Joerg

14 minutes ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

 

it depends on what did @Joerg mean by "beat".

Of course if Joerg have in mind to "kill" these physical entities, we can conclude that he is an illuminate agent of Nysalor, Sedenya or Chaos trying to convince "pure" white ladies to lose their faith for something more ambiguous.

Nothing Nysalorean going on here. Chalana Arroy is a mortal enemy of Malia, and eliminating her children is what she does. If these happen to become tangible, then they can be eliminated - possibly by fire rather than weaponry, but removed from Life.

14 minutes ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

But if the CA "fighters" do what they can to heal these physical entities the fight is a non violent fight, just huge efforts. After all CA try to heal Malia, I think ?

I don't think so. Not any more than they try to heal Vivamort and his minions.

My current idea is that diseases would manifest as minor forms of Malia (thinking of the Gods War "miniature" here) crawling off, possibly attempting to merge with other such little Malias. As they merge, they might acquire Chaos Features.

Entering the Dead Place is a bit of a challenge, agreed. The Good Shepherd is said to know the secrets of navigating the place, but with a base camp on the outcrops of the Dead Place, people secured on ropes should have no serious trouble to leave again.

For a scenario of mine (actually a sidequest for the scenario) I have pondered expeditions into the Dead Place to collect dust from there, to be used in enbalming, to make certain that the separation of body and spirit(s) remains intact. It should also suppress putrefaction (assuming that that is caused by living Darkness).

The Wild Hunter (Gagarth) can be summoned in the Winter Ruins, IIRC, possibly stripping him of his Wild Hunt for a while. There is also a holy place of Inora inside (hence the name) which may lead to if not regular then not that unusual pilgrimages by those seeking her continued support. Hard to do for a shaman leading a Spirit Cult or Spirit Society, though.

So basically the Dead Place has a great potential to be a cure to all diseases, with Chalana Arroy fighters able to beat the manifest diseases to death?

There ought to be some side effect to the bearers, I suppose, but shifting this to something a Heal or Heal Wound might repair outside of the Dead Place still would count as a win.

1 hour ago, Tatterdemalion Fox said:

If that is not the case, I would be very interested in seeing this myth sourced.

I suppose that you are correct in sourcing the "Thed intends to assault Orlanth" myth, but unlike you I think that it fits well into the narrative space.

Both Ragnaglar and Thed are victims who then become villains. Maybe they were destined to be (or become, Godtime isn't exactly sequential) villains, maybe the lesson they took from Rashoran was that Existence needed Liberation, starting with their teacher.

There was a period (in the late Golden Age, after the dismembering of Umath) when Ragnaglar and Thed simply were the ancestors of non-chaotic goat-men, the broos, a hyper-fertile species little different from the minotaurs. (Personally I subscribe to the "broo ovipositor" theory, making all fertile broos female.) There is no indication of rape yet (not any more than for the unicorns, another such hyper-fertile species). Thed and Ragnaglar engage in extreme forms of intercourse, without suffering from the consequences.

As the Golden Age ends with the killing of the Emperor/Dismemberment of Yelm, whichever Golden Age magic repaired the consequences of hyper-fertile fertilization stopped being effective. Thed complains to Orlanth, demands compensation and justice. Compensation (to a degree) can be given by Orlanth, but not justice. But then, none was expected - it simply was an impossible demand to hurt Ernalda's pet hitman.

59 minutes ago, Ali the Helering said:

I think the Vadrudi have a case to make concerning Orlanth's perfidious defeat of The Boss.  All in all, this simply reinforces my idea that Orlanth is a Godlearner-imposed nonsense, and that Greg wrote him as such.

IMO Orlanth is a lesser Storm entity (probably a demigod) who rose high above his station, replacing one of the primary five sons of Umath amd inheriting his deeds. This may have happened in the Gods War, possibly an achievement of Ernalda on a local scale (Kerofinela). The Dawn Age saw the Theyalan missionaries replace other such lesser entities with Orlanth, and the God Learners took the Theyalan construct and applied it elsewhere on the Lozenge.

35 minutes ago, jajagappa said:

Chaos did not exist before then in the world.

It was called "Predark" in Orlanthi myths, and was a known side effect of Creation through the Chaosium. Krarsht is a case of such Elder Chaos, as is Jotimam (the foe overcome by Yelm's imperial splendour), and the foe hurled out of the world by Vaneekara would be such a specimen too.

Did Chaotic Features exist prior to the birthing of Wakboth? That is a different question. Quite possibly some of the helpful features would have been seen as blessings from the well of Creation.

14 minutes ago, Darius West said:

I had a good long look and came up blank.  I can't even find a write-up of Zebra Fort.  Do you perhaps mean the Raid On Yelorna scenario in The Big Rubble?

I seem to remember a little detail on Zebra Fort in the HQ2 publication "Pavis: Gateway to Adventure" as I was using that (rather sparse) info for a RQ game.

Hargran the Dirty was in charge of the fort in both official treatments of the Rubble, and while IMG some of the decent Zebra Tribe folk remained in the fort, others distanced themselves from his blatant banditry. Still, IMG he managed to receive an Eirithan contract wife from the nomadic Zebra Folk as one of his wives.

13 hours ago, David Scott said:

My favourite Thed representation for dropping on the table during broo heroquest fights is:
 

Not only is it huge, but weird too... (from https://petersengames.com/the-gods-war/)

Except this is Ragnaglar. Thed is the female goat-legged goat-headed humanoid with the sliced-open womb:

50 minutes ago, Darius West said:

Derik Pol-Joni the founder of the Pol-Joni's parents were murdered by Sable Riders.  He created the Pol-Joni because the Animal Nomads were raiding into Dragon Pass with Jaldon too often.  It was Sartar himself who brokered peace and amity between the Pol-Joni and the Praxians.  The Pol-Joni and the Sartarites now likely worship Eiritha as the cattle mother instead of Uralda as one of many results.  The Pol-Joni are not going to stop riding horses just because of Praxian disapproval.  Did riding Zebras save the city of Pavis from Praxian aggression?  No.  It actually encouraged it, because it is perfectly fine to raid another Praxian tribe.

Uralda is just another name for Eiritha. Her cattle aspect now has an active shrine in the Paps, too, maintained by the Pol Joni, although there doesn't seem to be a cattle protectress yet.

Derik's cattle are a new breed from crossing a prize (magical?) Pentan steppe bull with Quivini highland cows, resulting in a breed better suited to the longer dry phases in the (fertile parts of the) chaparral. The Pol Joni rely on the dairy (and possibly some blood) of their cattle for much of their sustenance, butchering bull calves (for cheese-making) and bullocks. They seem to have abandoned the use of wagons and hence the need for oxen muscle power.

Riding zebras resulted in more than two centuries of peace and prosperity for the city of Pavis, with the Zebra folk a go-between their Pure Horse Folk cousins and the Praxians. The Pure Horse Folk relied on the support of the Quvini Orlanthi (both during the EWF period and after its collapse, before the Dragonkill.) With that support taken away, the Pure Horse Folk declined, and so did the city of Pavis.

With the Pol Joni re-establishing a horse-riding buffer tribe between Prax and the re-settled Quivini agriculturalsts, both Pavis and the Zebra tribe have recovered their advantages.

Argrath's future drain on the Praxian braves leads to a mass emigration into the wetlands along the Oslir (and the upper Creek-Stream River), reducing the pressure on the Pol Joni and the Zebra Tribe. The Morokanth might become the most populous tribe in the plains as there seem to be rather few of their tribesfolk following the call of the White Bull.

It would be interesting to learn when Ragnaglar, Thed and Malia received Illumination from Rashoran. If it was before the rape complaint, the entire set-up would have been premeditated. If Rashoran offered therapy to the traumatized couple, then it backfired mightily.

5 hours ago, Tatterdemalion Fox said:

But that’s the thing, right? (Apologies for the tangent in advance.) As far as I can tell in my own studies, the linking of Thed to goats is tautological: the Broo are often caprine, Thed is the Mother of the Broo, Thed is linked to goats. But children have two parents, and Rag’s the one who’s repeatedly called a goat in the Book of Heortling Mythology. (As well as Eurmal, but that’s another digression entirely.) Certainly, she gives birth to the Black Goat, but Wakboth had two parents, too (insofar as something like him can have anything).

Ragnaglar is as much a goat as Orlanth is a sheep or Vadrus is a goat (or a rhino if you look at Anaxial's Roster). Storm Bull is the child of Umath and Mikyh. There is no indication that Raggie was his full sibling.

Pastoralist founders have the Minotaur body plan, and there might be Sable or even Impala minotaurs somewhere in Prax or beyond. There certainly are Bison ones.

Wakboth has three parents (and a midwife helping Primal Chaos to enter Thed's womb?), and no discernible goat features.

5 hours ago, Tatterdemalion Fox said:

Similarly, in the same source it is at one point said that Ragnaglar “raped one of Ernalda’s daughters,” then came back to claim Thed; the language is ambiguous as to whether this was Thed, so let us take it or leave it as it lies.

I always took that as referring to Thed - after all it was Thed who appeared before Orlanth and demanded a justice which Orlanth's law could not grant, leading to the self-inflicted exile of Orlanth (and Vingkot becoming king).

6 hours ago, Tatterdemalion Fox said:

This leaves Thed herself as a lacuna: born of a game about spirits, incorporated into the death of the world to be reborn, and a struggling single mother these days, to boot. For if she is not the goat goddess, what else are we to do with her, standing accusatory before Orlanth’s throne? Crimes against the sacrosanct, perhaps.

I always suspected the case of Thed as the precedence case for the Vadrudi "brides", with extra injuries.

6 hours ago, Tatterdemalion Fox said:

To circle back around to the serious: wherever she has come from, and wherever she is going, it cannot be denied that a familial tie to Ernalda, in some degree, accentuates the familial drama of the Storm Age, and casts Ragnaglar and Thed as the shadows of Orlanth and Ernalda, showing us what our Great Gods are not. For Orlanth knows that real men take no for an answer, and Ernalda loves her children, and they held each other’s hands, not in the formal manner by the wrists, but instead holding in what we call the two grip, that’s used in flirting.

The Orlanthi have a "Bad King Urgrain" as the antithesis to Orlanth's virtues.

Orlanth himself is a fringe case. We have the tales of Tat and Tol, juveniles seeking and finding intercourse with adult women (something not really condoned by Ernaldan mores, except when it comes to Great Ernalda herself playing the femme fatale with naive Orlanth. Orlanth flew with the Vadrudi, a venture that led to the birth of the air-breathing Triolini. (Kahar and Harantara is a special case, more a parallel to Orlanth and Ernalda, and Aerlit and Warera is an undecided case.) Much of his youth is a sex pit, and then he falls prey to the old manipulatress.

Does Orlanth take a no? Ask Heler at the Aroka episode. (Although Heler might not have dared to say no after experiencing Vadrus forcibly separating them from the river dragon/dragon river.)

2 hours ago, Tatterdemalion Fox said:

It makes thematic sense for her to be a relative of Ernalda; Ragnaglar and Thed show us what the marriage of Orlanth and Ernalda is not. 
 

But take what I say with a grain of salt; I speak the gospel of “Thed was a grain goddess once, and Raggy’s the one with all the goat associations.”

Logically, Thed would be a sister and/or daughter of Eiritha, one of the herd mothers, in her case of goats (who aren't that different from antelopes, really - read up on this on the Synapsidae blog by long time Glorantha contributor Jamie Revell, e.g. on goats, or on how to tell goats and sheep apart, and the family relations between bovines, antelopes and goats and sheep).

We have other goat goddesses - Carona as ancestress of the goat hsunchen of the Mislari, and the Pelorian (and especially Arcos Valley and Kostaddi) goat mother Uryarda (a passenger on Anaxial's Ark), or possibly Miapora worshipped at Sidara (which may have been used as her name, too - inhabiting land never flooded). No origin is given for the goats kept in Fonrit, apparently present already when Garangordos conquered the land. Those Vadrudi who practice pastoralism herd goats, too.

There is a Chaos Goat, too.

The broo (her earlier offspring with Ragnaglar) used to be little different from the minotaurs, offspring of Storm Bull and the children of Eiritha, or the beast-headed Founders of the Praxians.

Eiritha is not a grain goddess, and neither are any of the other herd mothers, which is why I have a lot against classifying Thed as a grain goddess. No idea whether the early broo were pastoralists, herding goats, and whether Thed actually had been a herd mother or Protectress, or whether there had been Storm-descended human pastoralists herding her goats descended from her as herd mother.

The Pol Joni have been allies of the Zebra Tribe(s) of Prax since they had established themselves by putting Jaldon to rest. The Zebra Fort zebra people following Olgkarth had been hiding among them before Dorasar re-established them in the Big Rubble.

Pure blood war zebras breed rather slowly, which is why a lot of the Pavis zebra mounts are half-breeds of war zebra stallions with horse mares, as infertile as are the mules of the Issaries cult. In the RQ2/RQ Classic Pavis books, these crossbreeds were called Cavalry Zebras, but in the RQG Weapons and Equipment Guide it seems like all the zebras listed there are pure-breed war zebras, whether trained (or untrained) as meat animals, pack animals, steeds, cavalry steeds or war steeds. In the Second Age and up to the Battle of Alavan Argay, the Pure Horse Folk of Prax would provide mares to breed the crossbreeds, but until the arrival of the Pol Joni, hardly any crossbreeds were bred.

50 minutes ago, Aelex said:

Sorry for the noob question, but is there a collection of "Canon Demons" somehow somewhere?

Not really. There are too many underworld denizens or other monsters who may be called demons after certain definitions.

The Crimson Bat is a demon. A kaiju specimen of demon, really.

Cacodemon is a portion of the Devil, and the ancestral deity of the chaotic ogres. While this chaotic entity deservedly bears the name demon, it has no direct connection to Hell (the Underworld). Another part is the Devil's Hand, and a similar (possibly smaller) such entity roams Snake Pipe Hollow.

Trolls are refugees from Hell, and at least their ancestral Mistress Race can be called demons without any hyperbole. Using the name for ordinary dark trolls, trollkin or cave trolls seems to be over the top, though.

Dehori darkness spirits are "hellspawn" and can thus be called demons, even though they lack (much of) physical bodies. (Some may manifest elemental and to some extent tangible darkness.)

The Hound ridden by Sir Ethilrist and the demon horses ridden by his followers are entities from Hell that Ethirist forced into his service. His Cloak of Darkness may summon another Underworld species (called goblins) should he elect to use (up) this memento from Hell.

The various antigod races of the East (including the Huan-to from Kralorela, the Andins from the East Isles, and presumably the Gorgers who fled the destruction of Duravan to Kimos) could be counted as demons, and their demigod ancestors even more so. Compare the trolls, above.

Krarshtkids and their spirit kin Krarshtides may be regarded as demons.

There are various hill ranges in Sartar (Starfire Ridge) and Heortland (Aurochs Hills) where there are Fire entities bound into the hilltops that may assault visitors with their fiery magics. To the natives, these are demons even though they profess a celestial origin.

Elementals, especially unusual ones with intelligence, might be counted among the demons.

3 hours ago, PauliusTheMad said:

Hello, 
I am fairly big newbie to BRP, but I do like the look of it, and I had at times wrote fantasy settings for my own campaigns and had few that didn't fit usual systems, so wanted to ask if there are any good guides/directions on making up whole races/species in context of a setting for my players and me to use?

You can look at bestiaries for related games like the Cthulhu or Dreamlands field guides (although 7th edition stats need to be divided by 5) or the RuneQuest: Glorantha bestiary for ideas how non-human humanoids and less humanoid entities may be statted. Cthulhu doesn't give location hit points, though. One of the older contributions is the RQ2/RQ Classic Gateway Bestiary which offers some non-Gloranthan critters.

Start with a fitting body plan. Add or substract straight bonus points or dice for characteristics you want to modify.

Skill defaults and magics are a bit harder, as is a general cultural description. Possibly their religion, the powers of their specific deities or spirits, and how these translate into their specific magic (or other such powers).

No species exists in isolation, and stereotypical relationships with others (at least the usual contacts) should be defined.

If you can just use almost-human stats, things are easiest.

7 hours ago, Shiningbrow said:

(Is there a full listing of the genealogy for Vingkotlings and heirs??) Not merely a King's List.

There are a few partial listings available for the Kodigvari (kings), the Koroltes royal lineage to King Heort and his sons, and for some later Berennethtelli ancestors of Harmast. Other than that, we know a daughter each of Kodig (and his Nochet queen) and Korol as founding queens of the two successor tribes to the Lastralgortelli - the Liornvuli and Forosilvuli, and of a 9th generation female descendant of Jorganos as founding queen of the Garanvuli of Whitewall (who would be the most likely Vingkotling era ancestors of any Hendriki tribesfolk).

Clay Mostali reproduction might suggest that there is a generational sequence of units. Their life expectance due to accidents and sabotage should be around 4 centuries, which means that there may have been less than a dozen generations of Clay Mostali since the Greater Darkness, and possibly as many during the Lesser Darkness (when they were designed and released).

Clay Mostali proto-modules aren't primed for any caste yet and could have come from whichever caste. Ancestral information would thus usually clash with the imprinted caste programming, quite likely resulting in fatal runtime errors.

We don't quite know whose "make humans from clay" procedure the Mostali copied. Shaping humans from clay is attested for Vimorn and his siblings, for Yelm and his fellow deities and for Pamalt and several of his Necklace fellow deities. (Also for the Creator entity of Thinobutu, but they had little opportunity to interact with Mostali until far into the Lesser Darkness.) Apparently the first Clay Mostali were created this way, inheriting the self-reproduction method of the Man Rune that had not been applied to the Elder Mostali.

Clay Mostali proto-modules are removed from their reproductive sources fairly early, resulting in premature infants transferred to technomagical devices (similar to the one in the Mabinogion for infant Llew Llaw Gyffes his grandfather and his uncle Gwydion forced out of his (professed virginal) sister Arianrhod's womb, alongside an older, more developed brother Dylan from a Sea entity). These devices proceed to shape the proto-module's body into the desired size and proportions - which clash mightlily with human ideal proportions, putting dwarfs at best into uncanny valley and at worst into the grotesque. Besides the body, the operation system of the future Clay Mostali is imprinted from Elder Mostali caste coding that may have been reproduced during the Gods War and recorded in some container. The production of such codings might damage the original owner's programming and may have been part of ancient recycling procedures. It is possible that the programming of diamond clay mostali can be used for priming proto-modules towards the end of their productive career. In many ways, these programmings would be the ancestral spirits rather than the (spit, hack) biological parents.

39 minutes ago, jajagappa said:

Broyan specifically claimed descent from Kodig, son of Vingkot, who was granted or won the Sword and Helm. Those relics belonged to the descendants of Kodig who ruled in the Holy Country. So, yes, marrying Orgorvale might be one way to restart a Vingkotling line, but you'd likely only have a claim to ruling the Orgorvaltes tribe unless you did more.

I am not certain whether Broyan claimed descent from Kodig - as I understand his story, his Kodigvari tribal markings came to him the same way Harmast (a Berennethtelli by descent, not a direct descendant of Kodig) acquired them - as an adaptation through effort and heroquesting, without (initially) aiming for them.

I have no idea whether Broyan had any idea about his lineage to the Vingkotling founders. He did embrace his (developing?) Kodigvari tattoo that sent the Grandmothers of Nochet into hives of bad conscience and fear for their authority, much like it had in Harmast's time.

3 hours ago, PhilHibbs said:

And if a poster isn't big enough...

Putting the Death Line onto your bed might have some consequences, though....

12 hours ago, mfbrandi said:

I like how the mystic's head is devoured by Chaos.

The crystals resulting from Krarsht's bite would likely turn out to be Flawed Crystals. But keep on mining, and have fun with the additional chaotic features.

Greg Stafford was influenced by mythologers of the sixties and earlier when he wrote his first stories and expanded them in the seventies and early eighties to include the God Learner monomyth. You will find influences of Jung, Eliade and Campbell and probably their abstractions of the elemental deities at the root of quite a few  of the Gloranthan elemental deities, who in turn compiled their knowledge of Indo-European, Egyptian, Mesopotamian, Indian, Chinese and other well-researched mythologies translated at the time, and possibly also some of the fantasy archaeology by Evans or Schliemann projecting stories on their finds. Research of real world myths and ancient textual sources has progressed quite a bit since the early days of writing about Glorantha.

1 hour ago, radmonger said:

IMG sacrifice adds to the power of the cult, not the god. More people who have sacrificed for more rune magic is a more powerful influence on the world; a stronger army, a more productive economy, and more informed decision makers. Which can support more and larger temples with more and larger wyters, who hand out more magic.

Apart from that effect, the 'power' of a god has the same relationship to the power of a cult as it does in the real world. When people believe something, they act on that belief. This can change the world.

People who believe in the Great Compromise don't study, or quest, for the magic that would break it. Except, of course, as a deterrent, retaliation or preemptive strike on what someone else is doing.

While it usually is the cult that mediates the magic to its initiates (and associates), it is the deity who receives the soul link (rune points) to the initiate and a little bit of indirect agency in the world of Time. (There is the possibility of spirit cults addressing the deity outside of the official cult structure, and there are Heroquesting ways to access the magic of a deity unlike the cult methods).

Bronze Age magic is not really about belief or even piety, it works on the principle "do ut des". The sacrifices are given to the deity in the expectation that the deity either offers help or abstains from causing undue damage. This is done by the cult whose leaders are held responsible for placating or mediating the deity.

In RuneQuest rune points acquired empower a follower who qualified to receive these rune points to spend them. Good standing in the (local section of the) cult allows the follower to renew these points by participation in the sacrifices of the holy day rites.

I have yet to see evidence for temple wyters or cult wyters - i.e. entities entirely relying on the gift of magic by the worshippers to grant magic to them. That is a difference to clan, tribal or city wyters which do rely on these. Temple spirits seem to come from the same pool as do allied spirits.

With most deities, sacrifice (not prayer) adds to their power, but they tend to have some intrinsic power of their own. There have been notable exceptions in Glorantha's past - Avanapdur in the Greater Darkness East Isles (an illusionary deity strengthened to the point that it deposed established ruling deities and led a number of Antigod leaders), Jogrampur in God Learner Umathela (an experimental made-up deity whose initiates wielded actual rune magic when they rose up in rebellion against the experimenters) and to some extent the Machine God Zistor in the Clanking City.

17 hours ago, Malin said:

I really do love the idea of "legendary weapons" heirlooms or magical items having their own ransom. Though I suppose if I was a bandit, I wouldn't keep anything that made me worry that whoever I had caught would be coming after me to get it back. Sure, I'll keep the pack animals, but that named steed with the expensive tack? Hmmm too risky.

One thing that is of some importance in my understanding of Glorantha is that a lot of the equipment carried by the adventurers won't be theirs to give away as they please, but would be the property of the household they belong to, or the clan, or the cult, or the leader they swore service to, or loaned by the quest-giver.