Joerg

River of Cradles comes in several parts. It contains reprinted material from Borderlands and Pavis, the RQ3 long cult write-ups of the Lightbringers and Zola Fel, and the Troubled Waters campaign. Reprinting the stuff that comes from the RQ2 publications would be similar to including another full cult write-up of Kyger Litor. I don't know whether the rights to the Troubled Waters scenario lie with Ken Rolston or with Avalon Hill (and in the latter case, whether they were part of the RuneQuest license that they or their successor dropped afterwards). It would make a nice bundle with Shadows on the Borderlands, or possibly also Strangers in Prax.1 If I understood the plans correctly, Sun County might experience a make-over to fit the new timeline requirements. MOB has been sharing some of the developments since the Cradle incident. The return to the draconic/traditionalist schisma between Belvani and Vega provides good story potential. Argrath's Pavis doesn't get much spotlight after 1624. It might become something like the heroquesting academy for his warlocks, though, with all the possibilites offered by the Big Rubble. (One might even go a bit Harry Potter, there...) I think a RQ3 Classics book "Scenarios in Prax" combining Troubled Waters, the two books "Shadows on the Borderland" and "Strangers in Prax" and possibly those scenario bits from Sun County not reused in an updated version would be a nifty book to have. That leaves mainly Dorastor. The Dorastor history is included in the Guide, leaving only the monster collection, the gazetteer of Dorastor and the Riskland campaign unavailable. Toss in Lords of Terror (and maybe the Lightbringer cults from River of Cradles and Ernalda from the DeLuxe Box), and you get a full book, too. That leaves some not yet re-hashed bits from Genertela Box, Gods of Glorantha, Elder Secrets, the Gloranthan Bestiary, the De Luxe box, Missing Lands, and possibly Monster Coliseum for a general RQ3 Glorantha catch-up, and either RQ2 or RQ3 Trollpak and associated material (Troll Gods, Into the Troll Realms, Sazdorf,) to be returned. I would be happy if the maybe 60 pages of extra material in the RQ3 version were added to the RQ2 reprint. The excellent campaign that was adapted for both Vikings and Land of Ninja is worth saving, too. Maybe as the core material for the general Glorantha catch-up. (The Vikings campaign is the closest I ever came to GM published RQ scenarios.) All of that needs editing manpower that should not be withdrawn from the RQG line, though.

All illumination means some rapport with Chaos. As for Imarja, she is almost all-encompassing (stopping only at Kodig and his kin, it seems), and would have wed the Earth Queen to anyone. Possibly Nontraya as well, but definitely to Chaos if Chaos had come. I think that the cotery of Imarjan Grandmothers and the Earth cult at Ezel aren't always pulling in the same direction, and the same might be true for the relationship between Great Ernalda and Imarja. There is a great deal of overlap, but the Venn diagram shows exclusive areas for either. Nontraya doesn't show up in connection to Imarja, for instance. (And there is still that funky conspiracy theory that Imarja is a re-incarnating keet sage hiding out in the durulz population of the region, leading the biggest city and most populous land of the region by the no(o)se. A possibly fallen sage.) Nontraya is still a bit puzzling. In some sense he is Vivamort, the deity who preferred Undeath to Annihilation, but there is no evidence that he fulfills any of the classical vampire tropes. Not that drinking human blood would be raising much of an eyebrow in Esrolia, after all Babeester Gor does encourage this. Nontraya is quite similar to the Death that came to Prax and got tricked by Tada burying Eiritha.

Ziggurats were the rage all over Dragon Pass, if you look at the Ivory Plinth or Wasp Nest.

While this is true for basically all Heortlings, it doesn't matter to the Kitori. We get an impression of the nature of the Kitori tribute with the Darklord Krengen Bik who rules-lawyers the amount of some extinct type of grass seeds into a mountain of barley seeds in History of the Heortling People p.72. Other forms of that tribute involve kin of the king. That made me chuckle. Yes, take that as a morality tale...

A very valid assumption. Now, which period Heortlings do you mean? (Sorry...) Pre-Lokamayadon/Harmast we have the Dawn survivors, who join forces with all the other Unity Council folk, then split over the God Project. Then we have the Harmast successors, freshly aware of the composite Lightbringers Quest re-created by Harmast, to complement their world-reaffirmation through the I Fought We Won mystery, taken over by the Old Day traditionalist opponents of the dragon ways (although non-militant as far as the Hendriki tribe and their subjects were concerned, much different from the southern Pelorians). They have their Larnstings establishing new rules. Post-Dragonkill adaptation of Alakoring's Rex cult brings another new perspective, possibly overriding the Larnsting sensibilities that linger in the Hendriki. Then the Taliban fanatics rather risking annihilation in Dragon Pass than doctrinal pollution under Belintar's governor-kings. And finally we have the Lunar occupation era resistance fighters taking their very own anti-Chaos spin. Each of these groups would project a different life reality on their myths, and discover new interpretations of old stories. The flame is the separating agent, releasing the immortal portion to godhead. This is not really different from Orlanth undergoing the Flames of Ehilm in the court of Maggotliege in the Underworld, a purification of those things that hold his divinity back. Returning to anthropology influenced by a recent meeting with an Archaeology professor with ties to Hedeby and the Roman Iron Age for the Cimbrian peninsula, I wonder how common cremation was over the various phases of the Orlanthi, and what role body burials play in those cultural phases. Vingkot avoided body burial, but he was immolated alive rather than cremated. Brolarulf's Immolation may have changed the Orlanthi view of immolations. To be fair, the imperial godhead was granted to them while alive, the burial cremations sort of promoted them to Elder Statesman status among the divinities. Our western mind-set might be a bit at a loss to accept that a human like you and me can be a divine being at the same time, or at least when divinity is called for. I guess that my polytheistic Germanic ancestor had no problems with such a superposition, and I get the impression that the Japanese concept of a living deity (e.g. residing in the Tenno) is pretty much the same thing. That may be a projection of the Brolarulf immolation on the descendance of Vingkot. You have a point in Irillo being a part of the Nochet side of the story, and may be rather an unknown in the Heortling perspective of this myth. However, the warlord role doesn't really matter much in the Heortling perspective - they would be concerned with Rastagar and his Queen of Nochet, and post-Finelvanth that story may be loaded differently than before the Adjustment Wars. I feel that Rastagar gets plenty undeserved flak due to his queen consorting with Chaos. The side of Imarja that nobody likes to acknowledge, but which is definitely an integral part of her. Oh, I am with you there. Imarja expresses Ana Gor on a regular basis. The story as told in Esrolia Land of 10k Goddesses has Irillo return from Rastagar's last battle post-mortem, which is not necessarily a problem at this stage of the Greater Darkness. Might be a possibility. My main problem with this interpretation is the lack of reported disagreement or disrespect between Broyan and his Queen of Nochet Samastina. Broyan's fault is his sacrifice of the City of Wonders - something few Heortlings would grieve for - but what got him was a breach of the Kitori Tribute, not even his fault but that of his predecessors. Vingkotling kings play at the highest stakes, but a tragic ending is far from guaranteed, just look at Yarandros of Tarsh or Sartar of Dragon Pass.

Two kings and a queen is a timeless classic. (Need I mention Eleanore of Aquitaine? Helen of Sparta/Troy? Although the first myth that comes to my mind with a queen and a bull will remain the myth of the minotaur.) One problem I have with the Irish myths is that they come from a culture that is primarily pastoralist, hardly agriculturalist, giving their cattle a much greater importance than even the responsibility to draw the plow that they had in Vedic (and later) India. The Irish diet in the Roman Iron Age was mainly based on milk and butter, and hardly on grain, according to the research I did on them in the last millennium. But then the Hendriki are probably the Heortling tribe which comes closest to this not necessarily sedentary life-style. A possibility, but surely a lot less archaic than the Orlanthland period. That theme of the thwarted wife is re-iterated in Finelvanth's conflict with his Nochet wife for the pre-Belintar range of the Third Age. No rival "love" or male power source, but all the parameters for the Sword and Helm conflict in the Modern Age. Urox is (like Pelandan Bisos) the death-overcoming self-sacrificial bull. But there are myths tieing both Orlanth and Vingkot to the bull, as its tamer and harnesser. I like your approach, which probably ignores the aspects I like to consider - how the life circumstances of a people will affect their myths (and vice versa). Adultery by the wife isn't the norm in Orlanthi morality tales - compare the failings of Finelvanth. I wonder whether the Orlanthi have some concept like a "year divorce" as a reversal to a "year marriage" - a sabbatical from a marriage which might be under duress. Actually, the Kitori are willing to sit by as long as both parties don't slack in their tribute contributions or call them to intercede.

Given the practice of sacrificial year- or seven-year-kings among some Orlanthi, adding the powers of Vingkot to this health hazard doesn't change much. It may be a coincidence that Broyan is killed in the seventh year after his coronation as King of Whitewall. I guess that was me speculating about the "distant battle" that Rastagar and Irillo were drawn to as followers of Orlanth. When Orlanth met the army of the Luatha on the shores of Luathela, he summoned the Ring of the Vingkotlings. Battling Luatha is quite heroic if you look at their description in the Seshnela section of the Guide, so the battle will have been bloody on both sides. Godtime chronology isn't always reliable. Parts of the Westfaring visited places that should not have been present that late in the Vingkotling Age. But on the other hand, we know that the Westfaring used by Harmast was a reconstructed myth, grabbing stories from all over the Heortling tribes, so maybe the mis-dated stations that modern questers following Harmast's path visit are actually from earlier myths. It is possible that Parntor founding the Deer Tribe occurred during the reign of Rastagar. After Rastagar, there was no king they could have been messengers for. In that case, his (presumed) son Darntor (irritatingly named a son of Andarn) could very well have been a young participant of the Ring of the Vingkotlings battle. The flexibility of Godtime or Godtime sequence is also visible in the "50 generations of Deer Folk" remembered by the Speakers of the Deer Folk. That list possibly bears a strong similarity to the temporal sequence of the list of Sacred Kings recited by Dag in King of Sartar. The opponents of the Ralian battle are called the Lesser Kajabori, so they might be a remnant force of that earlier conflict. I prefer to have all the nine Vingkotling tribes to predate Rastagar inheriting the kingship over Nochet and the Vingkotlings as a whole. Lastralgor was the older brother of Jorganos, and the remnants of his tribe were the kernels of the first two star tribes (through marriages with the daughters of Lastralgor's half-nieces from the Winter Tribe kings). In a way, all Godtime battles can be reduced to the One Battle, happening again and again and again, where faces and names may vary, but the fact that people step up and kill (or just dismember) one another remains. Calling it the Hill of Orlanth Victorious before the victory has been achieved would be presumptious, wouldn't it? YGDV, at least from mine. The Orlanthi have a very bad habit to slander heroes with unlucky outcomes posthumously. Arkat or Rastagar got demonized by surviving political enemies. It is far from rare that both sides in a conflict among Orlanthi act as proxies for Orlanth. The Lawstaff quest is an example for a situation where two Orlanthi need to decide which one of them is more Orlanth (and thereby just) than the other. That Esrolia year king/sacrificial king business is connected to the Silver Age hero Kalops, significantly after Rastagar's demise. And it is not like the Imarkans appear to believe that males can act as vessels of sovereignty anyway. The runic opposite of Disorder is Harmony, not order. Combining the notions of fire and Trickster is a concept I like, though. Whoah. Nice God-Learning. Everybody has a claim on Queen Earth - that's her role in the Cosmos. Older chthonic ghost cult - the cosmos still is in its downward spiral, things are getting worse and worse. Some few local improvements were brought early in the Storm Age, like Orlanth beating back the invading seas, liberating much of Esrolia and Arstola. So, yes, there might have been a worse period in the story of Ezel, with the Earth Queen absent in servitude to the Emperor, and an opportunity for a darker expression of the Earth, but that was before the second application of Death (and separation of body and spirit). I disagree strongly. Irillo is about not being a Vingkot ruler, but the good underhusband/champion, leaving the rulership to the queen where the Imarjans say it belongs. Stepping up as a Vingkotling king had Hendira in hives (see her scene in Samastina's chapter in Prince of Sartar). Samastina cooperating with the Vingkotling over-king is an affront to the Imarjans of Nochet and Esrolia, and a risky gamble on Samastina's part, a ride on a blade. IMO the concept of Vingkotling kingship is contrary to the sacrificial kingship. Compare the upset Yarandros of Tarsh caused when he claimed Vingkotling kingship rather than the Sacred Marriage sovereignty. The concept probably grew after Rastagar's demise. But MGMV, and it definitely varies from yours. The entire concept of sacrifice (at least among the Heortlings) was introduced by Hantrafal, who appears to be a contemporary of Heort. (Dara Happan Buserian - literally "sacrificer of cows/bulls" - may have preceded that, but we're talking Heortlings here.) Huh? Are you talking about human sacrifice here? There is another problem about killing folk during the Greater Darkness - they stayed around, despite being dead. It took the Silver Age heroes to separate the Dead from the Living and to designate them to Underworld places. Immolation like Sartar's is a means of trans-substantiating rather than preparing a dead body for the afterlife as in cremation. Involuntary immolation like Brolarulf Burnt-Poet's is different, and that special instance had no component of sacrifice, not even to call down a death-curse on Lokamayadon. Heort's Laws confirm the practices introduced by Hantrafal, free from the Ana Gor practices that are maintained by the Dark Earth cults of Imarja and Maran. Vingkot was immortal, which made his suffering from the Chaos Wound so unbearable. Vingkot chose to leave the world of the living, following Yelm on the Path of the Dead. There is a problem with the timing of the battle in which Vingkot received that wound if you try to force the Gods War into a coherent timeline. I stopped trying. Of course Storm is the Merger of Earth and Fire, unlike all the other elements before it. But I don't think that postulating an inner other element for each element is helpful. If you look at the cosmology, the Earth Cube is surrounded by Darkness, separated through water, on all sides but the surface, where this is only true in the night. What a great heterodox story. Really. And there should be magic availabe from following this path, even though I regard it as Alternate Facts, and therefore exremely hard to perform as a heroquest. Eurmal is the thief of fire, never its owner. A lot less so than his all-too strong connection to Death, much to the regret of pretty much everybody. Orlanth finding Eurmal, saving him from the persecution of thecity on the Black Isle of Introspection, is the least sequential station of the Westfaring. I find it quite possible that this is a much earlier myth that was inserted here by Harmast for lack of knowledge of a better timed myth (that would actually propel him further westward). The atrocities of the Hidden Kings aren't much different from other survival efforts in the Greater Darkness. Is the ritual bear hunt of the bear shapeshifting worshippers (of Rathor or Odayla, to name just two such cults) cannibalism? The nature of the beasts that the Hidden Kings shifted to may have been more controversial than the fact that they took carnivorous shape. IIRC there were wolves involved, a no-go for Orlanthi (with the exception of Humakt). (This may have been a factor in hindering the ascension of Salinarg for his choice of wife, repeating the sin of Onelisin with a desendant of hers and Ostling.) A lot of your assumptions are really long shots. Nonetheless, the entire story is fascinating. I just cannot get far enough out of my bubble to buy it for my Glorantha.

There was a speculation that "Baron Sanuel" might be a title granted to Mularik Ironeye. Lacking the preview of the Glorantha introduction that is to accompany the 13G book, I cannot say more about that. I find that unlikely. The Locaem became a tribe of Sartar after Sartar founded the Wilmskirk confederation. If they had still been in contact with other Volsaxi tribes, they would have been as likely to remain in the Volsaxi tribe (which had an independence from the Overseer of Heortland on and off). Who but the Mostali claims that this is the case? The link between Gustbran and the Mostali appears to have weakened since the old "Gods of Fire" article in Wyrm's Footnotes/Footprints. Even then, Gustbran may have been more the impersonal elemental forge fire from among the Lowfires than the human-like god who wields the hammer. Storm Tribe names him as a son of Vestkarthen exiled for trying something new. I may be wrong here, but to me the Volsaxi appear as a continuation of the Hendriki tribe rather than one of the Foreigner tribes defined by Aventus' Laws (see History of the Heortling Peoples), and the Hendriki are pretty much the most archetypal storm Orlanthi among the Heortlings that I can think of. Volsax is listed as one of the Orlanthi heroes in Heortling Mythology (p.185), active in the Dawn Age. IMO he founded a sub-tribe of the Hendriki Tribe. Dreven may have been a river worshipper, or the river deity or demigod of a group of Orlanthi worshippers. All of that significantly after the Dawn, so "Dureving" should not be applicable any more than Vingkotling - all the Orlanthi (in the stricter sense) in the region were Heortlings. There may have been non-Heortling Theyalan (a scholarly term for culturally, but not cultic Orlanthi) fisherfolk, these are attested as one of the foreigner tribes subject to the foreigner laws - kin to the Pelaskites of Karse and the Rightarms. Geo was a companion of Sartar, and his cult later adopted the Sanchali Tribe (which was a remnant of the precursor of the Cinsina, according to The Coming Storm). His origin is as unclear as that of Wilms or Ostling Four Wolves (the other two named companions of Sartar). None of these details have been confirmed or contradicted in publications (or maps) since, but I think that this info might have come from the crowd-sourcing for that gazetteer. While it gives the in-Glorantha document "History of the Heortling Peoples" as a source, that data is not included in the Stafford library publication to that name. Those Irish parallels were all the rage in the Orlanthi discussions of the 90ies in the digest. I never cease to wonder why the anglophone concept of Celts is so firmly tied to that island outlier of the Celts and not to their core area around the northern flank of the Alps, or their expansion along the northern Mediterranean. Anyway, Karstanstead is described as a royal Volsaxi stead by the time of Hardrard the Green, so Karstan would have lived significantly earlier than Hardrard, possibly as early as the early Imperial Age, long before the Volsaxi could claim the inheritance of the Hendriki kings.

Jaldon is part of the Sartarite order of battle in all of the Dragon Pass boardgame scenarios after the initial ones which fall into the time of the conquest of Pavis. (And so are the Wolf Runners who use the Lunar cycle for their combat strength, and who were generally assumed to be the Telmori rather than the Wolf Slayers.) But rather than seeing any mention of Jaldon leading Praxians, we get Argrath White Bull mentioned in a couple of cases, often acting differently from what a heir of Sartar would be expected to do. I recently revisited Wesley Quadros' and Martin Laurie's Gwandor Saga, which had four or five different Argraths vying for power. I take it from Prince of Sartar that the number has dwindled closer to one than half a dozen, although Bad Dream Enostar still seems to be canonical. After page 23, in the original violet paperback... ;-)

Grenades or explosive rounds, or high penetration rounds wearing away the cover, to make them give up a position. Secondary damage from splinters, ricochets or droplets of molten cover at near misses (about the same as disruption damage). Possibly a maneuver that combines covering fire by allies with a change in position. Offer both the carrot (you will improve your situation by changing position) and the stick (if you remain hiding here without someone else taking out that shooter, you'll be whittled away). Battle fog: whether it is blackpowder soot hanging in the air or smoke and ejecta from near misses with high energy ammo, both sight and breathing may be impaired when remaining in the same firing hole for too long. That's a disadvantage for the person hiding there - in a ballistic or line of sight firefight, knowing the position of the target eliminates the need for seeing the target (as long as the projectile or ray penetrates the smoke screen better than the visuals). Even more so for grenade launchers, or primitive autonomous drones delivering explosive payloads. If the players don't think of smoke grenades or strobe light grenades, have their opposition use them against them. They'll adapt. A well positioned sniper should be able to eliminate a number of mooks before being encircled in his nest. A duel of snipers probably isn't the stuff that makes a pen and paper rpg fight exciting, although it should be an intense experience for the player participating in that duel.

So basically this is author's privilege for setting some facts. And I should be the last Gloranthan scholar to get passionate about Prax and the Wastes... However, Jaldon is suspiciously absent from King of Sartar, which otherwise makes some use of the sequence of battles in the Dragon Pass boardgame. Instead, we get confronted with White Bull as an agent besides the new Prince of Sartar and King of Dragon Pass, so this is a subject that I have spent some effort on. This sounds a lot like the Champion of Waha in Stephen Martin's reworking of French Nomad Gods to the Corbett rules of Dragon Pass. The raider khan may very well have raided eastwards, into the former Zaranistangi kingdom beyond the Fever Trees. On the other hand, Waha never really raided - who was there to be raided? Unless you count his recovery of the Protectresses. All the other founders most likely did raid in their youths - they were Storm Tribe, then, yet unburdened by Orlanth's attempts at civilizing them. But Waha is the late-born son of the Bull, the champion of survival rather than the glorious raider. If Jaldon was Waha reborn, he would have been the best fit for the Paps Khan. This sounds more like he was born to the powers of Waha, but not to the spirit of Waha. He may have been the perfect vessel for the god. But he didn't quite let him in, and instead pursued weird other magics, magics that he already had at the breach of the Pavis Wall. I don't think that this magic was linked to Waha in any way. It might be connected to that Godtime child of Androgeus named Goldtooth. Once upon a time there was a discussion about spirit integration. This sounds like something similar, but on a much grander scale. So his curse kept him away from Alavan Argay, even though that battle happened almost on his doorstep? The phrasing was quite peculiar: "Born in a Bison tent." And, since he was eligible as khan, born to a khan of Waha. So this leaves the matter of the lineage of his mother. Where is his power place, really? The Plateau of Statues (which is unreachable for the Ghost Khan), or his cairn at Jaldon's Rest? I am not sure who built that cairn. While its depiction in the Dragon Pass boardgame bears a slight resemblance to my image of Tada's Tumulus (which is based on the tumulus of Seleucos, and possibly Queen Maeve's cairn above Sligo), it may as well have been built as a vessel of his curse, by the EWF. I wonder who he ran afoul of. Varnakol the Mangler should still have been up and around during Jaldon's raid, and those two facing off would have been an epic battle. Varnakol is the kind of guy who would pronounce such a curse, too. I am fairly convinced that Derik sort of merged with Jaldon during that struggle. Maybe not to the extent that Arkat emerged from the ruins of the City of Miracles, but in some way Derik conquered some of the magics of Jaldon, and while he lived, Jaldon did not rise again. Do you have any thoughts about Jaldon during the Seleric Empire?

There are few cults with both priests and lords, and probably still too many, mainly for backward compatibility. Assigning both a rune lord and a rune priest position to each and any cult (as per Rune Masters) was one of the features of RQ2 that was dropped in RQ3, and with some reason. Yelmalio should by any rights only have the rune lord position, but the priest position was probably retained because of the prominence of Yelmalio cultists from both tracks in popular publications like Pavis or Griffin Mountain. For Sun County, we have an amusing historical reason (Teshnos) for having both lords and priests, and the Sartar Sun Dome quite likely inherited those from the Praxian one. The cult in Balazar is a fringe organisation, and to be honest I don't have any idea how the Goldedge templars or the tribal Yelmalians in the Far Point distribute those duties. Then there are Orlanth and Yelm, Great Gods of the universe who combine various and possibly formerly independent traditions into a single cult. Horse nomad Yelm should have shamans rather than priests, and I don't think that urban Pelorian Yelm has many rune lords who aren't lords of their community, either. In case of Orlanth, apart from Adventurous, also the Rex subcult has a Rune Lord rather than a Rune Priest. All three postions (the third being the Storm Voice) have mixed responsibiities - the Four Magic Weapons quest sounds like something done by a rune lord, but is part of the Thunderous subcult. Karrg is presented as a subcult of Kyger Litor and the main outlet for an orthodox male troll. The uz don't have female lords, and they don't have male priests of Kyger Litor. Even the male shamans appear to be limited to allied deities (like Dehore) rather than to the Great Mother. Aldrya has High King Elf for the lord position. The Seven Mothers are a strange composite cult, inheriting the rune lord of Humakt via Yanafal and the earth priestess via Deezola. In RQ3, rune lords didn't necessarily get reusable divine magic, and initiates never did. Instead, the Acolyte was introduced as an intermediary stage, the part-time god-talker. And RQ2 Runelord/Priests (common in the high-powered games beyond initiate level played by the Chaosium house campaign) would become Rune Lord/Acolytes under RQ rules. When it became a general agreement that initiates should be able to regain their divine magic, although less often than specialists, one of the main limitations of rune lords was lifted. The other advantage of 1d10 divine intervention (rather than the RQ2 spell point type for priests) was lifted for some of the cults that had rune lords, and DI for priests was the same as for initiates (1d100), thus highly unlikely to succeed. (In all my years of playing RQ3, I only saw one successful initiate level DI, and that left the character at a POW of 3 for the rest of the campaign.) I am somewhat curious how the cult of Pavis is going to be presented for RQG. The HeroQuest 2 / HQG treatment has placed Pavis in the realm of sorcery. Still, there are one son and up to six daughters of Pavis making up the priesthood, and when Balastor's axe returns to the public, one champion (lord). So, how is WoD going to tackle this? Spells aren't much of a problem, How do you manage Divine Intervention?

I was wondering whether this may have been a piece of Loper magic. While we now know that the Lopers never were a Praxian tribe (in the sense of even acknowledging Waha's Covenant), they have been perceived as another weird beast riding tribe in the past, possibly even by Greg. A powerful quester like Joraz Khyrem was able to adopt his horses into the Covenant by making them zebras. The even more powerful quester Jaldon sired a new beast on the Goddess, or brought back a forgotten one. But then, beware of the boggles that haunt some parts of the Tunneled Hills. Part of Jaldon's mystique might just be a Boggle gift. And his steed might, too. An even weirder idea might be that he did all those Bison tribe things while he (or a portion of him, possibly ripped off or budded by the Boggles) went to the east, and at some time returned and got re-integrated (by being eaten - tooth magics, and all). I would have expected his acquisition of Home way earlier, as an early signature move to Greatness. Do you have any unpublished sources for this late acquisition, or does this simply fit your conception of his timeline better? Have you given any consideration to a possible tie-in with Androgeus via the Goldtooth epithet/power? I am also quite disappointed to learn that for a while Jaldon was a regular khan of the Bison riders. I always thought of him as an oddball, not quite a power in the Praxian intertribal squabbles as presented in Nomad Gods, even if some of the contests may have been set up by him. In the old hex-based boardgames, Jaldon is the leader of the oddballs, and not of the standard Praxians. It is quite ironic that the Barbarian Horde in the Dragon Pass boardgame pairs Jaldon with the Pol Joni, anyway.

What about the years 907 - 922? Those 15 years (coinciding with the Machine Wars) will have seen his life in the tribe, or will have given him opportunities to "adventure" further east. We still don't know how he received his steed "Home", That reeks of personal quests rather than a mainstream life in the Bison tribe. I see some possibilities for Jaldon to have quested into Green Age myths to obtain that strange steed. The other possibility still is that he went into Teshnos, possibly picking up some Zaranistangi magics through raiding.

It's the text repeated verbatim from Pavis in the Moondesign Pavis Gateway to Adventure book, p.34. I have to admit that I didn't get the implication of Jaldon possibly receiving Eastern mystical training earlier, either. I was researching if the date or at least season for Jaldon's success against the Pavis wall was known.

Argrath has Jaldon by his side. Jaldon might have had a different special auspicious date to repeat his original breach of Pavis' wall. The text says that Jaldon disappeared into eastern Genertela, and returned as a crazed mystic. Did he enter God-Learner ruled Eest or Kralorela?

So, you can take "drive" up to 50% and have the same chance at driving a Sherman Tank, a Road Train, or a Tesla sports car, but when I get up to 51%, it makes a difference? Somehow my own driving experience (with none of the aforementioned models, but e.g. switching from gear box to automatic) were different. It felt more like being penalized for driving with an unfamiliar mode, a penalty that could be bought down. On the other hand, material matters. It makes a difference whether I shoot an ACE arrow or an aluminium tube arrow from my sports bow, both of which require choice of material tuned to the bow and my draw length. Mathematics skill is an interesting topic, too. While I made it through high school usually at the top of my class, I have an aptitude towards arithmetics and algebra but not really for non-numeric geometric construction or set theory. My university exposure to math was intense, but focussed on the math I would need in physics and chemistry., including calculus and statistics. So one could argue that I have a math skill appropriate to good high school knowledge, refined by specialization in university, but with known disadvantages in certain fields, and unknown disadvantages in other fields I haven't had deep encounters with yet. And how I perform in a certain situation may depend on which research tools are available to me, and how much I am left alone with what I recall from having learned explicitely, what I can cobble together from similar things I have done, and what I can deduct from given basics and applying to the problem before me. Not to mention general fitness, urgency, stress and other influences on my performance. Sometimes these factors may just be summed up in the randomization of a die roll. Sometimes the obvious eludes even the expert, at other times a first impression may be more spot on than any intense cogitation. If I roll up a modern character with the background "university diploma in chemistry", this will represent a skill set. Different people with this grade will have vasty different skil sets, through specialization, subjects dropped from the local curriculum, or extracurricular activity resulting in side knowledge. Do I get "Craft Glassblower" at entry levels because I learnt to bend glass tubes or blowing glass bulbs out of them using a Bunsen burner? Does knowledge about the structure and synthesis of certain pharmaceutical substances warrant any level in pharmacist, or does it call for the "Lore/Craft Chemist" skill at some situational penalty instead?

No, definitely keep posting that story. Take the money anyway.

The current thought is that sacrificing your non-permanent POW aka magic points on a holy day or a high holy day may gain you a POW check and regains one point of divine magic. It could be argued that spending the holy day not in reaffirming the world but instead in increasing your magical power should be penalized rather than rewarded. Like, you forego your chance for a POW check when sacrificing POW for a new spell (point in your spell pool). That selfish activity detracts from your experience of the magic. But then that assumes that you experience the holy day in ceremony at the temple, and not flying the winds to the nearest Holy Mountain from where you enter Orlanth's Hall. If your holy day is spent flying on the winds and then feasting in Orlanth's hall, where do you find the time for sacrificing for a new spell? And where do you find a priest not involved in enabling that holy day magic? Learning your new spell by exiting Orlanth's Hall into the appropriate myth could be possible, though. After all, the magic of a divine spell draws the mythic reality of that incident to the caster of the divine spell, enabling him to act like his deity. But that results in less carousing with the host of Orlanth, less strengthening of your soul. Less chance at re-gaining that point of POW you are going to transform into a spell pool point. If you want more out of that Other Side visit, it is up to you and your supporting community (or communities) to start a heroquest on that day. That's the only way I would interfere with the point-for-point economy of divine magic in RQ. I would agree to an argumentation that divine magic cast in ritual context on the holy day gets casting benefits. So, whether you undergo a structured liturgy on the holy day or whether you visit the other side, your personal business is distracting from the real purpose of the holy day. Holy days are about the role of the deity in the world more than they are about the individual worshipper.

At the time I went to RQ, RQ3 was the only version available in my corner of Germany. My first RQ campaign was based on the RQ3 Vikings box, one of the first original publications after the rules came out. The version I had was the Games Workshop hardcover, and I wasn't that happy with the organisation. In order to get the rules, I started translating them, and I managed to go through about 60% before I learned that a German translation had already been finished. RQ3 became my baseline for RuneQuest and BRP. I didn't miss Glorantha - while I had Gods of Glorantha and used it as guideline for my world's cults, I didn't have the background that went with it. My first Gloranthan gaming was the Dragon Pass boardgame, but my RQ campaign remained in my homebrew world that had started with my Viking campaign. I did inherit elements from other RQ publications like Griffin Island (GW edition) and Land of Ninja (GW edition). It was Troll Pak (3rd ed. AH) which made me notice that the Blank Land of Balazar wasn't if it had Votanki hunters like the ones I knew from Griffin Island. My first Gloranthan RQ game as GM was a playtest campaign using the 1994 version of RuneQuest - Adventures in Glorantha, never published. I found it a solid continuation of RQ3. RQ3 also remained a go to reference because that used to be the only version translated to German, prior to TDM's RQ6. I haven't used any of the published scenarios, although I have made good use of the sandbox elements offered there. By the time the RQ3 renaissance petered out, I had managed to buy the (Games Workshop) RQ2 rules, but those didn't make me want to switch. Prax never really caught my fancy. I have played a few convention scenarios there, but the beast riders never made me want to play them. Dragon Pass, the Principality of Sartar, and the Holy Country south of it with their Orlanthi and the chance to play just before the Lunar occupation there were a lot more what I wanted from the setting that the boardgame had brought to life for me. I didn't buy MRQ1 after I found the setting book making strange assumptions about the EWF. I tried to master Hero Wars for Glorantha instead. I played a single game of MRQ2 hosted by Loz when he was working on the first scenarios of a Harreksaga campaign. For non-Gloranthan fantasy, I guess that I will stick to Mythras, unless the setting comes fused to a BRP rule system. For Gloranthan gaming, I am open for all of the current systems. Writing for HeroQuest is pleasantly laid back as I don't have to produce (and lay out) stat blocks. I still have to see RQG (beyond the Kickstarter) or 13G to see how those will fit my way of running and preparing a scenario. I still should be able to sit down and improvise a RQ3 scenario, including estimates for hit locations and weapon damage. I don't have that familiarity with any other version of RQ. That abundance was traded at impossible rates after RQ3 was on the market. I partially completed my RQ2 collection in the 90s, on convention auctions. Compared to that, the Avalon Hill DeLuxe set was dirt cheap.

When researching big numbers used by Gloranthans, I took a closer look at the Plentonic dating in the Guide. At first glance, it appears identical to the table in Glorious ReAscent of Yelm p.4, there is a significant addition: That's 20,000 years before the first (Dara Happan) people are created (according to this timeline), and another 10,000 years earlier than Murharzarm's enthronement in 60,000 YS. It was another 15,000 years YS before Umath's encounter with the eight planetary sons and his chaining/dismemberment. So basically, this list acknowledges the presence of Umatum alongside with the Yelmic Court for 45,000 years YS before coming into conflict. Yelmic and Brithini reckoning of Godtime years aren't that far apart - the Dara Happans allow 11,000 years between the Sunset and the Dawn, the Brithini add 3,825 to the number of 14,825 Turnings of the Red Sands of Time (which get extrapolated to correspond to years in history by calculating the year 1621 to 16,446 on p.112). Comparing documented datings from Kralorela or Vormain would be interesting (but those probably don't exist anywhere in the Real World). I still wonder what suggested the turn of years in Godtime. We are told that Godtime is cyclical, but what does that mean? Cycles of harvesting and of following beast migrations (whether wild or domesticated) are dictated by the terrestrial year. We know that the people of Dara Happa and of Brithos had cultures based on a majority of people engaging in agriculture. Murharzarm ordered canalization and irrigation when he overcame Sshorga, starting the ancient Dara Happan wet farming culture with its domesticated gazzam. This doesn't tell us anything about the rhythms and cycles of farming, though. Stars were invented when Umath disturbed the planetary sons. Prior to that, there was only the Golden Dome, under which the 10 orbs would hang, so only around 75,000 YS. Apart from those ten immobile objects and the golden dome, there was nothing to see in the sky. If Arraz and the Luxites/Shanassae were active prior to the planets' fall, such activity was limited to realms above the sun dome. On another note on YS dating: the Birth of the Red Goddess in 1220 almost fits into the extrapolation of the Plentonic dates. Strict Plentonian dating would have expected 1221 as the start of the 10,000 year era following the 1,000 year era of Yelm. The GRoY doesn't offer any suggestions about who should be patron of that era, but Lunar doctrine certainly will claim this for Sedenya. If not for the Carmanian occupation, the Dara Happans may have awaited that year fearfully or joyfully. The Carmanian overlords might even have used this, too, to declare this the era of Idovanus.

I guess you're purposefully missing my point - both Venice and Amsterdam were founded after the demise of the empire, in places where there were no extant remnants of that empire. I doubt that the location of Swenstown was used for a major center in the Imperial Age while Ulaninstead was strong and the center of Orgovalland. Trier was one of four capitals of the Roman Empire, and has a continuous history as a city since the Roman empire (unlike e.g. London which was abandoned as a city during the early Anglo-Saxon period). My initial comparison "like finding authentic Greek architecture in Washington DC", but Swenstown does sit on the edge of the former EWF core region, even if there was no strong EWF presence there and then.

EWF era buildings in Sartarite cities? That's a bit like expecting classical Roman architecture in Venice or Amsterdam. The EWF wouldn't have built much aerial defense against big flyers. They had a problem with traditionalist Orlanthi flyers, not with huge flying entities (or even wyverns or giant hawks).

Jeff clarified this over on the RQ thread: I think I prefer Andrey's image over the aerial view in Sartar - Kingdom of Heroes p.240. The octagonal building might be standing above a cistern, from the map it looks like the place could use one. I would replace part of S-KoH's shanty town inside the Dwarf Gate with this street panorama in my Glorantha. I guess we won't get definitive 3D-models of those cities anytime soon, The aerial view maps of the three cities probably aren't that definitive. Swenstown should be more urban than Red Cow Fort, and Andrey's buildings offer a glimpse of that. When Satar founded those cities, he attracted urban craftsfolk from Kethaela, who would have brought their own architecture with them. This would be their quarter, with rather small plots of land and hence higher buildings. Speaking of 3D-models, I would be interested to hear ideas for the look and feel of Karse. Is the old Midkemia Press/Chaosium publication with its aerial and side view map of the place using the basic layout of Caernarfon still somewhat current?

Pyjeemsab of course comes from a lineage that had avatars of Sorana Tor as mothers for two generations at least. And probably the two or three following generations as well. Which makes me wonder about the Orindori family (Fazzur's father and ancestors). They appear to be of Tarshite lineages, but like Philigos and Phargentes had Sylilan holdings, so maybe the family came from Sylila and managed to establish itself in the leadership of a Tarshite clan. On the other hand, the Orindori are named as one of the families taking care of the royal horse herds. Looking at the history of Tarsh, there is a good likelihood that these were established under Yarandros, and while the office may have turned into some kind of local kingship after Orios' demise, there is a quite high possibility that the current keepers of those herds trace that responsibility back to the establishment of the herds. (I wonder whether the princes of Sartar had a similar establishment, possibly in cooperation with the Pol Joni?) For a native Tarshite family to gain significant holdings in the (barbarian) Heartland Satrapy of Sylila the Orindori may have engaged in special marriages with Jillaro. The heirs of Hwarin Dalthippa don't seem to have supported Hon-eel's Tarsh adventure much, and Phargentes rising to the post of Provincial Overseer may have galled them a lot. Still, the exiles from Palashee's Tarsh appear to have prospered in that exile, except perhaps their deposed king Philigos himself. Estal Donge related to Pharandros, Moirades and/or Fazzur: The author of the Sartar CHDP and the Fazzur fragment disagrees with the author of the Tarshite CHDP in a couple of points. (And I don't think that either of them was Densesros - that Vendref sage was most likely the collator and reluctant editor of those texts.) Oronin Satrapy cries Eel-ariash, and while the clan left its name on two of the Inspirations of Moonson, it may have pursued yet other goals of its own with the Temertain plot. When I designed my own campaign around the Lunar occupation of Sartar and Heortland, one of my leitmotives was the different approaches by the Tarshite royals, the Orindori, and the Dara Happans to managing the newly won lands. Fazzur is credited as land owner of significant tracts of conquered Sartar. I wonder where, and whose clan lands were confiscated. Apart from the Lunar manor in Colymar lands and Wulfsland, there are no confirmed cases of Lunar landholders in occupied Sartar. The Sartar dynasty had little if any royal land - the roads, and maybe the three keeps named after Saronil's sons and surrounding lands. And possibly Duck Point, which might cast an avaricious note on Fazzur blaming the ducks for the rebellion. Depopulating the land around that town might have gained him control over what was left of the river trade with Nochet. So there wasn't really any time when a "High Queen of Saird" was a reality until Argrath made it so? If Inrana's daughter is commonly named Inkarne, does Inkarne basically mean "sovereignty goddess avatar wife of the Liberator," and could this be a title also bestowed on Samastina for enabling Argrath's kingship over Kethaela?