Joerg

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.)

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...)