Joerg

A courier or smuggler vessel, with limited bulk transport capacity but speed and fairly flat bottom. All of the travel can be done in coastal waters, with the Leftarm archipelago the biggest navigational challenge. Intermediate stops could be some other port on the Mirrorsea Bay (Rhigos, Karse, Seapolis, Vizel), then Refuge, then Corflu. The leg from Refuge to Corflu might be the most challenging - you could try to avoid the Closing by remaining close to the sandbank- and insect-ridden shore, or you could take the "high sea" option and Open the seas on your departure from Refuge to avoid those coastal threats, exchanging them for the looming threats of the Closing. The travel upriver might require some river or tidal magic to help you over shallows. The Cradle scenario has the river helping the considerable draft of the Cradle across any obstruction, so there is a navigable route for most of the river journey. There should be one or two places where random shifts in the river bed may require the crew to disembark and to pull the vessel over flat obstacles - the players can do this Viking style, on tree trunk logs (if they have brought some, or otherwise gathered from driftwood from the last violent river flooding - wood is scarce and valuable in Prax, but few Praxians will brave the water to get at them. Riverfolk might harvest them and sell them to either Pavis city, Corflu, or Praxian nomads). Taking on a cultist or godtalker of Zola Fel as a pilot is a good idea and may help to avoid or overcome such difficulties. The best time to make this journey would be Sea Season, when melt-off and runoff from the Rockwoods will swell the Zola Fel. This will also be the time when driftwood may run down the river, though, creating an iceberg-like hazard in addition to sharp or flat portions of the river bed. It is likely that the ship needs to be towed by boats, e.g. when the channels get too narrow to employ oars directly from the ship. The Zola Fel has no hauling road for most of its length, although Sun County might have some. If the Cradle attackers at Corflu managed to bring hundreds of oxen to Harpoon, a sufficiently affluent and well-regarded and well-connected captain should be able to recruit a hauling team for a smaller vessel. Overall, the crew will see why most cargo traffic transships to smaller river craft. The arrival of a vessel this big will cause major excitement in Pavis and the Big Rubble, and probably further downriver as well. Do you have a reason why you want a single ship to make the whole trip? Do you want to depart via the Puzzle Canal, or follow the Cradles' course to Magasta's Pool?

Your definition of non-coastal sailing - staying afloat for months outside of the sight of land - is unknown in anything but the modern age of our world, pioneered by portuguese, and even they used island and port hopping wherever possible. So, when I am talking about sailing the high seas, it is in that context - vessels leaving the sight of land to cut across to a known or at least assumed destination. Apart from the Dark Season Risk Run which uses a slingshot course tangential to Magasta's Pool, all Gloranthan sailing showed in the Missing Lands maps (pp.96-100) are island hopping, with an average speed of about five to six knots. There is no route taking longer than 12 days of regular sailing. Kethaelan triremes with a crew of 170 are basically a somewhat widened and elongated penteconter hull (like the Wolf Pirate ships) built up with added space for the second and third banks of rowers on top of the bottom fifty, and usually a planked deck above the rowers. A smaller penteconter patrol craft is described in Men of the Sea. It has about the same freeboard as a regular penteconter (counted to the lowest openings to the oars). Typically, on a cruise only the lower deck will be crewed, and keep a steady speed rowing in shifts. Having the full complement of rowers at the oars happens only in combat situations, parades or races. Apart from purely coastal patrols, triremes usually carry a mast and sail. The wolf pirate ships are a monoreme design with a ramming bow suitable for shearing maneuvers (attacking enemy vessels* oars) and for locking the ship to their prey. The animated figureheads help in this. The crew to cargo capacity ratio of a wolf pirate ship is hardly better than that of a trireme. The trireme has a much wider deck, and some more space between the rowers especially on the upper banks. Yes, storms have a tendency to scatter fleets, seriously reducing sight and communication. But fleets were rarely uniform, mixing triremes with pentaremes and biremes, for different tactical purposes. If you look at the naval war between the Persians and the Greeks with Marathon and Salamis, you see coastal sailing and very mixed fleets on the side of the Persians, and apart from scout crafts, no serious attempt to attack the approaching fleet by the Athenians prior to Salamis. The Spanish Armada was a transport fleet full of land forces rather than a fleet of invincible fighting vessels. Crew/passenger to cargo space were ,similarly unfavourable as with galleys, which limited their operations to coastal operations. The only fleet larger than that, the treasure fleet of Zheng He, followed the coasts as well, establishing contact with the coastal natives imposing trade and tribute on them. Apart from the the Waertagi and possibly the Sendereven, there is no sailing culture staying on the seas for three weeks or more, not even the Vadeli or the dwarf castles. Logistics, especially fresh water (although controling a water elemental might reduce the water requirement significantly) require landfall. Both Waertagi and Sendereven live off the bounty of the seas when at high seas. Nobody expects to be out at sea for more than a fortnight. Most journeys take less than a week - if conditions make a trip take much longer, only a very desperate ship will attempt it, and with short rations and water. Obviously, a pirate craft needs to have enough cargo space for the booty it wants to make from its opponent unless the objective is to capture the entire vessel. Far from all ships will carry significant amounts of high value low volume goods. We are talking about ramming combat here, so the target ship is rather likely not to survive the encounter. Coastal raiders need to provide cargo space for whatever they will extract from the raidees, too, whether captives or other stuff that either sells or is in demand back home. The usual way to deal with rain - whether to capture it or to avoid it flooding the bilge - is to use canvas to redirect it, either into empty containers or overboard. Unless you are in a torrential rain, bailing against that doesn't need that much manpower. Six knots is considered a good travel speed, Line fishing and thrown nets can be used at this speed. Given that most of the time at least one third of the crew of a trireme is off rowing duty, you have the manpower to haul in some fish for a better supper. Spearing some of the fish with a trident will be another way to get the slippery little things onto deck. Some ships may have cormorants for fishing. Anything above six knots is a forced march or special effort, possible for individual vessels with a dedicated crew, but impossible for fleets needing to coordinate. The difficulty of keeping a fleet cohesive is what enabled the victory of the Danish-Swedish alliance over Olaf Tryggvason, they overwhelmed selected Norwegian ships with overwhelming odds. Fleet units or mercenary warships may be detached for escort duty. In that role they are expected to scout ahead and around, alerting the convoy to hostiles. In order to do so, these escorts need to regroup with their convoy regularly to exchange information for provisions. But then, a convoy is slower than the individual vessels that make it up by necessity. I don't think that there are heavily protected overseas convoys. Raider fleets will be mostly individual units following a leader to a pre-ordained meeting point and may display little if any convoy discipline. And some made it back, and told of the land out there, and how to get there. Ireland itself was colonized by boats, and accoding to their own legends, by oxhide vessels. Discoveries are made by a combination of luck (or bad luck) and intent, following coasts and animal migration patterns. The Polynesians perfected this retracking of animal migration routes so much that they could break off the pursuit one year and take it up again the next year, until they found wherever those birds were going. According to the Sagas, the trip to Norway usually was made nonstop, and while the Orkneys were welcome stepping points for raiding Scotland, I haven't seen much mention of making stops at the Faeroys or Shetlands. But any sensible leader would give his crew some rest before storming an enemy place, whether on an outlying island or in a hidden bay. Using sails, island hopping, taking on supplies etc. goes for the majority of the triremes and biremes used in the ancient world as much as for their cargo ships. There are elements of more catastrophic deluges mixed into that riverine scenario (that reflects the recent floods in Pakistan), leading to the permanent loss of coastal lands e.g. in the Persian Golf, the tidal waves devastating Doggerland (in addition to the lands sinking as the melted ice shield stopped seesawing them up), or the inundation of much of the Black Sea basin. The "navigation by birds" in the bible could be a confused account of following seabirds to their roosts. Or over many years if your navigator can return to a spot somewhere out in the open water (as the Polynesians allegedly could), to take up their pursuit on annual migrations. Whales and pinnipeds have migration patterns, too. Fishermen are expected to die healthy and young, unlike your average farmer or hunter who (while still dying young) usually fades out after a term of sickness or suffering from the results of an injury. Your average mercenary had a higher life expectancy even in times of war. There has to be one exception to this - Vadeli fisherfolk and sailors. To a Vadeli "YOLO" is an existential angst. They are likely to be the most risk-averse sailors on Glorantha, and they manage their risk by heavy duty application of sorcery. Vadeli ships have been reported to emerge unscathed out of breakers that would have destroyed any other vessel, or to resurface after being drowned by breakers or maelstroms. Regardless of their color codes, Vadeli are known to be accomplished sorcerers. It is quite likely that they know and use resurrection spells to bring back drowned but recovered sailors, but it is also possible that an individual Vadeli may inhabit more than one body at a single time, possibly grieving about a body-loss that doesn't spell the death of the individual. (How the West Was One suggested this.) The distance between Manday and Jrustela is less than 1000 land miles (the map on Guide p.469 showing the trade routes has no scale, so I used the map in Men of the Sea instead). The distance from Nochet to the City of Wonders is about 70 land miles (Guide p.245), and that's about half the diameter of the bay. Gloranthan sailors have additional means of getting information about their location - sea spirits, merfolk or intelligent sea critters, either friendly or coerced. Measurements of sea floor depth and composition or currents in lower layers may help, too - although the seas were open to sailors other than the Waertagi for only about 200 years before the Closing struck (less in Fronela, more in Maslo or the East Isles), sailors would have charted the route. Some of it will have been written down or "hidden" in work songs. Magical direction finders to places on the surface world will enable triangulation on maps, and unlike the classic world Gloranthans have a much better concept of viewing their world from high above and putting that view into maps. Triangulation of the stars will give little more than the cardinal directions, but those too help for triangulating to another known place. But things could be harder than on earth, too. We know that the shards of the world were caught up in the web of Arachne Solara, holding them together, but we also know about the bottomless chasms that resulted from the Sundering of the World (and the Spike), Are the shards fixed in their distance to one another, or could there be some oscillation there, caused by ebbing and flowing of the Doom Currents? Gloranthan weather forecasts are better than anything the classical world had to offer. Weather affecting magics are slow in the build-up and offer some reaction time. Tidal predictions may be less accurate, and shifting (at times sapient) currents can be game changers. Any vessel on an unexpected long-distance voyage without the means to take on provisions will end in tragedy. It would be rare for a Gloranthan vessel to have supplies for more than two weeks on board, and possibly less water than that if rainfalls are to be expected (or called down). As long as the Closing remains in place, any failed voyage will be blamed to a flawed Opening of the seas for that journey. Sudden displacements of ships or lucky survival of unpredicted tidal surges, freak storms or involuntarily crossing into the hero planes and dropping it out elsewhere may put a ship into the unknown, but that usually requires agency of some powers, usually to test the vessel, crew, or some hero on board. Ordinary malice of the universe or enemy magic will rather result in the destruction of the vessel.

Mostali "magic" like making iron, black powder, erecting walls overnight or animating stone statues is sorcery, which is another word for knowledge-based magic and similar activities. Ultraconservatives might claim that reading and writing is sorcery. The cannon will be of sorcerous production, and the gun powder is of course a product of alchemy. Correctly positioning and aiming the thing might be another form of sorcery - those calculations don't do themselves, but probably require instruments. Igniting the powder could be done by sorcery, too, but mundane fire applied to a fuse (another alchemical product) will do. Is this kind of sorcery covered by the new RQ spells? Probably not. RQ3 had the sort of wishy-washy category "ritual magic" which applied to all three magic systems and basically broke the normal spell-casting and spell-duration rules to enable other magics. Any alchemy, artifact construction or production of magical texts will be "ritual magic" rather than "spellcasting magic" and often will include mundane activities according to a procedure that can be read as a work process or as the ritual magic instruction. At some point, magical energy will be expended, whether to bless the new item, to control the production process, or to empower the item. Keeping such craft, alchemy or measuring processes largely abstract probably is friendlier to the gaming table than hammering a blade strike by strike, melee round by melee round. (This could provide dramatic tension and urgency in a very limited set of circumstances, but doesn't require detailed rules.)

True. Neither herbs nor iron nor gold will be measured in tens of tons. Stuff like this (or truestone, or crystals of the gods) will be carried by rather small bags, never in bulk. Even a few kilograms of iron can oversupply the buyers' market by claiming more coin (or other valuables) than are available to the buyers. The anti-magical effect of untempered iron puts a severe damper on your travel magics, whether the magic is supposed to control your pack beasts or to hold your ship together.

And yet we get the ships from the mediterranean as archetypes for Gloranthan vessels. The seas and oceans have much in common with those of our world - they have waves, currents, winds, they provide buoyancy and danger. But Harrek leads a fleet of proto-triremes aka Wolf Pirate boats on his circumnavigation. That's why fleet actions like the detachment of a squadron of triremes from Seapolis, the City of Wonders or Nochet over to Dosakayo takes a couple of freight ships along carrying the provisions. But I think you over-estimate the amount of food and water you have to carry for the single oarsman. Three litres of preserved water (e.g. with vinegar or wine, or taken from a special source that makes it immune to fouling in the container) and a pound of groat from whole grain provide enough basic sustenance, some dried fruit and maybe a sliver of meat might add the daily ration up to 1.5 pounds solids. Water containers will add to the ballast of a ship. A 270 crew will use up a cubic metre of water, maybe 1.5, per day. That's about 20 to 30 standard amphorae or kegs, so assuming that a warship gets equipped for 10 days, 1 amphora or keg per crew member must be stored in the hull or on the deck (the deck needs to be cleared for combat action, but that's a different problem, and empty kegs can be lashed together and reclaimed after a victorious battle). 15 pounds of solid food will easily fit into a saillor's chest or sack, and can be hung from hooks in the crew area. The crew will use rainfall to refill emptied containers, stretching the water supply, and probably catch fish to stretch the preserved food. Not that impossible for days, up to maybe 10 or 14. But under normal sailing conditions (i.e. using the seasonal winds and currents allowing such a journey) that's enough to hop to the next island, like e.g. Jrustela, Kumanku, or Teleos, or after one such intermediary stop the next continent. Then there is fishing. Thor Heyerdahl relied on fishing for his longer overseas trips, and especially with the Ra found that a slow-moving ship could act like a reef, attracting shoals of edible fish, and possibly sea birds. The situation was the same in the mediterranean. The hazards of sailing to the outer islands were greater when the conditions for navigation were bad, and the longer you stay on sea, the greater the chance that a storm or similar calamity bears down on your ship. On the other hand, specifically the North Sea coast west of Juteland was an area you wanted to avoid - keeping just within sight of the highest elevations was vastly safer than risking the ever shifting sand banks and exposure to the breakers of the surge that would shatter any hull immobilized by such contact. And yet Iceland was initially settled by Irish monks setting off in saucer boats maybe 1.5 meters across, with just minimal personal provender, when the first Vikings arrived. The voyage of St. Brennan is as full of navigational mishaps as is the Odyssey, but it boils down to tall tales of various sailors in similar boats returning to their homelands. Pretty much every summer the chieftains of Iceland gathered men for raiding expeditions to Scotland and Ireland in their dragon ships rather than in knarrs for trading. Knarrs might accompany such expeditions to provide provisions and cargo capacity for the plunder, but they sure didn't go raiding in under-crewed and less maneuverable trading ships. Whalers and seal hunters were foremost in such expeditions, and they used "bird navigation" pretty much like Noah did. The life expectance of fishermen was dramatically low. Surviving your thirtieth birthday made you an elder in the fisherman community. Crews failing to return was a regularly occurring fact of life, and applied even to coastal fishing or island hopping (including priests called to serve at distant steads). No difference from Gloranthan sailing, then. The longest leg across open seas without landfall is from Seshnela to Jrustela, maybe 10 times the diameter of the Mirrorsea Bay. The main difference lies in the animated nature of the seas, like the Doom Currents, and its intelligent and more often than not hostile population. Still, war ships were sent out to project power all the time - the Greeks sent triremes to Sicily, for instance. Spartan ships established colonies to rival Carthage in modern Lybia. These ships carried soldiers and laborers, and their gear. And yet Captain Bligh managed to sail the long boat of the Bounty to the safety of a British colony several weeks from where he was pushed off his ship. Shackleton rowed all the way from Elephant Island off the Antarctic continent to the whaling outpost on South Georgia. According to your logistical argument these were impossible nautical feats. If it becomes necessary, it will be done. According to that theory, there is no way that the southeast Asian chickens found their way to South America, or the spuds from South America to Rapa Nui. The Polynesians managed to get them across. The journeys may have been hard and hazardous, but sailors always were quite fatalistic, and gamblers to boot. That's how harbor districts like the Reeperbahn in Hamburg became such dens of iniquity. Sea voyages often were a prolonged fast, especially for passengers and cargo. If you undertook a long trip overseas, you expected to arrive with less blubber on your hips, and not necessarily unscathed. One more reason to feast like crazy when making landfall in a non-hostile port, or after a successful raid, wastefully slaughtering some of the raided beasts you would somehow carry on your boat back home, or at least back somewhere where you could trade them for more compact treasure.

The Community Magic Rating in HeroQuest is an abstract concept that doesn't map to anything concrete in the clan, does it? Or does each clan have five treasures that act as specific vessels for each of this magic ratings? As far as I understand the way the Orlanthi worship, the wyter becomes the focus of the magical energies that are exchanged with the Other Side. (I know, this is a rules abstraction with RQ magic points sacrificed and conducted to the deities.) That's why a clan is essential for the communal worship. A specialized temple or a heroband with a wyter of their own can replace the role of the clan if the clan rites cannot be attended or if the clan doesn't cater for the specialist deity of your cult. (Interesting question here - does the sanctified ground of a temple enable a direct transfer of magical energies to the other side, or does each temple have a conductor entity (wyter) of its own?) The individual magic sacrificed in the rites and through the wyter would go to the deity, of course, but will create a potential that the clan can access (through the wyter). IMO it is not like the magic is stored in a huge matrix that is kept as part of the clan regalia and can be carried around to spill the stuff again. But I may be wrong in this. When it comes to the adulthood/clan membership initiation, I honestly cannot imagine not taking the wyter along for this initial step. After all, clan initiation creates the link between the adult clan member and the wyter, enabling the wyter to use its GPS ability to locate the clan member when on the clan tula or on an Other Side equivalent of that. In a second step (following the meeting with the Second Son) the male initiee will be able to choose to follow the steps of Orlanth, or to keep his cult initiation on hold to follow some specific calling into a specialist cult, or perhaps even into spirit worship or a sorcerous magic following Lhankor Mhy. The female initiee might have to attract a saviour on the Other Side to melt her out of the Ice of the Greater Darkness, like Heort's wife Ivarne did in the Greater Darkness. Avoiding the conflict by going into some form of stasis (sleep, frozen, whatever) might be their way to deal with the threat of Chaos, although some special way analogous to the Red Goddess quest (exposure to Blaskarth) might be an alternative. I think that the rites that the clan performs (not teaches, actually performs) establish the paths on the Other Side that open when the questers pass over. The identification with enemy gods (and that's what the Bad Uncles are in the initiation) will create a presence of these deities with the masks and the bearers of the masks, but do they really experience their roles as the enemies of Orlanth, or do they maintain some distance keeping their real association with Orlanth (or some other non-enemy deity of the pantheon) intact. Acting the part of an enemy god should not give the stand-in (in this case Orlanth) cultist insights into the secrets of that god's cult, or create an identity of the person with his cult's enemy. If anything, crossing over to the Other Side should enhance an initiate's connection to his own cult's deity, not the deity's enemies. This could lead to some kind of split perception of the mask bearer, one in the role of the enemy, another in an experience of unity with his deity. They aren't just clan members, their bodies are acting out for the (enemy) gods. But I don't think that the actors experience the story from the vantage point of the enemy gods. Sure. And if the role coincides with your cult, you will experience your deity's actions in the performance. However, most (if not all) rites involve the personification of deities whose impersonator has no (or hardly any) cultic connection to, you can just hope that the impersonating clansman doesn't build a lasting identity with that mask's entity.

In Argrath's initiation (as of the Prince of Sartar webcomic chapter 1) we see some of the clan members dress up as the Evil Uncles as the only active participants of the rite. The rest of the clan will be busy opening the way through chants and minor sacrifices, rather than shaping the story. The magic the clan (or whichever community supporting the initiation) puts into the rite is through its wyter, and the rites will be tied to the wyter as well. What you describe is the normal way of an initiation with no Full Lightbringer Hero and his Ginna Jar available, performed for children coming of age rather than for the greatest warrior and heroquester the world has seen since the Dawn. Arkat was about 50 years old (assuming he was born simultaneously to Nysalor) when he underwent this initiation, although as a Horali he wouldn't have looked his age. My impression of the latest model was that IFWW was restricted to the peoples who emerged "awake" from the Greater Darkness. So Zzabur acted at the period of the destruction of the world, and would have recognized that others did at the same time, against similar opposition. The Theyalans did. I don't think that the Dara Happans have such a myth, slumping in abject terror, excluding the Alkothi who were stalking the world in demonic shape (Shadzorings, think Zorak-Zoran-like humanoids not descended from Kyger Litor in any way). We don't exactly get a Manimati survival hero other than the original Manimat. It might be possible that some star gazers in Yuthuppa remained in deep meditation throughout the worst of the Darkness, but we don't learn about any such individuals. The future horse nomads survived as Starlight Wanderers - no idea if they got the idea that others fought against similar foes at the same time their final fight was about to be lost. Jenarong and Lendarsh would be Gray/Silver Age heroes, active after IFWW. Many other survival myths would go "We went into hiding while terrible things happened, and stayed there until we were awakened by X." Location and means of hiding may vary greatly, but far from every minor community re-emerging after the Gray Age had a hero participating in IFWW. Not even in the terms of Heort representing a dozen former Vingkotling tribes in this. Nor did every Silver Age hero. Vogarth Strong Man was definitely active after IFWW when he dammed up the river to form an impassable moat around the Necropolis to contain the dead of that place, but I don't see him confronting the end of the world. Kimantor did in stead of the Esrolians and the Shadow Plateau uz. Tessele probably did for the Caladrans. I am far from certain about Amphibos of Serid Jarkassa or Aram ya Udram, and I don't see any Nogatending participant. Everybody subsequently awakened will have heard about IFWW, but that doesn't give them access to the mysteries of that event. The Talastarings don't have it. Kimantor might have relied on the (rather innocent-looking) "Three Curious Spirits" myth in Troll Pak, which describes the encounter of three Darkness deities with the unborn Aether (still stuck in the Chaosium?), the embodiment of Death to their kind. This Green Age event (first hate-burnt Underworld entity, first master of fire through respect, first peaceful approach to fire) defined the three deities, but it might give lessons to the mortal (or demigod) following their way. The Serpent Brotherhood may have had their own shaman hero doing his bit much like Heort did, but with a vastly different source for their secret of active survival in the face of annihilation - exposure to the Bad Man might count as excellent preparation. The Dangans (the Enerali of Hrelar Amali) might have their own variant of their hero (King Dan?) facing off the destruction of the world. What would a Galanini hero (or heroine, thinking of that Galanini queen fighting the Underworld Dragon relief in southern Estali) have taken as preparation for that encounter? The Korioni are one of four branches of these Enerali/Galanini. The slave/unfree population of Safelster might have been other Hykimi, formerly of the Serpent Beast Brotherhood. There are seven major groups of Orlanthi in Glorantha - the Heortlings of greater Kerofinela, the non-Heortlings of Saird and southwestern Peloria, the Fronelans west of Jonatela, the Vesmonstrans, the East Ralians, the non-Heortlings of Maniria and their descendants in inland Umathela. The East Ralians may be a migratory group of Heortlings rather than of Enerali origin, or mixed with the Vustrians after their presence in the region was established and other groups took over (Bright Empire, Autarchy,, God Learners, EWF).

Thus the Baltic is not a suitable model for sea going or ocean going vessels. I don't see the major difference between carrying enough water for 5 days or for 10 days. The seagoing ships in the Mediterranean were desperate for freshwater springs, as per the legend of St: Andrew on Cyprus. I live on the Baltic Sea, and I have experienced it at its worst, taking boat trips 2 or 3 nautical miles from the beach only made possible by an outboarder suitable for water-skiing - 2 meter waves in rapid succession (maybe 3 to 4 meters apart), with foam on the top, and 10 beaufort. Few Gloranthan ships are built to withstand such conditions at anything but keeping the keel in the wind. Nobody in their right mind would start a trip with an ancient ship under such conditions, but a ship caught out at sea, with the crew struggling to avoid breakers and bailing like crazy will be able to ride out such a storm, if only barely. Further out on the sea the valleys between the waves will get wider, to the point where a paddled ship can ride the waves for certain distances. I would judge the situation above to be at least 7 to 9 beaufort. That trip looks more like a proof of concept than everyday travel to me, but it shows that the boat was built to deal with wave action. A trireme with a ram might struggle more in such conditions. Historically, all Baltic Sea states built ships that worked ok on the North Sea and the Atlantic. That should be seen as an indication that the Baltic was as difficult as the North Sea. Don't get fooled by the Beowulf epic that has him crossing a branch of that sea swimming for three days, such a feat is on par with standing on the back of a flying dragon while slaying it. What is your source for that? The reconstruction in the pics above doesn't give the impression that it was particularly unfit for wave action. Sure. you will have to avoid running in parallel of the waves, but that goes for any craft below a dwarf floating castle or a Waertagi Cityship. Polynesian (and presumably East Isles and Maslo) outrigger craft have lower freeboard than the nordic ships of the Hjortspring type. As double-hull or 1.5 hull vessels they may have slightly less draft than a Hjortspring-type canoe. Those silly-looking protruding beams apparently work fine breaking waves that might flood the boat if diving in too deep, as per the second image.

No Star Heart for the Korioni, but that doesn't mean none for Arkat, I would guess, but he may have been initiated into the Orlanth cult by Harmast (plus companions) instead. This is actually an interesting can of worms. The initiation obviously had the community support of the Korioni. The actual quest preparations could have been done by Harmast and company. Which wyter would have been involved? Harmast had successfully contacted Ginna Jar, so he could have used that quest wyter to initiate Arkat. In that case, the support by the Korioni would have been indirect, making the quest a little harder - no news for either Arkat or Harmast, really. If the initiation would have been to a Korioni wyter, then there is the possibility that the initiee would automatically be drawn into the Korioni initiation rites, which may start out differently (established for Eneral or Galanin, quite likely, or for Korion specifically). But, regardless of which adulthood/pantheon initiation Arkat would have undergone first, the specific Orlanth initiation would have been the next step. So, is it the initiee who chooses his initiatory myth, or is it the community wyter, or is it the officiating godtalkers? It is obvious that at stations with choices of paths, the initiee has agency. However, creating the situation and effecting the crossover into the Other Side is in the hand of the godtalkers and/or the wyter(s). Why no Star Heart for the Korioni? Here the history of the Theyalan missionaries in Ralios comes into play. The Vustri were the direct neighbors of Karia (where Theyalan missionaries would emerge, leaving Dorastor), and so may have been the first converts. Alternatively, all four Enerali peoples accepted the Theyalan mode of worship in 180 when the missionaries proved Humat to be another name for Orlanth. East Ralios was settled by settlers from Dragon Pass - Heortlings, aware of I Fought We Won. Their Vustri (involuntary) neighbors were converted by Theyalans, but they won't necessarily have inherited the IFWW myth, even though it seems that missionaries would marry into the new tribes and raise their own children in the creed and methods they brought along. But then, those marriages needn't have been permanent. Second Council and later Orlanthi needn't have been of Heortling stock. Hence, there is no guarantee that even the missionaries knew the IFWW myth One thing that kept me wondering is when and how the traditional Orlanthi Korioni of Lankst became apart from those Korioni who founded the cities on Lake Felster. When and how did they become a separate culture?

When you say black horse demon steed, are you talking about one of Ethilrist's demon horses? They are hell creatures, not really related to any regular or sun horses, and only share the general body plan, excepting the dentition. If you want to add wings to them, bat-like or draconic wings might be easier than the feathered wings of a sky creature. Insect wings might also be elementally appropriate, but would look extremely silly. Ethilrists demon steeds aren't descended from either Gamara or Hippoi, and Grazers and Pentans regard them as evil and a perversion of what they hold holy about their horses. To think of a parallel, if you wanted to recreate a centaur, you wouldn't use a dark troll for the humanoid part either, but a regular human, preferably one of those horse worshipers who claim that they are the human descendants of a horse deity or spirit. The Middle Sea Empire from the Stafford Library has a short section of a visit to the EWF during its draconic heyday, and that text mentions how sheep and cattle have taken on draconic characteristics and features in the heartlands of the EWF near Dragon's Eye. If the re-creation of the hippogriff was a successful EWF experiment, then draconic mysticism might help your demon steed to achieve wings. Maybe it should start following the Path of Immanent Mastery - Ethilrist's demon steeds are sapient and should able to follow a mystic's teachings. Eastern mystics have taught terrible antigods and elemental outsiders how to fit into their system, so why not a demon steed? A winged dragon horse definitley would be a cool steed. Attaining bat wings would be more appropriate for an Underworld entity, but the Blue Moon bat-winged trolls Greg had us play at Tentacles when HeroQuest 1 just had replaced Hero Wars sadly aren't mentioned in the Guide. There was one six-limbed type (arms, legs, bat wings) which may have been a result of applying EWF magics, and an older four-limbed type with wings instead of arms. I hope these will return when we get an in-depth treatment of the uz. Anyway, if the uz managed to use a heroquest to alter one of their clans into balrog-like bat-winged flyers worshiping the bat goddess of the Blue Moon Plateau and Rinliddi, a horse-shaped demon hero might be able to do the same for its own kind. If the player is a lunar, she might be able to access the Blue Moon Plateau and contact the Bat Goddess.

When you say black horse demon steed, are you talking about one of Ethilrist's demon horses? They are hell creatures, not really related to any regular or sun horses, and only share the general body plan, excepting the dentition. If you want to add wings to them, bat-like or draconic wings might be easier than the feathered wings of a sky creature. Insect wings might also be elementally appropriate, but would look extremely silly. Ethilrists demon steeds aren't descended from either Gamara or Hippoi, and Grazers and Pentans regard them as evil and a perversion of what they hold holy about their horses. To think of a parallel, if you wanted to recreate a centaur, you wouldn't use a dark troll for the humanoid part either, but a regular human, preferably one of those horse worshipers who claim that they are the human descendants of a horse deity or spirit. The Middle Sea Empire from the Stafford Library has a short section of a visit to the EWF during its draconic heyday, and that text mentions how sheep and cattle have taken on draconic characteristics and features in the heartlands of the EWF near Dragon's Eye. If the re-creation of the hippogriff was a successful EWF experiment, then draconic mysticism might help your demon steed to achieve wings. Maybe it should start following the Path of Immanent Mastery - Ethilrist's demon steeds are sapient and should able to follow a mystic's teachings. Eastern mystics have taught terrible antigods and elemental outsiders how to fit into their system, so why not a demon steed? A winged dragon horse definitley would be a cool steed. Attaining bat wings would be more appropriate for an Underworld entity, but the Blue Moon bat-winged trolls Greg had us play at Tentacles when HeroQuest 1 just had replaced Hero Wars sadly aren't mentioned in the Guide. There was one six-limbed type (arms, legs, bat wings) which may have been a result of applying EWF magics, and an older four-limbed type with wings instead of arms. I hope these will return when we get an in-depth treatment of the uz. Anyway, if the uz managed to use a heroquest to alter one of their clans into balrog-like bat-winged flyers worshiping the bat goddess of the Blue Moon Plateau and Rinliddi, a horse-shaped demon hero might be able to do the same for its own kind. If the player is a lunar, she might be able to access the Blue Moon Plateau and contact the Bat Goddess.

Which edition of RuneQuest is he going to support? RQ2 Classic (which he knows from way back, as he said in an interview) or RQG? Not that it matters much, if the magic is being re-written to match the setting.

You could always ask the Char-un, who succeeded in breeding a winged mare (and a carnivorous stallion). It isn't quite clear what their horse goddess was, though, but the chances are high that their origin has some connection to Nivorah. I don't think that Yelm ever had the need for a steed or a draught beast - he had his throne, and once he had it, he never left it. Kargzant is the sun horse, not a rider - at best the mythical union of horse, rider, and sun. Reladivus may be just another name for this deity. Hippogriff was the steed of Yamsur. The best known fact about Yamsur is that he was slain by Chaos at Earthfall, and that we are lucky that we remember his name at all; most of his myth and history was destroyed when he died. HIs folk may easily have been remnants of the Ratite Empire that we see prior to better known inhabitants of the Northeast, somewhat remembered in Rinliddi. The original steed provided at the arming of Murharzarm was an augner, the ratite bird of Rinliddi. But then Murharzarm's main job was to have his butt keep the throne from cooling, too, rather than moving it into any kind of saddle. A throne-mounted howda or palanquin carried by gazzam might have been a respectable alternative to the throne in Raibanth, but that's about it.

p.373 (box) Utriam? Bertalor mentions Urtiam. A candidate for the errata? Lord of the Spike, elsewhere identified with Acos, but I wonder whether we get a parallel to Jernotius here as well. Zrenthus has gained an “n” compared to the Bertalor text in Elder Secrets. Lodik rather than Lodril, god of fire, as the father of Ehilm, and independent from (blue?) Zrenthus. Quite a population up there in the sky. I wonder how the Theyalans and later the God Learners identified these with Aether and his three sons. Zolan – presumably the god of the Red Planet, another version of Tolat. And possibly kin of Zorak Zoran, or aspects of one another. In “The Broken Council”, Varzor Kitor worshipped Zolan Zubar. If Humat was proven to be another name of Orlanth, did Gethor identified with Humakt/Humct? Gethor was known and feared in Dawn Age Seshnela (according to Hrestol’s Saga), so where does Prospopaedia’s Humct come from? p.375 Two species of lion are among the Apex predators of Safelster. At least one would be the Pendali/Basmoli lion that dominated Seshnela in the Dawn Age. What about the second species? Looking at the places of survival of the exiled lion people, I would assume that the Seshnegi variant sticks mainly to the south – Pralorela (and Basim over in Maniria), the fringes of Tarinwood, and Tanisor. The other species might be a northern group. We don’t get Basmoli Hsunchen in Ralios (any more), although there are likely a couple of Safelstran houses with Pendali ancestry. More plesiosaurs, this time a few freshwater-dwelling species. Fish must be plentiful indeed. With the marriage forms of Belemor and Ulemor, I wonder whether polygamy or polyandry is possible in Safelstran society. Scattered, but enormous oak trees – this makes me think of the Estremadura in Spain, the result of over-harvesting the forests for the navy. Given the naval efforts of the city states, this may have been similar. Rice as an important crop: This comes a bit as a surprise. Is this an ancient Enerali crop, or was this introduced by the Bright Empire from Peloria? (In that case, the rice deities would be recognizably Pelorian, probably including Lodril and his Ten Sons and Servants.) I have always thought of Ralios as mostly hilly, and the presence of numerous islands in Lake Felster suggests that there will be quite a bit of exposed bedrock forming cliffs or pronounced slopes even in the lowlands of Lake Felster. Are there terraced rice paddies? The Pelorian rice-growing lands are a lot flatter. The Sodal Marsh might be a center for rice farming. I wonder that the text about the marsh assigns it to Dangim (which has quite a short border with the marsh) rather than with Uton or Rindland. A special legal status for children born from unknown fathers in orgiastic religious rites – sounds like Safelster is a fun place. Slavery or at least serfdom is common, though How tightly are the social classes of Ralios separated? We know about slaves, but not how one becomes a slave, or how one stops being one. In what way are the slaves free to follow a religion, or are they under obligation to follow only the cults their owners allow? Supposedly there is a layer of free commoners, too, at least in the cities, but likely also in rural areas, and then there is nobility. Priesthood may or may not have a special caste or class assigned. Safelster saw about 200 years of God Learner overlordship, which may have increased Malkioni features of their society from whatever mmix of Theyalan and original Enerali culture they had under the Autarchy. I expect Safelster’s religious practices under the Autarchy to resemble that of the Serpent Kings, described in the Seshnela chapter of Vol.2, but I wonder how much the caste system was present. (Similar questions go for ancient Tanisor before it re-defined itself as a Seshnela-in-exile after 1190 ) Conquest by Seshnela – Ulianus conquered all the lands west of Lake Felster (and presumably south of Otkorion), so Azilos, Tinaros and Dangan may have remained free from direct Rokari overlordship. (Tiskos may have been an ally of Seshnela.) Most of Safelster remained free of Rokari pollution of their philosophy, and of monotheism. Population numbers: No big surprises, although the dragonewts being more numerous than in Dragon Pass and the Tusk Riders as only non-human minority besides the Elder Races are a bit surprising. So no Karian Chaos critters on the radar yet, and no other nonhumans worth including in this general overview. Aldryami population numbers usually count only the elves, not the other critters one can expect in an elf forest. I would be astonished to find less beastmen in Ralios than in Dragon Pass, really (excepting the centaur herds.) p.379 Religion Great Arkat’s religion was suppressed just 500 years ago? The fall of the Autarchy led to a century of active pursuit of the Arkati religion 800-900 years ago. 500 years ago Jorstland was near the peak of its power, even including Tanisor. Supported by Halwal, various Arkati forms of Malkionism had resurged 640 years ago. While Halwal’s followers perished alongside Yomili’s and the two leaders, the lands they left behind had rid themselves of much of the Middle Sea Empire’s orthodoxy and were actively worshipping Arkat. Uncommon events: Acute wine shortage. Maybe playing in Ralios isn’t that good an idea? The maps: (pp.380f) Scale: Safelstran cities can be as little as three map hexes apart. .For comparison, the average minimal distance between cities in Heortland or Tanisor is 4 to 5 hexes, and only Esrolia manages distances between cities as short as Safelster, including Otkorion with its strong Orlanthi elements. Terrain: Safelster is astonishingly low-lying. Lake Felster cannot be much more than 50 meters above sea level, making the Tanier and also the Doskior river lowland rivers for most of their course. This makes me wonder about floodings of the entire region, like the ones Pakistan suffered since 2010. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_floods_in_Pakistan Likewise, all of Safelster may be at risk if and when that giant piece of ice breaks loose from the Glacier, or if the raising Somelz manages to edge into Magasta’s Pool, plugging it up. And that’s just a flooding by passive waters. Active waters like the Madadan Sea would not even have to climb a lot. On the other hand, with rice as an agricultural staple, I wonder how tamed the upper Tanier and the Doskior are in the lowlands. Do the rivers have man-made dams and locks in order to manage the water levels (and possibly provide running water for the nearby cities) and to provide irrigation for the rice paddies? While definitely from the wrong historical period, the River Elbe had weirs across much of its length between Magdeburg and Geesthacht in the 17th century, and the city of Augsburg in Svabian Bavaria has the Lech dammed up halfway at a natural ledge to provide a network of fast-flowing canals in the city with energy for water mills used by the artisans of that Roman-founded city. Roman-level use of waterwheels may have been part of the Middle Sea Empire heritage of Safelster. p.382 (sidebar): The Galanini form a horse rider aristocracy south and east of Lake Felster, led by female clan chiefs (most notable of them Ingye, the Queen of Galin). This sounds a lot what the Grazers might look like after a few more centuries lording over Vendref and profiting from the trade tolls in the posts. However, there appear to be other sources of nobility (descent from Arkat, or from Middle Sea Empire potentates) parallel to these. As a horse rider aristocracy, they probably have an aristocratic cavalry similar to that that formed when Tanisor claimed its place as the heir of lost Seshnela. Given the revelation of a large unfree population in Safelster, the peasants may have status similar to the Vendref, too. (We know that Sartar performed a Westfaring to acquire a wyter for his tribal confederation. Is it possible that this led him into southern Safelster, giving him pointers how to civlize the Grazers?) I notice that the area occupied by the Galanini is hard to allocate to one of the four Enerali tribes. The Korioni would have ruled over the Korions (Ot-, Sur- and Nas-) and the lands in between. The Fornaor were the westernmost and held the lands between Guhan and the coast (prior to the arrival of the Brithini of Arolanit). Uton sits right next to Tanisor, and it looks like the Utoni would have been southwest of Lake Felster. The Vustri appear to inhabit East Ralios, beyond Naskorion. The lands southeast of Lake Felster are the stronghold of the Galanini. Utoni and Korioni are the two closest Enerali tribes, so which one (if any) would it be? People of Note: Alangellia’s affair with the current holder of the Purple Scepter of Serpent Sentience is described as torrid. Does that mean it is way beyond steamy? I`ll join Peter @metcalph wondering that it is her throne that is dominated by the faces of Arkat. I would have expected a serpent-themed recliner. But maybe that is reserved to the male ruler of Estali, along with the scepter? No surprises among the other named leaders. Surantyr’s charioteer career had not been mentioned before the Guide, but the concepts of Nikk Effingham for Otkorion henotheism probably still would work fine. Places of Interest: I know that it would have increased word- and page count quite heavily, but I really wish I had a version of the Guide telling me not just the place name (like e.g. Avoc), but also the greater state it belongs to (Sentanos) and the leaders responsible (Erengazor), the body of water it is associated with (northeastern Lake Felster), and possibly other leads which help locating and associating the place with its surroundings, and possibly its history. Basically that means I’ll have to find time to revive my database, and include a tool to connect it to maps. The Temple to Strive and Love in Azilos sounds quite a bit like Tolat to me. Does it have a Zolan connection, or is this some lusty aspect of Arkat centuries of censure have hushed up? Holut is a bit confusing with it being home to both the Galvosti (almost orthodox) sect of Malkionism and its Arkat Temple-Monastery near Col. Apparently the two aren’t mutually exclusive. Is it still true that the Galvosti once were the main sect of Malkionism on the Upper Tanier and well into Sentanos, with only the Chariot of Lightning movement taking them from predominance? Dainmol (in Tiskos): To me the Chaos Monk regime has a certain similarity to the Anabaptist reign over the city of Münster (a century later site of the Westfalian Peace treaty). The Chaos Monks sound like they were even worse, but if they held the city for two years, the conditions inside the city must have been similar to Münster. In any way, that episode of the early history of Protestantism can give quite a few pointers to what could happen in such a city. Danket active in the salt trade: This sounds like they profit from the flooding of the Sodal Marsh by the seas of 1049, probably harvesting peat and burning it to get at the salt, much like the Frisians (e.g. of the city of Rungholt) did in the early middle ages. Given this pollution, the purity of Bakan Lake is quite miraculous, and speaks of a strong deity there. Possibly linked to Eron/Arroin? Salt might be a rare commodity in Ralios, given its rather dry history. The areas covered by the Madadan Sea might be the next best source of salt for Ralios. I would have expected this region to be a center of rice agriculture. Daran nobility sounds a lot like a Malkonized variant of the Galanini noble clans of the p.381 sidebar. Drom (in Helby): I should have named the city’s protector statue as an example for my discussion about city gates… EhilKae (in Seshnegi-occupied Dangk): Halwal’s stronghold in Ralios when he plotted against the Yomili-led God Learner church of Seshnela, studying the ancient magics of Ralios and Tanisor. Destroyed by Mabodinarne. Was Mabodinarne a foe of Halwal? Did Halwal research a “wrong” aspect of Arkat? The Three Rivals including Mabodinarne infamously failed to work together. I’d really like to read a vita of Halwal (as an Ascended Master he certainly should have at least one), and the end of God Learner dominance in Genertela, to clear this up. We might learn a lot about modern Malkionism from that, but possibly also about God Learner methods to study and manipulate local cults and sects. Speaking of Ascended Masters, what is their status in Ralios? The Rokari church hates them, the Hrestoli love them. Where did Halwal leave northern Safelster? (The south appears to have lost its identity to Rokarism, at least among the peasantry.) Gamol in southern Estali is a stronghold of the Ancient Beasts Society, the heir of the Dawn Age Serpent Beast society which mostly succumbed to the Theyalans and then the Bright Empire. I would have expected the Ancient Beasts to be stronger near Vesmonstran or East Ralios with the Hsunchen presences there, but nearby Pralorela offers authentic heirs of the Dawn Age Hykimi, too. Finding this in ancient Enerali and Galanini lands puts the relationship between Enerali and Serpent Beast Brotherhood into a more Hsunchen light. For all their Theyalan, Bright Empire and EWF history bringing mainstream Orlanthi features to Safelster, Ralians appear to have strong Hykimi roots, along with a possible Kachisti inheritance. Grodnin. Where, what? Western Tinaros, on the border to Kustria. Possibly one of the westernmost Safelstran links in the Argan Argar chain. A city of Tinaros, apparently unaffected by any warping Argin Terror may have caused. Helby: Does the slave population participate in these open-sex festivals, or those of Estali? The Galanini sound like an unusually sexually active and liberal group of sun worshipers. There doesn’t seem to be a noble segregation from such rites like the Dara Happan Yelmites from lowly Lodrili or Suvarian practices. Hesmol: northwestern Tinaros, just outside of Holut, sporting a shrine to Arkat the Destroyer at the core of the temple city. Slap-dash in Galvosti “let’s tap the non-Malkioni” lands. But maybe the Galvosti reserve their Tapping for the uz and enlo from Guhan. Maybe an unlucky dark troll who fell afoul of Galvosti Tapping might end up with enlo status if he manages to return home, and enlo would be reduced to food status regardless of their former category. Jarabolos: one of the few city descriptions which tells us where to look for it, and one of the few cities that recently changed their allegiance due to conquest. Gods of Storm, Fire and Earth share a triple temple. Sounds fairly unique in Glorantha, even with Elmal shrines in temples to Orlanth and Ernalda. Vadeli magic destroying Hrelar Amali: (box p.384) The list of the Kings of Seshnela mentions Torphing, who ruled from 168 to 186, and who was slain along with his son by the Waertagi, allegedly for using Vadeli magics. His successors continued their war against the Waertagi, and would have been likely to look for a source of water magic to counter that threat. http://www.glorantha.com/docs/the-kings-of-seshnela-part-one/ I find it quite hard to reconcile this timeline with “a generation after 180, the Seshnegi gave great gifts to Sramak to placate the waters” and only then the destruction using Vadeli magic. The Kingdom of Tanisor became a vampire kingdom afterwards. Maybe that, too, was an effect of Vadeli magic which illuminates may have used indiscriminately. Lake Felster: Its origin sounds like it could have been the result of Helamakt’s Sivin Feat during the Plundering of Aron. Lake Helby: What could have possessed Gbaji the Deceiver to banish the Fifty Lost Fish from the lake? And which Gbaji are we talking about here? We know that Arkat’s spite against his enemy would lead to the lasting chaos infection of the land of Dorastor, but then Nysalor’s defenders had turned to Chaos earlier on to keep Arkat at bay – as early as gifting the Telmori with the werewolf ability (that Talor, another chaos-fighter, cemented as the Wildday curse). The Lartuli cliffside relief depicting a solar horsewoman fighting the dragon emperor of the Underworld: We don’t have any myths of solar dragon-slaying queens. (Nusa, mentioned for Nusatell in eastern Naskorion, is a heroic horse queen slain in the Darkness, but that’s all we know.) My first association for a deity would be Yelorna, whose cult reputedly comes from Ralios, but then I would trust the Galanini to know the difference between a sun horse and a star unicorn. The relief could be contemporary to the Gods Wall. I’d love to confront Dara Happan priesthood with this. And while this is something which could have upset the Dara Happan followers of Nysalor, Lartuli is too far from Lake Helby to have caused them to banish the fish from that (Galanini) lake. Lartuli sits close the edge of Tarinwood, which continues to Pralorela, which is considered to be part of Maniria or Ralios, so the location of the Battlefield of Irn occasionally mentioned in Manirian context might be faulted to a time when the Pralori controlled all the lands around Tarinwood. (p.385) Makan: the city in Naskorion, not the name for the Invisible God of the God Learners. Whose empire included this city, with its temple to Nakala and the Underworld. The Fronelan Irensavalists know Makan as the evil demiurge, which sort of suggests an Underworld connection. But I might read way too much into a duplicate name. We have other such examples, like Kitor or Jorri. Sroket, on an island off the Kustrian coast, is special for its temple to Safa, depicted as a fish-tailed woman holding the bounty of the earth. Not quite a Triolini, but the closest freshwater equivalent we get. Tinaros: the widowed (and now disembodied, because eaten) widowed countess of Jorglaban is one of the most frightening female figures of Glorantha, never mind all those scary Lunar ones ike Yolanela or the Feathered Eye Woman, or the Grandmothers of Esrolia. Her husband and his claim to greater rulership, the regalia of Jorglaban, were sent to the bottom of Lake Felster by the Parthanian fleet. We don’t know whether this was the result of treachery or whether the Parthanians were in a regular war against Tinaros, but rather than raising her children and heirs to the drowned count as the tool of her revenge, she sacrificed them instead and lay with a demonic entity (possibly the devil) to give birth to Argin Terror. This is an epic form of revenge, nearly unparalleled in mortal Glorantha. Only the Unholy Trio, Annilla’s birth to the dead Blue Moon, or the birth of Oorsu Sara to Queen Arlu compare. The city of Tinaros sounds like it would be right at home in the Orange League of the Jrustelan Vadeli. And I wonder whether that “devil” could have been some Vadeli entity. I could picture this place to use themes and stories from Leiber’s Lhankmar or Glen Cook’s Garrett PA series, darker than the respective originals. Some of the Black Company stories by Glen Cook might apply, too. In other words, the perfect place for dark noir stories. p.386 Srvuela, land of the Srvuali (unmixed rune lesser children of the greater runic gods, in Brithini classification): apparently the collective name for the theist core lands of the Bright Empire? The name makes sense to westerners if one calls Fronela, Ralios and eastern Seshnela the Hykimi lands where the people are descended from beasts. Finding this used in Ralios, where the Ancient Beast Society keeps the Hykimi inheritance alive, is a little strange, even if we make this a Jrusteli overlord’s explanation.

I thought about Tree Chopper for the use of an axe. While there are more recent heroes taking that title, already Zorak Zoran used Death in the shape of an axe to cut down Flamal. The Exarchs were collectively ruling over Ignorance in 1051, with the rest of Kralorela still under the False Dragons Ring. I remember Can Shu as the former Exarch of Lur Nop, who got polluted when the outsiders sailed into Kralorela. Before the Guide, I had assumed that it was his friendly contact with the Holy Country fleet (which was sunk soon afterwards) and his treatment of them which got him re-assigned to Ignorance, but that story doesn't work quite as well with the description in the Guide.

Or a quest to rescue the entire herd into the Wastes (and finding out that they miss the cold, and creating a need to invade the Land of False Plenty permanently with the newly created sept). I wonder if it is worth noticing that the Pentans name their gods "wind" rather than "storm". Do they experience the element air more as a constant pushing force rather than unpredictable gusts of storm? I'm afraid that we won't find much new. Various forms of sky god worship with practical stuff like goat breeding and agriculture. The Starlight Wanderers are a group that leaves their home during the darkest period of the Gods War, and meets the horse way of life en route. It doesn't look like Chaos left half as much damage to Pent as it did to Genert's Garden south of the Snowline, but then much of that damage was Genert drawing all the magic of the land unto him in order to save at least those who managed to flee from Earthfall. Few if any humans seems to be correct for the Dawn Age before Argentium Thri'ile. But then, the same was true for the southern Wastes, with Prax harboring the vast majority of the Beast Riders. Neither nomadic group had the numbers to expand into unsettled lands, and the conquest of the sedentary sky worshipers of Peloria was way more rewarding than keeping on traipsing through the endless grass lands emerging from under the snow. I don't think that the priestly caste usually would form clans of their own. They would be part of the general population much like houses Levi and Cohen were distributed among the tribes of Israel. A separate, possibly endogamous caste which nonetheless had tribal affiliation. I tried to get all mentions of Sheng's empire into one collection, but trying to get a consistent history of this is hard, as the evidence is very fragmentary. Or Dranz Goloi did a quest parallel to the Eleven Lights, and gets responsible for the new elements of Orlanth's Ring. There are often multiple activities involved in creating a world-wide change in Glorantha. This might mean that other efforts besides the dancers of the Dragonrise may have contributed to that event elsewhere - e.g. some rite externalizing a great internal evil to somewhere else, which then manifests as the Brown Dragon. Perhaps this is the real lesson of the God Learner experimenting - that all of their great changes did not only reflect their actions and intentions, but also those of distant and unrelated questers and quests, whose meaning will make itself known to the other questers at some later point. There might even be some ritual inside the Lunar Empire or possibly in the Arrolian territories which contributes to the Dragonrise rather than the dedication of the new temple. It might even involve Jar-eel. Unpleasant demons have always been part of the worship of the horse folk - Argoom the Shadow Rider probably was an acceptable spirit or deity of one of the other horse warlord tribes when confronted by Vuranoste (to use a more Grazer-sounding version of that name, with the first two syllables possibly a single one in the native Hyaloring language - compare "Oralanatum". It shouldn't have been a Vr, though, since that sound is well established in Dara Happa through Rinliddi's Vrimak). And still the nourishment the Pentans can draw from the land is limited once the plenty of the snowmelt has been used up. I don't think that the northern part of the wastes could support a major addition to the tribes roaming it, even if it was a Beast Rider group taking possession of a native Sable or Bison (herd beast) population. Lentasia is located in the former region of the Tallseed Forest, as per the historical map on p.126. The disappearance of Tallseed and of the Greenwood of Jolar are blamed on intra-Aldryami strife, but aldryami warfare doesn't leave treetrunks behind. A dead forest suffering storm damage usually has lots of uprooted trees rather than treestumps, so there must have been some axe-wielding agency here (or lots of huge bibers). There are of course uz in the neighborhood who would eat timber, whether from living trees (with fresh sap) or from dead trees (nicely pre-matured by lesser agents of darkness, like maggots or fungi). Vampirism generally is the "mixed-success" escape from Death into some existence between life and death. While there is a myth of Vivamort being made a vampire through his encounter with the Devil and his loss of soul, It may already have been a part of the history of the Seleric Empire, and/or it may be a goal for Ignorance. Its appearance reminds me of the appearance of Sortum in Eastern myth. Possibly this was created by Godunya or the Exarchs as an externalisation of some of the evil going on in the False Dragon Ring's Kralorela. For some reasons, when I hear of bog mummies in connection with trolls, the first thing that comes to my mind is "pickles".

If Bertalor has Vadeli contacts, then his metal lore may be dwarfen in origin. Lodril is called "Laddy" or Ladaral in other western documents (older in Gloranthan terms, younger in real world ones), so there is no westerner reason to call the volcano deity Lodril - the name doesn't appear to be used in Caladraland (which has Veskarthan), but mainly in central Peloria. No significant contact has been made, yet. Nine metals are the Mostali orthodoxy. I have no idea where Bertalor's rump Celestial Court is worshiped in that combination..

The Hjortspring boat offered as much personal storage space for one of its paddlers as did the Viking longships for their rowers - space for one sea-chest or sea sack and a couple of skins for beverages (water or beer). Traveling the Baltic had the additional benefit that you didn't have to carry as much water since the eastern Baltic is less than isotonic in its salt content and can supplement freshwater or beer supplies (if not completely replaces those). Ships traveling the Atlantic or e.g. the Juteland coast had to make significant portions of the trip nonstop since there were no safe harbors on the route. The ship illustrations cry Late Iron Age or even Roman Age to me, with a dose of late medieval mixed in. (And that's without the paddle-wheel floating castles of the dwarves.) None of the Minoan fresco ships have a Gloranthan counterpart (the Kareeshtan Warsails have way too much rigging for that).

The Hjortspring boat design may have been 2000 years old when the boat was sacrificed in a southern Danish bog. It isn't clear whether the crew came raiding from the east and got overcome, or whether the boat had been raiding in the eastern Baltic successfully before returning home to Denmark and being sacrificed. Rock carvings of ships (that may have been interpreted as sleds at times) show the same double bowsprite architecture the Hjortspring boat has, and the reconstruction of the boat with contemporarily available tools produced a canoe with paddling as its only means of propulsion. The journey from Denmark to the Baltic states is at least comparable to crossing from Egypt to Crete or Cyprus. The same ship type was used to travel the Atlantic and North Sea coasts, connecting e.g. the Lofoten with central Europe, before the clinker-built ships of the Nydam Boat, Sutton Hoo or Oseberg and Gokstad type. The Baltic sees a lot more storms than the mediterranean, making it at least as demanding to Bronze Age ships as the enclosed Mare Nostrum. True, long distance paddlers tend to ride convenient currents and use friendly winds. The Polynesians managed to cross the Pacific with a technology that the Maslo and Thinokan outriggers and those of the Sendereven represent.

I agree about Third Age limitations, but deities inhabiting their statues (or animating them) and stepping out in defense of their congregations must have been rather widespread in earlier ages. I was thinking of the defenses of Salomo's temple, which consisted of a huge door and two massive cherubs guarding the ark of the covenant. I would trust Sartar's Change magic to make lifelike statues become active. Elsewhere, Earth Magics could easily combine massive statues with elementals to power them. I didn't want to suggest that any of your designs were wrong, but I wanted to point out that a less iron age and more bronze age approach might include such guardian figures in military defense considerations.

I am starting to wonder whether there would be more statues that can be called to live in niches of the outward face of the gates. Maybe not quite up to the size of the two Jolanti of Dwarf Mine, and more often than not not human shaped, but there are a few canonical mentions of awakened statues as magical guardians, like the bronze rams of the brazuer couort in Boldhome. With such guardians part of the architecture, the anti-siege functionality of the gates and surrounding towers might be reduced. Entering through the jaws of a (chiseled or petrified) monster might make another style of gate, and I could see Esrolian gates surrounded by constrictor snakes hewn into the rock of the gate which would contract to cover the gate.

Yes. I was talking about paddling, though, which doesn't need that exact coordination as long as you don't go for high speed. I think that rowing isn't necessarily widespread in Glorantha. By the presence of triremes we know it for the West and Maniria, and the huge Kralori barges have zombie rowers rather than paddlers. All of these places had been under God Learner rule, though. As far as we know, Maslo was not conquered by God Learners. Canoes were the signature vessel of the bronze age. The Hjortspring boat is a huge war canoe that traveled the Baltic during the late Roman Republic era. And outriggers are typically paddled, not rowed.

And with good reason. "Acid" means "sharp" or "pointed", and doesn't really correspond to "sour" or "bitter". Acid in a narrower sense is any corrosive liquid that etches or dissolves metal. Although I would like to get my hands on an acid that is half as effective acid in the lab as the fantasy acids seen in cinema (e.g. Alien blood) The acrid effect of Chaos doesn't form solutions like e.g. vinegar or vitriol do in alchemy. Stuff dissolved in an acid can be reclaimed by a trained alchemist. Stuff dissolved in Gorp cannot be restituted, it is exposed directly to entropy, and loses whichever material properties it may have had. Gorp "acid" destroys metals as much as it destroys glass, pottery, wood, waxed surfaces or other containers that can be used to store vitriol or vinegar. Vitriols, vinegars and similar non-chaotic etching liquids may react with alkaline brines to form the respective salts, which then can be crystallized by evaporating or freezing out the liquid. I am not convinced of this. IMO the antithesis of Chaos is Creation, which is transformed (unconnected) Void, whereas Chaos is Void leaking into the Cosmos. The only way Magasta can avoid bleeding off substance to the Void his Maelstrom encapsules is through the motion, He is using energy rather than matter to deflect and limit the expansion of the enclosed entropy. True. Real world wool and silk can use recombinant dyes, forming a chemical attachment to functional groups of the proteins, whereas linen and cotton only have hydroxide groups to offer, and often have adhesive rather than chemically bonded dyes. Gloranthan fabric may have different rules, although the distinction may be as simple as plant-based or beast-based fibres which require different bonding agents. And then there are mineral pigments which aren't of much use for dyeing fabrics, but may be of use for illuminating manuscripts or be used in frescoes, glazing or staining wood or leather. Real world metal salts are mordants, as a rule the metallic forms aren't. The old chestnut "why isn't the iron in blood not magnetic" and similar half-knowledge. Metal salts in combination with tanners' lyes and humin components e.g. from leaves and similar natural resources. Good question. Sight, and thereby color, is the sense of the Fire element. The rainbow itself is a combination of Light, Water and Air (to suspend the water). The substances that receive the dye all have an earth origin. Darkness is out of this game, although the various dyes might be appreciated as condiments by the uz. Moon is - for all its crimson and blue intermediate states - a monochrome element, unable to illuminate colors.

It's all about location. You'll have a buying price where the product is produced or delivered (e.g. from inland, via river transport), and a selling price at your destination, and "I'll take it off you if you ask me nicely, but I am not really interested" prices elsewhere. If you ever played one of those sandbox first person space transport computer games, you will know what I mean. If you salvage some cargo (whether abandoned or forcibly abandoned), you won't usually be able to sell it at top selling rates. Triremes can either be fit for fighting or they can be fit for express deliveries, although I wouldn't use a ship design used for optimized ramming speed but rather one for long sustained speed - a bireme or monoreme (basically an upscaled penteconter). Much of their storage capacity is used for provisions for the crew, but above deck you can pile up stuff you want to deliver. That list is missing the ubiquitious items of luxury pottery, glass, textiles, dyes, and ship requirements like seasoned timber, ropes, leather, canvas, dowels, nails, containers (chests, amphorae), pitch... Downriver transport may be as cheap when cargo is strapped onto rafts of marketable timber. Masloi or Thinokan outriggers may use that human cargo as propellant, too - paddling keeps them fit and healthy, and exhausted. Fonritian warsails probably have belowdeck cages as a default installation. 10 tons worth of herbs of one type sounds like a year supply for the port and its hinterland, even if we are talking about mass-marketable stuff like tea or kafl leaves. If you have 10 tons of a highly specialized good at your hands, you will have to peddle it off in small portions over a number of ports of call - basically you become a distributor. That's the problem. Medicinal herbs or substances useful for dyeing may be exported from the Veldt, but hardly in complements of 10 tons. If you have the option to have it sold to the original recipient of the cargo, you'll be in luck. Of the above, wine and cloth are the only bulk items that I see. Salt, durable foods (whether lentils, grain, salted or dried fish or meat), beverages, oils may qualify as bulk cargo. Bronze ingots and other metals are good additions to the ballast, as are stones sought for milling, masonry, or carving. Bulk grain may be transported in closed below-deck compartments, but will require constant work airing and re-balancing. (At least that's how Hanseatic grain merchanters operated.) Most of the time a trader will just exchange his cargo for some other local cargo, some bulk and some more valuable special, small volume cargo, and "cash in" only at his home port(s) through established outlet chains. Some of the procedings will of course be left as cash to the local service industry at the port. Mercantile sailors in port are hardly distinguishable from pirates enjoying a few days off in port. A pirate's booty doesn't calculate in exchange rates, but in days of spendthrift debauchery in the next friendly port. It is different for captains, ship-owners, and ambitious wannabes, though. More often than not your ship-to-ship pirate will go cherry-picking targets designated by a merchant who knows exactly what the ship has loaded, and who has the channels to sell that stuff at a profit. That merchant will offer you credit or even investment options (which might lead to owning part of the ship you are sailing on). The deals will stink compared to the profits made by the merchant, but will still pay better than random cargo collected from random targets. Most piracy is of the Viking kind, though, raiding coastal settlements and trading sites, often for daily life essentials and human cargo. Piracy might extend to smuggling, blockade-breaking or targeted armed burglary.

Possibly its weight in gold. The problem with (anti-) magical stuff like iron or truestone or other magical treasures is that while everybody acknowledges its utility and exceptional quality, there is no stable market for something like this. Check the Biturian story for truly incredulous exchange rates for Truestone, at times owed to desperation. Check out the King of Sartar game for deals for treasures. I am a bit dubious about this "given by cult" notion. Given as a loan by a specific temple I can see. (Temple as in both the location and the priest hierarchy and cultists following it.) Such items would come with a service obligation, and the obligation to return them. But then personal property is something that happens mostly to outlaws, merchants (who usually have backers) and adventurers, and in a smaller degree to city dwellers. A person that is part of a normal rural clan won't have much if any truly personal possessions. The clan would be synonymous with the cult when it comes to ownership of magical items, like iron implements. Such a trade will be done by the clan (or the temple hierarchy), as no individual will have anywhere near the price you have to pay. (Which is another way to say that the price depends on what the seller can extract from the buyer.)