Joerg

Given the mythical reality of Glorantha, there is a good chance that Earthblood has somewhat different properties than crude oil. Not that crude oil has anything like a consistent composition, there is a reason why different "btands" of crude are traded, like e.g. North Sea "Brent". So, much like Diskworld, I am all for Treacle Mines from fossile sugarcane forests and fat shafts from the killing of Maran's beasts, much like Diskworld's Fifth Elephant.

Not necessarily. Not every climate is suitable for salt gardening, and not every coast will have sufficient salinity. If you add a coastal industry requiring salt, you will have salt transport to the coasts, or across the seas from coasts with more accessible salt. Not relevant for Glorantha, though. When discussing the international trade going through Sartar and Dragon Pass, Jeff dismissed salt as a regionally traded good without any long-distance relevance (at least in Dragon Pass). This is why that may be reasonable: Central Genertela has access to salt deposits from the Storm Age flood in the places surrounding the lands of Kethaela, Kerofinela and Saird that were defended by the Storm Gods. Quite a bit of that lies in Prax, Dagori Inkarth and Balazar where the Aroka Sea separated the Storm Lands from Genert's Garden, with enterprising traders able to dig for profits if they include the local natives.

Veskarthan/Lodril does a side business in poison, too - the shore south of the Vent is named after this.

I expect Sandy's campaign to be the only source for the Exigers and other such places, with the information in the Guide extracted from that.

They have explored their own bias bubble to the fullest, and the God Learners did a certain amount of transfer from other perspectives, but it is obvious that they missed a lot by missing out on the cultural context. And cultural context has been lost - both in the Gods War and since the Dawn.

Thanks. but that's not what I meant. Even the best researched cult may not cover the full real-in-Godtime entity.

Revealed Mythologies has quite a bit on Pamaltela in history and myth. Doraddi-related Agimori (and their Garangordite offshoot), Thinobutan "agimori race" peoples, and Armali. The Guide skipped this older history intentionally.

Which explains why RQ canon gets so condensed. I do wonder whether synthesis of cult entities needs to boil down to one synthesized deity, or whether one cult can synthesize two distinct deities as a single entity. An entity who can be equally well identified say as Orlanth and as Zorak Zoran. Ot as Humakt as well as Tolat. This happened in the past, resulting in the many Lightfores. Do the RuneQuest cults describe the entirety of the deities that are real parts of the cosmos? I doubt that is possible.

Mainly hero cults of Gygax, Arneson, Stafford and Perrin.

I have to contradict that statement: From the Dawn Age up to the Machine Wars the Aramite riders of the Tusker Boars were humans. There were bloody rituals in the name of the Darkness Demon tamed by Aram. They served as an elite military force, and may have cohabitated with other Orlanthi in the cities of Orlanthland and the EWF. At the time of the Dragonkill there were Tusk Riders of the modern "half-troll" type. It is possible that there were other Aramite riders of Tusker Boars who got evicted from Dragon Pass or who fell to the genocide first by the True Golden Horde and then the dragons. The first prominent Aramite to gain tusks for himself might have been Varankol the Mangler, a Living Hero of the EWF who was not (primarily) a draconic mystic. There is one notable half-troll during the Inhuman Occupation, but no data about his parentage. Typically, the Remakers are blamed for the new appearance. More theories are discussed in the God Learner podcast episode.

Yelm cultists love the idea of Illumination - little wonder here.

They are great users of geothermal energy, but think that volcanic eruptions are good for the environment. A mixed bunch... Coal may actually be used for making their slash-and-burn fields more fertile, turning it into Terra Preta, rather than just serving as fuel for the casting of bronze objects, and (tentatively) smelting Storm- or Sea-degraded metal ores (oxidic/carbonate/sulphate ores, as opposed to Darkness-degraded sulphidic ores) if there is any smelting done by humans under the surveillance of Gemborg. At the scale of Gloranthan metallurgy, use of fossile coal is environmentally preferable to the massive use of charcoal, even with some deforestation going on for securing those coal mines. Same with the petroleum they produce - this replaces massive whaling (or slaying of other marine beings, like e.g. manatees and dugongs, for their blubber) and serves as a replacement of plant oils as fuel, allowing these to be used as food instead. Even without polymer chemistry or synthetic alchemy requiring some dino-juice, there are plenty of alchemy-adjacent uses for oils and paraffine outside of lanterns and candles - de-fatting skins and furs, polishing and preserving metal items, waterproofing textiles, or as a neutral solvent for perfume extraction from basic ingredients.

You need to give some additional reference to the age of the celebrity in question, and in case of (good) actors the roles they were impersonating. A younger Sean Connery as in Time Bandits could be a good candidate for Argrath, but not when he played King Arthur alongside Richard Gere's Lancelot.

Humakt teamed up with Eurmal. In what way could teaming up with a follower of Lanbril be worse than that? From the Lanbril side, being friends with a death-wielder and truth-sayer may be stifling and irritating. Still, the friendship asked about is between people, possibly kinfolk, and not between cult representatives in their official function.

Spirit possession might be a way, depending on how you play with that. Including possession by a friendly discorporate warlock.

A lone hunter could still have an allied spirit adept at tracking by various means. Otherwise, a Ranger and Tonto combo might be possible, with a sidekick gifted in tracking and in making weird trouble. Not that having a Eurmali sidekick is mandatory for an initiate of Babeester, but would it be unusual?

Paulis was trained as an Irrippi Ontor scribe, tasked with observing the barbarians he visited. There is a good chance that he used quantized jargon from the Imperial College of Magic to document what he witnessed. In other words, a nerd.

Those turtle galleys are a Jrusteli model, with a Greek Fire syphon as their main armament rather than guns. Iron Fort might have some wrecks from the arrival of the Closing.

Aram Ya Udram lived in the Silver Age until around 175 S.T. He rode his boar alongside that of Vathmai of the Entruli, the founder of the westernmost tribe of the Entruli (and both shared the bed of the Queen of Nochet, probably at the same time, too) before the Dawn. And he rode his boar alongside whatever steed was favored by Lalmor of the Vathmai, grandson or great-grandson of the founder, when he set forth to bring the Theyalan ways to the other Entruli early in the second century. Not stopping with the Queen of Nochet, Aram wooed and won the favor (and Necklace) of Kero Fin, and bearing this token of sovereignty he spoke for the humans on the Dawn Council, aka World Council of Friends. The God-pig Gouger was sent by an irate Ernalda when humans failed to give her the respect and worship she deserved. Several settlements ("cities") were destroyed by the God Beast before Aram tricked it and attacked it with a darkness demon he had overcome earlier. When did this happen? Ernalda returned to the world at the Dawn, following her (hitherto unseen) daughter Voria on the first day of Time, the only day in Time that saw all the gods walking the surface world. Prior to this event, the gods (and their magic) were trapped in the Underworld, and their agency was limited. Not completely, however - King Heort perished when he faced Orlanth's liberating bolt (although we have no information how that came to pass - for all we know Heort might have chosen this as the means for his self-immolation, King Sartar might have copied that idea). I sort of doubt that Ernalda had enough agency to send a god-pig while ascending the stairwell out of Hell in the grand procession of the gods attending the Ritual of the Web. So when was Gouger released? One option is that Gouger stepped into the Greater Darkness just before Ernalda met Nontraya. The world, or what was left of it, was already swarming with demons, and somehow the destruction left behind by Gouger would have amounted to little more than a footnote in the catalogue of disasters. So let's play through Gouger emerging in the Silver Age. That suggests that there was a magical tit-for-tat with Ernaldan fertility magic and grateful sacrifices by her followers going on, until some of them stopped these practices. And then several cities of worshipers of Ernalda were eradicated, when the entire population of Esrolia resided in Ezel (number unknown), Koravaka (countless dead) and Nochet (3000 at the Dawn, possibly fewer before). Aram and his elite boar-riding warriors chase the god-pig, Aram tricks it and makes it succumb to the Darkness Demon. The tusks are retrieved and built into the temple structure at the Ivory Plinth. This means about 900 folk in the Silver Age as casualties to Gouger when the entire ancestral community of Caladraland was 200, likewise the Harandings, and supposedly the Vathmai (unless they, like the Aramites, were part of the Nochet survival group emerging from the Obsidian Palace). Or we could posit that the "Dawn Survival Site" of the Aramites refers to a temple erected a few years into the Dawn, after Manirian pig totem Orlanthi cause trouble with the Earth Goddess, creating the Mournsea, and a runaway god-pig enters the lands of Esrolia and Kerofinela whose inhabitants were innocent of that crime. Someone (Mostali?) erects the base steps of the Ziggurat and tops them with the hollow teeth that are made into towers, carved from the inside. The Dawn Survival Site census reads like it was collected after the fact, possibly from taxation records of the Shadow Lords who maintained communication and trade between the sites, and the newly erected Plinth would have been mentioned as if it had been there two or three years earlier. Pig Hollow and Redeye may well have been a recursion of the Gouger incident, possibly aimed at the EWF. The Aramite hero at the time was Varankol the Mangler, apparently still a human at the start of his military career which saw him as one of the heroes of the Machine Wars (the leading EWF hero in the conflict, which failed to show any dragons in the struggle). My pet theory is that Varankol had his pig's tusks implanted after it was slain under him in battle, starting a trend which would soon lead to a dominant inheritable trait empowered by Remaker magics among the Aramites, granting tusks to the riders as well as the steeds.

Pity it isn't the Pavis Garden... On the outer estuary of a major river? Whatever could come to mind?

The original population numbers for Sartar were calculated by assigning 500 people to an arable wargame hex, and calling that number a clan. Subsequent refinement has led to a smaller number of clans with more members each, but the exact distribution remains unclear. There is a sketch map of all clans in Sartar, the Far Place and Hendrikiland on the Well of Daliath which could be matched to the hex grid to arrive at rough initial numbers which then could be tuned down for heavily forested or very rough terrain. Or you could wait for RQG editing, art commission and layout resources able to take on Jeff's Sartar Campaign (and gazetteer) WIP for which the writing has been done for quite a while now. Population numbers leave space for interpretation, e.g. whether they show the total population, the population above 5 years old (which is supposed to have a better than 50% chance at survival barring cataclysmic troubles), or just the productive adult population at home (not counting clan members away in military service or other long-time employment who might return at the drop of a coin, or led away as captives waiting to be ransomed or bought back or otherwise freed). Whatever your story arc needs. Back in the early 2000s, I was part of two groups of GMs exchanging campaign logs and background for the region they gamed (or wrote) in, the Whitewall Wiki and Yahoogroup and a less prominent Wilmskirk Yahoogroup. I know there are several people GMing and writing in/for the Far Place who might be up for such a form of collaboration and cross-pollination.

Accumulation of more land per household depends on the favor of the chief (and on the available amount of arable and potentially arable land, or land fit for pasture or cash crops) and the favor of the Earth Priestess(es) on clan level and ultimately in the great Earth temple(s) responsible for the lands claimed by the clan. A good part of the expenditures to develop a hide will be in recompensation of the work force. (Pasture is mainly hay-making land near the stead, with access to transhumant high pastures slightly less of an issue. Harvesting hay or equivalent winter fodder is a major activity for herder households, and will draw in grain farmers when their work load is at a lull. Grain harvest still has priority, but live-stock fodder is a major economic factor that decides on sustainable herd size.) The Colymar lineages tell a different tale for the various branches of Colymar's descendants. While some branches may dip into obscurity, these cousins will have an easier time to become associates of current leaders than stickpickers with less of a name among their ancestors. Ancestral fame is inheritable, as the RQG character creation demonstrates. Marriage politics support the ossification of nobility by creating matches where the offspring will inherit from both father and mother. This may be intra-tribal (like Beneva Chan marrying Kallai, merging the Colymar-descended royal bloodline of the Taralings with the Colymar-descended lineage of priestesses at Clearwine) or even cross tribal or confederation borders. This pattern can be found in the genetics of wealthy Bronze Age (Urnfield culture) farmers of the Lech Valley, too, with patrilocal males and brides being brought in (with wealth and status) from all over Germany, e.g. the Unetice culture. https://www.mpg.de/13979712/1009-wisy-052382-social-inequality-in-bronze-age-households True, but you still require the "Make it so!" from some person in authority to maintain community support. The principle of "Follow Chosen Leaders" allows you to make your fame with adventurous nobility as patron, or some temple leadership, or a successful mercenary leader. Rarely (possibly typically for adventurers), an individual leading a group of like-minded adventurers troubleshooters will obtain enough recognition in their own right to rise beyond tribal or confederation nobility (i.e. dependence on a patron) into becoming the equivalent of a Sea-King, a future ruler with the military and magical power and potential to take over a significant domain for themselves. At the height of their successes, Londra of Londros and her Temple of the Wooden Sword had such a status, and even in retirement she is relatively free of pressure from her Stormwalker associates. Her associate Alebard has inherited most of the disbanded temple's warriors and manages his domain (Alebard's Tower) as a Colymar tribal thane roughly equivalent to a clan leader in status, with special privileges though no greater role in tribal politics (unlike Asborn Thrice-Born who acts as a tribal thane with huge political influence). Robbed, sure. Murdered, only if you meddle with the Lunars (not that the Occupation gave you any choice in that) whose idea of Dart Competitions (aka state-sanctioned secret murder among oligarchs) goes counter to the weregeld culture of the Orlanthi. Stead-burnings are possible, creating huge amount of weregeld damages to the in-laws even if you manage to eradicate your target community. Most of the time you don't, resulting in unexpected reappearances of vengeful foes thwarting your greater schemes. Lokamayadon learned that last lesson. Assassination does exist in Orlanthi culture, both openly as in the Humakti Death Squad assault on Termertain and as deniable (and culturally chaotic) late escalation of conflicts. The House of Sartar used covert strikes against House Norinel and its associates in the wake of the death of Sarotar, giving rise to two of their rival houses before Hendira reclaimed the top position in Nochet.

Ironbreaker may have (had) a stronger Stabilize enchantment than other items. Adamantium is the ultimate material in Glorantha, but that material would have been mentioned in the Paulis narrative. Another explanation for the name could be "the Breaker made from Iron" rather than "the sword that breaks iron". There are three possible time frames for Mostali hostile or at least neutral to Nysalor's Bright Empire to have dealt with Arkat and his companions - Arkat's time in Seshnela, with dwarfs from Belskan providing the sword, his Telmori campaign in Ralios with Bad Deal and the Nidan dwarfs as the origin, or his decade of fighting in and around Kerofinela with possibly Isidilian or Martaler (or rather their followers) providing the item. Greatway seems to have remained loyal to the Bright Empire while it lasted without being targeted specifically like the Heortlings targeted Dara Happa.

The average Animal Nomad clan will stay within reach of an oasis only a few weeks every year, spending more time in slow migration across the chaparral. There will be watering holes without permanent habitation, possibly because they will be over-exploited and require some time to regenerate between visits. If you buy into the "Praxian herd beasts graze on spirit plants in addition to the physical plants of the chaparral" explanation, these spirit plants may regenerate at a slower rate, too.

WF15 was written without access to Greg Stafford's more detailed Sartar notes, which have since been returned to the Chaosium archives, and are treated preferentially. This has turned quite a bit of earlier output by e.g. Jeff into the same canonicity as fan-produced material on the Jonstown Compendium. Personally, I have always seen this data as guidelines. While it is pretty hard to justify the existence of another wealthy clan in an already cramped area, inserting another marginal clan in less-than-optimal conditions should always be possible, even in official material, although the usual way is to identify one of the existing names with an alternative name you have been using in your writing. One and the same clan may go down in the histories under four or five different names. Starfires, Woodpeckers, Orlmarth - all the same clan (except when possibly a Lismelder clan might be known as Starfires, too).