Joerg

Evidence of a previous orlanth following troll is not a reason why. No, but is a heroic example to follow, even if you as a troll usually wouldn't find any uz source giving you direction to join Orlanth. And it proves that a troll hero of Orlanth doesn't have to be a unique thing, only a rare occurrance. I wonder whether that means initiated to Orlanth and Kyger Litor, or whether that means worshipping Orlanth exclusively, or even Orlanth as husband of Ernalda. There are no uz-human marriages on record - Kimantor was a Kitori shapeshifter, not an uz by descent.

The Kachisti were occupying the Hykimi lands north and south of the Nidan mountains, all the way towards Top of the World, when the Vadeli and Mostali plot was played out. That`s including Brolia and Charg, so hardly half a continent away from Lake Oronin. The various herder hill tribes made their appearance afterwards, including the Andam Horde and the Bisosae. Are the Waertagi known for enslaving populations and doing terrible things to them? Or do we know other blue-skinned folk who did?

But that isn't why Bisos isn't worshipped today. He's worshipped because he intercedes for Idovanus (Entekosiad p75) . Good thing I wasn't discussing what Idovanus is worshipped for today, but what he has in common or not with Urox. The Bisos intercessor revelation came to Carmanos after nearly eradicating his cult. To the bull folk, Bisos was the Bull. Idovanus was a distant god on a distant mountain, but Bisos was the cultural hero. Carmanian Lion Shah Bisos probably was all those things. Carmanian Bull Shah Bisos looks more like the powerful, violence is always the option ancestor. The early Bull Shahs all were named after Tavar (Tawar, the Hykimi bull god, both of the Enjoreli and of the Talsardians), with Bisos appearing only with Bisoshan (the first Carmanian to succeed in the Ten Tests, and Emperor of Dara Happa before inheriting Cartavar's post as shah of the Carmanians) and his son Bisodakar. I see a slight possibility that Idovanic teachings helped Bisoshan to master the Ten Tests. The Bull Shah Carmanians don't appear to be intercessors to Idovanus. Their greatest common ground with the Lion Shahs before them will have been their dislike of Spolite Darkness. The Bull Lords present west of Lake Oronin when Syranthir and his ten thousand reached Lake Oronin may have been Idovanic bisosae. Charg and Brolia most likely were not, they followed Esus and Tavar. Probably with a berserk component.

There is no evidence that he is Waertagi. After the Vadeli war, the Vadeli were put into concentration camps or otherwise forcibly resettled into Kachisti lands, where they plotted with the mostali of Nida to destroy the Kachisti kingdom. And presumably their allies, the riverine Waertagi of the Janube, Poralistor and Oronin. That's why YarGan slew King Oronin. An internecine struggle of western sorcerers, yes. An internecine struggle between Waertagi, no. He is post Flood Era. King Oronin (who was later slain by YarGan) overcoming Turos was late Flood Era. And he is hungry. YarGan's DediZoraRu may have been undead cloaked in water, or they may have been aquatic Waertagi enslaved after YarGan slew Oronin. Or the combination thereof. Is it necessary for a vampire to harken back to the Devil having taken away its sould, or are emptied Vadeli wandering about without spirit sufficiently undead/vampiric? Vadel's energy drain magic and the hollows created by the spirit encounter did create the first undead really early, who wandered off all over the world. (Middle Sea Empire p.6) Combine the spirit trap magic with emptied Vadeli, and you have victims of soul-sucking perpretating soul sucking on others. Unless someone starts to apply cultural relativism to the Vadeli, the general idea about them is that they are major assholes out of some weird principle. Blaming them for all manner of really bad things which happened in their vicinity rarely is wrong, and we have vicinity to the Nidan Mountains of theformer Kachisti and thereafter Vadeli ruled sorcerer lands.

The Dara Happan irrigation works are derived from Mohenjar and the Ten Workers, sons and daughters of Lodril. They may inherit from Suvarian wetland farming (including Biselenslib in Henjarl). We don't really have an idea how the landscape was in Murharzarm's pre-Flood Dara Happa. We know that Murharzarm commanded Oslira to take to the river bed and the canals dug overseen by Mohenjar, and that possibly copied from Orlanth's victory over Sshorga. IMO Murharzarm's empire was primarily a rice-growing one. Might be a fun place for artwork - a wide land of paddies and canals, with downy howda'ed gazzam carrying or pulling loads or barges between the ziggurat-crowned cities, each with their own minor son (aka planet) hovering above. Ratite riding birds contributing to the traffic on the dams. Later on, oxen (rather than water buffalos) do the plowing and pulling. Turos is the Pelandan god of farming, but his cult's presence in Dara Happa is cryptically told in Entekosiad p.74, with a conflict about Darleep. It looks like a dry-farming earth walker god called Lodril was already in place, and incorporated into the realm by Jenarong. It isn't clear whether Lodril is a rice farmer, or rather the Ten Sons and Servants. Do the rice farmers ever rebel, or was this restricted to the dry farming rurals? Pelorian dry farmers rely on irrigation just as much as the rice farmers, but they flood their fields only shortly, allowing the precious water reserves to seep into the soil. Only they adopt maize, Hon-eel's new cereal. Only they face elf reforestation. However, the dry farmers had long been under the rule of the horse warlords, whether Jenarong emperors or independent groups. The rice distribution map shows that rice is a fairly recent crop in Pelanda, and the Bisos story sounds pretty much like dry farming introduced by him to the liberated victims of YarGan. The northern Silver Shadow definitely was part of Naveria, ancient cultural land, with a long tradition of at least horticulture. No idea who introduced plowing, and using which draft beasts. On the other hand, we get the Plow Line on the rice-growing map, which probably denotes the traditional usage of Barntar and Lod plows.

Dendara is one of the Jernotian High Deities (sidebar p.317), all of which are relegated to commoners deities by the celestial pantheon of Yelm. Otherwise I agree - Oria is the earth goddess worshiped by the Lodrili, while Dendara the Good Wife (and little more) is more appropriate for the cloistered females of the Yelmic nobility.

I seem to recall that Moirades re-established some bird in Tarsh as part of his quest to become King of Dragon Pass, which may have been a red-breasted cardinal. The Golden Age birdlands used to be much greater than Rinliddi. I am not certain whether there were humans in the Ratite Empire when it began, or whether they got adopted later on as useful riders. While there are heron fiwan in Tarien, IMO the southwestern Heron Hegemony was Surenslib's wetland empire in Darjiin and Doblian. Except where the humans were made by earth deities or ancient mothers, I think that bird beings were dominant in the earlier (not so) Golden Age. I have a suspicion that Brightface conquered them and replaced them with humans east of Naveria. Alternatively, those wars may have been fought between King Griffon and Vrimak.

There is Dendeneus, the foe of Ovosto, in Glorious ReAscent of Yelm. Symbolic because he overcomes a bad emperor enthroned with lessened rites. I don't recall encountering a many-headed goddess anywhere. Various gods or heroes, yes. Many-limbed goddesses, too. A hydra is very much a snake or serpent, so it would have been some kind of hungry earth protectress. I am more interested in "creatures from other worlds" summoned into Glorantha. Gloranthan Otherworlds, or ancient ages? Or worlds apart? Dream worlds? Ejem might also be something like a Virtual Reality experience in the body of one of these creatures from other worlds. Probably still involving intercourse, given the context.

I don't think that they are identical, either. Both use a magic to jump back from the dead after facing his foe, IvinZoraRu. The main difference to the Praxian Storm Bull myth is the absence of the Block, and that Bisos transformed the slain enemy into a helpful deity, UpelviDedi. (Entekosiad, p.68f) Bisos has a bit in common with the Bull Orlanth of Fronela, too. Urox wouldn't have taught the liberated peoples how to grow grain. And neither Orlanth not Urox would have asked a wind goddess to blow away the flood of the DediZoraRu, either would have done so himself. Bisos is to bulls what Odayla is to grizzlies - both the man/deity hunting/herding/sacrificing and the beast that is sacrificed/hunted. The bull people of the Talsardian Kingdom had accepted the Theyalan missionaries, which makes me expect the Charg bull folk and the Bisosae assimilated by Karmanos to have been Theyalanized before, too. That's how much of the equation will have happened. Still, Bisos is a patron of a civilization, something Urox never was.

I am not sure whether there is a significant difference between the Gbaji Wars Tanisoran and the Kethaelan varieties of vampire. (I would have called the Tanisorian one the western variety.) Whatever bad stuff is going on in Spol has a good chance to be founded in YarGan (Vadeli) evils. Not all blues of Pelanda are Waertagi, and rivers are problematic for vampires. Unlike lakes or marshes. The vampire of Sun County probably was a EWF era person. At least the temple it is haunting stems from that time.

Think of Hachrat Blowhard, the Imperial Age troll hero of Orlanth from Yolp who sacked the city and EWF academy of Molorios.

I am all for a camel tribe, but I am extremely dubious whether the Shadow Plateau is the place to look for it. Do you have any idea who wrote that entry? DP:LoD was a compilation of entries from numerous authors. Some of the stuff was written by Greg, but quite a few entries were collected from other authors. A hidden green is a good idea, and should be placed among the other hidden greens turned into solid Wastes so far. There are too many "perhaps X, perhaps Y" in your attempt to give this rumor substance for my taste. Why not have a "bring the camel back" quest rather than "Belintar did it already"? There should be a good reason to do so, but prophecies of returning beasts from a Godtime aren't that rare, and a mark of a great king. Even Moirades brought some songbird back.

For some reason the northern and lower Oslir valley doesn't show any wetlands, even though the region is well within the rice paddy lands. Does this mean that all the wetlands up north have been cultivated, and no weed wildlands remain? At a guess, the local farmers continue growing rice under their overlords. I am rather intrigued by the "temporary expansion" in the Oronin Valley. Does this mean that normal grain land was converted into rice paddies? So-called dry farming can be done with irrigation, and if those fields are on terraces or flat, they could be converted into rice paddies. I have seen dry farming irrigation fields on slopes which are impossible to convert unless massive terracing would be introduced.

Since RQ3 had the standard monsters in the DeLuxe box in a separate booklet, the stock monsters in Anaxial's Ark are required in order to have creatures for standard situations. I don't think that we need ready-to-use stat blocks for all the different kinds of antelope or bovine in a print product with limited space, although descriptions, habitat, typical tactics, special abilities and other peculiarities in the text would be nice. At least I prefer to be able to create individuals following a "cookbook" on the fly. In a simulationist game like RQ, sample stats or at least rules for typically hunted beasts (fowl, squirrels, hares) could be useful, too. Not that one has to play out every hunt, but there may be situations where survival or the result of a ritual great hunt may require some such information. Gloranthan oddness is a must - whether Rock Lizard, Adryami, Uz, Durulz, Rubble Runner, Walktapus, a guide to Broo (re)production (with reference to the antelope/bovines/small prey section, and optionally some predators as well). How to use a divine or spirit beast, or a minor deity. Denizens of the spirit world and how to deal with them should be somewhere in the Creatures Book or the rules.

Looking at the names we have (the island god, place names), the language seems to prefer names with lots of short, often open syllables. The Polynesian names I am aware of seem to fit that bill. Aztec names have more closed syllables, but still are quite polysyllabic, and might provide some inspiration for more closed syllables. It is a pity that the river names for Haragala are illegible in the pdfs - the map in AAA has a slightly better resolution, but e.g. the river passing Nemalipaya doesn't get legible at 400% magnification (where pixellation really begins).

That's just a rumor, and IMO an unsubstantiated one. The Shadow Plateau is only a third the size of the Hungry Plateau, and would have to be shared with ravenous trollkin and never-quite-satiated dark trolls. And they would have to have survived the fight between Belintar and the leaden serpent. Overall, I am not sure that that entry is very trustworthy. The "all topsoil has been eaten" picture of DP:LoT has been revised for the Guide entry, with rather lush vegetation, but I don't really see enough room even for an independent tribe (as per Prax).

Ok. That's the text I sought, and I am fairly sure that it was public at one time -might have been one of the GTA initiate texts instead. In that case, the high was inserted by my memory through too much exposure to the ruins of Genert's Garden and the association with High Llama Pass. Duplication of similar animals isn't exactly new - we get alynxes and lynxes, mammoths and mastodons (which, for some weird reason, are better adapted to the Ice Age than their ancestors ever were), etc. We know that there is (or used to be) a (singly or doubly) humped camel somewhere in Glorantha because of the Ratslaff story replacing the "horse designed by committee" quip, but nobody can tell me where to find them. Not in Pent, not in the southern wastes, not in Peloria, not in the Veldt... maybe native to Jrustela? Northern Ralios? The Llama Folk of Ralios would be an Orlanthi hill-tribe nowadays, I would guess. What kind of llamas? The standard domesticated model, the alpaca, the vicuna, or the guanaco? And are these beasts found elsewhere?

I failed my Google-fu roll, which may mean that this story wasn't indexed, or fell out of the index. If I remember correctly, it had information on Galin and/or Ehilm, on Flamal and on Hrelar Amali. The story left an impression because it had some Hykimi information which shed quite different light on the situation in Ralios than I would have extrapolated. I am certain that I had a discussion about Galanini and Enerali before that - the digest results that somewhat fit these search criteria date to 1998, which precedes glorantha.com, but may have been the preceding discussion, so maybe before 2004. I don't quite remember the title of the high llama deity, but it may have been "Lord High Llama". The entire story may have been ten to twenty lines.

It seems I am not alone in this: http://glorantha.wikia.com/wiki/High_Llama_Hsunchen I recall a Myth of the Month on Green Age Ralios which had High Llama walk across a low-lying hill range in the north, establishing the future pass. (The statement that Gonn Orta's assault on Nida opened the pass doesn't mean that it was non-existent before, only that the Mostali had made sure that humans from either side would have no contact. That's what they had raised the Nidan Mountains for.) It is strange that the llama people are mentioned in the Fronela chapter and referred to as "hairy tribe" on the Ralian side. The hsunchen folk are said to be extinct, but that doesn't mean that there aren't Orlanthi folk with a (high or ordinary) llama totem living in the region. Their long legs and necks make them the last beasts to drown? Correct me if I am wrong, but all of the Praxian herd beasts, whether ridden or not, originated in the lush lands of Genert's Garden and/or on the flanks of the Spike. (There may have been an overlap. The three rings of Aldryami forest obviously weren't that closed in the Storm Age, when the Storm Tribe inhabited Dini, the Uz queendom lay in what would have been the Vronkali belt, and Storm Bull and his children had a savannah to roam through.) Plenty of water would have been available, and plenty of herd beasts way closer associated with water than the high llamas. Hippos, for instance. Even tapirs are way closer to a watery environment than any camels ever have been. Sure - Greg created five great tribes to roam the chaparral, and a number of minor ones. In the context of a chaparral, the high llama ability to control water makes sense. In the context of a lush Genert's Garden, or a fertile savannah of Prax with Redwood and lesser trees abundant, their connection to water is rather far-fetched. The bison charge thunders at you. The Sable horns form a lunar sickle (predicting the arrival of a slow-moving, cyclical stellar body by about 1500 years). The impala lightweights are already a stretch, except for their archery, and the morokanth/herdman enigma remains shrouded in darkness now that the moros are happy vegetarians with only occasional ritual feeding on their herd men, accompanied by digestive problems.

That makes them (in our world) about as related to one another as they are to whales and dolphins. If there are giraffe-like critters in Glorantha, I'd expect them in Errinoru's jungle (like the okapi), and not in Genert's Garden. (And much less in Genert's Wastes...) If Hsunchen critters, they'd be descended from Mother Ungulate. (Whale or dolphin Hsunchen - if there have ever been such - would be in a different branch of the Hykimi systematic, possibly Fralar's.) The High Llamas of Ralios (after whom the pass to Fronela was named) were Hykimi creatures, and not directly related to the Eirithan beasts ridden in Prax and the Wastes. (Though probably somewhat compatible if there ever was a meeting. After all, humans from different origins are compatible, too.) I wonder how these beast goddesses diversify their offspring. Cults of Prax and Nomad Gods suggests that elemental influences (through the fathers?) could influence the beasts. Now could someone please explain to me how high llamas are connected to the element of water?

Then you'll have to add Forng to your list with monkey cultures. Revealed Mythologies p.85.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aepycamelus basically, all the name promises - a llama-like humpless camelid with long legs and neck, making it really tall. Not related to giraffes.

The island of Zon An is about as far from Genert's Wastes as you can get while staying in Kralorela. My first associations were Japanese macaques or the Indian monkey gangs hiding in their hindu temples. Nothing Chinese, refreshingly. It is quite possible that these monkeys trace their origin to Kang Luway from Teshnos - there was a time before Zon An became an island. The Praxian baboons tell of their own Monkey Ruins near the Storm Mountains as their kingdom, on the far side of Genert's Garden. There is another group of mythically active monkeys in the east, the Resplendent Monkey King of distant Forng. It looks like there are monkey civilizations evenly spaced throughout Glorantha.

That doesn't preclude him from being Majadan/Iste from the first First Dancers among the Avanparloth as well. That trio - Oorduren the primal Sage, Majadan the primal Man and Yothenara the primal Woman - are representatives of what humans could become.

As @jajagappasaid, Carse for Karse and Thieves World for Refuge were placed in their respective places in Glorantha when playtested in Chaosium's house campaign decades ago, and left their imprint. With the reduction of medieval elements, the layout of Karse is a little harder to retrofit than Refuge. Refuge always had this timeless oasis city charm similar to Pavis, and the illustrations in the French magazine article with their alterations to the layout of Refuge look useable to me. Retrofitting the major characters of the Thieves World anthology into Gloranthan context might take more work. (In that regard Karse is somewhat easier.) With the last authority over the city in Brithini (sorcerers') hands, a laissez faire attitude similar to Sog City may be postulated for the rest of the city. The world-shattering magical contests of the middle of the original anthology can be ignored for the events of the Hero Wars to come, but plenty of the minor and less involved characters still ought to work and give you colorful NPCs you wouldn't have crafted yourself. Making an ancient city out of the 14th century layout of Caernarfon (actually its 16th century layout, overspilling the original fortified town) will take some adjustment to building styles. Multi-storied houses would imitate the insulae of Nochet, but that might require a different layout for the houses. Luckily, Karse is one of the newer cities in the eastern Holy Country. (Esrolian cities mostly date from after 1050, rebuilt after Veskarthan's quake.) I still have most of the brainstorming I did with Laurent Castellucci aka Light Castle on a wiki about Karse and its history, and I also have an old project lying around creating Karse in Sketchup on the basis of a geocoded map of the city plan (from the German edition of the Chaosium product). In both cases, I would probably restart from scratch - having learned a bit more about creating terrain before populating it with houses, and getting up to date with the most recent descriptions. Karse was the sample port detailed in Men of the Sea. I have no idea whether Martin Hawley still pursues his project, but I know that he had written quite a bit more about sailing the Gloranthan oceans than was published by Issaries. I think that new Karse was built during the Closing, as a joint venture of Pelaskite emigrees from Old Karse and enterprising Esvulari wishing to establish themselves in the replacement port city. Old Karse had a protector powerful enough to allow the city's survival during the Greater Darkness with just a modicum of memory blackout before joining the Kingdom of Night. While the Pelaskites weren't up to building the new stone fortifications for the city (that was the job of the Jrusteli architecture-trained Esvulari) they could persuade the protector to move with them to the new city. There was a magical marriage between the Esvulari leader (who would be referred to as baron) and a Pelaskite priestess, setting a pattern for future rulers (unless they came as conquerors). The Pelaskites provided a shipwright tradition and productive fishing to support the city, while the Esvulari provided skilled crafters on other fields like masonry or metal-working. Traders would move their business to the new, way more accessible port, providing the first Heortling element of the new city. It isn't quite clear whether the new port was already present at the Dragonkill. I think it was, and that refugees before the Golden Horde flocked south, establishing a Heortling presence. The report of Hrestol Arganitis in King of Sartar describes Old Karse IMO, but he describes the settlement on the left (eastern) bank of the River. He talks about the EWF rather than about Orlanthland, so I disagree with the date 700 and would put it forward half a century, after Obduran takes his seat on the council of Orlanthland and the wyrmfriends get the upper hand in Orlanthland. If New Karse is this old, the Esvulari element would be more recent than its foundation.