Sounds like good material for long distance relationship marriages, then. Come home for some make-out sessions after some serious bathing and grooming, then send them off as far as possible to do boy stuff while keeping the more useful sons around to do man stuff. I wonder how much of a bestiality taboo holy people of Storm Bull and Eiritha have towards their totem animals, or towards minotaurs. If you look at the Founders, they basically are minotaurs of the corresponding totemic beast. That's barely human, too...

While that is true not just for sewers but also for any other kind of confined underground cavity, keep in mind that most ancient world sewers are first and foremost drainage systems for rainwater, often with the additional purpose to collect the water for cisterns, rather than the almost sludgy stuff in the collection tubes from modern cities which often have separate systems for rainwater, too (if for other reasons - mixing rain water with highly polluted water actually makes treatment harder and more expensive). So, when you set up a sewer system, first think whether you have toilets flushing into this system. Most toilet systems in older cities were mainly holes in the ground collecting whatever fell into them, with the liquid slowly seeping into the ground around them. Dangerous places if you fell in - there is one report from Lübeck where a groom and his brother lost their lives down in the loo on the wedding. Trolls can eat anything, including air, and possibly also bad air. There might be trained food trollkin tasked with eating up the bad air in the tunnels.

Over here in Europe, the GW RQ3 creatures hardcover may be easier to get hold of second hand. IIRC it included some of the statted samples in RQ3 Monster Coliseum. Sadly not the RQ3 Gloranthan bestiary, but still a much improved product.

While I wouldn't expect to find Professor Tolkien or C.S.Lewis on the Rubble walls, there might be some features up there that could support small patches of vegetation, but given the general dryness of Praxian climate, lichen would have a hard time, and so would mosses. Around the Garden I would expect a thorough invasion by vines, and after years of neglect also a bit of topsoil protected by such vines, possibly allowing some stunted tree growth, or possibly Angkot-Vat like formation of roots reaching down on both sides of the wall. Much of the surface material will be processed Giant Jolanti material, with only occasional bits of Paragua's stone slabs peeking through at the surface, possibly cropped by the Flintnail cult to provide a sufficiently smooth surface. I don't recall any crenelation on the Rubble Walls, but there might be some uniform raised balustrade on both sides, though not necessarily more than a meter. Flying creatures would perch on the wall before swooping down onto any prey. Whether any of the creatures that named the old Rubble Gates will be present in the Modern Age is a different question. Gargoyles are possible, as are meditating dragonewts. On the troll-adjacent walls, trollkin may keep the top of the wall clean.

Participants in holy rites may claim exemption from marriage vows, although high honor stats might take a minor hit if there is more debauchery than religious practice involved. Adultery with initiates or rune levels of Eurmal, Uleria, Yinkin or Orlanth Niskis can be regarded as holy re-enactment, too, but that's a thinner excuse, especially away from sanctified ground. Day marriages undergone with sufficient ritual oomph might turn what would otherwise be adultery into legitimized polyandry/polygyny, too - always depending on the level of exclusivity in the marriage vows. Another passion that might take a hit is "love <marriage partner>" or "love <family>". On the other hand, passions like "sensual" or "promiscuous" might be created or reinforced. There might be in-laws willing to sue participants from stricter forms of marriage, and some might be powerful enough to even take on a major temple like Three Emeralds. In the end, this is a matter of player-buy in and circumstances, and/or GM nastiness. Especially when failure to participate might affect Devotion passions.

How Gorakiki Bee lost Darkness? How Gorakiki Bee collected Sunlight, and was changed by that? Hoy exposure to Aether caused Gorakiki to grow hymenoptera wings? (She, or her mother, may have mixed in to the Three Curious Spirits encounter with fetal Aether, and may have been impregnated with light?) And that's just using Gorakiki. Verithurusa's dip into the Underworld following the encounter with Umath in the sky might have spawned (some, or possibly most) moths, for instance. Another approach might be the life cycles of higher insects, with a Darkness stage (the maggot/larva), an Earth stage (the pupa) and a Sky/Fire/Air stage (the imago), plus whatever rune you might wish to assign to the egg stage. Certain types of insect like dragonflies or great diving beetles might use Water for the larval stage (although the hunger drive is important there, too, as anybody who has witnessed a great diving beetle larva among tadpoles will be able to attest - with a nod towards Giger's xenomorphs). Another thing for your friend to explore could be the various timinits of Jrustela and Umathela, currently only described in the Guide p.503, although there were some stats for Myrmidons and Lucans in the RQ3 Gloranthan Bestiary, and a few more in the Jrustela books for MRQ 1 and 2 and the associated bestiary books. There are no known ancestral ties to Gorakiki or Aranea.

Sounds a bit like a Thursday Next cross-over.

Didn't feel like that to me, but I take your point. So were you speaking about the divine ancestors of ordinary plants, or do you want your ordinary plants to follow these Green Age rules despite all the detrimential influence of several cataclysms, and Time in general? Gods as well as mortals were created through a variety of processes. The three fiery sons of Aether were thought into existence, as was Dayzatar's offspring. The first mortal humans spring from a variety of origins, including being made of clay with various magical additions, being the lesser children of deities or runes, or resulting from often weird matings, or from parthenogenetic births. Durev (a common ancestor of many Orlanthi) was carved out of a tree by Orstan the Elder. Emperors often beg to differ. While talking about different effluvia of Moonson, the two MOB stories about the Red Emperor's chamber in the Rough Guide to Glamour do indeed assign divinity to the profane. Properly administered, it may trigger the magic of creating a new life. Plants do thrive on nutrients - Pamaltelan lineage plants for instance thrive on the graves of the Doraddi ancestors and their descendants. Not necessarily IRL processes, but personally I find eliminating the concept of pollination quite drastic - effectively, it removes all male plants or plant components except male elves, and it makes flowers or pre-seed plant organs unnecessary. It is possible to design such a world, but IMO Glorantha is not that. IMO it does, elevating the work of bees that may originally only have been a convenience to the planta ss receiving that attention into a vitally important one. Troll Pak has a scenario set on the edge of the Valley of Flowers, in the Bee Tribe of Dagori Inkarth, where various outputs of their giant bees are discussed, including: (Into Uzdom p.31) YGMV, of course, but at least for giant flowers in Dagori Inkarth pollination by giant bees is an established fact. Applied with all the consequences, your Gloranthan flora would barely resemble that we are familiar with. An interesting assumption for a different world, sure, but not applicable to my personal understanding of Glorantha. (Which is far from a knock-out criterion.) Hunter-Gatherers annd their harvesting have been impacted by these ecological changes just as much as agricultural crops and their tenders. The rites at Wild Temple are just what you described above. Only in the sense that all sky creatures are birds. A bit like saying that jellyfish and shellfish are part of the genus of vertebrates inhabiting water that we commonly call fish, like e.g. sharks, herrings, flounders, or even lampreys. All horses are creatures of Fire by descent. Hatching from eggs? I'll have to check Pegasus Plateau for the information of the early life cycle of hippogriffs, and Griffin Mountain for that of griffins, but I don't recall any egg shards as potential loot. On the other hand, in Greek mythology Leda having intercourse with Zeus in swan shape resulted in her laying two eggs with twins in each. Neither the Grazers nor those crazy Char-un have yet produced an egg-laying mare, at least according to official publications. Horses lactate (in Glorantha, too), not so sure about hippogriffs though. Weird pipe dreams are always an option in Glorantha. Each damaging of Hippogriff may have come with a gift, possibly an unintentional one, for the broken creature called Hippoi. Horses certainly breathe air. Whether centaurs do (and how they do it for their huge horse bodies with those tiny respiratory holes in their human portions) can be a matter of debate. There is something to be said in favor of player characters encountering plants that behave in the magical or archetypical ways you describe. In my games, I would reserve such encounters for areas within the Proximate Holy Realm or outright on the hero planes or Godplane. Such specimen would be powerful artifacs if retrieved and introduced in Surface World Glorantha, but compare the one known introduction of a new agricultural plant to Glorantha, maize, and the harvest sacrifices required to grow it. You could create a flower that provides the equivalent of sunlight in underground caves, enabling an entire photosynthetic ecology in its wake, whether you sell that as bioluminescence or as tapping directly into the Source of All Energies far above the Sky Dome, but there are other underground biomes we might construct, like e.g. a colonoy of fire elves (originally from the top of the Spike) inhabiting a scorched portion of Wonderhome, surviving in the glowing ashes of Bijiif. Removing bees from the reproductive cycle of plant life leaves us with a couple of problems. Starting with the euphemisms about flowers and bees when teaching the presumed innocent about sex becoming irrelevant.