Joerg

I don't see any evidence for microscopic creatures, but I do see lots of evidence for very small chalk exoskeletons (never bones) both in sediment and in rocks. I was thinking of marine fossils, which come petrified either in chalk or in flint. Silicaceous algae actually are observable with the naked eye when alive. Tiny invisible (read: microscopic) creatures are bollocks, whether as source for salt or as the cause of diseases or fermentation. A drop of water is alive because it is water, not because of invisible critters. Stop dragging real world science into this. IMO salt does not need to be formed from tiny creatures, but is formed from organs of watery bodies (seas, Godtime rivers) which are (collective) entities in themselves. No need to invent microorganisms. Show me any Gloranthan creature with bones of salt. Or exoskeletons. Or teeth. I am fairly convinced that the "bones of the gods" metals are left only when the gods have taken on vertebrate shapes. Slain divine/demonic beetles or lobsters won't leave leaden or sea metal carapaces behind. Neither will slain divine molluscs leave leaden shells. I could live with sea metal octopus beaks. But then - are there any "gods' teeth" around, other than the Ivory Plinthe and the EWF dragontooth warriors that can be summoned by Argrath? Do they behave in any way like metals?

A talking gorp absorbing and then repeating a victim's speech sounds like designed for torturing confessions or evidence.

Tanners are well-acquainted with caustic substances for curing their hides, and they are present in almost all cultures (excepting maybe the weeders of Dara Happa). I don't think that the land-locked cultures will acknowledge Nelat much. Caustic substances in our world include naturally occurring brines, calcified chalk or soda, ashes, and mined minerals. The stuff wrestled from the earth will be attributed to Asrelia, and the stuff made more caustic by calcification will be attributed to the interaction of fire with the sedimentary rock. And then there are volcanic exhausts, like the one creating the Stone Wood of the Footprint (as a cooperation of Veskarthan and Orlanth). Interesting theory on the subject of sea-metal. Personally, I see the Lo-Metal referring to Lorian, not Lodril. Lodril alloyed his own existence with earth, creating the template for brass (the copper-tin (or something like tin, possibly zinc) alloy (the sky plus earth metal) that the Mostali use for their caste metal rather than bronze). Sky and fire are over-represented in the array of rune metals, anyway - we got fire rune metal (gold), moon rune metal (silver), and sky rune metal (tin). Poor air gets bronze, an alloy rather than a rune metal, and one that is another term for an already established alloy (e.g. by the Brithini of Sogolotha Mambrola, who sit inside a brass fortress rather than a bronze one). But then, we were discussing salinity, not ore mineral content of water. Triolini are descendants of Nelat and Triolina, so if the salty / unsatiated dichotomy is to be applied, they come from the salty, caustic side of those three siblings. Murthoi are a whole different thing. They combine the runes of man, plant and water, but their ancestor Murthdrya doesn't seem to be descended from Triolina. There is some Flamal and possibly some Grandfather Mortal involved. Wachaza's mother Sapana (aka Robber) was involved in the first conflict with the keets which started Togaro's invasion of the lands. While Magasta was basically unknown that early, with his siblings Manthi and Natea ruling the Depths, Wachaza's mother learned about fighting the dry folk who don't belong to the seas. Nope, you don't use that stuff for drying or flavouring your meat or fish. Tiny sea creatures leave behind chalk. And maybe flint (compressed opal, which is silica algae sinking down as sediment). Treated (calcified) chalk gets caustic, so there are salt properties hidden in this stuff, but neither herd beasts nor humans would confuse these minerals. Nautiloids have become a fact in Gloranthan scholarship, thanks to a pamphlet distributed by Andreas Pittelkow, spanning a link to dragonsnails (which might be debatable as it leaves out the innocent pond snail precursors of this specific part of the Devil). Magasta is the recipient of all the motion the connected waters can channel to him, maintaining an unescapable vortex surrounding but not touching the chaos void that replaced the Spike. Magasta is about motion and separation. Magasta is important because he embodies the apex of the Food chain. All other connected waters and water beings are just conductors. We know that water - and specifically river water - can be caustic to chaotic manifestations. Sounder's River was redirected by Waha to wash the Devil away. I don't see any indication that Sounder's River has highly caustic water, nor does the land that Waha cut his canal through display any indication of salt, soda or other caustic stuff that could be taken up before abluting the devil and diluting its remains. The Sypon river, another intrepid dissolver of Chaos, carries brackish water up into the Footprint. It isn't clear whether his cleansing attempts rely on dilution or caustic interaction. The Erinflarth performs the miracle of cleansing itself from the pollution of the Sludgestream upon leaving Dorastor. (Orlanthi polemics might claim that enough chaos remains dissolved, polluting the Lunar Heartlands, but that's unsubstantiated slander.) The only known maritime Chaos monster is the Mother of Monsters of Maslo and her high-tide offspring. There are plenty dreadful and deadly monsters of the watery deeps, excretions of Varchulanga, but those aren't chaotic. The River of Cradles campaign added a gorp variant that would withstand Zola Fel's cleansing powers.

True, hunger is a Darkness thing. On the other hand, the Seas philosophy was described as focussed on food, with Bab (the Earth Cube) being the object of desire. Hunger is a good shorthand for "let's gather food/nourishment", but I'll happily adopt some other term for this behavior that doesn't borrow from my professional jargon (hypotonic, solvent, demineralized) and would be part of an everyday vocabulary. "Insipid" or "vapid" would be accurate, but sort of insulting to the bounty of Heler. On the other hand, to the seas, Heler is the Lost One. While he is instrumental in returning the stolen waters to the seas through his rain, he remains cut off from the unity of the waters. But to some extent the same is true for those waters that feed inland basins like the Hot Lake, the Hellcrack, or those that disappear in Prax. Maybe "desire" is a good description for Heler and his waters. It certainly reflects his social role. As long as you don't make Darksense a sonar working through air, I am fine with Darkness (or at least uz) sharing sound. I wonder whether the elemental languages each are designed for their respective elements as media, with transmission via air only a secondary property.

Geographically, certainly. While alternatively it could be thought of as part of the eastern Rockwoods, which are usually reckoned to be part of the Elder Wilds, it is completely isolated from the rest of the wilds by the mountain chain. Culturally, not that we ever noticed. The Kargzant-worshipping horse nomads are no sorcerers but have shamans and, at least since Sheng Seleris, mystics. They aren't known for necromancy. The sorcerers of Orathorn are an enigma. They are immortals, served by undead, and (for lack of other information) appear human. While they don't appear to be chaotic, their magics battling with those of the Lunar College broke the boundaries of the world and visited some of the worst backlash to Glorantha within its history. They aren't mentioned in the description of Gonn Orta's Castle, although the Elder Giants should be aware of them, and vice versa. Sorcerers in a castle does sound a bit like Malkioni, but we have no evidence that the Orathorn folk are related to any spawn of Danmalastan. They could just as well be easterners in exile, perhaps voluntarily seeking the proximity of the Hellcrack. It is unknown what ties they had to the Seleric Empire, if any at all. Likewise, it isn't known how the Pentans managed to involve them in the Battle against the Orayans. Survivors of that battle are about as rare as the survivors of the Dragonkill War.

I am not, although: If god learners are bad, and regarded heretics in their own ranks as their enemies, would that make a heretical god learner "good" in the eyes of a traditionalist? Was Halwal regarded as a foe of the traditionalists he supported in Fronela and Ralios, or as one of the good guys? I could enjoy being placed in the same category as Halwal (at least prior to his rise to Ascended Master). But in my theory I allow for the effects of God Learner presence in Glorantha. Such a tripartite elemental rune is nothing new: Cold (Dark without Shadow) - Dark - Shadow (Dark without Cold) Light (Fire without Heat) - Fire - Heat (Fire without Light) In my text above, I postulated "hunger" and "satiation". Magasta's Call to plug the raging rift in Glorantha stopped the upward flow of the hungry waters. This left only the hungry waters of Heler (and Valind) and the waters released from within the earth feeding the rivers. Most headwaters (springs) produce mostly hungry water. They are like released slaves of the Earth (or the Sky and Air) fighting and plundering their way back to the seas. Significant bodies of water are separated from the seas, without a current connecting them - Heler's Clouds and the rainfall, water trapped inside the earth, and waters frozen by Valind. Other waters may have lost such properties in the Gods War, whether to Chaos or to other hostile deities like the Easterners or Orlanth. Heler is considered a tragic loss. The "tidal" waves like Sog and Worcha are different from rivers. So were the standing waves like the Madadan Sea (covering Maniria, Halikiv, and Yolp) and the Osliran Sea (which covered much of Prax and western Balazar, and all of Dara Happa). Yes! Caustic purification, wisdom, satiation. One of three children of Daliath (the intellect of the waters) and Sramak(e) (the body of the waters). And the hungry waters obviously are his brother Heler's domain. Which leaves Triolina as the goddess of the balanced or complete waters. Checking the genealogy of the water deities, the water spirits and elementals are descended from Heler and Triolina, so they may be on the hungry side of the spectrum. The Seas (and through Sshorg, the Rivers) are the children of Sramak and Framanthe, whereas the motion and energy of the waters (and the water kings, the Manthi) are the children of Daliath and Framanthe. This doesn't take the motion of rivers, waves, seas and ocean currents into account, though.

Sheng was born on its shores, within time, so there is no way he could have caused the lake to come into existence, even indirectly. He might be blamed for the salinity, but that's a story with less mythical truth than others. (More on this below in my reply to David.) Blood. The Black Sun is about rivers (and a lake) of blood. The clotted stuff may have been eaten away by its denizens, but the liquid remains. IMO water naturally has about the salinity of blood - see the separate thread started by David. Higher salinity shows some over-satiation of the water, possibly making it less active, while lower salinity is a mark of separation from the All Water, and generates hunger in the water entities associated. Isotonic, hypotonic and hypertonic translate into Gloranthan reality as "near optimum for drinking", "leaves you craving for salt" and "makes you thirstier than before". But yes, salt is the dead body of a water overcome by some or all of the other elements. One form of corpse water. Ice and steam are other such forms of "corpse water". Any open water will give birth to mist or clouds as long as the wind isn't too strong. Having Nessie's and her friends' heads peek out of that is a nice addition. Large dinos would have to be apatosaurus or similar land-dwellers taking hippo-style lunches - not exactly impossible, but might have been mentioned in the description. Too much mist will be just a weak version of Kahar's Sea - and that effect is not desired. Just another water filled caldera isn't exciting, either. A rift into the underworld filled by a water entity is my interpretation. Less deep than Hellcrack, but possibly caused by the same event shaking up the wasted remnants of the Garden. Digest archives, 1994 or 1995 IIRC. I reread that about a month or two ago. Google is no great help. Noted. My point is that where there are conflicting myths pointing to the same result, there will be some rather unspectacular mundane story coming to the same result, too. Possibly conflicting ones, too. Possibly with some magical outcome each, useful for sorcerers and alchemist requiring this or that symbolic ingredient or category to hook their known spells into. A good (but historically false) theory for the origin of a feature still may lend a magical handle for dealing with it or its denizens, at least until countered. The entire Second Age of Glorantha circles around this effect, and just because the Jrusteli of Umathela have been systematically eliminated, this doesn't mean that there are no sorcerers left capable of projecting such a story or doctrine/dogma onto a feature. Sp there is no river demon lying dormant in a wadi, providing the occasional humidity for a temporary well, and waiting to prey again on Heler's bounty to raise its hungry head again? Maybe just the seeds that the former serpent left, is hidden eggs, if you want them to be ephemeral. So we have ephemeral serpents, returning serpents, and dead or undead children of Seolinthur, all called Serpents. The rivers of Pent are likely seasonal, too, but they get fed annually by snowfall and -melt which returns the water over a longer time than the (rarer) rain events further south in the Wastes. Still, in Earth and Dark Season the Pentan rivers will be weak.

So, here's my point of view. I would like to say in advance that I am a chemist whose job includes the analytical control of water. There is little about water chemistry or physical behavior in our world that you might need to explain to me. And I want to say in advance that Gloranthan matter doesn't quite reflect terrestrial chemistry. Which is why I have an issue with this: I don't think that elemental water is distilled water. Distilled water is lacking a significant component of what makes the bodies of seas, oceans and even lakes. It is dead, a liquid dust, rather than vibrantly alive. I have come to the conclusion that pure elemental water is isotonic - it has about the same salinity as blood. Saltiness is a quality of elemental water, and crystalline salt is the dead body of a water entity. Each of the other elements is able to draw the water away from the salt - fire and wind by evaporation, earth by feeding on the liquid, leaving the minerals behind, and darkness by freezing the liquid out, leaving a brine that will crystallize. Fire is highly effective in evaporating the water, but needs to be shielded from the water, or it will be overcome. Heler's water is divorced from the Sea, the result of his self-sacrifice in the fights when the waters invaded the skies. (Lorion, on the other hand, remained intact, and in contact with the Seas. In The Eleven Lights you can visit the place where the contact remains.) Molten snow or ice, rainwater or distilled (condensed) water is hungry. Where it can, it will leech "stuff" out of soil or rock, and then run downwards, hoping to rejoin a river and in the end the All Waters of the Oceans. Rivers used to be living tendrils emerging from the living seas, crawling inland to carry back as much "food" or "stuff" from the dry side into the ocean. They weren't reliant on Heler's rains at all, being fed water (and hunger) by their parent seas, but they collected any of Heler's water (and whatever "stuff" that water had been able to collect) back into the fold of the ocean, of course. The cube of the earth includes and surrounds huge amounts of isolated or evaporated water, possibly captured and condensed when it was birthed. When the earth broke, some of these amounts of evaporated water (salt) was returned to the oceans, increasing their salinity beyond what can be drunk without adverse effects. I live on the Baltic Sea, and where I live, the salinity of the Baltic is about isotonic. Up in Bottnic Bay, the water has the salinity of a mineral water. Closer to the Kattegat or Skagerak, drinking the water of the Baltic will make you thirstier than you were before, but in my region it's a zero sum game. (Other stuff in the water - both alive (organic) or inorganic - may cause other problems, but that's not relevant here.) The invading Godtime rivers were able to divide themselves into a hungrier outside (replenished by the hunger of their parent seas) and a more satiated inside giving back some of this plenty to their parents, while using the energy to carve new paths uphill as well. Where their load exceeded their energy, the rivers would dump first larger rocks, then rough sediment, at last finer sediments, after having taken their nourishment from the stuff. Magasta's Call stopped the seas from feeding their hunger to the rivers. Ever since, they have been diminished to collecting what waters are released from their capture with the earth, or what water is collected from Heler's rains. Heler's rains are pure hunger, the waters released from the earth may be quite satiated (saline) in some cases.

Sure, it *looks* similar, but usually the underlying reasons for the existence of any part of nature are totally different from our own planet, and based on myth and magic rather than any science that we would recognise here on earth (Gloranthan "science" being totally different to our own). All the myths explaining why nature is the way it is are taken from such explanations as they apply to our world's natural phenomena. Such myths are natural philosophy. Gloranthan water behaved like an organism (the All Water) with semi-independent sub-organisms through most of Godtime, until Magasta called the living waters to his aid. This didn't affect any children of Seolinthor in Genert's Garden, though, because they had been slain in the slaughter of Earthfall or lost their connection to the All Water (remaining as the Serpents, seasonal rivers). Only Zola Fel escaped that fate. I think that the Hot Lake appeared after Earthfall - an underground body of water burying out of the underground, bringing its own denizens with it. Isolated from the seas, so it could not provide a steady feed into Magasta's Pool.

Treasures, concubines (Greymane wouldn't benefit much from a treaty wife the way Pelorian kings do), luxuries. I would suggest that the Varstari emissaries are a Phargantite operation, without any Fazzurite involvement. Probably from the people who helped Moirades win the Feathered Horse Queen. Lunar and Earth magicians, artists and traders in the service of the royal court. Some of them may have become quite grizzled since their service in the Grazelands while others will be up and coming ambitious members of the Furthest Academy. We don't really have names of Tarshite people beyond the direct families of Pharandros and Fazzur (and the clan that plotted Mularik's downfall), so I don't think that there are any canonical names we can put to these folk. For fun, a young Enjeem the Leopard might be among them, learning about Greymane's lion shape-shifting inherited from the Pendali.

There isn't really a need for two variants of bipedal failed dragonewts tossing spirit magic around. Given the trachodon units in the Dragon Pass boardgame, I am inclined to say that they are the big stage of magisaurs, and that somehow the establishment of the Ryzel dragonewt city may have caused spiritual distress among the crested 'newts associated with that place, which then got complimented westward.. Do magisaurs reproduce? Dinosaurs do, so magisaurs probably do so as well. Maybe only the huge, dumb but most magical ones.

You can always take a ship to Fonrit as human cargo, but it wouldn't be an enjoyable trip... The reasonable price for a ship passage is better than the expected profit for the amount of cargo you and your food and luggage displace. If there is any risk involved in getting to your point of departure (say near an island like Loral), you'll have to compensate for a potential loss of cargo and the ship, too, to make it worth for the owner to risk his ship. Basically, if your travel is along a route for a high profit cargo, the price for a passenger space will be high. You will have to have some insurance against being sold off into slavery in Fonrit (which is a lousy travel destination in this regard). You can make your players paranoid about accepting an offer that sounds too good to be true.

Not really a topic for Pent, but land-locked farmers would think of salty sea water as poisonous to their crops. I am not convinced that the Oslira or Madadan flood seas would have been salty - the lands and river valleys they left behind are among the most fertile areas of Genertela. Sea water could leave a piece of land inferior or less fertile for a century or two where I live and work - the second Mandrenke of 1634 left a huge area of wetlands unsuitable for anything but seasonal grazing (where the salt residue would have been seen as beneficial rather than detrimental). Opening the dikes to entrap an enemy army was a major sacrifice of arable land for generations. Reclaimed parts of the wadden sea would start out as salt pasture, only slowly being rinsed by (quite a lot of) regular rainfall. One way to regard the Blue Age when the cube of the Earth emerged from the dark undersea as the formation of a pearl by a mollusc. I am pretty sure that the outer layers of the Earth Cube resembled a cubic pearl before the seas and other forces began attacking it. At the same time, the earth cube was of course regarded as food, or as an anchor for sessile or benthic sea life (mostly vertical reef life...) The cube wasn't exactly regular. In the east, it had two or three adjuncts, with roots in the eastern flank of the earth cube supporting eastern Vithalash, Forng and Memb, and branches thereof supporting lesser outer isles like the Dendulag or the Deselenro chains. We can always blame Chaos, or other forces drying up seas. Orlanth's re-conquest wouldn't have resulted in stagnant water evaporating, so his reclaimed lands would have suffered less from salty water than basins like Faralinthor's. Faralinthor's waters of course became salty from the tears of Esrola, until even those tears dried away, but is that enough to explain the salty oceans? I doubt it. Tears, or poisoned blood, are typical sources of salinity in myths. (Salinity may include hardness - dissolved chalk and dolomite, used by molluscs and corals to build their hard parts from. Rock gets eaten by water entities and secreted by others, nothing mundane or scientific about this. Chalk evidently comes from water, but is not salt, and vice versa - check the interior of copper kettles or lead brine pans. I live on the baltic sea, a brackish sea with varying salt levels depending on your distance from the Kattegat, where it enters the (much saltier) North Sea. Where I live, the salt content is roughly isotonic - a shipwrecked party lost at sea could survive quite long by drinking that water, hygiene issues left aside. It is possible that the original rivers had about the same salinity as blood or our cells. This isotonic quality could qualify as alive rather than brackish. This still doesn't completely explain how the seas became undrinkable, but might be a first step to establish a minimum salinity to start from. If Chaos is to blame, how saline is the Devil's Marsh around the Block? Prior to the pollution the water must have been potable, as the dragonsnails are descended from pond snails. The Breaking of the World may have released brine into the seas. That brine would have been held captive inside the cube, possibly as liquid, possibly as crystallized salt, one of the treasures hidden by Asrelia, and now made accessible. This wouldn't have mattered much in the immediate fight against the Chaos Rift that dominated much of the Surface conflict of the Greater Darkness, but could have been important after the pool sealed that worst rift. (On the other hand, we come to a situation where all that's remaining of Glorantha is in shards, permeated by the Void, and only the web of Arachne Solara manages to tie it together again, excluding the Void.) I find it quite possible and plausible that only somewhat salty water can be an alive body of water, excepting manifestations of naiads and water elementals applying active magic to form a body out of fresh water. Thus, the Syphon needs to be brackish in order to keep running uphill into the Footprint, and tidal waves don't work in the non-saline lake Felster the way they work on the sea shores. Elementally pure water might well be isotonic rather than distilled.

The big news is such a triaty leaving one of the established Heortling (or Ditaling) tribes. Having triaties as subtribes of former Vingkotling now Heortling area tribes isn't exactly an innovation, and may have gone on already before the Greater Darkness. The huge area tribes are inherited from Vingkot rather than Heort, mythically if not prehistorically (not willing to discuss crackpot ideas about Winter Tribes or daughter tribes originating only in the Greater Darkness here). Hantrafalings rather than Heortlings - practitioners of Hantrafal-style Theyalan sacrifice (which may or may not be significantly different from Pelorian sacrificial methods). The Pelaskites and the Esrolvuli are Theyalans, but neither are Heortlings. The Caladrans, Aramites, Nogatendings and other folk further north are Hantrafaling Theyalans, too, without being Heortlings. And Heort himself was a shaman rather than a devotee of Orlanth. What's the difference? The Star Heart secret, for instance - common to all Heortlings, but not common to Theyalans. The Esrolvuli I Fought We Won experience comes through Kimantor rather than Heort. Why? The former Vingkotling tribes - summer, winter and star - became the Heortlings, with the exception of the Esrolvuli. Possibly (but not certainly) including the Deleskarings. ^1234567/he Vathmai could have been related to the Harandings and Aramites (Aram led his people into Dragon Pass from somewhere around Ezel, which may point to Entruliland or the Harandings whose pig-connections are canonical). The Dawn Age Aramite origin is left in the dark. The Kitori are another such tribe of humans appearing among the Heortlings, including some Heortling recruits like Daramhy (irritatingly named an "Arkating" when Kitori properties are displayed), but just as likely recruits from Esrolia or the Harandings. Jogo Zaramzil of the Lawstaff myth may have been an early Kitori rather than a troll. There are humans that are unaccounted for the Dawn Survival sites, but communities of fifty or less survivors( especially catatonic ones) aren't listed in that summary. There is room in canon for smaller such communities that remain unobserved from the perspective of the Guide. I suspect that Praxian oases may have had some hidden Oasis folk, too, eking out a life similar to that of the community of Orani Tor in the Rubble during the troll occupation. Too few to register as a core of a civilization, and neither sufficiently awakened. (It is possible that some of the Oasis Folk still are under that survival trauma... contact with the beast riders wouldn't have helped awakening them any more than contact with the Shadzorings of Alkoth helped civilize Dara Happa before Jenarong.) The formation of tribes from catatonic communities happened elsewhere as well, and the Vathmai are mentioned as special by doing this migration into lands formerly free of Theyalan folk. So are the early Dorastans. What's your complaint here? That the Dorastans did not find humans to convert (only the Poisonthorn elves to awaken)? You mean, like the participants of the first crusade? Why not like the Jesuit reductions in southern America? Sure, settling new land will have been an attraction, but given the population levels in the second century, arable land could be carved out of many a wilderness. On the other hand, the Vathmai are credited with liberating enslaved populations from the overlordship of the stag warlords of the Pralori. A situation not entirely dissimilar from the liberation of Peloria from horse warlord enslavement by Khordavu and his cotery, the Ten Princes. And possibly similar to the conquest of the Pendali cities in Seshnela and Enjoreli lands in Fronela. Aram did a similar stunt before the Dawn, presumably in the Silver Age, creating his tribe of humans from out of nowhere, too. And the Kitori are nothing if not social engineered. So, what's different to the rest of the Theyalan migrations? The northern expansion of the First Council was carried by the Argan Argar trolls, while other directions were covered by humans and elves, such as Dorastor, Rist and Arstola. (Further west, the Elf Awakening was done by High King Elf from Winterwood.) After the Talastari, the Anadikki and the Brolians were contacted, then the bull people of Charg and eastern Fronela and southern Carmania. It isn't clear who contacted the Sylilings or the Vanchites. Quite likely already Silver Age Argan Argar scouts. I don't think that just the population numbers of the Dawn Sites would be sufficient to populate Genertela enough to reach the population levels of Orlanthland in the sixth century. Unaccounted small groups doubling the initial pool would make a difference worth two or three generations at least. For me this Vathmai appearance is just one visible symptom of the greater Dawn Age repopulation problem. Where did the population to found the town of Jansholm come from, all of a sudden? Likewise Durengard. The Aventus Foreigner laws tell about immigration by Dragon Pass residents, Esrolians, Pelaskites and Esvulari into the lands controlled by the Hendriki, but there are quite a lot of those in addition to the rather small core tribe of the Hendriki (who started as just a small fraction of the already small Garanvuli tribe that disappeared as a consequence of Palangio's conquest).

I don't care whether you are interested in real world geography. The Dead Place description is by Sandy, not by myself. Hot lakes with above average salinity are a thing in nature, and an exceptionally large hot lake in Glorantha surprises only by its size, not by its saline nature. Volcanism is the magical presence of Lodril or cognates. What's your problem with that? I have no idea whether the water entity of the lake stole the heat from the deeply buried lava flows, and I really want to avoid another water-filled caldera (Sog and Oronin are plenty). I never said that. However, mineral geothermal springs are a common effect of volcanic activity, whether you look at Yellowstone, Japanese natural onsen, or Iceland. Java will have some, too, but in the absence of winters they aren't half as prominent as the ones breaking the ice and snow further north. True, every facet of nature has a myth or three in Glorantha. On the whole, the nature in Glorantha is similar to the nature of our planet, so natural phenomena around volcanism and geothermal activity (non-erupting Earthfire) will be similar. I did suggest a subterranean water breaking through to the surface. That's in no way a scientific explanation - I am unaware of any subterranean lakes or seas forming lakes on our planet, and even less aware of any ichthyosaurs or plesiosaurs emerging from a system of deep grottos somehow providing them with breathable air. Without some oxygen-producing thermosynthesis such an environment is pure fantasy, and such a thermosynthesis is pure (scientific) fantasy, too (permissible in SF with a Mohs-hardness of 5 or less). Having a sea with an underworld connection both to Earthfire and some demonic stuff would suit the origin of Sheng Seleris just fine, IMO. A leftover of the Arcos flood doesn't quite offer the same connotations. But go ahead, write a boring mythlet how the Arcos sea goddess Dareledon rolled across Genert's Garden, only to be left here as a warm and salty remnant. If it is interesting enough, I might buy it. Avoiding the Hellcrack will be a good trick. The Deinonychus is significantly larger than the non-Jurassic Park velociraptor. As far as I am concerned, they are another relative of the demibird, a form of primitive ratites. Should I ever employ them in a game situation, they will be feathered - the Borderlands description doesn't exclude that. Deinonychus don't have any known connections to dragonewts. Their similarity to demibirds might lead to the assumption that they resulted from interbreeding between steed and rider. (For Gloranthan terror, I'll take the ramphorynchus chase scenes from 10,000 BC over the raptor chase scenes from Jurassic Park any day...) And the look and feel of an ichthyosaur is that of a whale with vertical fluke and fish-like scales, as cold to the touch as a whale's outer layer of skin. They probably dive down into warmer springs to store heat, and brave the cold only when surfacing for breath (especially in the inclement Pentan winters). Are Gloranthan saurians scaled? Some are, others are feathered. The Slon saurians come across as mostly reptilian, and given the temperatures down there, any layer of downs would be detrimental rather than helpful. The Dara Happan gazzam just have to be feathered, that makes them sky creatures. Dragonewts don't come with feather-like frills before reaching the tailed priest stage. Plesiosaurs are about as much dinosaurs as are crocodilians or snapper turtles, and we know huge crocodilians from Gloranthan myth that have nothing at all to do with dinos. Ancient Suvaria had its heart swamps in the Yolp range, and extended as far west as it extended east. The Yolp range may be covered by the same standing wave that also covered the western Rockwoods and much of Halikiv, the Mandadan Sea (whose ability to cover mountaintops may actually have been a restriction that kept its expansion to mountainous regions). Its western edge needn't resemble our idea of a shore, it could just as well have been a wall of water like Moses' passage through the Red Sea in various sandal flicks, if not due to an inherent property of Mandadan then held back by some Hykimi magic that kept most of the Greatwood dry. (Aldryami magic had not kept this very sea from flooding eastern Arstola - it took Orlanth to return those lands to the forest.) The Dareledon is Thunder Delta and the lowest part of the Arcos, then cutting northwest. Kahar's Sea is a lot closer than this. The Dareledon sea is characterized by its goddess, "three of her at once" (which I read as Oslira, Poralistor and Arcos - possibly with a hangover of the Three Worlds model with Oslira theist, Poralistor essence, and Arcos animist). While she rules over monsters, those should be kin of the Black Eel or the Water Wyrms known from the Rockwoods region, and whichever monster helpers the Waertagi introduced to the Poralistor and Janube. Moon island extends rather far west, too - presumably held dry by the tidal powers of the Blue Moon. The Umath Mountains (as per p.63, better known as the Shan Shan range) are clearly marked far inland from either the Osliran or the Dareledon seas, and only the Vanekauan (or Vanekavan) comes closer. The Guide map (p.684) shows a sea corresponding to the Vanekavan crossing the line of the Shan Shan (indicated only by the light and the dark mountain).

Peter @metcalphpointed out to me that the definition of dinos in Glorantha may differ from ours (re: ichthyo- and plesiosaurs in Hot Lake in Pent). My Gloranthan definition of dinos is "big hulking, egg-laying creatures covered in scale and/or downs". Both ichthyo- and plesiosaurs never leave their wet element and are viviparous, like certain snakes, but no birds or proper (terrestrial) dinos. Which leads to the question how important the "egg" stage of the draconic life cycle is. With dragonewts, it is all about the eggs. Dragons hatch from eggs, unless they hatch from a cocoon materializing around a meditating draconic mystic, basically an ersatz-egg. Reformed draconic dinos (failed warrior 'newts) may spin such a cocoon around themselves and emerge as pteranodons, according to White Bear and Red Moon/Dragon Pass. (Interestingly I read that ruler-dragonewts appear to spin such a cocoon when their meditations approach dragonhood, too, giving them a second, adult egg-like vessel. The source for this may have been @Loz' non-canonical MRQ dragonewt book, though. But like with the MRQ Elf book by Shannon Appel, this book is in all likelihood based on more unpublished crypto-canon than available to your less prvileged Glorantha sage.) EWF leaders could manifest a draconic body similar to the Immanent Masters of Kralorela (and in fact Isgangdrang's method was described as a variant of Immanent Mastery in History of the Heortling Peoples p.48) without the concept of an egg. So could Ingolf, who was more "orthodox" (using a non-short cut practice similar to the successful hence orthodox method of Obduran), but Ingolf acknowledged that his spiritual development was lacking when he succumbed to repeated temptation to use his draconic powers outside of his draconic pilgrimage to the Ultimate. For a human to achieve true dragonhood, it is possible that there has to be an experience as an egg. A deep meditation inside a manifested cocoon could qualify for that. So, how is a dragon defined in Glorantha? In contact with the Ultimate or at least the One (possessing full mystics' powers) Immense - dragons may merge with the topography, and draw geographic features to their "bodies" when rising up. See Ormsgone Valley. Fear-inducing. Egg-laying, or at least hatched from an egg. Winged. Scaled skin, providing a nigh-impenetrable armor. Feathers or downs might grow beyond that, but haven't been documented. On the other hand, a phoenix is not quite a bird of fire, and may be a form of dragon. (Dragons and fire may have a closer relationship than suspected, if you look at the Solar Emperor's representation in Gods War. On the Gods Wall, Yelm (or Murharzarm?) sits on the dragon throne.) Fire-breathing, or possibly some similar caustic breath/emanation weapon. Based on a skeleton of dragonbone, a proto-metallic substance which can be sung into tools, armor and weapons by suitably attuned draconic mystics (like dragonewts), but by nobody else (or the huge vertebrae in western Dinacoli lands would have been mined for good). The Sea Dragons slain by Waertag and his descendants are described as true dragons. While we don't get to see any wings on the great image of the Dragon City-Ship, that is supposed to be a reanimated Frankenstein of the former sea dragon, with parts of the sea dragon body used for other building projects, and the wings may have been re-purposed (either by the dragon or his conquerors) into huge flippers or keels. From the description, Sea Dragons used to be common enough for the Waertagi to base their material culture on them as their main source of raw material. Their interaction with the sea dragons may have been as fatal to the sea dragon population as the Maori interaction with the Moas turned out, though. The Aftal fragment from Missing Lands has Waertagi shored up by the Closing on the lookout for sea dragons passing by, though, far out in the Homeward Ocean. I wonder whether those sea dragons hunted in the Aftal story would be True Dragons or some lesser draconic kin of the Sea Dragons, possibly some analog to mosasaurs.

Less boring than a repeat of the "Dead Place is a salt lake due to the ashes of the burnt Praxian Forests washed into this basin" which could be transplanted there. My first idea about Hot Lake was something like the alkaline lakes of the Mexican highlands with their cyanobacteria-based ecology, clearly fed by volcanic minerals. I thought that my "underground sea erupting to the daylight" model would be somewhat original. Big hulking, egg-laying beasts with scales and/or fluffy downs, some related to dragonewts, other more closely related to the furred and smooth-skinned behemoths birthed by Maran. A fish-like, four-flippered air breathing scaled being presumably giving live births is a weird fish or whale rather than a dinosaur. Plesiosaurs are within the definition space of small dinos, but their size makes them the equivalent of porpoises in the family of whales. Their long necks make them rather a flippered serpent. This could make them the offspring of sea dragons. We don't have any reports on sea dragonewts, though, and plesios appear to be viviparous as well. Speaking of Sea Dragons, would those creatures be viviparous or oviparous? The egg carries major symbolism in the life cycle of dragonkind, especially dragonewts. A non-oviparous reproduction might cast doubt on the draconic nature of a creature. Rather a southern bay of the Vanekauan Sea - the Dareledon remains too far west and south, whereas this lake is situated right below the Shan Shan.

Not the current topic, but apart from a potential of this being true, we don't have solid evidence. A tribe can be as small as a triaty of three clans. I agree that there is little potential for the 500 non-Esrolian survivors on the Kethaelan border to spawn a tribe of 900-1200 people migrating westwards, especially since we have to assume that a significant (one digit) percentage of the Theyalans went off as missionaries, reducing the reproductive pool at a critical time. That's why I think that they are a foundling tribe, composed of people awakened shortly after the Dawn, rather than already in the Silver Age. With three or four such foundling groups, a tribe could be formed. And with the zeal of recent converts, could migrate westward to spread the good news. Any such foundling groups were "seeded" with Theyalans - Heortlings, mostly, perhaps a few Esvulari, Pelaskites or Aramites mixed in. These missionaries adopted the group into the Theyalan family while being adopted into the clans (and taking prominent roles in the emerging clans). Swelling a population of say 50 benighted cavemen with half a dozen missionaries could lead to a population explosion resulting in a 300 people clan by 100 S.T., possibly building a triaty relationship with two more such groups. Apparently the Serpent Beast Society tribes kept slave populations, at least shortly after the Dawn, but quite likely already in the Grey Age, and possibly since the lesser Darkness. Looking at Fronela, Seshnela, and Ralios, I get the impression that the population there wasn't remaining as benighted as the Talastari were upon first Theyalan contact. But even so, with some of them the Theyalan missionaries of the late first and the second century found fertile ground to spread their theist ways, while others resisted them, especially in Ralios. Second century Maniria was in contact with both Seshnela (starting at latest with Boltror the traveler, traveling on Waertagi vessels, bringing back his wife Pamala) and Kethaela, and quite certainly even earlier with the Waertagi. This may have reduced the "awakening" function of the Theyalan missionaries and have made their progress more like a religious missionary activity.

We don't get a Dawn Survival site for the Vathmai, but they aren't exactly unique in that regard. The Esvulari appear by the time of Aventus, but the only Dawn Survival site we get south of Whitewall/Ililbervor is Jon Barat/Talar Hold of the Ingareens. The westernmost survival sites we get are the Ditali and the Harandings, the Harandings strangely as clients of the aldryami (where the local elf forest is mostly brown elves, and their former well-documented earlier relationship to the trolls - presumably of Halikiv - forgotten. By the time the Vathmai wander west into Entruli lands, the Theyalan missionaries have been around for about a century, giving them ample time to be included in the quite inclusive term of Theyalans even if they were contacted only after the Dawn.

Personally, I blame the Tarshite court rather than the Lunar Empire or Tatius and his clients. All of Esrolia sees Greymane and his offspring as a plague of the gods, and IMO it takes outsiders unburdened by the history of the Lion King's Feast to hire Wenelian Orlanthi as mercenaries for campaigns in Esrolia, whether Tatius or his lieutenants on the Lunar side or Broyan on the rebel side. The Closing swept over Maniria more than a century before the cataclysmic drowning of Slontos, giving the local fisherfolk a century of experience with the new additional threat to their trade. To be a fisherman means to risk insane risks just to haul in a catch, especially if you have only bronze or iron age boats. If you look at the mortality rates of fisherfolk along the Atlantic coast up to last century, you'd be appalled. A fisherman who lived to age 35 before being lost at sea was considered lucky. Friendship to the local Ludoch will have mitigated some of those dangers compared to the Atlantic coast, but other magical and mundane violence needs to be added to the risks faced by fisherfolk, too. After the land "rolled over" in 1050, plenty of coastal fisherfolk held aflood by their boats or friendly merfolk lost their settlements, and had to move further inland to find a new place to settle. Seven solid islands in the now wide Noshain estuary are too good a place to ignore. I don't think they would have much worried about the Closing.

The heat most probably comes from volcanism, which often means hot mineral springs. Neither plesiosaurs nor ichthyosaurs are proper dinosaurs (but then pteranodons aren't either). Not sure whether ichthyosaurs would be recognized as even remotely dinosaurian or even draconic. Plesiosaurs on the other hand may be a weak form of water dragons or sea serpents. It would be interesting to learn how these beasts came to be found here (and being unknown - ichthyosaurs - or rare - plesiosaurs) in the seas. Genert or one of his followers could have placed them there, now forgotten. Or they could have migrated there. Genert's Garden remained mostly unaffected by the Flood, but those maps don't necessarily show the mythic detail of northeastern Pent if they extend that far at all, so a pre-glacier sea connection is possible. Another possibility could be that they entered the lake from below. Given the hot nature of the lake, the ice age will have left a cavern above the hot lake, or possibly even have melted through, so that the air breathers would have had enough access to air even below the glacier. While this isn't quite the place to discuss the glacier, I would expect it to be riddled with breaks and rifts which allow air circulation all the way down to the bottom waters.

I wonder how these towers appear from the outside. I expect the inside to capture the yurt frame of the horse nomads, which would fit well into structures resembling the golden domes of the Sun Dome temples. But these domes don't make good towers. The yurt frame doesn't have to be an exact hemisphere on the inside, but could be stretched higher. If there are stairways and ramps in this structure, they should be towards the outside. If we have such domes, I think that the Pantheon in Rome or the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople would be a better real world parallel than e.g. the Peter's Dome in Rome or St. Paul's in London. But such towers would be different in appearance from the ziggurats that are the normal Dara Happan expression of "towers". (Not the gate towers produced by Martin Helsdon, but the tall buildings in the city centers.) I thought that I'd find Basekora on the Gods Wall, but that was Shafesora, the Dara Happan rain goddess. You will have to dig out your copy of Enclosure for more info. Personally, when I see "Shidan" I can't help associating "sheitan", the (German) transcription of the Arabic word for devil. And there were goats involved IIRC. You are aware that for most of our Finnish friends over here, Helsinki lies to the south from where they are living? (Although I think that many will agree about the tough crowd remark...) I think that non-Lunar bird worshipers in Rindliddi associate the Blue Moon Plateau with its Bat Goddess and Death. Wherever these emanations reach will be shunned by most sane people, or the emanation drive those who remain within reach insane.

But YarGan's war against Oronin is the only suspected case of intra-Waertagi warfare that we have in the total body of Glorantha lore, which makes it quite suspect to me.

We hnot ave heard of Blue Vadeli operating on their own since Vadel's personal journeys. I think it is accepted that Vadel was blue-skinned, and there is no indication that his family he brought on subsequent expeditions had any other skin color, so there does seem to be evidence for blue Vadeli solo enterprises. At least way back when. Kachisti territory extended north and south of the range, and the range (not just Mt. Nida) was raised to separate it into a northern and a southern part, to add to the confusion the suidice and resurrection scheme of the Vadeli captives under Kachisti overwatch. Mt. Nida itself was the only pre-existing mountain in that range. Sure - there might have been a different squabble involving sorcerers and enslavement. Possibly enslaved sorcerers. All of which doesn't sound like Do you mean that Spol is the only regional source for vampirism? YarGan entered Lake Oronin on a raft, coming from outside of the Oronin valley. That doesn't make Spol his home area, but most likely an area beyond the Sweet Sea. A raft isn't a typical Sea Tribe or Waertagi vessel. It would be atypical for the Indigo Fleet, too. What remains is a sorcerous culture having stolen some rudimentary sailing knowledge and inimical to the Waertagi (and their allies). I am waiting for counter-offers. YarGan is known as Cannibal God rather than as a blood-sucker, though. Probably close enough, but still somewhat different - more ogre than vampire. Yes, or some other venue for destructive and authoritative testing of theories. I still maintain that the emptied victims of Vadel's group in Bamatela are good candidates for one origin of vampirism.

Years ago Nick Brooke produced a hex map to replace the sadly off-grid hex map of Dieux Nomades: The counters would have to be DIY.