Joerg

Mine arrived yesterday in northern Germany - the only notification I had was from the package service to collect it from my neighbors.

Nice - but when your players are overwhelmed by the notion of playing a role with certain personal and group goals, you're way better off having them go through familiar names and moves. I had novice freeformers in my faction or under my aegis as referee in a number of games who needed coaching and encouragement, and it didn't always work out for them.

Thats two groups ("clans" or cults) with slightly different goals, then, forced to cooperate. Two full-time referees/narrators and a few NPCs should be all you need for gaming, and possibly some assistance to rearrange props and settings between the scenes. And of course a team doing the catering (whether the main event food or the little rewards in between). So - runes are in, general stuff like "storm god, odd rhyming, emotional" for Orlanth will do. It would be great if one had access to illustrations like Elusu telling the Cradles Story in the Prince of Sartar webcomic, tailored for your scenario. I have some experience as the troll ball giant referee with shy kids unwilling to leave their comfort zone. You need to build up some enthusiasm for the game or at least for the rewards you are offering. Getting people to hack at others with soft weapons might be an initial barrier, but that might be lowered by some "training" with props you need to hid for a reward. Not quite pinatas - the trainee swordsmen and -women should see what their doing, but you get the idea. Being able to beat up an adult NPC might lower the barrier too, at least slightly. Not to get teased about it: no guarantee can be given. Making a few cool videos of the event might help making it positively memorable. Sounds good. Google for "Eat at Geo's". Jane Williams described a few recipes in the digest archives.

On the conventions over here in Germany, we have some experience with trollball for young convention members, and Eternal Con has run several freeforms for kids (although no Gloranthan ones, yet). Life Action Trollball has very soft weapons, probably softer than your daughter would want to use, but over the years a couple of useful or strange ideas have been explored. When you say her entire grade is going to attend the freeform, how many kids are you talking about, and how old? How much Gloranthan cultism can you offer before being branded as the antichrist? How serious do you want things to be, or rather, how serious will your daughter want things to be? A tribal moot leading into a heroquest might be a good Gloranthan setting. You could have a few groups as the clans of the tribe, trying to deal with a problem, and coming up with a heroquest that allows them to deal with it. One of the tribal wise folk would need to outline the story they expect to play out, ideally in barbarian dramatic voice. There can be a few questers, drawn from the clans through contests, and the rest can step up to impersonate the resistance or the supporters - not very different from the way Gloranthans perform low level heroquests. (You would need masks for the deities they impersonate, and small scripts to declamate before exchanging their on words, or spells and blows...) Spells could be tossed as small water bombs - these are fairly harmless. Beach tennis foam balls make less of a mess. At trollball, the healer sprinkles her patients with flour, causing an unholy mess but offering another way to visualize magic. You might want to use some industrial fairy dust or confetti instead, depending on where you are going to stage the event. Water bombs assume an outdoors setting. Dungeons or similar could use a barn (and straw bales might make good interior terrain, too). Cardboard boxes can provide some walls, textile sheets or leftover newspaper paper rolls or one-use paper table-sheets might be used for other walls, if you want to create rooms to explore. If building such settings, keep security concerns in mind, though, including fire hazard, and have a plan for first aid personnel and equipment. The freeform games for our adult players usually have rock paper scissors as combat mode rather than soft weapons. That way, players with less physical presence can still achieve victories. Specialists may win on a tie or redo a contest once, or have one free loss. A mix of soft weapon combat and rock paper scissors stuff could be used, too. The trick with freeforms is to keep every player engaged and inside the game. If your players are mostly new to this kind of gaming, that's quite a big bid, so maybe the event could be more of a fair, with numerous short games or encounters sort of in-character. This could combine the old scavenger hunt with some life action and roleplaying challenges, with rewards and other, inclusive activities in between. Things like crossing an (imaginary, wool-blanket) chasm or river on two ropes (or a rope and a slackline) or similar physical activity might be included. Requiring rhymes for semi-silly poetry about the event could be another, creative challenge to the players. Audience participation in the challenges would be great. (And for a birthday party, small rewards...) Costuming a horde of casual visitors will be either rather slapdash with mostly props, badges and possibly masks, or will require a lot of preparation. Bodypaint rune tattoos will help a lot, there. Preparing for the game might be part of the event. You will need quite a few referees, who will also impersonate certain NPC encounters. Five players per referee if you need more intensive shepherding, up to ten per referee if the players have interactions among themselves. Getting newcomers to do so may require a few more assistant referees, who also can serve as recurring NPCs. In fact, almost all referees can have an in-game role as well. Gloramthan food can be several things, as various Eat at Geos events proved. Troll food usually is icky-looking stuff like elf fingers or other stuff (e.g. made from dough and frosting). Consult e.g. Nanny Ogg's Cookbook (especially the rat pizza) for ideas how to present thematic-looking foodstuff. Other entries used to be traditional foodstuff or drinks (most of the latter won't do on a kids birthday party, though) slightly put into a Gloranthan context. Trying to do an authentic Gloranthan kitchen, perhaps with a roast over a firepit, should work, too (beware the dread porridge...). Having a chieftain or king carve that up and reward his followers according to rank and accomplishments (that the recipient will have to boast about) might make a nice episode in the game, although you might have to check for vegetarians or other food taboos among the participants. Campfire foods always work in my experience. Preparing the guests for the event in advance might be a good idea. If you have a story to tell or similar, perhaps prepare a few videos rather than providing written handouts.

@M Helsdon has the Green Horse and Golden Racers as horse archers. Kuschile Yelmalians or Elmali? I doubt that Irillo would be the regimental deity - he is more of an "army god" for all non-Kimantoring militia in and around Nochet. Are those numeric values taken from the Dragon Pass boardgame? Sir Narib looks like 4 - 5 - 5 - 5 (the range of their magic attack isn't specified). It has a strong contingent of heavy cavalry guards in addition to the sorcerers, who might be Hrestoli men-of-all with some rudimentary weapon training and wearing full armor, too. In that case, I wonder why the two militia horse companies described as horse archers don't receive a missile factor and instead a rather high melee factor - they'd be at 3 - 1 - 5 (one movement less than the mounted archers of the Cavalry Corps or the Sartar Free Army). I'd be inclined to give them impala-clan like melee factors, and one missile factor. I discussed Dragon Pass unit lists for Kethaela about 20 years ago. A typical Esrolian (Irillo) foot militia would be 2 - 2 - 3, and a horse militia maybe 3 - 2 - 4 for melee horse troops. I don't think we gave the militia any missile forces. On the other hand, there would be lots of such units. A few professional (Kimantoring) units would have Native Furthest (i.e. post Dragonkill, non-Fazzurite Tarshite) quality. (The Goldedge foot militia is not a Sun Domer unit, which might mean that its templars were present at the Dragonkill.) Various Sartar Free Army and Magical Union units have their roots in Kethaela, showing what resident mercenary units can do, so no disagreement at all with the quality of the Humakti foot regiment. I note that Broyan intercepted the Grazer force after its return from Monros, according to the map on p.733. Broyan first marched towards Monros, but then veered off to the north, towards Valadon/Willfort. The Building Wall caused this approach, more as a traffic obstacle than as a permanently manned defence.

p.272: Aptanace the Sage lived <here> for his “central generations.”

Alphabetical order of the Kralori provinces surely is one way to present the information, but I suppose it would have been more intuitive to present them from north to south, followed by the islands (or vice versa), and finally Chen Durel. I found it disorienting to jump north and south between provinces, and then to have the two provinces of Hum Chang in a single subchapter. Maps: I would have liked to have an overview political map of the provinces for quick reference (other than the overview geographic map with its unreadable entries), and a large scale map of the Bridges, showing the esoteric disfunctional part and the arch openings for the war barges. Several provinces don't get geographical color maps, only political grayscale ones, e.g. Puchai. Are there no tidal flats in Genertela, apart from the Rightarm and Leftarm archipelagos? Or are the Rightarm and Leftarm islands really just marshy peninsulas? Godunya's bridges have a total population of 44,000 inhabitants, not counting the urban populations at their termini and urban intersections. Their artificial island paddies must use a salt-tolerant breed of rice and might be able to go without artificial irrigation. The Bridge of One Way has a eight mile wide gap spanned by a bronze cable, making it (the only isolated bridge, connecting the northern tip of Hum Chang with the mainland) useless for mundane traffic unless the bridge ends have ramps or at least stairways to enable ferries to take up the connecting service, or else allow travelers to step across that gap without having to do a tightrope walk. That bronze cable must be enchanted to have the tensile strength and to withstand corrosion from the sea spray. For one of the bridge termini a dragonman gate is mentioned - Lungren Men, in Boshan. The exarch of this gate (not the city, just the gate) keeps a number of mutilated scout 'newts as guides and interpreters for visitors of the dragonewt city on the far end, beyond two cities on bridge intersections. I wonder: does this mean that at least this bridge operates like the dragonewt roads? Do all of Godunya's bridges have "dragonman gates"? The three dragonewt cities in the island provinces are connected by regular dragonewt roads.

I could ask "What golems?" since none are mentioned in the Guide. I mentioned olive trees as a possible form of agriculture earlier. Why not? The climate is just good enough, it's not the best agricultural place in Kethaela, and this is a form of agriculture that doesn't require that intensive field work most of the year, and not too sophisticated either. Your Lorion spell is the prerequisite for cre Belintar uses the energy grid mentioned in The Middle Sea Empire for his bridges. The God Forgot radiate from the City of Wonders strikes land only on Kostern. It should follow the hex grid. The "Heroquest road" from Cliffhome to Stormwalk Mountain that was used by the Redbird expedition that yielded Temertain, elongated to the south, should cross that grid line roughly at Locsil. The Praxian oases are located on similar lines, aka Ronance's Roads. Absence of Elemental identification. Esrolia, land of 10,000 Goddesses. Repeated in the Pedestal box on p.257, so I stand corrected. I would like to see the God Forgot symbol, though - I would expect the split-head man rune rather than the unaccompanied Moon Rune. Why? The Seshnegi and Akemites weren't blessed this way at the Dawn, either, even though they adhered to the Brithini mores before Hrestol's revelation. Froalar and Hoalar didn't argue about Brithini lifestyle, but about who should rule them. Marriages were part of the Seshnegi custom, though.

GIlamdestau the father or the son? The text from Revealed Mythologies p.107 indicates that the elder was killed before his plan was finished, but that ShangHsa reincarnated in a (possibly posthumous) son of Gilam by the same name, who then became the emperor. So - probably not one of the five masters of the cities, but the son of a sixth original conspirator. Quite likely from a Kralori concubine rather than a Seshnegi mother. Reducing the two arrivals of Sekever into a single event? Estau is in Tanisor, though. Rikard is another tiger conqueror from Estau (or at least Tanisor). Does ShangHsa mean Tigerheart?

Sandy's theory that the extant 'newts are the slackers: It isn't clear whether dragonewts are sexual at all. The Wondrous Mother of Many evidently was a female, and it may have been her immature persecution of sex that caused the neoteny in the dragonewts. If there is a parallel between the dragonewt life cycle and the life cycle of the newtlings, the dragonewts would be a yet asexual intermediate stage. On the other hand, there have been speculations that dragonewt procreation might be possible if one specimen of each stage participates. Given the rarity of Inhuman Kings (one in Dragon Pass, one in Ryzel, and I really don't see Godunya getting it on with the numerous newts on the Kralorelan islands), that would be a very rare event, too. True Dragon eggs are rare. The hatching of the Twin Phoenix eggs in the East is one of the momentous development in the Hero Wars, the major struggle between the high gods of Vithela and the Antigods, and it will be human and/or keet sages at the forefront against the antigods. The formation of dragonewt eggs might be something like a Curse of Kin of dragonkind. You need an immature True Dragon to lay such eggs. Would a recently transformed dragonewt be considered sexually immature, or does it need a True Dragon hatched directly from an intact dragon egg? I have since discussed the dragonewts with Sandy, and semi-sold him on my idea that the dragonewts are the equivalent of dream dragons of the unborn dragon inside the egg, undergoing the experiences not inherited from the immature parent. But then Sandy also mentioned another theory that whatever antics the dragonewt bodies perform might not affect their spiritual progression at all. The Kralori 'newts are way more numerous than any other population. Still, they claim that their survival was in strength and that of the Kerofinelan colony was in weakness. It is possible that they can be reborn to a new stage only when a dragon emperor performs utuma. On the other hand, we find plenty of dinosaurs in central Genertela, but find none mentioned for Kralorela or Fanzai. The dragonewt-descended dinos are a proof of weakness, even if they finally achieve some modicum of redemption as pteranodons. The EWF did establish new colonies - most notably that in Ormsland, Ralios. The Ryzel colony appears to have been created at the request of Palangio. Teleos is the only (extant) non-Genertelan dragonewt population. They appear to be able to be born (or formed) again from their eggs, but not at the same speed as those colonies that have a dragonet or true dragon to aid this dream to take on flesh.

I suppose they needed to get an understanding of Thrunhin Da, and exploring her secrets through proven River God exploitation magics applied to her daughters would have yielded some entryway into those myths. Having twin goddesses to play with even allowed verification of myths with the other river. Being Gloranthans, the God Learners cannot have been ignorant of the need for rituals to maintain the world, but at the same time they did not want to risk to participate in rites that would strengthen the resistance against them. They needed insights on the other powers still at large after Yanoor's utuma,

The format: I am a bit unhappy about the province-by-province format of the Places of Interest in this chapter and the Lunar chapter. When identifying a feature on the map, you have to consult the index or the search function of your pdf reader in order to find the place, or consult the political maps of that area to find which province this place belongs to. On the other hand, the Loskalm text always had me guessing whether to look at North or South Loskalm, so I guess what I want is to have both a generalized list and one by sub-regions. Which brings me back to an interactive app reader with sort functions, commentary functions, and in-document links to other Glorantha publications. So, when I can find the time, I probably build something like that at least for my laptop. The content: Kralorela hasn't seen much exploration prior to the Guide. IIRC, the detailed maps that we have seen so far were all digitized versions of Greg's master map, but the detail maps of Kralorela might be new. Anyway, the maps were the first time to show how the Bridges of Godunya form the Dragon Rune. Basically the bridge residents all provide a huge amount of magical energy just by inhabiting this structure. This makes even the impractical parts of Godunya's bridges at least magically sensible . it's a giant mandala, just like the dragonewt rune in Dragon Pass. I wonder whether Godunya got the idea from his time in exile in the EWF region. Dragonewt roads are supposed to be ancient, predating the arrival of humans. The ones in Kralorela don't form a nice rune, which may be why they aren't shown in any map. They don't appear to follow the hex grid, either. (Neither do Godunya's bridges - skewed right angles don't work that well on a hex grid.) The East was presented from a Vithelan/East Islander perspective in Revealed Mythologies, with the draconic history of Kerandaruth just a short side issue. The history section gives a good chronology for the Sekever period which is for some reason or other absent from the emperors' list in RuneQuest Companion's Jonstown Compendium excerpts or the Prosopaedia entries for the emperors. A vast improvement compared to the original presentation of Kralorela in the RQ3 Genertela box. The Hero Wars intro to Glorantha simply didn't have the space to do this justice, either. The lower panel shows two (unnamed, although attributable for the Kralori observers by their accountrements) dragon emperors dancing. There was no time when there were two dragon emperors at the same time (or pre-time). The engraving apparently isn't concerned with chronology or sequence. Ruling from five different ciies - I read this as they had five Kralori cities as their individual capitals. Pasos wasn't an archipelago back then, and several of the modern port cities were land-locked. We know ShangHsa-mhNbc, the false emperor. Was he one of this pentumvirate, or were these five governors appointees for Eest doing their own things? Shang Hsa - I don't know any chinese except for the few snippets of Kralori names even I could make sense of. Hsa may not even be chinese, but it is the name of the tiger god of the tiger Hsunchen. No idea whether Shang has any linguistic connections to Shan (mountain), or whether this is a clever translation of Shogun Toranaga (tiger snake - and that's about 10% of my Japanese vocabulary). Personally and sheltered by my ignorance of that language I don't mind the use of these pidginized elements of some chinese language, but I fear that a speaker of that language may have similar moments like I had when seeing the Warhammer FRP names for their continental empire. ("Spielhüter" for game keeper, etc.) I wonder whether that knowledge would have been of any use to HeseroonMarn and his followers. On the other hand, Thang How of Fuknama seems to have liberated Chang Tsai earlier than that. (also p.272) I think that Chang Tsai may have been one of those five cities mentioned on p.264. Lur Nop is a good candidate for one of the others.

The Annilla myth in Troll Gods has the giant side of the story. Basically, it is the mythical plate tectonics of Glorantha, and a backdoor to sneak in deep time for geological processes into the limited "prehistory" of Glorantha that suffers from the same "too little time for all of this" syndrome as literalist King James' bible exegesis believers have with geological time frames and the age of dinosaurs. The presence of individual giant mountains in the Rockwoods doesn't fit into the God Learner monomyth that has the Rockwoods as the result of Larnste the Earth King who seeded the mountains, and Kero Fin. Fortunately, having multiple myths for a single feature isn't really a problem, nor is the omission of a feature in the God Learner maps a proof that there were no such mountains there in the Godtime. But then, the giants may have been a lot less sedentary than today.

I don't care much for the Purification Rune, and I don't think that that was the only feature of Zistor. If Zistor really achieved godhead, he wouldn't have been that limited. We have the bare bones of 200 survivors at Jon Barat aka Talar Hold at the Dawn, who multiplied into almost the current number of inhabitants of God Forgot by the time they were contacted by the Zistorites (790). The subsequent Machine Wars reduced the population significantly, but they recovered. Anyway, they cannot have been reluctant in their procreation to square their number in 30 generations (calculated at 25 years). That's a different definition of "tidal" - the moon-independent Sog, the tidal wave. That's the active power of the sea. (Or it is the Tsunami. Apparently even the ancient Greeks knew the connection between earthquakes and floodwaves, since Poseidon is both lord over the seas and over earthquakes.) I think that the active force of the seas is the same as the active force of the Godtime rivers - the force still immanent in the Syphon in order to fulfill his obligation to sear away the Chaos of the Footprint, or the force immanent in the Doom Currents. Annilla's force affects the passive waters of the world. It probably affects the active waters, too, but those have much more force than to be limited to follow her dictate. Do we know how exactly Orlanth won the service of Mastakos? Looking at the six original tribes of Danmalastan, there was one tribe of builders and makers - the Kadeniti. If the Ingareens all share this proficiency at artificing, having the original Ingareens as a shipload of Kadeniti refugees who somehow were blocked from entering Brithos and ended up in the Leftarm Isles. For their survival, they - or at least their farmer caste - had to do lots of non-traditional activities in order to survive. Food-gathering isn't quite an acceptable Malkioni process. Whoah. I didn't say that the tides don't matter in God Forgot. I said that the tides affect all of the Sixths, or at least their coastal regions. I liked @MOB's mention of muttonbirds and muttonbird oil as - I had to look up the notion. Harvesting fledgeling seabirds for food or energy hasn't been done anywhere in Europe that I know of. While a seasonal activity similar to the slaughtering of white-furred seal babies, it probably is followed by a great communal effort to preserve the harvest by numerous means, including boiling the less desirable catch for tallowy fuel. There was the question of the need of fertilizer or nutrients in Glorantha. Given the special nature of God Forgot, I think that that land has a bit less of the blessings that the other Sixths, and so all the non-edible leftovers of those chicks will provide nutrients for whichever crops are grown by the Ingareens (probably through the agency of their non-magical but highly philosophical inventions). The tidal powers are there, of course. They are there for the entire coastline of Kethaela, and all of the Sixths have a part of that coast line. I said that the Pelaskites have a stronger dependence on the tides than the God Forgotten, which is why I don't think that the Lunar powers are localized in God Forgot, but if anywhere in the City of Wonders, affecting the whole of the Holy Country. BTW, are the tidal powers about the water rising or sinking, or about the land rising out of the sea and diving in again? If the latter applies (not necessarily to the exclusion of the seas altering their height), Tolat and his sword are a factor in the tidal magics, too. As they approach all the elements and powers, too. As far as I know, Belintar demonstrating his mastery over Luck at Casino Town still is the story how he won the support of God Forgot. The only difference to the earlier ideas is that his breaking the bank never was just about money. People bet magics there much like they do in heroquest challenges, and Belintar is in for a cut of the procedings. "A man who is more than just a man will come and break the bank. This man will join the lands of Kethaela, and his child will break the curse." The fact that Belintar would swim in from the cursed (closed) seas needn't be mentioned. The Ingareens worshiping any deity feels contrary to their atheist origin story. It is fairly surprising that the inhabitants of Kostern did convert to Makanism or Malkioneranism. I wonder whether any of these converts survived the Machine Wars to produce offspring. Let's assume for a moment that the Ingareens had an insight on the Zistorite symbols that the originators on Jrustela or in Slontos lacked, and that that was the reason why they did accept their Malkionieran teachings. If the waterscrew is indeed their application of "tidal power" according to Annilla, then could it be the case that the scissors are a link to the land-raising tidal power of Tolat's Red Sword?

They did at the Dawn. Besides, even if they harvested their olive trees using trained monkeys or squirrels or whatever, that still would be some form of agriculture. Using slaves would be another way to keep oneself apart from agriculture while overseeing it, but a massive use of agricultural slaves is usually mentioned in the descriptions of the place. I tend to agree. However, the way you seem to picture their way of life below, this "Commoner Caste" of the God Forgotten sounds like rural Anglican Clergy natural philosophers. While this makes an interesting culture, it would provide such golems for military use, too, rather than a soldier caste armed with crossbows. The Mostali would file a patent complaint, too. MOB has told us about the steambubble-driven Put-Put boats used by God Forgot sailors: https://basicroleplaying.org/topic/6305-so-here-is-a-“where-would-i-set-this”-question/?do=findComment&comment=89759 giving interesting side-info like muttonbirds being harvested. Personally, I am inclined to give the God Forgotten donkey breeding and donkey-powered mills and similar machinery as the default source of muscle power. Mules are pretty common among the Theyalans, so there had better be places where donkeys are common. The God Forgot branch of Belintar's Rainbow Bridge? It ends on the big island (Kostern Island) well before the Machine Ruins on Zistor Island. Alchemical (and derived chemical) methods ought to be a valid description of materialist magic. Separation can be a process of growth (from the right perspective) and doesn't necessarily invoke the Death Rune. You can seed a crystal in a solution or melt and grow it. This growth separates the good bits from the environment by adding them to the individual. Sounds like Fertility magic to me. Separation through Accumulation. I wonder what terminology the Malkioni would use instead of spirit or soul. Intellect? Understanding? Awareness? Do you mean the "purple imp" halo with the single eye head wearing the Crown of Mastery, topped with three elements (Fire, Darkness, Water, Moon and Earth to the sides, and Storm in the iris? The human body bears the runes of Mastery, Luck and Death, as can be expected from a winner of the Tournament. There is no explicit statement anywhere that the Sixths of the Holy Country correspond to the elements only. It is an obvious deduction for five of the sixths, and at first glance at the written evidence a non-sequitur for God Forgot. Treat Moon as an element... what does that mean? The Theyalan calendar has the elements, twice - as the five full eight week seasons, and as five of the seven days of the week. That is how the majority of people in Kethaela interact with the magic of the elements, unless they are specialist magicians. In Kethaela, moon (or rather the Full Red Moon) is associated with Wildday, by chance one of the two non-elemental-named days of the week, so there is room for an elemental day of the week to dedicate to moon stuff, but not for an elemental season. Hence, moon is at best half an element in Theyalan understanding. The God Forgotten aren't necessarily Theyalans - they may be a lost Malkioni colony instead. I don't know whether they were part of the Kingdom of Night or the Silver Age communication between the Survival Sites establishing the Shadow Tribute. In late Third Age Glorantha, we know the Moon Rune as a core rune. I wonder what the situation was prior to 1247. God Learner interactions with the Moon Rune were limited to the Blue Moon mostly - the Zaranistangi requiring sacrifices to the Blue Moon Goddess in Slontos, the Blue Moon as a fertility-supporting cult on Melib, and distorted knowledge about the Artmali empire from Umathela and Fonrit. Still, they knew it. They might have regarded it as a sub-rune of Fire, just like Light or Heat, or as an intermediary between Fire/Light and Darkness. The post-Machine Wars God Forgotten culture was formed over 300 years before the ascension of the Red Goddess. The Middle Sea Empire has an interesting observation about the Ingareens (p.47): The Zzaburite neighbors presumably are those God Forgotten who did not convert to the Abiding Book. The same source tells us how Kostern Island was special, magically: (This could be seen as irrelevant remnant of HQ1's strict separation of the three otherworlds dogma.) It continues: In the "three separate otherworlds" lingo, the materialist's view of the moon displays just such an energy grid to the magical senses. Belintar made use of these grid lines, too, when he positioned Loon Island and the City of Wonders in the Mirrorsea Bay. Dragons appear to feed on these grid lines, too, like the site of the New Temple of the Reaching Moon in southeastern Sartar. Dragonewts built their roads along such grid lines. Apart from the similarity of the energy grid lines, there isn't anything here only remotely suggesting a Moon connection to the activities in Locsil. The magical swords work(ed) only in the imbalanced world of Kostern Island: This does sound similar to "this magic only works at the Full Moon effect of the Glowline". But again, that is a very far-fetched similarity to anything Lunar. Moon is also associated with mysteries. Applied to the artificers of God Forgot, I get a vague notion of freemasons' rites for a mystical nostrum. They are described as normal folk ruled by ageless rulers. Both their Talar and their "governor" are at least well over 300 years old. This doesn't seem to be true for the average Joe from God Forgot, though. Yet their population appears to consist of more than 85% farmers. Most unaging Brithini females might not breed more than once or twice, so the numbers might be sustainable for them. This model cannot be sustainable for mortals, though. You end up with a massive overpopulation of non-productive folk unless you suppress female reproduction or you have a means of ensuring female offspring so you get mainly first- and to a much lesser rate second-born sons. You'll still have to feed more administrators than magicians. So, how do the God Forgot women live? Do they fill farmer roles by default? That way, you would get better than 5/8 of the population in productive roles, which might be just sustainable.

There is a Zaranistangi ruin in the Fever Trees, Dupanya (p.432), which may have lasted a bit longer than their domination of Melib. The acclamation of Ordanal as king of Melib doesn't sound like it caused a major genocide against the blue-skins - they rather were likely adopters of the new Malkioni overlordship bringing back their great relic. Modern Melib has a significant portion of blue-skinned natives. It is possible that a naval expedition created a guided teleport bridgehead for the Zaranistangi (or their steeds). Their biweekly human sacrifices might have been the necessary to keep that open. The Archduchy of Slontos included the coasts of Heortland and Esrolia for a short while. Leskos was founded during the reign of Svagad - exactly the time the last battles between Loper People and God Learners were fought in Slontos. On the other hand, the libraries are flooded with documents attributed to the Lylket Temple of Wisdom, some dated more than two centuries after the conquest of the place by the trolls. Nochet had a permanent God Learner presence, with at least two families surviving the Devastation of the Vent. (Unlike the mass assassination of draconic sepakers in 1042, we don't have a distinct date when the God Learner secrets became obsolete.) Those of the Sweet Sea. Did the Janube flood precede the destruction of the Kachisti continental possessions? Anyway, Entekosiad has a conflict between King Blue (Oronin) and YarGan (p.46), and the Blue People fought by Bisos are those of YarGan.

Or Sartar. Or Gemborg. The Kitori become his allies against the Volsaxi. No idea whether that means that they accept his overlordship. There is also an uz-inhabited volcano just west of Caladraland. Maybe the Threestep Isles? Or Wintertop Tarsh. Another candidate for the Threestep Isles, or indeed deeper seas. Wherever the Fish Road past Deeper may lead...

So the Only Old One never had problems with/visits by the Zaranistangi Loper People? We know they controlled parts of mainland Teshnos and Melib, and that they plundered and rampaged in Slontos, hunting down human sacrifices for their blue moon goddess. How do the Zaranistangi conflicts map onto the Kotor and Choralinthor wars of the Archduchy of Slontos? Melib had already been the jumpboard for the naval access to the mystical east under the Red Sword dynasty of the God Learners. I am certain that the Lhankor Mhy libraries hold quite a bit of documentation or correspondence from the Middle Sea Empire dealing with e.g. the rivalry of ranking officials, intrigues and counter-measures. If Belintar was of Veldang descent, that would explain his personal connection to the Moon Rune. If he came from Pamaltela, the ocean crossing could have left him in a timeless state for indefinite time, like the Pithdarans. He might even have been a refugee from the Garangordite invasion. Belintar isn't the only hero or demigod whose arrival thwarted the Closing. Jonat's ocean voyage to Seshnela is another case, as is that of the Luathan ship roughly at the same time, and between 1483 and 1499 the Altinelan lover of Snodal set off across the sea into the west after dropping off her son Siglat Selenteen's expedition used ships, too, and probably originated on Melib. It arrived 300 years after Av(a)lor, the last of the God Learner dynasty of Eest, had removed the Red Sword when following the abductors of his wife through the wastes. Tracing Av(a)lors journey further was problematic - while the Pure Horse Folk survivors had just entered Dragon Pass, the northern and southern borders marked by the Crossline and the Deathline still were impassable for humans. I don't think that Veldang demigods would have been an exception. Carvak Zirvan is a God Forgot Zzaburi. I don't think that Belintar originated from one of the Sixths. He might have come straight He may have been the exception to the rule - much like Chiron was the civilized one among the brutish centaurs of Greek myth, or like Ralzakark's Unicorn Emperor manifestation among the broos. Belintar is a bodysnatcher, quite similar to Delecti, but using (up) living bodies rather than corpses. Even if the winners get a divine existence in their own pocket dimension, outsiders could have all manner of bad and depraved things to say about this practice of his. I wonder about the Oroninae - are they riverine Waertagi, are they Kachasti followers of Yargan, or are they former Blue Vadeli broken out of immortality by the victory of Bisos? A blue-skinned Waertagi from elsewhere but Oroninela would be another possibility, although the Godking isn't heavily into the Innsmouth Look. Two more local sources of blue people would be a pure strain or atavistic Helering-descended Orlanthi, or an Orlanthi mystic from the EWF era awakening from his meditation having been caught by the floodings. The Harshax issue raised from the sneak mentions in King of Sartar and the RQ3 Troll Gods Jonstown Compendium either suggests previous ties to the Pass region, or a personal aquaintance between Belintar and Minaryth Purple.

To separate the hunt for the moon connection from "who are the God Forgotten today", I wonder whether the God Forgotten practice the Brithini caste system as a whole or whether just their rulers, sorcerers and defenders do. The Brithini exiles around 632 ST and again during Triosos' reign shortly (40 years) before the Closing joined the religion based on the Abiding Book and became a somewhat distributed minority in Seshnela (and according to at least the Jrustela Book by Mongoose also on Jrustela), notable mostly for their slow aging. So at least the soldiers are organized along strict caste distinction. I guess the same goes for the Zzaburi and the Talar(i). Not sure about the rest, though. Elsewhere [p.711] we learn that they were some form of Malkioni at the Dawn. This sounds as if the Ingareens were the carrying force of the Machine City, rather than the Reconstructionalists from all over the Middle Sea Empire. I would prefer to interprete "these sorcerers" as "the Reconstructionalists" rather than "the Ingareen inventors", but this text seems to put the blame entirely on the Ingareens. "Retained their individual nature." I take this as a contradiction of the strict Brithini caste life, which is why I don't see the majority of the God Forgotten as imitation of the Brithini. I am unclear whether it was sorcerers or a general movement in the population that flooded God Forgot with the inventions of the Second Age, or possibly still does. Leonardo, the Talar and Belintar's advisor Carvak Zirion remain the only God Forgot individuals named or mentioned anywhere. I see a possibility that the God Forgotten imported their Brithini rulers and soldiers rather than them being a native part of their culture. The description of Refuge might be read as support to this view (p.257): Then there is Casino Town: The public face of God Forgot - the one place everybody has heard about, an enclave in their islands. About as typical for the land as Las Vegas for all of North America. Perhaps the place that has the most Lunar expression of all of God Forgot, as discussed above. Jon Barat aka Talar Hold The secretive and immortal ruler may be an Ingareen, or it may be an imported Talar from e.g. Arolanit or Brithos. A population of 200 at the Dawn won't be able to support three unproductive hereditary endogamous castes (or two, the wizards will be able to support production), even if the soldiers could go to war against fish or venison at a huge stretch. Unless a single Talar family was kept immortal, they would die out in less than three generations.I didn't get the impression that the Ingareens were particularly long-lived. Sorcerers have other ways to achieve that, though. (On the other hand, the Arolanit Brithini let themselves be annexed shortly before the Closing, and emerged as stuck-up ancient Brithini from the experience in the Third Age.) Comparison to the Esvulari (whose caste system is known as hereditary with strictly in-caste procreation, and known for being odd in the absence of the Warrior Caste) could be relevant if the God Forgotten system stems from the same (Grey Age) root. Or if both Ingareens and Esvulari inherited practices from the Middle Sea Empire during the time of Slontos and Zistorite presence in the region. The relationship between the Esvulari, the God Forgotten and the Brithini rulers of Refuge isn't quite clear. Is Refuge an Ingareen city, or is it a Brithini outpost seeded by the Waertagi? Does the Talar of Jon Barat direct the leaders in Refuge? While Refuge lacks as impressive a city castle as Sog City, I get the impression that the Zzaburi of the city play a similar role. Even though Refuge clearly is the place where Greg's house campaign playtested the Thieves World box Chaosium produced in the eighties, I'll try and keep the elements I would like to find there again out of this collection of God Forgotten facts. As I said before, I am anything but certain that the Brithini here are Ingareens, or that the God Forgotten make up a major portion of the non-Brithini (or Brithini-like) population. For me, it is an Esvularing and to slightly lesser degree Heortling and Pelaskite settlement under control of its immortal guardians from Brithos. Praxians (Praxian renegades), sailors from all over the continent, and escapees finding sanctuary within the city limits make up a colorful and unruly foreign component of the place. Of all the God Forgot locations, Talar Hold appears to be the most normal. The typical God Forgotten might still be the fishermen in their sea-metal-hulled steam "jet" boats, or the farmers and harvesters of wild resources (seabird eggs, wild vegetable, fruit or grain) on the mainland. Possibly with combing harvesters like the ones used for the cranberry paddies, reduced to the technology of the grain combs used by the Romans on their Gallic slave plantations. If an agricultural process can be done with gears, levers and other such implements, at least some God Forgotten ought to have prototypes in use to do so. I am inclined to make their agriculture somewhat different from that of the Theyalans. I think they might grow flax, both for linen and for linseed. They might have some olive trees and grow some wine.

Ok. I think that the God Forgot sorcerers never had Moon Rune magic. The God Forgotten are materialists - alchemists as in artificers and inventors when not pursuing more profane activities of producing food and other necessities. This includes fishing and agriculture. Not quite. I said that if Belintar had identified the God Forgot Sixth with the not-quite element of Moon (which is but one possibility) then Jar-eel absconding with the Moon Rune would have to have effects on their magic. To repeat, I don't see much evidence for the Moon Rune having a major influence on the Sixth of God Forgot. I am trying to find an apology for its visible presence in Prince of Sartar. Other than the personal magics of the God Forgotten, Belintar might have tied a runic Moon connection to the Land. Usually I would identify the Lady Who Giveth and Taketh Away of Casino Town with the Luck Rune of Asrelia and by extension Esrola, but the same descriptor could also be attached to the Balancer, an aspect of the Moon Rune. The Tidal connection is a connection to the coast line rather than to the land. This still is a valid descriptor for an archipelago. On the other hand, the Pelaskites elsewhere in the Holy Country have stronger tidal magics than the God Forgotten, unless the God Forgotten share some of the Waertagi magics. The absence of Tidal Waves in the Machine War suggests that they didn't, then, and probably had no chance to aquire since the Closing struck. IMO the Purification Rune was revealed to be the Chaos Rune rather than the Moon Rune (which was mostly irrelevant prior to 1220 outside of the context of the tides). Belintar's uses of the God Learner inheritance doesn't seem to include access to the hidden artifacts of Machine Ruin or Zistorite magics, although he cultivates Middle Sea Empire administration and architecture. There are no clues that he cultivates the Purification Rune magic - his way is more inclusion and assimilation than separation. That's my main explanation for Belintar's possession of the Moon Rune. His raising of Loon Island sounds like tidal magic, and it appears to affect all of the Sixths equally. It is true that Belintar came only after the Red Moon had risen, so the presence of the moon was there before he instituted his Holy Country over the Shadowlands and adjacent parts, so one could make the argument that Moon could be recognized as a sixth element. But is this notion of moon as an element supported by any of the people in the Holy Country? The Zzaburi elemental magics rely heavily on the pentagram in Zzabur's Sigil. The God Forgot wizards like Carvak Zirian wouldn't change their magic to please Belintar. Mostly, yes. The Moon Rune inscribed in the head of the Man Rune could be an expression of the Otherworld perception, the Eye that Pierces the Veil. On the other hand, that symbol does remind me of the RuneQuest Sight that a significant portion of the God Learner Magics were based upon.

Not that surprising if you think of the Zaranistangi skin coloration, and the recent colonization of the Zola Fel mouth when Belintar swam ashore. There has been an astonishing lack of speculation about Belintar's origin. Is there any problem with having both Elmal and Harono in a single depiction? Buried, or just collapsed? I wonder whether the FHQ is the driving force behind those raids, or whether it is just that she doesn't stop the raiders? Is the FHQ just another party in the Old/Red/Warm Earth struggle? Dwarves aren't permanent inhabitants of Kethaela proper, unless there is an active guard of iron mostali left at Locsil. Gemborg is almost as far away from Kethaela as Dwarf Mine.

The game was meant to have a hex-board for the surface world conflicts, and a separate board for the magical otherworld I have seen the map of the surface world, but when I discussed the game as a follow-up to Les Dieux Nomades (using the rules of Robert Corbett rather than the original ones of White Bear and Red Moon or Nomad Gods), there was no known list of units, or a gameboard for the Otherworld.

Myth and magic provide the nutrients, or use them up/poison them/wash them out, or inactivate them. The soil in Prax may still have nutrients, but these cannot be mobilized by the plants, unless a goddess releases them again. The river floods bring fertility in the river valleys, just like in our own Nile or Jangtse valleys. Elsewhere, erosion (whether by wind or by rainfloods) can carry the fertile soil away. Beast manure still will further plant growth, as will compost or ash (in moderation). Life or life given will beget life.

This is but one aspect of the Moon Rune, and the only one that applies to God Forgot. This is the link that could be exploited. Balance? Reflection? Cycles? Tides? None of these are pre-eminent in God Forgot. That doesn't answer the preliminary question whether the Moon Rune is prominent in God Forgot today at all, or whether it was before Jar-eel absconded with Belintar's moon rune. My interpretation is that the Moon Rune was important to all the Sixths, if only as the meter of the tides. If Jar-eel's theft of the Moon Rune altered God Forgot, I think we would have read how their identity or their magic changed since 1616. We don't get any such clues. The logical conclusion seems to be that the Moon Rune was important to Belintar's Holy Country as a whole, and not to the Sixth of God Forgot in particular. Anything else is circular logic. Man is a tool user. While the Mostali are tools and tool users, the human intellect and inventive urge is well compatible with the Man Rune. Which is mentioned as a special characteristic of these people. Sounds like a mad theory, yes. Light and Dark is another interpretation, as exemplified by the Lady who Giveth and Taketh at Casino Town. The eye is the centrepiece of the God-Aura of Belintar in the Prince of Sartar depictions. It is the symbol for perception and intellect, the parts of the Fire Rune that Veskarthan isn't quite the poster guy for. And it can symbolize the Third Eye - the one able to pierce through the veil, a typical accoutrement of mystically aware people and deities. The Lunar Rune can also stand for perception of this reality and another one. This is so far the best point in favor of connecting God Forgot to the Moon. The Question is: did they lose that ability after Jar-eel left with Belintar's Moon Rune? The relationship between Esvulari and God Forgot remains unclear. We learn about Aeolian fisherfolk in Vizel, rather than a Pelaskite minority as is typical for the coastal cities of Kethaela. The Esvulari appear in the Dawn Age, and are one of five groups of Foreigners covered in Aventus' Foreigner Laws for Hendrikiland. They aren't given a dawn survival site, unlike the Ingareens, the Harandings or the Ditali. Their caste system differs strongly from that of the Brithini (and by extension, that of the Ingareens). To which I say: they aren't. (I know, I used to think that they were.) The Ingareen survivors at Jon Barat are described as Malkioni who follow the ancient Brithini caste laws. (p.711) At 200 individuals at the Dawn, they had barely enough people for a sustainable Farmer Caste population, so the adulthood rites must decide over the caste of an individual rather than the paternal caste. We don't get the information that the Ingareens as a whole are ancient. Centuries-old sorcerers aren't that rare. I think that most Ingareens have life-spans similar to those of the neighboring Theyalans, or the Malkioni of Seshnela. Their survival as fishers or gatherers of wild plants doesn't sound very caste-conforming to me. (Grain cultivation is typical Dronar activity.) It is possible that they had the Waertagi ship in some Brithini from Arolanit to provide them with a Talar, or that some Brithos emigrants ended up being shipped here rather than to Seshnela, Fronela or Jrustela. We don't learn whether the Ingareens were brought here by Waertagi ships, or whether they were a splinter group that somehow avoided the cacaclysmic end of New Malkonwal of the Fifth Action. The Man Rune has always been compatible with the Malkioni lifestyle. The influence of the Moon Rune must have been small, or we would have been told about their changes after its loss in 1616. We learn about changes in Heortland (due to the return of the Spirit of Freedom, enabling Broyan to invoke the Vingkotling kingship, and the subsequent death of Orngerin in 1617). The Lunar invasion restores the Moon Rune to Heortland, but not to any other of the Sixths. Fazzur's attempt to establish the moon in Esrolia (which might have been in keeping with Jar-eel's designs) are neglected in favor of Tatius' plans. There is no attempt to conquer God Forgot or even the mainland region of the Bandori Valley and Refuge. (Unless you are an old fan of Asprin's Thieves World anthologies, with a Tarshite Prince Orontes of Tarsh War notoriety and five Yanafali bodyguards entering there as Imperial authority.) The big price is undoubtedly Esrolia with Nochet, but the Bandori were just a day's ride from Fazzur's most advanced elements. I think the wand is a piece of Lunar artificery, possibly in imitation of the astronomical calculator of the Machine Ruins. It might be a prototype, it might be one of several such items used by Imperial chronomancers. It may have found its way to the ruins of Locsil after Hon-eel's coup in Tarsh. (It would have been hard to travel through Dragon Pass earlier, though not impossible.)

I'm a bit astonished about the state of the vegetation on the plateau (there being significant amounts of it): On the other hand, we get black sandstorms, very limited light. Older descriptions blame all the black sand on the collapse of the Obsidian Palace. And, while volcanic soil can be extremely fertile, ground obsidian is not. Apart from the black color, it is glass. And anyway, the creation of this plateau (when Argan Argar sliced off the top of Veskarthan's phallic mountain with his spear, then bound the volcano god to erect the sky-high palace instead) doesn't let me expect better soil than on the Hungry Plateau, which has a very similar history/myth. A lot more rainfall might make a difference, but at that height much will rain off on its flanks while the clouds climb that high. On the other hand, those clouds that are a kilometer high will shroud the plateau in a grey and wet mist, providing ample humidity. This nutrient-poor but humid environment will encourage the growth of mosses and insect-eating plants. Lichen and tree-moss ought to abound. Esrola's Throne might be the game-changer. The occasional presence of the Goddess might be able to counteract the nutrient deficience of the soil. Even with the spear-like tower of the Obsidian Castle gone, the Shadow Plateau still offers more roofed space than all the cities of Kethaela together. The basements of Ezkankekko's palace may have suffered minor damage when the serpent collapsed against the structure, but the act of fragmenting into countless little shards spared the basement from a hard impact. The origin of the tar remains slightly mysterious. It may of course be the organic remains of all the inhabitants of the palace, boiled and charred when the collapsing tower spent its energy as heat and pressure. The Tar Pit is ground zero for the Kitori. While they might have sent their dependents into the safety of the basements of the Plateau, their warrior elite would have guarded the Palace and their ruler, probably indistinguishable from any troll followers the Only Old One may have fielded. The Night Dragon Society manifested the Black Serpent which wrestled Belintar. As far as I recall, the beast had curled around the tower in order to strike at the invader from above, but that strike may have been deflected, sending it crashing into the palace, breaking its spine. The dying body then crushed the portion of the tower it had curled around, and the falling bits from above added to the damage. For all we know, Ezkankekko may have ridden that serpent, sitting behind its head. Ezkankekko's fleet of Black Galleys probably still lies ready in an underground Carthage, with gates opening the flank of the Plateau into the Mirrorsea Bay. Alternatively, there might be water-filled tunnels that allow that fleet to emerge from the ruins of Lylket, which must have been a port city when the Middle Sea Empire established it. There are no population figures for the Bottomland Marsh and its newtlings (or sea trolls, or durulz). Thousands of adults will mean millions of tadpoles hatching, and thousands of bachelors either at the beginning or the end of that stage, found there, too, so the numbers might vary too much for inclusion in the political map.