Joerg

You sound like your contribution to the thread Bits of Glorantha you ignore would be "Beast Riders of Prax, the Mythology". There are no legal pdfs of the early Footnotes. But then, there has been a publication which extracted the Glorantha content (mainly the Gods and Goddesses of Glorantha series and the Dragon Pass campaign) into a single volume called Wyrm's Footprints. Out of print, but probably available second hand. The upcoming 13th Age Glorantha book and more specifically its system-less companion volume which describes the exact setting of the boardgame and its period might be more useful, but you can't escape the myth-building. Nomad Gods is mentioned as early as WF4 (as opposed to advertised), IIRC. Apart from a few extra units in Wyrm's Footnotes and some probably even harder to find short articles by Greg in APA zines, it was the second publication on Glorantha, and all subsequent publications refer to it some way or another. For OD&D the Gods and Goddesses of Glorantha series would probably be already more info than you need about the gods if you don't like Prax. Still, the "Cults of Prax" remains the best approach to the deities of Dragon Pass inside the RuneQuest canon to date. For a Dragon Pass gazetteer, Dragon Pass Land of Thunder has information on all locations shown on the gameboard. All those strange names can be read as past heroes if you don't like the proliferation of named aspects and subcults that was the rage in the Hero Wars and HeroQuest 1 era. Or you read the 10 pages gazetteer part of Guide to Glorantha that covers those locations, and maybe the Orlanthi culture pages (which are brimming with mythological references, though). As much as it is tied into Prax and the mythology, the Pavis and the Big Rubble setting with a good portion of old school dungeoneering might still be well suited to your style of playing. It also has some of the most accessible information on the EWF outside of the treatment it received in the Mongoose RQ line. Since you aren't concerned with Gloranthan canon at all, those products might be well-suited as background information, and you could mash up the Hero Wars period of the boardgame with some of the events of the God Learner era.

Those floods were different - the ones that left the tree-top bridge and the mountain-peak bridge were both standing waves rising on the flanks of the rockwoods, keeping a more or less steady column of water above the land regardless of the land's elevation. The Madadan Sea which covered Halikiv and possibly Yolp was specialized in covering mountains, and rather weak when it came to covering flat land. My point here is that the waters of old had steep flanks rather than the rather flat surface with waves providing most of the inland action. Sure, Orlanth's winds can blow back a flat puddle, too, but his force works better against animate water rising high above the surface. I don't think so. This is ordinary ice, just a whole lot of it, and, coming in from the west, floating on cold currents which have just gone around the northern edge of Valind's Glacier.

Cucurbitaceae have this squashy interior and a somewhat fleshy outer portion beneath the skin. While I agree that cucumbers may resemble other parts of the human anatomy, to me they are about as little scary as the orange variation. Just two weeks ago I learned that the original jack o'lantern was cut from cabbages. How scary would the jack o'bear be with a cabbage head?

Androgeus may have been whole in the Green Age, but leaving it was disastrous for the entity. Maybe that's his background - she embodies _all_ of the effects of exiting the Green Age.

I have come to think that the Feldichi _were_ the artifacts. I agree - that item felt out of place. The artifacts might have provided a way to convey their "construction plan" into the pseudocosmic egg, although I find it quite hard to have a single (if interrupted but consecutive) writing chance to influence the being emerging from that egg and then seriously to expect perfection. Did their first writing consist of the Man Rune or some similarly pure concept? The Gold Wheel Dancers with their alien life may have been the necessary component, although they had basically passed away when the project took off.

I just don't have any Halloween cultural background, so I fail to see pumpkin as threatening. Basically a jack o'bear is a vaguely ursine or humanoid body with a cucumber-like vegetable for a head. Why not a cauliflower-headed snake, or a flower-headed rhino? Not all chimeras can be excused by Chaos. Granted, that harmonizing attack is fearsome in taking agency from the players. It's the chassis which fails to register. The dragonsnails are an ecological side effect of the Devil polluting the marsh and no problem to me as such, but they don't make much sense as a monster (or a monster worthy of making a new Waha Khan). I am badly reminded of that scene from Austin Powers where for about a minute a vehicle with two protagonists slowly creeps up through a rather small hall to a man standing in the way and screaming in terror without stepping to the side.

The Lightbringers' Quest brings Orlanth into direct conflict with the Lesser Kajabori, aiding the Uz living along the route. This is one of only two cases I can name where Orlanth overcame a Chaos foe or army. The other is the defence against the Sky Terror. Neither are common monsters fought by the Orlanthi - any more. I am not sure how much the writings of Zzabur go along with the myths of Arachne Solara. Malkion the Sacrifice transcended in the face of entropy before the Ritual of the net came about. The Malkioni may very well take this event as the fertilization of Time, and refuse to name a mother. I disagree with that point of view. The reason why Glorantha began to fall apart even before the entry of Death or the birth of Wakboth was an overabundance of Creation, stretching its confines and creating cracks that allowed the Predark to enter. The coping mechanisms of Making vs. Growing fell flat first. The introduction of Death delayed the complete collapse a bit longer, but rampant growth continued to outpace even this new force, and given the huge opening provided by the Unholy Trio, maybe entered into the world prematurely. Personalizing a rune is not a problem, especially if this personalizing offers a better handle for manipulating that concept/being to succumb to the sorcerer's will. If there was a synthesis, it happened before there were Malkioni on Jrustela. The westerners have a concept of evil, and a concept of dangerous and destructive otherness. They name their evil Vadel. Their dangerous and destructive otherness is Krjalk. They somehow appear to have avoided confronting the "Nothing", except through Malkion's self-sacrifice. Maybe through their mastery of Tapping? I wonder how Storm Bull's austerity calling in the Block is much different from Mashunasan's austerity calling in Kabalt. Granted, Storm Bull's act is instinctive, an animal reaction of the world, using the fallen bull's reviving as the conduit. It is the desperate defence of the cows against whichever overwhelming predator. This isn't exactly the Theist resistance against evil. The Heortlings have an inconclusive exposure to Wakboth through Heort's Star Heart encounter, and subscribe to the Ritual of the Net and the Great Compromise. The Dara Happans claim total destruction of the world through Shargash as the way to prevent annihilation by the rampant entropy of the Empty Emperor. All of these have an element of (self-) destruction in the face of annihilation, and subsequent reappearance. I think there are three ways of chaotic sorcery. One is the Tapping of Chaos for energy - e.g. the Boristi way. This is similarly tasteless as the Tapping of the Underworld powers of Undeath etc. One is the use of command spells to control chaotic entities, possibly requiring some attunement (read:corruption) to establish that line of command. One is the knowledge of the intrinsics of Chaos to use in formulaic spells - again, requiring some attunement to the bad stuff. In all of these cases, some form of Illumination or even Occlusion may be helpful for getting the magic done, never mind the welfare of the caster. Then there is the Cursing of foes, resulting in Chaotic manifestations bound to the target. See Dorastor, the Telmori, Dilis and whatever lurks behind the Gate of Banir. I am not clear whether this is sorcery or something else, possibly mystical. On the other hand, there is Evil. Given the psychopath nature of Zzabur, an interesting concept when projected on the equally psycopathic Vadel. Don't as I do, because I am me, and you aren't. I don't even think that Tapping was evil when Creation still was overabundant - it was a valuable check against overabundance of Creation, limiting the out-of-control situation in the West. For the westerners, the Gods War was the terror of personal Death (rather than entropic annihilation of the world) and a lost Civil War ended by atrocities caused by "our side". Any existential angst was about the individual, not the world. Humanist, indeed.

It still remains a Ponzi scheme. You need to initiate to each disease (subcult) separately. Even if you limit the number of diseases to the number of stats that RQ uses, that may be enough to remove a fully inoculated character out of play. And yes, accepting Malia initiation is a form of autism, of pure self-reference. The outward symptoms and effects of psychopathy and autism can be similar.

Is it in any way different from any other predator to prey relationship, like e.g. Orlanthi war clans or outlaw bands living on the tribute they can extort? Are there ways to propitiate Malia without becoming a carrier? There are non-magical ways to survive diseases. These don't grant you immunity or shelter from disability, but catching a low-intensity disease is nothing more than a temporal inconvenience, possibly leading to some unplanned recuperative "stat-training". Are Malia's infections (not as a carrier, but as a victim) stackable, or are they exclusive? The RQ rules construct of covert possession for diseases (as opposed to similar damage rules but different coping mechanisms for venoms) may be more than a rules artifact. Aren't broo immune already without sacrificing to Malia anyway? They transfer the disease by exposing their weapons and belongings to the disease, in addition to using their own bodies.

But I think it would be misleading, as much as comparing this to the gender-fluidity of the Sea Tribe. Androgeus is in many ways the antithesis of the unseparated utrum gender, she is conflicted about his sexual/gender nature all the time, as she shows by the use of his gendered pronouns. The gender changes might be hurtful and hateful experiences. When happening during a pregnancy, these experiences might warp the unborn child. A major function of Androgeus is to antagonize the world. Saving humans in the Greater Darkness can be seen as such, just like bringing suffering through the offspring. Limiting her offspring during Godtime to nine significant direct children, some of which spreading like plagues, is a bit astonishing, but works if some of them are the founders of difficult races. "Her children are too many to name" might indicate a much greater amount of fertile interactions during Time (as opposed to Godtime), too. He might possess a Green Age type of fertility overcoming normal boundaries of species with ease.

Misapplied Worship penalties. If it generates magic, it is working. (luckily a past problem.) Anti-Vaxination or anti-nuclear sentiments applied to all Orlanthi vs. sorcery. Fertile Crescent Bronze Age as a limitation to what goes - definitely untrue. Non-human PCs in mixed parties. Seriously, with all the potential for antagonism and cliches in the cult membership and ethnic background, what's the need? NPCs or sidekicks, no major problem. Babeester Gor cultists in the party. A non-chaotic subcult of Thed... nothing wrong with Earth Axe women, whether as hunters or as bodyguards, or people clad in trophies of vanquished foes, but I don't need this cult as played by too many (male) players. Random Geases. Inconvenient creatures: I guess the Jack O'Bear is high on my list, as are dragonsnails - but then I don't play anywhere near the Devil's Marsh, and I am happy to have entire Glorantha campaigns with no more Chaos than an occasional scorpionman raid.

Neither the trolls nor the merfolk are out to help humans, or aldryami. The Borklak trolls have plans for a giant vegetable and mushroom dinner - Winterwood just below the Glacier is an enormous lot of spruce wood that will be seasoned in the rising seas, and then lie defenseless as the waters retreat. Whatever the Seas are after for food is different from what the trolls want. That forest without defenders basically is a huge all you can eat buffet. I am still not much of a fan of this "limp water flooding". A decent flooding caused by the Seas should have active waters, able to form steep borders, or to cover slopes in a layer of water without running off downhill. What remains a bit unclear is whether the Borklak trolls were certain that the plug would work as expected - apparently they started the gnawing project long before the mermen joined from below. Did they intend the ice as a raft to invade other lands over sea? IMO there isn't much room for playing around with water management to keep the Chaos Void plugged. That is an active task and requires better than 99% of the Inner World currents contributing, mainly through the three Doom Currents. It is possible that establishing the Vortex required even more energy, which was sacrificed/transferred to Magasta by nearly all surface (and celestial) waters. I favor this model, of the Seas building up momentum, and then using this momentum to enter far across the dry lands, not as a limp puddle but as one extremely long (and slow) wave berg running across the dry lands, harvesting all the good stuff maliciously withheld from the seas, then retreating to share it with the All Waters.

The City of Wonders probably is a good place to start the heroquest for that magic. I wonder how these dykes work in controlling the waters - do they simply have to have enough elevation to keep the waters at bay (pun not intended), or do they form a defensive bulwark from which the Storm Powers which kept the Vingkotling lands free of the Flood in the Gods War can be invoked, regardless how high the wall of water before them? With champions of the besieged dry spots regularly challenging champions of the encroaching waters, re-enacting powerful deeds of the Thrinbarris or Trembling Shore? The Building Wall Battle certainly helped to stop the Red Tide. @jajagappa has interesting ideas about the dam-building along the Lyksos River in Nochet during the Closing after the Devastation of the Vent, reclaiming the northeastern quarter of the city from the swamplands, with rites that required significant numbers of men participating as the dyke's defence line, being interred in the bulwark in the progress. If water can loom several meters above the dry ground, why shouldn't a dry bulwark keep water much higher than the crown of the dyke in check if backed by suitable magic and sacrifices? But this approach will work only if the invading water is spreading like some goo over the land, measuring its advance not in meters of elevation but in miles of dry land swallowed by the wave front. Water more like an invasive species than like liquid levels rising. Keeping that huge floe of ice afloat on its way into the Homeward ocean could be a major effort to the Sea Tribe. The southwestern seas are way too shallow, and with the Somelz land raising underway on behalf of the Mostali probably would mean that this ice would be beached there. Meltoff could be significant, and still leave an ice sheet a quarter mile high (most if it below the water). The Denestlazam Doom Current will be the perfect carrier for this ice sheet, but it will first have to be maneuvered out of the Neliomi current to avoid it hitting Brithos or the New or Red Vadeli Islands. (While that collection might knock a few of those islands off the map, it would slow the ice to a halt, and require extra effort to get afloat again. Which might explain the 20 year delay between calfing and arriving at Magasta's Pool. When the ice floe reaches the Pool it might stretch as a wedge from Teleos all the way to the north of the Jrusteli Islands, and from Kumanku and Loral to about halfway the distance between the Iron City and the Threestep Isles. The Doom Currents happen mostly deep inside the Earth Cube - they are bottomless chasms, all the way through the Earth Cube to the Underworld Sea below. This necessarily means that there are huge vertical slits entering into the Maelstrom, providing huge jets of water for hundreds of miles downward feeding the Maelstrom from Sramak's River. Even if the ice floe is a mile deep in the water, its effect on this flow is minimal. Not negligible, but minimal. The sink cannot be completely blocked - like a shower sink with clotted hair and similar debris, the downward current may be slowed a bit. There is no way to maneuver a big enough ice floe intact to top off the pool while carrying it across the shallower entrance to the Homeward Ocean. The amounts of water churned through on a single day should be immense. Have you ever seen the Saltstraumen in Norway at maximum speed? Seeing a rusty freighter rush through at better than 50 mile per hour is quite impressive. The Doom Currents should have similar speed, but much greater diameter. Saltstraumen manages 0.4 cubic kilometers in six hours through two openings each about 150 m wide and maybe 100 m deep, with hardly any flow for the first and last of these hours. For a continuous throughput at high speed, 0.1 cubic kilometers an hour for that 0.015 square kilometer slit should be about right. Now let's guesstimate the "slits" of the three (or four) doom currents raging through the breaks in the earth cube. Let's say these are at least 10 miles wide and go all the way from the surface down to the underbelly of the earth, but let's only use the top half of those currents. That's 10*3000 square miles throughput area for each slit, or 16*4800 square kilometers. That's about 1,200 cubic kilometers per Doom Current and hour, or 90,000 cubic kilometers a day for three doom currents feeding the Maelstrom. A mile deep ice floe will hinder only a small fraction of that water. Let's say 1 mile depth * 10 mile width of the Doom Current *3 for the three surface Doom Currents, or a factor of 1000 less than the total. Still, this is 90 cubic kilometers a day. For a quick guesstimate, let's assume that the Homeward Ocean and adjacent shores cover an area of 3000*3000 square kilometers, a convenient 9 million square kilometers. 90 km³ / 9,000,000 km² results in 1/10,000 km a day, or 10 cm a day blockage. Maybe allow for a factor of 10 to include other surface currents, or ten times broader channels of the Doom Currents on the surface, then we get a rise of a meter a day once the floe blocks all three surface currents. One year in position would cause a 1000 foot rise in water level, David's first map. However, as soon as the warm waters of the other two Doom Currents are added, the ice floe will start melting rapidly. Maybe over the course of two years, giving a maximum static sea rise of David's second map. Ok - a hydrostatic plug/inhibitor might cause such a flood. It doesn't offer as good countermeasure efforts as the plug-less approach, though. Less MGF. Agreed. Unless these barriers also create a bubble of air above, Erenplose-style. Maybe it would be easier to create a Fish Road nexus where both surface dwellers and water breathers can coexist. Also one of Belintar's lost magics.

Two problems here. The tide follows the rise and fall of the Blue Moon. To resist the fall of the Blue Moon would take as much energy as to rush in with increased amounts of water. Then there is the scope. The tide goes out twice, rarely thrice per week. What is peak tidal change in Glorantha? 2, 3 meters? That means you would need 100 tides to reach the 1000 foot line, more than two years of slowly rising water. If you make the rise a meter a day ignoring tidal modulations, it still takes an entire year to reach that line. I think you want to convey something like the events of the first Mandrenke, where the storm prevented the flood from retreating, only to pile up the next tide on top of the already too high flood. Only without the storm, but still with powerful waves crashing in on the land. Probably no active support of rains either. The initial days would be horrible enough with just the speed of normal tides piling up. The second day after the waters exceeding normal high water marks would already flood a third of fertile Esrolia, almost all of the Rightarm isles, and swallow at least half of coastal cities like Nochet or Karse. To reach the foot of Kero Fin would probably start to flood the Shadow Plateau, and drown most peaks of the Caladran chain. The gap at Too Far will be penetrated and cause a torrent to flow into the Pelorian side unless the flood has risen there, too. In Prax, only Tada's Tumulus, the Block, the ridge and the horn mountains would remain above the water, between a few islands of the Storm Mountains and Vulture Country. But then I don't think that elevation maps are that relevant to describe Gloranthan flood zones. Areas regularly flooded after the snow melt will be prone to be flooded by this event regarless of elevation, because of affinity. The water will spread like a couverture (chocolate icing) with a front not unlike the videos of the seasonal floodings we saw in the thread on Praxian serpents, or alternatively like the pictures of the recent decades' big tsunamis in Thailand and Japan. Deceptively low, but full of energy, and unlike those events in our world to remain for several seasons. Places like Whitewall would not be flooded because of ancient resistance to the advancing waves, getting a front of breakers running up the slopes but retreating again. Esrolia will look a lot like lowland Pakistan in the recent years monsoon floods, only without the water retreating. Riding this out in boats, rafts or even arks might be one approach. As long as you don't try to get anywhere and don't run out of supplies, sailing shouldn't be a problem (assuming that we still are post-Closing). Supplies will be a problem, though, unless you have magically full baskets and pots, or have a well-prepared ark. Another approach might see ancient Earthshakers awakened below cities, wading through the foaming floods towards higher (and dryer) ground, or dragons below awakened for the same purpose. The Syphon is likely to swell to a huge tendril or bulge of water ending in a new vortex where the waters proceed into the Foulblood Void, possibly defeating it for good. (At least until someone awakens Chaos there again.)

I don't think that such a flood should rise in significantly less than six weeks, either. Just having the tides pile up (only two a week, at average) might take too long to get the flood up into Dragon Pass. It doesn't have to be Jeff's five mile wide wave riding up the rivers, but just getting the waters leave their beds and crawl inland like a huge gorp might be a different kind of flood than the storm-driven waves we experience on our coasts. In fact, when a storm drives the waves, it usually drives them away from dry land in Glorantha. Storm floods are a bit of an oxymoron when you look at Orlanth's history/myths with the seas. On the other hand, torrential rains are entirely in character for Orlanth, but I don't really see Storm involved in any uphill floods, only downhill ones.

Much as I find David's map illustrating a flooding by passive waters helpful, I don't think that that model is really sustainable. A huge and long lasting tidal wave could creep onto selected coasts and drown anything in its path, while still climbing upwards some slopes, and leaving low lying areas to the left and right empty. This isn't powerless rainwater filling a puddle. This is water connected to the heart of the seas. I don't think that it is possible to plug the Maelstrom with a single sheet of ice. It is possible to inhibit the flow, however, like hairballs in the shower outflow. The maelstrom is fed first and foremost by the three (or maybe four) Doom Currents that rage in from Sramak's River through the bottomless chasms between the fragments of the Lozenge. The turbulence encountered by ships crossing them on the surface is just a byplay of the huge currents churning in the deeps, all the way down to the bottom of the Lozenge (is it really a cube, or just a flat square tile?). So why call in all the rivers from the Surface World? Not for the water they are carrying, but for the energy (or food) they collected from the Dry World, to aid keeping the Chaotic Void replacing the sub-basement of the Spike sealed out of the Universe. This isn't the first case of such energy transfer, compare for example Worcha's Raging Sea. So, what effect could that sheet of ice have on the Maelstrom? Hardly any on the activity in the rifts of the seas. Only the surface currents would be affected (and they, too can simply dive below this sheet). But in a way, this ice sheet is Food, or energy, to the seas. Not only will the trapped water be released, it will also carry the energies of the northern dry lands, and this excess energy could e.g. allow the rivers to reverse their flow while the ice is being consumed, or another directed standing wave creep over selected lands (and possibly mountains) regardless of elevation.

Thanks for reminding me that whenever people act against common sense, there may be a ritual component to their activity. (Unless they are drunk or drugged, which may happen outside of rituals, too.) In addition to geese it will be raining archers and paddlers as the dugout canoes capsize. Using one as a canoe is tricky enough - it takes a lot of cooperation and some skill to avoid capsizing in a dugout, much worse than in a flat-bottomed canoe. I have some experience shooting my bow from a modern (fiberglass) canoe without capsizing it, but on those events I witnessed a few canoes capsizing when the archers moved their center of mass too high. A Norwegian coworker and hunter told me a couple of stories about hunting from the canoe and how the kick of a hunting rifle is sufficient to turn his canoe if not shot along the keel. (His canoe, which I had the opportunity to try out on the fjord, had a keel, making it a little less stable and quite a bit faster.) Releasing the arrow will shift your center of mass first slightly backward, then towards your left fist (assuming you are a right-handed archer). That creates quite a rocking movement. The higher your upper body is, the worse will be the balance of the platform you are standing on. When I paddled a dugout canoe (at Hjemsted Oldtidspark, one of several excellent Danish historical parks for their Roman Iron Age) it was quite an effort for me and my colleague just to avoid capsizing. Picking up any speed or maneuvering (turning the boat) had to be done very carefully, because full use of the paddle threatened to unbalance the boat. Much worse than even the keeled canoe I mentioned above.

Depends on the number of people you need to lead down to the water and up again at a time, and the water level in the cistern. After the monsoon, it should be topped off. Depending on the water level, you can have 8 queues (at the level depicted) up to three or four times that many. These places were also used as climatized sitting area, where lots of stairs create lots of seats.

You would need quite a bit more of a wall against that flood - according to King of Sartar it sends the Korthanings fleeing into Solthoni Valley, in southern Tarsh/the Grazelands. That's more than 2000 feet, the same general elevation as the Heortland Plateau, Duck Point or Wilmskirk,. A Manarlarvus-like dome or a "bubble of air" solution like at Erenplose might be less demanding. That's only pertinent if it is a passive flood, however - an active flood could rise above the flat land in a jellyfish-like bulge, as happened to the Rockwoods in the Flood Age (Early Storm Age), and a "tidal wave" could sweep hundreds of miles inland if backed by sufficient power. Orlanth has a pretty good track record dealing with active waters, but I have no idea how good much his storms will do against a "blocked drain" effect. Maybe the "easiest" way to deal with this would be to take over one of the Firebergs and collide it with that ice.

Did you know about the pyramids of the Netherlands? http://blog.koehntopp.info/index.php/2764-the-dutch-pyramids/

Given the confusion in the "Arkat the Liberator" text which has the deeds of Arkat (and Nysalor) attributed to Gbaji (which is quite correct according to my "mask between them" pet theory) and the deeds of Talor attributed to Arkat the Liberator, this might be just a continuation of that The Liberator in this text is recognisably Talor the Laughing Warrior rather than the Arkat that was returned in 420 by Harmast's first LBQ. That's why I wondered whether this description of the parentage might apply to Talor rather than Arkat. Both Talor and Gerlant have been called "son of Arkat", obscuring their parentage. It is quite possible that the author of this pamphlet was less informed than we are, but I find this adoption of Talor as "the Real Arkat" amusing.

The Old Man may well have been Harmast, or his knowing companion. I found the notion strange that Arkat had cleared Fronela of these perverted followers, but wasn't able to move towards Dorastor. To my knowledge, Arkat never has been in Fronela. If he had been, he would have led an army through Brolia into Dorastor, just like the Harmast/Talor combo ultimately did. Sweeping through like a hurricane sounds more like he left some significant ruins than like leaving a significant tumulus. But then, when Harald Hardrada burnt down Hedeby in 1050, he also left the Busdorf runestone next to the embers of that city, so why not a monument above a heap of ashes. Greatway had been part of the Unity Council, and was among those who gave birth to Osentalka. They continued to aid Nysalor in his struggles with Arkat, or how else would the Dara Happan general Derigonus Pistol have arrived at his unusual epithet (and presumably weapon)? (He probably had Nilmerg servicing this flintlock item for him.) I think that the Greatway Mostali sought a way to re-awaken Mostal or Stone through this cooperation. The Mostali don't blame the destruction of the Spike on Chaos - they blame High King Elf, armed with the Axe of Death (shaped like that from the Sword of Death by Mostal himself, which had previously killed Flamal when wielded by Zorak Zoran), instead. As they blame Umath for throwing the sky dome out of order before. I find it amusing that they call the land of volcanoes "Srvuela" when the volcanoes are as much a mixture of Fire and Earth as are the Storm Burtae. They are so in a Lamarckian way, however, inheriting a change that Lodril took upon himself when he wrestled that squirming thing deep in the earth. The last of the three tractises, titled "Arkat the Liberator", tells us the early history of Arkat in some detail. Using the name "Gbaji" for Arkat. One of those "King of Sartar" moments still inside the Guide to feed the über-geeks, hidden in one of the In-World documents. To me, this sounds as if this sword was the Flamesword, forged for the king (of Seshnela, i.e. Gerlant) who had the dream not to trust the god (Gbaji=Arkat), the same king who ordered the Mostali of Belstos to equip himself and his Men-of-All with iron. That Flamesword might have come from the citadel of Sog City, which arguably could be called Lodrilela. This text is really weird in places, though: So, after Arkat and Harmast departed, the Safelstrans banded together to attack Seshnela? I find no trace of this in the timelines. Sounds like a counterstrike from Dorastor, under the Dara Happans. This time with Nysaloreans as "followers of Gbaji"? Altogether, this sounds very much like Talor's march through Ralios and over Kartolin, rather than any activity of Arkat (aka Gbaji, who already had left for Srvuela). Altogether a very, very confused text. Or it describes the parentage of Talor (possibly through Harmast adopting him)? Maybe this is a general slur against people descended from the Dorastan settlers who encroached on the Vustrians and their Hykimi allies, then reinforced by Derigonus Pistol's counterstrike across Kartolin.

I originally read this as the local form of the enslavement of the Kachisti myth when the Nidan mountains rose up in the Gennerelan/Genertelan lands of the westerners. But revisiting this now, it may refer to the Kachisti "civilizing" the local Korioni and forcing them to submit to their urban order, even before they themselves (as well as their non-Danmalastan subjects) being enslaved by the Vadeli and their Mostali allies. As in the story of Lake Oronin, this change of managing sorcerers will not have mattered much to people already regarding the first civilizing efforts as demeaning and unnatural. Reminds me of the story of Emperor Friedrich I Barbarossa of Staufen sleeping the magical sleep of the Future King under Mt. Kyffhäuser. Sounds like a different story to me, and the justice item might be something else, too. It's off the Ralios maps, in the west of Guhan, not far from Baustin. Check Argan Argar Atlas p.27. IIRC Suranthir started out as an Orgethite zzabur who received a divine revelation on his (possibly still sorcerous) quest to the Top of the World.

It is sort of ironic that Entekosiad p.85 actually tells us that, while the place still is called the Descending Pyramid, it now is a four-tier step pyramid rising next to that original stairwell to the Underworld. But then the Entekosiad gives two numbers for the stairs on that pyramid, one as 295, the other as 514.5 (yes, half a step). Speaking of descending pyramids/ziggurats, there is one depicted in the copper tablets, or rather an inverted round tower. Strangely enough, this is shown to the southwest of Raibant rather than the northwest, where Pelanda lies.

Sure, when it is Nochet we are dealing with. I tried not to place this anywhere in Glorantha before deciding which culture would be best for having such edifices. I keep wondering how the rainwater for these cisterns is gathered. After all, you need a separate "sewer" system from that draining the streets if you plan to use the water as drinking or bathing water. Unless you design your sewer system with an in-built "flaw" of allowing only a limited throughput to go out through the sewer. A similar trick is used for mixed rainwater/wastewater sewers when faced with strong rain events. The first flow will clean out the pipes, washing all the sedimented dirt along the main sewer lines. Then, when more water enters the sewer than can be treated by the wastewater plant, there are special overflow buildings which allow the subsequent rainwater with negligible amounts of waste water to enter the river almost untreated (there will be a sedimentation basin). I don't think that the Nochet sewers will be used as the main disposal alley of nightsoil. Human and animal excrements will most likely be collected for fertilizer. Urine collection for tanneries, alchemical purposes etc. might be established, too. (Are there Out-Houses of Nochet?) But still, the roads will accrue quite a bit of "Food" for the seas that you wouldn't want in your drinking water, so a "flush first, then collect" architecture sounds reasonable to me. I still expect that the water will be stored in tall above-ground cisterns rather than in holes in the ground, simply to avoid contamination in strong rain events. The original step wells come from a culture familiar with irrigation, so they might have a similar approach, possibly using ditches and above-ground basins, to fill their reservoirs. I have to admit that I started writing about such a ritual before placing it in Nochet. So what are the weather patterns in the rain-shade of the Skyreach Mountains? Storm Season will deposit snow up in the mountains, but what will the valley between Skyreach/Mislari and the Caladran chain receive? How dry does it get in the valley bottom?