Joerg

Talking about gas giant atmospheres - a normal density whale might very well float in gas giant atmosphere, which may easily surpass densities of water.

It seems that the swimming skills develop better in places with year-round survivable water temperatures. While the Scandinavians tell about great swimming feats e.g. in Beowulf, many of the coastal fishermen probably were mediocre swimmers at best. If your water world is some Polynesian or Maledives resort island paradise, swimming and diving will be common abilities, provided the crocs and sharks or their analogues aren't ubiquitious. If your water world resembles Inuit Greenland, even with thermal insulation suits there won't be that many swimmers. Adding some unpleasant chemicals or organisms to the composition of the sea water will reduce the time humans are willing to spend in that liquid, too, even if they do harvest the sea life. Solar sailing, the use of spinakers. and kite sailing aren't that different, and kite sailing has become more and more popular both with shipping lines and as sports. Solar panels for energy collection may very well be brought out as rigging similar to modern mechanized schooner rigging.

I would like to challenge you to describe a creature that doesn't match up with some BRP system's game stats for a creature. Unless you bring up a creature that can be described as topology or Greater Old One or upscale, stats for some of the most abstruse creatures have been published.

I would allow additions to the careers based on specific background. Planetary skills are obviously tied to professions that involve planetary activities (though not necessarily planetary origin). Wet navy is a poor choice for boating/sailing skills, really – most wet navy personnel in space-faring tech levels will be techies just like those in the space navies, operating terminals when not engaged in damage Control. Fishing will put you on boats and give you skin to sea experience. Low tech survival or cultural anthropology will put you in boats, too. Then there are numerous sports that put people in boats or on other water vehicles. Specific cultural traditions will put people on boats, e.g. sailing ships as training vessels for space navy cadets – both as low-tech survival and as team-building exercise. Sailing skill might be applicable for space craft using solar sails. Water worlds: Our home planet is one. This doesn‘t mean that each and every inhabitant will see the sea at least once a month. Get over those single biome planets, folk. You can have a wet navy culture on a planet with less than 20% open water surface, and you can have huge inland areas far from any sea or lakes on a water world. If you want to present a planet as a single biome, simply state that the planet-side spaceport is situated in so-and-so biome. Seduction as a professional skill could be argued for entertainers (musicians, actors) and celebrities (nobles, media stars) too. Not every "professional" skill involves something the person in this profession is actually paid for performing.

Would it be just to enter the hall with a bag of silver worth someone's weregeld, then kill that person and toss the man-price next to the corpse?

"You say that Orlanth is the embodiment of the Air Rune. This is how the Jrusteli-taught wizards approached this, and this is how they failed, because this statement is only part of the truth. The embodiment of the Air Rune is Orlanth. This statement is a lot better. There still are lesser embodiments of the Air Rune, but they all reach through Orlanth into the Ultimate. But other things are Orlanth, too – the King of the Storm Tribe, the Lightbringer, the Adventurer, even the Vadrudi Raider, and the Heir of Change. By approaching this Burta with the methods applied to an Erasanchula or even a Srvuali, you are missing much, and whoever you face will be able to take what you were missing and use it against your hold on the god or its manifestation. Even supposed Srvuali like his spouse Ernalda or her daughters, the Land Goddesses, don’t correspond to their inherited Rune as their whole identities. Even if you choose a myth supposedly free of later Storm Age corruption to interact with the deity, be sure to respect the other aspects of the deity. Just as Orlanth is the heir of Larnste, Ernalda is the heir of Uleria. Life flows through her in ways you won’t understand by just understanding the Earth Rune. So, now you will say, why not use that nifty system assigning three runes to a major deity, and use that? Sure, the results from this approach are a lot more reliable. But they still fail whenever the deity in question contaminated itself by an Godtime aspect undergoing a transformation, bringing some other runic property to importance, and the local aspect you are dealing with is drawing upon that Godtime aspect. If you have to learn all those irrelevant little secrets of a cult, why not just join it and overcome its servility to the entity? This has been done successfully, by a few extremely powerful or desperate wizards. Whether successful in breaking the servility or not, these wizards were changed by the experience. This is one of the roots of Henotheism."

An inside view of the core Lunar culture is really hard to find. The Paulis Longvale story in Cults of Terror might be the closest to a Lunar cultist's perspective we get. MOB's Jaxarte stories are lots of color, but more spoof than deep background. The new bit on Fazzur's story in King of Sartar is already somewhat distant from what it feels like to be part of the Lunar religion, but will grant some insight. Under the Red Moon has lots of ideas, but like Peter @metcalph I wouldn't take those ideas as set in canon. Excellent story potential, but probably to be filed under YGWV. One problem with the Lunar Empire is that you have to deal with many cultures at once. You will find Dara Happan bureaucrats practically wherever you go, alongside with Lunar officials. Non-Lunar Carmanians may be rarer, but Lunar Carmanians will still be able to follow old Carmanian cults, too, like Countess Yolanela, whose dedication to Teelo Norri sits side to side with her involvement in the old Spolite religion.

Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser (the episode in ancient Persia, IIRC) describe something almost like a mystic power, the hero's laughter, which makes even gods impotent against them. Conan has something quite similar, I suppose. Not quite a berserk power, but not too far away from that.

@styopa It really was there in Cults of Prax (references to the Malkioni) and Cults of Terror (explicitely mentioning the wizards). Malkioni wizards are mentioned in Cults of Terror under the Materialist entry, and where Time is discussed. Froalar and his daughter Fenela are mentioned in the Issaries cult. The land of Seshneg is mentioned in the Daka Fal cult. Present in the background since RQ2...

Rewriting the Vingkotling history surely is getting way off-topic here. I suggest each of us prepares a position paper and presents it in a separate thread. Right now there are more wild theories floating about than I am willing to handle. Otherwise, the exchange is going to look like more of this: Has it ever occurred to you that both the Entekosiad and the Glorious ReAscent of Yelm aren't any better than the tribal myths of the first Heortling tribes? Plentonius is a master of conjecture who has little more written sources than inscriptions of imperial names in masonry. Murharzarm is an invention of his, and Antirius is an invention of that street sweeper Avivath who sunspeared horse emperors with the power of Hastatus. The identification of the underworld star Tolat as a son of Yelm is an invention of his, replacing the green planet of Alkor. Plentonius has the Dawn in YS 11100, during the reign of Son of Evil, missing 100 years of History in his text. I might be able to cram a few more more or less flawed pet theories into this...

True. You start playing something else, then, though. Letting your average AD&D 1st ed fighter have climbing skills and spellcasting ability did break the game. If you played RQ in Glorantha, the world description said that it cannot be done since the God Learner forbidden knowledge has disappeared. If you want to do it, your characters will have to re-discover this abiltiy, or create it from scratch. The former is fairly easy, resulting in a quite high-powered campaign. The latter doesn't have rules. Yet. Which means you are free to write such rules, share them, and possibly submit them for inclusion in future publications. Some could, providing the rules how to create them. (Ball of Tails?) Others were present before - blessed woad, enchanted thunderstones. These could be used as guidelines. As long as this doesn't alter the setting, sure, why not. It doesn't matter whether those weapons are special because they are made from Gloranthan iron or whether they were enchanted by a select group of magical smiths, as long as they don't flood the ecology of the world. If every broo you encounter has an iron or enchanted sword and a piece of Truestone, something has gone wrong. Which may very well be the premise of your campaign - one of the "official" vague futures of the Hero Wars has a provider of magic and weapons beyond the normal availabiity, with no price attached, honest, just a little favour. And we'll probably be happy to help you spin this on. If this happens as the result of "I don't care", then you just have burnt your warranty, and the service team probably won't be able to help you. Just don't blame the product if you didn't use it according to the specifications. If a spade sucks at opening tin cans this doesn't make it a bad gardening tool.

Still is, if you stay out of the lands of the wizards. (Which were mentioned already in Cults of Prax and Cults of Terror, the two books where you learned about the gods.) Little of that has changed. You can have all of this, although not all of this at once - galleys and hoplites (at least formations of hoplites) don't meet in Glorantha, or only for a single event in the recent past. Which you can happily ignore, and make it happen if you feel it improves your game. I started to be interested in Glorantha when I got my hands on Pavis (with its history bits), Troll Pak (with its world history from the perspective of the darkmen) and Genertela Box (which detailed part of the world). I came from a world which I had designed myself, taking inspiration from (or, in other words, stealing from) Glorantha and a couple of other settings (Middle Earth, Midkemia, and most prominently the Viking myths and history). I had that maximum freedom, in the isolation of my gaming group - even though some of my players took the world for games of their own, I never found it easy to share my ideas about this world with others. Glorantha had a dedicated community of fans, at that time recently pulled together by mailing lists on the internet just when it became a public place rather than a specialists' playground. One could discuss ideas and impressions, just like we still do here. One could participate in the creation of the world. You still can. It takes some determination, but you still will be able to submit scenarios with some setting information, and have a chance for publication. It might take a few years - Ian Cooper's Red Cow clan saga was around for how many years? 12? before it saw publication as "The Coming Storm", and soon "The Eleven Lights". If you don't want to use these, don't. IMO you miss out, big time. Rune Magic never has gone. It still is the main form of magic for characters from the core area of the publications - Dragon Pass. In Prax, Rune Magic is available, but the native beast riders are at least as adept dealing with lesser spirits in other ways, and through their shamans (which have been present since the first days of RuneQuest). Alchemy (in RQ2 the skill to make all kinds of potion) has been discovered to be a form of sorcery, the magic of the wizards mentioned for the far-away west, with increasing presence (once again) in this region. No throttling back. The history is there. It is what led to the current situation. If you make the jump forward to 1627, the future events have as little detail as the events beyond 1617 had in RQ2. There is a quarter page timeline with more or less definite future events, and numerous prophecies of the Hero Wars spread over the Guide to Glorantha, plus an appendix with in-world-stories from possible outcomes. Feel free to use these or ignore these. The slate is about as clean forward as it was when RQ2 was published. And the world as it was before has been changed a lot by recent events. Magic has become open for new ways, while the old ways have been revived, too. There will be scenarios where the old ways and the new ways come at odds with one another. And you will be able to decide which of the ways to prefer. Individually, and as a group. And the decision will change your Glorantha. Looking backwards, there is a whole lot of information available now that explains how the status quo was arrived, and what the status quo is. Use this, if you want to. If you cannot be bothered, use the maps, as much info as you can digest, and start playing. Just don't complain if your world-changing events don't find enthusiastic support for inclusion into canon if you share them here, or if you want to submit them to a magazine that is somewhat interested in furthering canonical Glorantha. (The only one seeing print at the moment is Wyrm's Footnotes, with a publication period of indeterminate length.) Your Glorantha Will Vary. This may cause problems if a future product contradicts the outcomes of your campaign. Tough luck, that's one product which won't be playable as is. During the last 25 years that I have studied Glorantha in depth, there have been several conceptional changes to Glorantha coming and going. The Yelmalio Schism, and One True Worldism. Sorcery variants for RQ. The Clan Only game. Three completely separate otherworlds triplicating all kinds of creatures to adhere to that canon. Subcults of subcults. Puma people (don't ask). Physically manifested runes (don't ask about this, either). The region I chose to make my own about 24 years ago has been changed during that time, due to more and more information "discovered" or delivered after I started playing and designing there, and to find official truths about that region to disappear from canon that were the basis for some of my designing (e.g. Hendriki calling their warriors "knights", as per RuneQuest Companion from 1983 - basically because knights, even those earliest specimen of the Sarmatian and Frankish lancer variety during the dying West Roman Empire that I had advocated, have left Glorantha altogether, now being Men-of-all, which ironically don't exist among the aberrant Malkioni sect inhabiting Heortland which might have inspired the Hendriki to call their weaponthanes such). Having been a fairly loud voice and exchanging ideas with many other people, I think I managed to slip in a couple of my ideas into canon, by convincing other authors. And I had to learn to live with ideas of mine being rejected, or being transformed into something quite different from what I thought they would be. If you have a concrete concept what kind of game you want to play, people around here will be happy to advise you where and how to do so in Glorantha. You can ignore those opinions. If your city of London lies at the mouth of a fjord with 4000 foot high mountains to either side, so be it. If your Manhattan is the pastoralist colony of Dutchmen in the middle of the Atlantic, play with it. Don't expect to be able to use much of the background material that will be provided for this region of the world, though.

RQ never had the means to create such a sword, except for the Clanking City mass-produced items with a magical crystal in the handle, presumably channeling some magic from the Machine God or one of the mechanical prayer mills below the city all the time. (The magic broke down when the sword was removed from the Clanking City.) The easiest way to create an enchanted blade was to give it an armoring enchantment which would increase its ability to parry damage (not that that would help against a wraith attack...), or to use a Rune Metal and enchant that, with the usual by-products of enchanting an item made of rune-metal (some of which, like enchanted silver or Gloranthan iron, might affect a wraith). In an Old School Fantasy setting I would expect +0% - +25% to hit, +0 - +5 to damage enchanted weapons. Not necessarily bladesharp, but some lesser magic imbued to the weapon by magician-smiths, possibly using runes (and permanent POW) to create this. Probably 1 POW for each +1 damage or +5% to hit.

The only group north of the Bright Empire would have been the uzhim and hollri of Valind's Winter Waste. If his Dragon Pass approach had failed, Arkat might have gathered the horse nomads who still had a grudge against the rebellious walker peoples before ending up with the uz of the north. The Serpent Beast Hykimi of Ralios had been fighting the Second Council settlers, but that was a thing of the past when Nysalor recruited the Telmori (and possibly other beast peoples) to his purpose. Arkat had antagonized the Serpent Beast folk - at least those of Telmoria. Talor had, too, but joined by Harmast he found allies beyond his immediate bull people foes. It isn't clear what the Bear people of Resat or Rathor did in this conflict. The Guide (pp.199f) tells us that Harmast emerged at Voria's Day from Hrelar Amali, traveled with Talor to Akem, made peace between Akem and the Orlanthi, recruited "Hsunchen" (other than the Telmori) and led them against Dorastor - presumably from the west. Syranthir might have tried to follow Talor's trail, if not for the constant harrassment of his ten thousand. Note that the two Chaos curses which concluded the Gbaji Wars - that on Dorastor and that on the Telmori - were pronounced by Arkat and Talor, but both affected pre-existing Nysalorean chaos blessings. I wonder what Harmast made of that.

I hesitated to have inland Waertagi, otherwise they would have been a lot higher on my list, too. And yes, their presence reduces the need for grandchildren of Lorion a bit. Underwater cities don't necessarily mean water-breathing inhabitants - the city of Erenplose is encased in a bubble of air, and the Fish Road Interface at Seapolis (credited to the God Learner commander of Segus, the iron fort at the tip of the Rightarm Isles) and the City of Wonders is another such example. Just because most people attempting to enter don't benefit doesn't mean that you have to be aquatic to live down there. Only a very small minority of Waertagi is able to breathe water. True, most Vadeli (and all blue-skinned ones) were drowned along with almost all of Danmalastan. Brithos remained, two Vadeli-inhabited archipelagos remained, Jrustela is either a remnant of Danmalastan or the rubble from when the Spike toppled after High King Elf killed it, and Slon is likely to be at least in part a remnant of pre-flood Danmalastan, too. King Oronin clearly was of the water tribe. However, he was slain by the DediZoraRu, and why should a Waertagi or Kachasti overcome a Waertagi king and replace it with something more evil? This still stinks of Vadeli taking over after their rebellion against the Kachasti. Tying the events in the Entekosiad into the Orlanthi or Dara Happan sequence is harder than reconciling only Dara Happan and Vingkotling myths. The implosion of Mt. Turos and the creation of Lake Oronin is a pre-flood event, but the YarGan bit is a post-flood event. Peter Metcalfe argues from the mythic maps in the Guide. Checking these maps, they don't show any Artmali activity other than the founding of the camp of innocence. We have plenty of evidence of Artmali activities after that, north of the Pamaltelan mountain chains, as a navy. I would really like to know how Peter plans to locate them in such maps, or potential interim maps showing more than just Pamaltela. For what it's worth, even the people of Mernita may have been (joined by) Veldang who disembarked from their moon before it fell on top of them - isn't it suspicious that of all northern Peloria, only the lands of Mernita remained unaffected by the Great Flood? If their moon had an influence over the tides, it could have directed the standing waves that covered parts of the Rockwoods and most of the Oslir basin around their lands.

I'd still award only the single point a Bladesharp 1 would offer, or in the case of 2-dice damage weapons, maybe 2 points. Statistically, that's what the enhancement will do, a D4 does 2.5 points of damage in average, a D6 does 3.5 points. Allowing the knockback maneuver to keep the blasted beast at distance while your comrades come up with something more decisive - the wraith being rather insubstantial, it won't suffer damage from being knocked back, but will have to cover some ground for its next attack. A True Weapon magic will be fully effective, a damage enhanced weapon would deal the enhanced damage to the hit points of the beast. As said, your wraiths may vary - whatever suits the challenge level of that encounter. My take is that if such things exist, they will be rather ubiquitious - like weapons made from enchanted rune metals or Gloranthan iron. (Yes, Gloranthan iron isn't ubiquitious, unless you take a census among highly experienced or rune rank characters.) That's a massive overload, basically the artifact equivalent of a lesser god - like Elric's Stormbringer and Mournblade, or the Great Morganti weapons in Brust's Dragaera. It's not a flaw, it's a feature. The elven blade wants confrontation with the arch-enemy orcs, and the wielder will have to deal with that. It's similar to planning an ambush with a Humakti warrior possessing the Sense Assassin gift in your party. Any sufficiently powerful item will have an agenda, and that agenda won't necessarily be congruent to its wielder's agenda. Do you have a similar reaction to the Earth Axe in the Munchrooms scenario in Troll Pak, or to the demonic steeds of Sir Ethilrist's Black Horse company?

In my old school games where magical weapons were more common, the more powerful ones usually were targeted to affect a certain type of opponent, with only a side order of weaker magical effect when used generally. That way you get a Macguffin with game-changing effects in certain situations while having a manageable effect the rest of the time. Given the combat system that separates to hit and damage, these are two areas that can be affected jointly or separately, and even partially adversely. A common RQ item was a a bound spirit that would cast the bladesharp (or similar) spell for the wielder on command, eliminating the time and magical expenditure to fire off that spell. Enhancing the weapon with a temporary spell had the tactical component that this advantage could be targeted with Countermagic spells, allowing second rank intervention for the non-fighters in group-vs-boss situations. Always-on magic should have a draw-back. Take an elven sword that glows in the presence of orcs, and acts as permanent bladesharp against them. Not the best item if you want to avoid or ambush an orc patrol from hiding, correct? Hiding with active magic is difficult, anyway (unless it is magic that enhances hiding or misdirection). These old mechanistic properties really are the same as more modern narrative techniques. A magic sword will increase the likelihood of combat, it will frame a situation in its favor. Use your imagination when creating the item. Rather than simply adding damage, a magical effect could bypass a certain amount of armor instead, stun the arm wielding a parrying weapon for a few combat rounds, reduce permanent damage but inflict overwhelming pain instead (causing a resistance roll of remaining hit points vs. pain inflicted in order to keep functional), leave an ominous glow where it hit the opponent (giving a cumulating to hit bonus, which comes in handy in tank vs tank battles when specials and criticals decide the outcome). I have played it that only the magical damage applies, but that the entire weapon damage (of enhanced weapons only) can cause knockback (which means that the wraith can be forced away for a time, giving the opponents more time to act against it). It doesn't have to be the same for any old wraith, either - you could have a weaker form of wraith that reacts to the entire damage of an enhanced weapon, or a tougher form that doesn't get knocked back. You might make it fully vulnerable to items with a light or fire spell on it. If you do so, you can allow the players to make perception rolls to identify its weakness from its behavior in combat - avoiding torches or lighted areas, etc.

You are conflating populations once again. What most people call Vingkotlings (including the Gloranthans) refers to the people ruled by the sons and heirs of Vingkot rather than by Vingkot himself. The story of the Vingkotlings begins when Vingkot is killed. There's only about two pages of myths describing the time when Vingkot ruled. You're spouting strange categories once again. The nine original Vingkotling tribes (1 -vari, 3 -tes, 5 -telli) clearly are created while Vingkot was king. The -vuli Star Tribes are created after his death - we know five (Liorn-, Forosil-, Garan-, Sedenor-, Stra-), plus the Esrolvuli who aren't Vingkotling. The Deleskarings are a strange exception in the naming - it is possible that they didn't have the status of a tribe, but survived anyway. By the way, not all stories corroborate your idea that the expedition of the sons of Vingkot occurred only after Vingkot's immolation. Heortling Mythology p.120: The circumstances of Vingkot's death by Chaos are extremely obscure, as is their timing. If Vingkot fought the Darkmen and the Icemen, what Dara Happan cities would have been left of Dara Happa to be plundered by his sons after his death? I don't see a gradual transformation. We have the sons and daughters of Vingkot create heroic, warlike tribes, the daughters by choice of their husbands and presumably their followers. We know that Kodig married the Queen of Nochet, and introduced the (Dureving?) population of Esrolia to his rule - with only partial success, so maybe there was some gradual conversion. We can assume that the other three brothers had wives who brought significant kinsfolk into the tribes, too - Heort's ancestor Darndrev brought the deer folk, although only in a later generation. But I see potential for beast riders of now domestic beasts entering the Vingkotling tribe through marriage. If Lastralgor brought in ram people, the identification by the Dara Happans would be explained. We don't hear anything about clans, anywhere - maybe because all the problems were above clan level. What are the origins of the other Theyalan humans? How much were the Esrolvuli Vingkotlings, and how much were they Durevings under the absolutist rule of the Grandmothers? Do Pelaskites and Caladralanders have exclusively non-Dureving and non-Helering roots? The Manirian tribes? I can see that you want to have distinct, non-overlapping Ages. I don't see God-Time having these discrete switches in the Ages. What exactly is the classical Vingkotling culture you claim to have started exactly with the immolation of Vingkot? They do. They fought the seas and won. They didn't just thwart the seas in attempting to drown Ernaldela, they went further and drove them back from lands that had been drowned BoHM p88. p.88 Vingkot went and conquered those lands, but it isn't clear whether he got wet feet doing so. p.66 tells how Orlanth did this. A conquest by blowing those standing waves away - especially after they gave up their energy to power Worcha - makes sense. This basically makes Orlanth the founder or at least sponsor of Arstola. Or it is possible and plausible that your re-dating is unnecessary. It doesn't explain why the sons of Vingkot should have been dead for centuries (DHan pre-Dawn years) when their sisters married. Your supposed fixes don't really fix anything.

It's the logistics of magical and physical support. Arkat went forward finding new allies on the way. That's impressive since athe usual way of an army to sustain itself is .foraging, basically extolling tribute from or plundering the locals. Having parted on less than amicable terms form both his Brithini commanders and King Gerlant, I doubt they would have let his army pass without prolonged and costly skirmishes, weakening his forces and more importantly the morale and resolve of his followers. It is fine to plunder the subjects of your enemy, but it is counterproductive to fight off former comraedes-in-arms or to suffer from hunger and bad equipment. However mythical the scale of the conflict, the morale and motivation of the allied warriors will still be human and quite mundane.

I have become a lot less confident when dating the God Time sequentially than I used to be. Still, let's assume that we can find a single true sequence of God Time events. The reign of Urvairinus is unequivocally post-flood era, pre-Ice Age. That period is clearly part of the Vingkotling Age - Vingkot became King of the humans already during the flood. Vingkot went away to fight Chaos Man single-handedly, beyond the Realm of mortal men (and ended up in the First Battle of Chaos, in another age, where he received his mortal wound), then returned to his kin, held alive by his divine spark, so he chose to be immolated to be released from his agony. After his immolation, the sons of Vingkot vied for succession, and sacked many Dara Happan cities (which isn't limited to the Septopolis in GRoY). That would have to be in the reigns of Anaxial (no mention of such an event), Lukarius (neither any mention) or Urvairinus (bingo, Elempur). The repeat raid followed by a Dara Happan victory, also check. Could this have been a later conflict with Urvairinus? With Kestinoros? With Manarlarvus? Something the Alkothi didn't bother to tell the Raibanthi Emperor? Possibly yes, but that leads us too close to the Late Storm Age. Check the Andam Horde story in Entekosiad for this event. IMO. The location later has the Talastari ram folk of Lokamayadon. All of that fits well enough. We know hardly anything about the Lastralgortelli, other than that they perished in their second raid. Lastralgor may very well have brought the Iron Ram along. The Varnaval snippet doesn't state that he invaded Dara Happa. That's your conjecture, and about as valid as mine. Heortling Mythology says: There are no Heortling Star Tribes. All surviving Vingkotling tribes became Heortling tribes. The Stravuli were formed from the Jorganostelli, as a Vingkotling tribe, without any son, daughter, grandson or granddaughter of Vingkot leading them. We can discuss whether they had Vingkot type tribal kingship or some other model, but you cannot claim that this tribe was formed only after IFWW. WIth such extended life-spans, don't you think that people got to know their great-great-great-great-great-grandchildren if they survived long enough? Such longevity may smear the term generation in that the firstborn may have already great-grandchildren when the lastborn take their first breaths, but adding up the life spans of methusalahs doesn't define historical dates. This logical fallacy is common among literalist interpreters of the King James Bible, but I thought we would be above such mistakes. Sure - the idea is weak. But Urvairinus doesn't reclaim the bow in the battle, but further south. The Deleskaring story (not reprinted in the Guide) tells how Deleskar remained behind while Jorganos went north, and didn't return. He might have been killed in or about Elempur. Which is why we find Berenstead in Berenethtelli lands at the Dawn, Ulaninstead in Orgovaltes territory, etc.? The Vingkotlings appear to have remained at the lands of their founders. I agree that some dislocation of tribes would have been more in character for what we know about the Orlanthi, but our sources don't show any evidence of that. More later.

I liked how M-Space uses the same format ast the now 30 years old Traveller method of mapping a space opera setting, and I suggest to stick rather closely to this time-proven method of visualizing the setting. I would scrap the hexadecimal code system for something more readable, though - computer interfaces improved greatly the last forty years (which is where the Traveller Univers got stuck in terms of IT). One good reason for this similarity is fairly easy integration of old Traveller material - whether official or fan-produced, e.g. in the first 80 or so issues of the White Dwarf magazine - for recycling. I've been trying to set up a way to administrate my putative M-Space setting, too. I have two major design models I intend to copy and/or adapt. One is the 1983 (or so) edition of Traveller (which I own in its German translation). It has numerous good ideas and numerous bad ideas for populating sectors and systems, but it has the advantage of allowing a pen and paper approach to data collection. My other design model is the Heroquest Glorantha product Men of the Seas which offers a simple narraitve approach that is based on the concept of Ports of Call. Basically, a naval or space opera campaign will consist of a vessel landing in a port facility of some kind (which includes treachery swamp clearings on Dagobah as much as a landing facility on Coruscant). Normally the game will start here with the player characters' interaction with the planetary hinterland, unless you start your scenarios with an in medias res approach offering only a few backslash scenes for how the party got into this specific mess. Firefly operates on this port of call premise most of the time. This means that rather than sitting down to develop the entire planet and planetary system you only give detailed information for the immediate environment your party encounters. And you detail only those parts of the hinterland that are story relevant. The Wing-Commander- style Sandbox space game Freelancer gives a good idea how many ports and other installations with potential story relevance to expect in inhabited or frontier sectors. I intend to use the Traveler approach to outline the potential of a sector, subsector, solar system or planet, and a Ports of Call system to describe potential game settings in this environment. The planet is a sub-set of the star system. Normally, I would advocate creating a symbolic star map with a sized comparison for the major planetary body of the orbit (if any, otherwise an indication of asteroid population), listed under a description of the primary star. Intermediate orbits for technological facilites could be inserted here, too. Orbits can have an inclination to the major plane, which would be described here, as well as any asymmetries you want to inflict on the orbit. Each orbit would receive a map of its Lagrange-areas - one zoomed out to show the L3, 4 and 5 populations of astreroids or technological facilites, ad one zoomed in showing the main object(s) and the L1 and L2 populations (if any). A second orbital map would detail the main planetary body. If it has moons and/or rings, I would treat it just like the star system - a list of orbital features. In casee of a binary planet circling a common mass center, the main planetary body would appear as the first orbiter. (Our own planet and its moon would be such a case. Mars, Jupiter and Saturn would ignore displacement from the center of mass.) A civilized planet will have orbital shells populated by satellites, and a map of geostationary installations. Major installations like space lifts and orbital slingshots for planetary approaches would be mapped here, too. System name would be the reference ID linking the planet to the knowledge base, followed by a number that indicates the major orbit the planet occupies. Additional symbols can be used to indicate deviations from the normal order of things. Ganymede for instance would be Sol 5/3 (or 6/3, if you want to assign the asteroid belt orbit as a main orbit, like Kepler did), ignoring any ring structures Jupiter might have thrown in between Ganymede and itself. While the star type is a factor, the amount and quality of the sunlight is what defines the planet (or moon). I am thinking about zones like too hot, very hot, hot Goldilocks, Goldilocks, cold Goldilocks, cold, very cold, interstellar cold. Note that planets on eccentrical orbits may travel through several such zones, like e.g. the planet of Vesteros. Planet size, surface gravity, atmospheric type and density and average subtropical surface temperature range would be the next characteristics. Since I am too lazy to look all of this up, I am going to trust Traveller rules there, and in case of doubt roll things up as per the system creation rules of that edition. There ought to be spreadsheets out there doing just this job, I haven't researched this yet. Atmospheric type and density ought to be halfway plausible. Terraforming can alter conditions to enable long-term instable atmospheres that need replenishing, but enable near-terrestrial (or other standards) conditions. Secondary characteristics like surface land mass percentage (regardless whether the liquids are water, methane, ammoniak, or sulphuric acid clouds below the highest peaks that will support floating or submerged habitats, like Venus). There is a planet in Foster's Homanx cycle which has three different atmospheres with their quite distinct biota, one on sea level with high atmospheric pressure, humidity and cloud cover, one in the upper cloud providing an atmosphere similar to earth, and a higher one with Mt. Everest atmosphere on a huge surface, with its own biota where it is warm enough. The planet Wunderland in Niven's stories sits atop a plateau surrounded by uninhabitable, permanently cloud-covered lowlands, offering a human habitable area of maybe the size of Ireland on an earth-sized planet. Note that there are no stable oxygene atmospheres without autotrophs (or machines) producing this stuff in greater quantities than they or the minerals of the planet use it up. (Massive electrolysis or thermolysis of oxidic ores might be able to pump excessive amounts of oxygene into the atmosphere.) Planetary map: A blank icosahedral hex map to outline the geography. The Hexographer software mentioned in the rules can produce such maps, usually, with a random map, but that can be edited back to a blank map that can take hand-drawn features, resulting in maps resembling the Harnmaster-standard for their planet Ivinia, or at least sketch precursors of that. Mercator projection maps can be used to create Google-Earth overlays, but these don't allow interesting settings like polar stations or settlements on worlds otherwise too hot for human habitation, or lifeless planets or moons like ours or Mercury with too-hot and too-cold surface conditions alternating, and the poles the only places where surface structures can be used all day and all night. I don't think that GIS-technology should be required to play Space Opera games, but if someone can work with that, Mercator projection is an easy method to edit maps in Ope Source products like Q-GIS. Climate is not a planetary property, but a property of places on the planet, unless you dig single-biome-planets. I don't. I would add a registry entry, which could be used for a fan-created database of M-Space settings. Standard Mythras stats, taking care of limbs and size, too. Spacefaring aliens (also alien life forms transferred to other ecosystems), or aliens in their natural environment? Spacefaring life forms could be assigned tolerances (atmospheric composition and pressure, humidity, gravity, temperature, radiation), both terran and alien, and additional data could give information on which technological aids they need to survive or thrive in otherwise barely or non-habitable environments, like filter masks, prosthetics, or environmental suits. I am thinking of e.g. semi-derelict habitat stations (or caverns on otherwise uninhabitable planets) which suffer from out-of-control cultivated life forms. Tech-level: Look at e.g. the Stainless Steel Rat stories to lead single purpose Tech Level ad absurdum where imported higher tech (which may be nearly ubiquitious) gets coupled with locally manufactured low tech levels - things like steam-powered autonomous robotic drones, humanoid or wheeled. The Vatican state has no native industry at all. Does this make them a tech level zero culture? What about gun-toting hunter-gatherer cultures in Africa, or nude Amazonas natives communicating via skype on I-Phones or satellite-connected PCs with solar panels while maintaining most of their indigeneous culture? My space opera setting is going to have cannibalistic savages managing biological or semi-autonomous space ships, toting captured or traded advanced weaponry, along with more peaceful but as technologically primitive spacefaring groups. Nudity might be a standard across a variety of civilisations and tech levels - why wear unnecessary clothing if you can choose or create an environment making textiles superfluous most of the time?

I suppose that much of this depends on Arkat's power bases. The Brithini expedition corps is sent to Arolanit in order to deal with an immediate problem, with Arkat in the ranks and file. After the liberation of Arolanit and Seshnela, the Brithini don't push further, so Arkat joins the Seshnegi, completes his Men-of-all training within a year, and participates as a leader in the war against the Bright Empire. I notice that I am not sure whether he fought against the Vampire Kings of Tanisor as a Brithini or as a Seshnegi Man-of-all. We know that the Talar of the Palace of Pentacle was at the climactic battle of that partial conflict, but it isn't clear whether this was still a Brithini enterprise or whether this was a Seshnegi-led campaign with support from local Arolanit Brithini. With each milestone against the Bright Empire reached, Arkat lost much of his support from the previous sponsor of the war, although his personal retinue grew by significant elements from each stage, creating a core force of various veterans. He never was commander in chief and ruler combined, unlike e.g. Alexander the Great who had the Macedon kingdom as his personal reliable power base (even though that did not extend to his hold over the contingents from the Greek city states). Arkat's followers rode on a wave of success as he drove the forces of the Bright Empire before him, but then the war bogged down in central Ralios. The siege of Kartoliin Castle was a first major setback. Arkat's followers still had some of the winnings from the previous campaigns, and their hatred for the Bright Empire grew with the intensity of the conflict and how they faced more and more blatant Chaos. There was attrition to his veteran followers, though - severly wounded or killed comrades, and disillusioned ones, dropping off at some points. When Arkat got bogged down in Ralios, he had become a defector in both Arolanit and Seshnela, and the majority of his forces (though not his core) consisted of Ralians willing to fight for the liberation and pacification of Ralios, but not likely to support a war that would lead them through lands that had once supported Arkat's crusade but that would not support even his march through their border regions. A marching army - especially of the size that Arkat led - is like a swarm of locusts, and leaves hunger behind. A march to support Akem would have led Arkat's forces through the lands of his allies, then through the lands of his former allies, now alienated, then through the unfathomable Erontree forest - a potential hostile - into a region that had seen similar warfare for some time, too, making foraging hard. The logistics and the threat of being attacked on the march would have eroded much of his military force, possibly more so than a war for territory that promised some form of compensation for his less fanatical followers. There is High Llama Pass, a direct cut across the Nidan Mountains, which would have led to the establishment of a bridgehead in unknown territory in Bright Empire controlled lands far from any support. Granted, the attack across Kartolin Pass would have resulted in a similar tactical disadvantage, but it would have been a strike into the core of the enemy's lands, not into some backwater, promising only a few decisive battles to break the Bright Empire. The Ralian front would have remained contested, binding many of his allies and probably requiring a significant portion of his core followers to command the war efforts. Harmast came to Arkat's rescue in the Underworld, with a promise of allies rising up against the Bright Empire if he would lead the core and some of the bulk of his army in their lands. Arkat's push into Maniria would have resulted in another entrenched war without the pincer movement of the Hendriki and other allies of Harmast at Kaxtorplose and elsewhere. Arkat could lead his forces into Dragon Pass as liberators - still meeting resistance, but also meeting a huge array of future allies. The Fronelan route would have been viable if there had been a comparable support from that side, but Harmast's contribution to the Gbaji War led to the Manirian rather than the Fronelan route. Would Arkat have been able to muster a force comparable to the two armies (of trolls and Heortlings) emerging from Dragon Pass if he had gone to Fronela, or would that have resulted in little more than extending the front into another entrenched undecisive border war? Talor was in a similar position - without new allies, he could not jump his armies forward.

Or Kachasti, or the Vadeli who rebelled against the Kachasti. Or all of that. I will state that the Logicians were not Artmali, Zaranistangi or Helerites. The blue enemies. The name is different from the name of the Sweet Sea blues. YarGan slew King Oronin and took his crown, rendering himself immortal. This means he is of a different blue faction that Oronin, who appears to be a heir or successor of the Porals, children of Listor. Why discriminate? They had pledged their assistance to YarGan, so Bisos had to face and overcome YarGan to break their magic. Just because the Artmali consorted with Chaos doesn't mean that all of them were chaotic. They were major badasses, and they plundered everywhere. The Neliomi coast is adjacent to the home waters of the western Artmali, so why wouldn't they sail up these coasts and enter the Janube? That depends on who they were. I offer: The Kachasti The Vadeli who rebelled against the Kachasti Brithini colonists/exiles at Akem, around Sog City (another volcano overcome by water). The Vadeli were known to cooperate with/manipulate the Veldang. It all depends which of the three (or possibly more) periods of Logicians we see in the Sweet Sea and Oronin episodes. We even know that descendants of Brithini exiles and Vadeli cooperated against Hrelar Amali, destroying it. Why shouldn't there have been similar such cooperations against pesky beast coalitions in Fronela? The UpelviDedi transformation sounds like another Orlanth slays Aroka variant to me, really. Bisos separates pieces out of the interior of his dismembered foe and calls them back to life, and to a duty unrelated to the devouring monster that went before.

In a time when Alternate Truths have entered our real lives, it will be easy to get across that your character may know truths which objectively aren't. No, we cannot resolve whether Gamara is Hippoi, or shapped after Hippoi, or whether there are more such deities (e.g. Gerra on the inverted pyramid). I posit a migration prehistory for the Hyalorings from Genert's Garden into pre-Flood Saird, with the tamed remnants of Hippogriff as their steed. Their Yamsur was welcomed into the Thunder Tribe as Elmal, and he turned into Kargzant after Vuranostum was chosen as new emperor by the Hirenmador. There are situations where Shargash and Tolat seem to be the same entities, and there are situations where they seem to be totally unrelated. I am thoroughly convinced that the Planetary Son of Yelm which collided with Umath and followed him down to the ground is not identical to the one that emerged on the impact site and dismembered the primal Storm god, but a hybrid underworld/sky world entity. Other occurrances of Shargash share aspects of Zorak Zoran (e.g. the dismembering of Umath, or at the Hill of Gold). In Ralian myth, Zolan is the twin of Anelha. In Artmali myth, Tolat is the brother of Veldara/Annilla. The Shadzorings sound very much like Zorani unfettered by Kyger Litor. The Dara Happan underworld has entities that are (aspects of) Lodril and Shargash and Zorak Zoran. In a way, the story of Lodril's captivity and rekindling in the Underworld is Lodril being a captive of Underworld Lodril. Storm God slays blue dragon to liberate rain deity. Is Vadrus identical to Orlanth to Barntar? Is the Blue Woman exactly the same as Heler? Is Nestentos Aroka Oslir some other dragon (river)? Yep.

Yes, it can, and it was, but only after the Dawn, after the peoples had multiplied to an extent that such memories could be passed on, whether in stories, writing, or art. The Lightbringer Missionaries approached benighted communities by telling some of their native Godtime stories, in order to find out whether the group they approached resonated, and provided appropriate reactions. These possibly rote memories of the Godtime provided the link of the benighted ones with the missionaries, and allowed them to be awakened to the World of Time. True - the far western city was the city of Turos, or Below, and the far eastern city was that of Zayteneras, or Above. More doubt needs to be cast on the gender of Yelm's sons, or their exact names and roles. Another correlation has the four cardinal cities and the four corners of the world connected to the eight planetary sons. The name Kargzant appears only in GRoY and the syncretic version of the Copper Tablets commentaries (provided in Heortling Mythology), not in the Guide (that has Reladivus). Murharzarm was not a planetary son. Raibamus may have been a lower or middle sky orb, much like the Manarlarvus era Antirius. Much like e.g. the Cult of Yelm (especially as published in the long format for RQ3) is unlikely to reflect any ancient or modern Gloranthan culture. We will receive multiple versions of any Godtime event, each as reported and remembered by the participants and potential neutral witnesses. Now, this is hardly different from an event in our modern day when you let witnesses and participants describe it afterwards. Memory is always subjective. Collective memories concentrate on the central and shared memes, though, and these can be recovered. Especially since changing the Other Side permanently takes so much effort. If you find a deadwater beyond active meddling by God Learners and adaptation to temporally different realities (Bright Empire, EWF, Glowline), and documentation from an earlier age (through art, poetry or writing) you will get clues. You will never get the exact individual experience of a participant in the events, whether within or before Time. Not even your own. Only inasmuch as you can study a culture at all. You can observe its activities from internal and external perspectives, or you can participate in them and never notice any day-to-day changes even during periods of drastic alteration of your culture. More importantly, a participant in a culture has unstated concepts of context that no observer can report with any accuracy. If the observer is an active member of the culture, he will always make assumptions about how things are, or are supposed to be, without ever mentioning them. If you can tell the exact myth, you will know that it has been fabricated. If you can tell an optimal approximation of a myth, you are an insider. These different aspects aren't contradictions. They are the way gods work, and how gods are different from simple, one-dimensional mortals. Already a simple heroquester in a practice quest or a high holy day initiate worshipper will be multi-local and multi-temporal, with a representation of himself in the myths, and one in the mundane place where the magical ceremony is held. Gods are a lot more like that. Now, gods did walk the "mundane world" in Godtime, with the caveat that any one observation of a deity and its actions doesn't mean that you know the full truth about this deity.