Joerg

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.

I was working from the assumption that the Elempur raid was the sons of Vingkot, and the subsequent Nivorah defeat was the solo enterprise of the Lastralgortelli, leading to the dissolution of that tribe. The dissolution of the Jorganostelli cannot have followed that much later, given the successor tribes of the Stravuli and Deleskarings and also the Jaranings (the Vingkotling side of the Lawstaff myth, from which possibly a few generations later the Garanvuli were formed). All of this sounds like loss and then regaining of the bow of Yelm. We learn hardly anything about the Jorganostelli other than their disbanding, and little more about the Koroltes (a kings' list for the ancestry of Heort). The Gold Wheel Dancer connection is a bit troublesome and could convince me that the attackers of Elempur were different from the Vingkotlings. I am aware that the Vingkotlings weren't nice people, but given the role of the GWDs in the Unity efforts, I don't see how the GWDs would be former victims of the Vingkotlings (to the point where they destroyed their major civilisation). That sounds more like a host of Vadrudi. However, checking the Dawn Sites map, the survival place for the (10) Gold Wheel Dancers lies deep within Vingkotling lands, just north of the Hydra Mountains in modern Tarsh, far out of the reach of the Dara Happans - indeed in original Lastralgortelli territory. I wouldn't connect the Gold Wheel Dancers with archery, either. (Checking the Dawn Sites map in the Guide - is there an erratum for the duplicate Korolstead southwest of Berenstead? Probably just a cut'n'paste leftover from making that map.) Trying to coordinate Vingkotling and Dara Happan events: the Flood Era saw the dry lands of Ernaldela ruled by Vingkot, and populated by Vingkotlings, Durevings and Helerings. The Orlanthi don't seem to have a myth how or why the flood ended, only how the efforts of the seas to drown Erndaldela were thwarted, unless we get a second How Sshorga was Tamed and Sent North incident. Genert's Garden remained mostly unaffected by the Flood, except for the strip separating it from Ernaldela. The Dara Happans regard the flood as a universal event, with no dry land remaining anywhere, and with boat-builder myths to explain the Suvarians and the Blue People of the West. They get raided by the southerners only in their third post-flood generation, in the reign of Urvairinus. Is it meaningful to ask whether the Foreigner Wedding of Elmal and Redalda occurred before or after the Flood? In any circumstances, the Wedding of Bereneth (early Vingkotling Age) and absorption of Hyalorings to the Vingkotlings predated the appearance of Vuranstum (Gray Age) significantly. The Berenethtelli were comparably strong when they joined the Heortlings, and so were the Orgovaltes. The Hyaloring rider folk of Hendrestus (Hendroste?) held the lowlands of Darjiin without much trouble from the Manimati hilltop cities. Alkoth may have been dealt a blow from the conflict between Shargash and Kargzant which Kargzant won, or it may have received a renewal with the arrival of Lerustum the Killer who opened the Temple to Shargash there. In any case, Henjarl would have remained the hunting ground of the Shadzorings. It isn't clear whether the Hyalorings of Hendrestus were a Pure Horse Folk at the time, or whether only a few holy families in charge of keeping the pure breed followed a Pure Horse lifestyle and their superior Hyal (Goldeneye) breed. Their distant kin among the Berenethtelli definitely bred cattle alongside with horses, and may have supported them with sacrificial meat and grain in exchange for breeding services of their special horses. I was wondering how the Hyalorings became part of the Kargzanti horse warlords, but the Vuranostum story basically tells how he was adopted by the Hirenmador as king, and how he led them to conquer (or assimilate) the Veshtargos cannibals (who presumably are the origin of Eater of Flesh and Eats Women). Hyalorings and Berenethtelli were more or less direct neighbors. I can see how horse nomads and the agents of the Kingdom of Night would avoid one another. I don't see how horse nomads would miss agriculturalist riders in their neighborhood, though, especially ones with ancestral ties. So how ignorant would the Berenethtelli be of the Hyalorings north of them, and of their insertion as upper class among the Hirenmador? And if they knew, how much would they have passed on to the uz? All in all, the 334 (Dara Happan) years of the Gray Age (starting with the re-appearance of Kargzant and Shargash) following the Empty Emperor appear to have been quite lively. The Starlight Wanderers established (often unfriendly) contact with other groups. It isn't exactly clear whether they managed to haul them off their Greater Darkness autism, or whether certain behavior like e.g. the Veshtargos cannibalism indicate only a partial return to functionality. (I wonder whether there are modern Pentans who still practice some form of cannibalism.) Both Jenarong and Vuranostum recruit additional peoples to their empire. Both of them awaken temples. (Horse on Table does so indirectly, causing Alkoth to revive its Shargash temple.) How much did the actual arrival of Antirius (the Dawn) take this further?

That explains Janubians (whose river was made with the aid of the "Brithini") and the Sweet Sea people, and possibly Listor, the Porals, and King Oronin, but not YarGan and his Logicians. The Veldang - naval chaotic worshippers of Chaos under or after Jarkartu - still are a valid candidate. Sure, we cannot take anything from the Monomyth as how it was before Jrusteli meddling (with the intention to adjust reality to the model). I would agree with you if you didn't have the possibility to enter Cyclical Godtime and experience however subjective impressions of the Godtime events through the cults and their myths and the connected magics, which do impact their ways for survival. Yelm's eight sons correspond to the eight cities on the inner and outer circle of Murharzarm's Empire. If you add Murharzarm and (dubiously) Buserian, you get ten sons, but basically it is Yelm in the City Above and nine sons in the Cities Below. In the Sky, the orb of Raibamus isn't perceived against the unbearable brightness of Yelm.

Yes, that was behind that exploration. Even when you look at the Vingkotlings and Heortlings you find indications of Hsunchen-like behavior. Yes, I should mention the Zzaburi behind the Janube invasion that created the Sweet Sea, but they didn't quite reach towards Mt. Turos. The Helerings aren't really an option for the Oronin region, and Jarkartu's Artmali are a stretch at best. I don't see Waertagi this far up the rivers, and neither Loper People. This about sums up the Storm Age blue folk. Vadeli is my best bet, chaos-consorting Jarkartu Artmali a distant second choice. The main problem here is that the Jrusteli adopted the Ralian myths, embroidered them with Korgatsu and Fiwan facts, and obscured the Brithini myths of the original westerners. I'm only looking at beast myths here, not the overall Monomyth. The identification of Hykim and Mikyh with dragons may stem from their desperate attempt to get a handle on the EWF and Kralori stuff, with Korgatsu offering an opening. Eiritha is difficult, because of her ties to Genert's Garden and the great devastations that removed so many myths of that.

I see the Enjoreli pretty much as a parallel to the Enerali - descended from the Tawari after adopting certain civilizing elements. Enjor and Kereus are second generation founders, much like Pendal, Eneral and (to some extent) Waha, Diros (for the western Sofali) and possibly Orlanth (at least in some lesser aspects, as leader of the Downland Migration) . About 20 years ago several people had a fun discussion about the "Urlanthi" (sic) roots of the Hill Barbarians as former cattle and sheep Hsunchen turned to theism. Several groups in the history of western Genertela fit this concept, also including the more civilized ber folk south of the Janube, worshipping Resat rather than Rathor (possibly another son-of-the-beast-godand-the-land-founder). We didn't know about the Kachasti, then, who ight have been another foreign influence besides the serpent shaman(ess?) sisterhood referenced as Likiti in Old Seshnela. We do know (from Revealed Mythologies) that the Kachasti occupied a territory that got divided by the sudden raising of the Nidan Mountains by the Mostali.the the. I find it rather safe to assume that they had spread along the coast of the Neleomi as well as deeper into Genertela along the Nidan ridge. After the Vadeli suicide rebellion wit the aid of the Mostali the surviving Genertelan Kachasti were either enslaved by the Vadeli overlords or fled into the lands of the beastfolk.The more civilized descendants of the Hykimi who threw the Vadeli out of Genertela may very well have had grateful Kachasti-descended subjects in those cities of theirs, elevating their material culture. Maybe the Third Eye Blues are an exceptional non-assimilated group of surviving Kachasti? Possibly escaped slaves that had been given to the Mostali by the Vadeli. (The Brithini colonies of Neleos, Froalar, Isef, and whoever founded Nenanduft and Arolanit are the result of later cleansing of dissidents against Zzabur - possibly some survivors of the Expulsion Walk, too.) A presence of heirs of the Kachasti could explain the better material culture of those Hykimi city states already in the Gray Age. I do wonder who or what awakened them from the Greater Darkness - did they have an I Fought We Won experience, and if so, was it tied to the Serpent stuff or King Dan? Unlike in Peloria, the Lightbringers don't appear to have awakened these cultures. High King Elf emerged from Winterwood at the Dawn, awakening the western forests. The Theyalan Awakeners would have come as far as Tarinwood and Rist to find sleeping Brown Elf communities, while Erontree, Ballid and Eol would have been contacted from Winterwood. I would like to know who went to awaken the forests of Kanthor, Jorestl and the two forests of Brithos, though. Except for the northern Fronelans, the Pralori and the Damaliof Pralorela, the Telmori and a few other remnants in Vesmonstran and the East Wilds, all of the civilized beast folk of the Dawn became Orlanthi or were absorbed by the Malkioni (the latter often after their Theyalan conversion). Greymane of the Basim Solanthi is clearly a heir of Pendal, the Enerali are theyalanized and malkionized (I wish I had known about them, and more about the Galanini, when I challenged Sandy about the Praxians being little more than a variant of the Hsunchen in the first year of the RuneQuest Daily.) Bisos is the leader who liberated Oronin from the Vadeli (or Veldang, or both). He is probably the easternmost herd beast rider who had to deal with Vadeli conquerors. The God Learner sequence of beast genealogies relied on data colllected on the Ralian, Fronelan and Manirian Hykimi and input from the colonies of Eest, Kralorela and Umathela. There are two different kinds of bull gods - those who ride them, and those who are them. The founders (sons of the Storm Bull and Eiritha) are depicted as contest winners with the tribal beast's head. The Protectresses are depicted as having the herd beast body and the human (or Morokanth) head. I was under the impression that t he White Bull was the Praxian version of the Silver Deer conquest. The Dragon Pass Uroxi have an even better choice of mount - the sky bulls of Sormwalk Mountain. Otherwise, I would opt for a bison rather than domestic cattle, prior to the return of the aurochs. I wonder whether these individuals have performed the lariat and stick Taming of the Bull - an Orlanth feat proving his superiority over his older (half-) brother.

I discussed this on the RQ Daily, before I ever saw Glorious ReAscent of Yelm, on the information in Troll Pak. (Possibly the last place anyone would go to look for this kind of information.) It just occurred to me that we have only a single First Rider myth in all of Genertela (which pretty much means in all of Glorantha, since it stems from Genert's Garden and spread into Vithela as much as it did into western Genertela), that of Hyalor son of Yamsur. Neither the Praxians nor the mounted Hykimi (Galanini, Pralori, Tawari) or the bird riders of Rinliddi and earlier northwestern Genertela or the Lopers appear to have such a myth. As to the West... Let me mention the HQ1 era essay on horses of Glorantha, which held the information that made it into Anaxial's Roster. And yes, people have described this as post-canonical. There we get a few primal horses: Deluskval horses from Danmalastan or Brithos, probably owing their ancestry to the Devolution tree of the Brithini rather than the syncretic Hykim tree of the Jrusteli. Galana ponies from Ralios - Hykimi horses, descended from Galanin (and possibly Ehilm), strangely undecided in this creative period which assigned a distinct Otherworld to all other creatures. These horses comply to the syncretic Hsunchen pantheon created by the Jrusteli who compared Pamaltelan Fiwan, western Genertelan Hykimi and eastern Genertelan Korgatsu Hsunchen. Hyal horses descended from Hippogriff, the Spirit World horse Sered horses from Nivorah/Saird (Jillaro), the God World horse of Kargzant and Yelm's Chariot. Vuanso horses are probably a sered variant, too, although a Korgatsu Hsunchen origin might be possible. Horses aren't mentioned much in Eastern context. It is possible that they are used in Vormain or on some of the larger East Isles, but such use isn't mentioned anywhere. Northwestern Pamaltelan horses appear to have been introduced by the Jrusteli, who in turn used stock bred from Deluskval and Galana origins. No such creatures anywhere else on Pamaltela. The western horse breeds seem to stem from to the devolution myth one version of which is in Anaxial's Roster, p.209f. P.209 has eight "power" primal animals, the powers being burrowing, giantism, running, hiding, flying, having horns, having armor, being sedentary, and five "elemental" primal animals on p.210, soft invertebrates, (swimming) vertebrates, (legless) land animals, feathered animals, and furred animals. These are preceded by a celestial court of earlier animals. The primal beast concept in that myth descends on the sun and (e)merges as the first of the ancient beasts, so all animals are solar (or energy) beings - even Hykim and Mikyh (who, according to this myth, de-merge again, though presumably in different ways). The Deluskval-descended western horse breeds Daron, Dariti, and later Fronan and Swadal are derived from this, rather than from the myths of the "Hykimi" the Kachasti encountered when entering Genertela. The Malkioni and Brithini suffer from having two parallel sets of myth - the systematic and fairly abstract Danmalastan myths of Devolution, and a much more hands-on and earthy set of myths for Brithos and its later interaction with the Likiti of Seshnela and beyond. This might be a hold-over of the Three Strictly Separate Worlds dogma that ruled Hero Wars and HeroQuest1 era publications. We know little about the original Malkioni myths outside of their personal origin because the Jrusteli overwrote much of the original myths with their syncretic myth. (I do wonder what those beast myths are worth in terms of heroquesting. They surely make good concepts for sorcery, allowing to generalize spells affecting beasts.) I don't think that they still were recognizably Hykimi at the time. King Dan was a Gray Age hero who united the Enerali and pulled them out of any "hsunchen" state of being. I may be wrong about this, but I get the impression that the western Hykimi had the Likiti civilisation of demi-goddesses in a role similar to the eastern draconic Korgatsu and the Amuron of the Fiwan. In Ralios this survived as the Green Lady with her serpent regalia (identified with Ernalda by the Lightbringers), in Seshnela Froalar joined with Seshna Likita and sired the Serpent Kings who took over from the Basmoli kings. Galanin appears in the Jrusteli beast monomyth as a son of the hoofed animal mother and presumably the Ralian sun god Ehilm. The Ehilm portion probably was downplayed by the Jrusteli for their beast monomyth. Galanin appears to have sired Eneral on the Green Woman or one of her lesser manifestations. Eneral in turn had four sons who founded tribes, pretty much like Vingkot had his two times five children, which resulted in 9 marriages and tribes (and one extra - no information whether Galanin might have had one or more extras, too). When the Lightbringers contacted the Enerali, they were already in their second dynasty, the Dangkan confederacy, possibly born from centuries of conflict with the Seshnelan civilisations (pre-Dawn the Pendali and post-Dawn both Pendali and the Serpent Kings). The Lighbringers shared their discovery of worship with the Dangkae, but initially didn't join them to the Council. It looks very much like the Enerali were "Hill Barbarians" rather than "Hsunchen". Users of Beast Totems rather than shapechangers, with at least as much "urbanisation" as the Pendali. They, the (Seshnegi) Pendali and the (Fronelan) Enjorali Hykimi appear to have been only part-time or part-tribe Hsunchen. Unlike the Pendali, who apparently kept shapechanging into their ancestral beast, the Enerali and Enjorali appear to have ridden those beasts, with no indication that their cavalries turned into armies of men in melee, or the warriors turning into the beasts in order to retreat or attack. Their pantheon is found in the Guide on p.373, and the names correspond to the metal lore of Bertalor (the Serpent King?) of Seshnela. King Dan is mentioned only in context with Daran as a Dawn Age King, making me wonder whether Dan and Dari are the same name, possibly one the mis-spelling or mis-reading of the other. This Likiti connection might be tied to the Theyalan view of the Hykimi, p.397 This description makes the Enerali sound like theists when compared to the Hykimi. They probably used their horse kin for sacrifices, but I doubt that horse meat would have made up a significant part of their diet. It is documented that their deities used chariots - the sun god has a temple showing his chariot drawn by seven horses in Tolin, and the Chariot of Lightning is all over the place in context with the Henotheist Church of Otkorion. For the Enerali to have chariots at the Dawn means that they aren't Hsunchen at that point any more. The Seshnegi make it appear that the Pendali lands they took over were already in a state of conflict with the Dangkae, or that the resisting Pendali had allied with the Dangkae. Did their chiefs perform horse weddings? If so, did they shape change for this? I don't think that it worked that way. The Orlanthi would have had galana ponies already before the Dawn, or otherwise the somewhat bigger and stronger sered breed would dominate the Manirian herds, too. The Plundering of Aron offers a good opportunity for galana horses to end up in Vingkotling lands. I am quite convinced that the mare handmaidens of Ernalda, Beseta and Besanga, grey and red, are galana ponies, too. And quite likely were so even before the counter-raid aganst the enchanter. Is it? Plentonius, the chronicler of Khordavu, most likely experienced horse barbarian rule himself, even though the last Jenarong emperor was an Alkothi. Looking at the map of Anaxial's cities, I am always a bit irritated by Elempur. The place is obviously named after El(e)malus, named by Shargash as King of the Vingkotlings. The story about the bow retrieval might be related to the dissolution of the Jorganostelli. Nivorah was the city of horses. Funny, that. Murharzarm's folk used riding birds and gazzam, not horses. Emperor Yelm had no need of chariot or steed, he never left his throne room. Gamara fed the city, though. The horse-drawn sun chariot appears to be a post-Dawn myth, or applies to a lesser, mobile sun, not immobile Emperor Yelm. Elmal as god of the sun-horse works, although Elmal appears to be specifically tied to the Hyaloring (Yamsur) rider myth involving Hippogriff rather than the standard chariot myth. Gamara as another name for Hippoi is a Plentonic idea that corresponds to her depiction on the Gods Wall. She is a horse goddess, not a rider goddess, and that presumably only as late as the Nivorahn's refusal to follow Manarlavus under his dome: Gamara is shown mutilated and horse headed already at the presentation to Murharzarm on occasion of his coronation, but if we value the statement above, not yet ridden. Redalda - horse loving daughter of Ernalda, marries Elmal in the first foreigner marriage (among gods). Redaylde/Redaylda - youngest daughter of Vingkot, marries Beren the Hyaloring in the first foreigner marriage among the Vingkotlings. (Indicating that her older sisters married after her, e.g. Orgorval(t)e who married Ulanin, another rider. Ulanin and Galanin sound quite similar, possibly suggesting some Enerali connection. But Ulanin could just as well be another Hyaloring. Reladiva is not Gamara. She and Reladivus are horse breeder gods, not beast deities. The Dara Happans really have no idea where the Hyalorings came from - at that time they were locked in under their dome, or hiding away in Darjiin hilltop fortresses. Vuranostrum appears more or less out of nowhere, and becomes the least flawed of the Jenarong rite emperors. His too many sons didn't qualify for emperor, though.

If the cults are behind some of the magical items, I suppose the user restrictions might be limited to cultists in good standing or of a certain rank rather than personal use. Likewise a clan (or possibly tribal) heirloom (which would mean that the wielder would need to have a certain kind of tattoo). I would think that Balastor's Axe might be restricted to champions of Pavis with its full magic. (Once again - could an Analyze Magic spell discern items which unlock their magic only in the hands of certain users, or in connection with other items? Or is the correct user as wielder of the item necessary?) If you take an item from an enemy cult, you'll likely be unable to profit from (much of) its magic. You might get a better deal from sacrificing the piece to your deity, or from ransoming the item for some "ordinary" magic. There are other types of durable magic - e.g. blessings obtained from sacrifice, pilgrimages, or questing that provide augmentative or protective magic. Active magic from items is more constricted - tossing lightning, fire or healing probably requires the array of RQ3 enchantments and possibly MP matrices and/or POW spirits, or directly bound magic spirits (possibly with MP matrices useable only by them, but because of that also refillable by them). Binding spirits (or essences/elementals, or demons, or godlings) can be done with friendly spirits (theist cults and shamans), or with summoned or otherwise captured neutral or even hostile spirits dominated by shamans and sorcerers. The less cooperative the spirit, the more conditions need to be enchanted to enslave the entity. (I shudder to imagine how the entity residing in Elric's Stormbringer was bound...) Professional enchanters... possibly retired priests or wizards, or apprentice-level Malkioni monks. The RQ(3) POW economy was severely broken, at least in my gaming experience. In 10 years of playing RQ3 I saw maybe as many successful POW gain rolls in my parties. We didn't have officiating god-talkers, so that rule never came into play. I think that skill is more appropriate - sorcery is something you know. (Animism is something you have - charms and spirit companions.) It shouldn't be dependent on POW - that's already required to get your spells through (if not powered). Sorcerers (whether wizards, alchemists, or specialist crafters) work their long-duration spells under workshop conditions, using extensive preparation and all the pluses a munchkin can think of - right day of the week, right planetary constellation, holy days, helpful artefacts, sympathetic ingredients... RQ2 had rules for creating potions? All I found are prices, not even production times or additional requirements (workshop, tools).

I used to play with limited reusability already back in 1994. I didn't convert completely to the rune pool system, though - my players' characters had to sacrifice POW for specific spells in order to be able to use rune pool points on them. Wind Words and several uses of Cloud Call simply were part of the examiners' demands for entering the next initiatory level. Shield 2 required two points sacrificed for Shield. You could use your rune pool for one or two point uses of the spell more often, of course, but the number of points invested in the spell defined the upper limit for stacking. Participating as supporting cast in communal heroquesting (or other major seasonal rites, possibly of allied cults, too, at least for higher initiatory levels) would give a chance to regain rune pool points. Spells cast as part of the ceremony might be regained at once.

When I think of magical items for RuneQuest I am thinking about the magical economy behind producing them. RQ3 had rules for enchantments, allowing spellcasters to sacrifice permanent POW for lasting magical effects. But who were the magicians behind these? It sure doesn't look like each rune master has produced all of his enchantments himself. And for a master enchanter to use the recipient's (or some other donor's) POW for crafting an enchantment requires a quite extended Mindlink, or otherwise a well-timed one cast by the donor. And lots and lots of trust. Heroquest items are another way to turn a mundane item into something magical. The item needs to be successfully identified with its legendary counterpart during the quest situation where it is used, and somehow (not sure about the RQ mechanic I would choose for this) selected as a heroquest reward. I am not entirely sure if I understood this correctly, but it seems that you can do shortened quests dealing just with a section of a myth, for a lesser reward. Sartar did so with his Westfaring portion of the Lightbringers' Quest to find a wyter for his new kingdom. I do wonder how this partial quest would be exited without being stranded on the Hero Plane, though. The God Learners perfected this method, possibly to the point where questers in the Clanking City did a selection of the Sword Story quest over and over again, under controlled conditions, to mass-produce magical swords (that also only worked under controlled conditions, which was fine as far as their creators were concerned). Some items get magical or holy by association. For my (yet unfinished, at least in the English language long form) scenario I created a few treasures that had been found in the Pavis Rubble four generations ago, then been used as part of the clan items for communal magic. Part of the scenario is to get these items released to serve as funeral gifts for the Asrelia priestess who helped bring them to the clan, in exchange for magical blessings. One of these was a set of funerary gifts found in Pavis, consisting of a Kimantoring lead mask and a copper axe that originated in Nochet. The lead mask lent power to any ritual that involved dealing with Darkness, and the copper axe was good for any warlike earth rites, in both cases giving a significant bonus to the ceremony (or lowering its difficulty, if we talk HeroQuest rules). Part of the fun designing these items was to let them have combination effects. When analyzed for their magic as single pieces, these items are ok augmentation pieces. When used together, one item's augmentative effect can be used actively controlled by the other. Take that, rote Lhankor Mhy Analyze Magic... I was thinking of allowing defective crystals of the gods as ingredient for alchemical storage of magic, in order to create potions or one-use pre-cast spells that only need a trigger. Having to enchant each potion with a magic point matrix would be overkill in terms of POW usage. Relying on sorcerous Duration doesn't look like a valid alternative, either. Still, alchemists' magical products are a staple RQ2 type of plunder. Enabling player characters to create some takes care of some of their downtime between adventures, cutting down on training time.

Speaking of quick reference Glorantha, my own experience is that it has to be digital and allow cross-references and comments added to the data. The Guide is good initiate level stuff but covers only the visible part of the Iceberg. HQG has a lay worshipper's starting set, and the 13G companion volume probably is a quick initiation guide. It doesn't really help that there are oodles of alternative truths or former truths found lacking, pretty much like in the sciences. (Quick reference for RuneQuest and pretty much all other rpg systems comes in the format of gamemasters' screens.) WRT play-aids like cards - these are simply a different medium for randomized lists that you roll dice on, providing a different haptic and possibly a few unintended other game options (like using those cards instead of luck points). Both methods look the same if produced for a mobile device, btw.

I am working on a psi-free space opera setting, but then I wouldn't call it old school space opera - too much influence from transhumanist tendencies (beyond Lensmen, the Homanx Meliorare or the Childe cycle advanced humanity wars). I never understood why the Mohs hardness of space operas was rather strict in the technology but barely above cotton in terms of psionics. No idea how notorious the series ever became in English-speaking circles, but the ongoing (! OMG!) German "Perry Rhodan" pulp SF series which started in 1961 had plenty of psionics and mediocre writing, which sort of soured my tolerance for psionics or other kinds of spellcraft in SF. I can appreciate a Psionics and Space setting like that Aeon Trinity game for the Storyteller system, but am somewhat allergic to Space with Psionics, even if that includes Star Trek and Babylon 5 (the latter being excused because psionics turned out to be a significant plot element). Fairytale Space (aka Star Wars) works fine within its own limits, too. What time and style are we talking about when saying old school space opera anyway? Heinlein's Starship troopers and/or Dickson's Dorsai? Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers? Schmitz' Telzey and Trigger or Laumer's Retief? Poul Anderson's Flandry and van Rijn novels? Or more recent ones like C.J. Cherryh's Union/Alliance setting or its Chanur extension? I suspect that any of those I mentioned will still incur licensing fees. How high would those be - anyone in the know? My own experiences are limited to Glorantha and Midkemia as settings or products which incur licensing fees.

Monasteries basically are somewhat closed societies which can (and often will) interact with the communities outside. Mediaeval christian monasteries provided centers of learning for the general clergy, for missionaries, and explored new technologies, too. Plenty of these were situated in cities rather than on remote mountain sides, although such could exist side by side (e.g. in Cyrenai, modern Girne, on Cyprus, which had an ancient hermitage high in the coastal mountains which later became a crusader castle, and a benedictine abbey much closer to the city proper, within its agricultural hinterland, plus small monastic communities inside the old city maintaining their own chapels). Dojos are centers for teaching, but don't necessarily involve a monastic or hermit lifestyle. Hermitages isolate the inhabitants from the world, and fairly often from one another as well. In Gloranthan context, the Retirement Towers of Sun County are hermitages, but so are high mountain caves, treetops, and similar reclused places for meditation or preaching. (Ironically, these recluses often attracted a lively group of followers, and some were basically projecting their insights in sermons. Maybe to an extent that preaching became a meditative practice...)

That's a problem. BRP is excellent in adapting to a setting, but the Magic World (or Elric!) rules don't apply to just about any setting. They aren't limited to the Young Kingdoms, though - a friend of mine used them in the setting I built for my Fantasy Viking-themed RuneQuest3 campaign without feeling out of place, but then I had adopted magic from Ken St. Andre's Stormbringer game for some of those cultures, too. If you mean to use an already existing setting, there is always the question of license fees. Personally, I could have imagined the old Chaosium taking the license for Midkemia, re-publishing the excellent City of Carse supplement (and its sister products, including Tulan of the Isles, with rulesy bits for the characters in there. Midkemia as a gaming world is owned by Midkemia Press, and has rather broad distribution through the novels of Raymond Feist. Not likely to happen with the current Chaosium, but might be an ambitious project for some of the other branches of BRP. I admit that I am clueless about the chances on the anglophone market, though.

That's about the official word of Greg how this is handled in HeroQuest, and I think that it depends on the school or method of mysticism you use.

The Dragonewt magical effects are a form of mystic power, correct? They use a mechanic similar to divine magic to acquire the effects, but differ in duration and other aspects. Do you mean monasteries or hermitages? Arcane Lore p.41 mentions Dojos of draconic martial arts even for the Dragon Pass area, and from the text apparently in Modern Age Karse.

How to make implementing Glorantha with any BRP system easy? With Mythras you can lean on the preparatory work done by Loz and Ken for the Adventures in Glorantha primer that saw a distribution of 500 copies at Gencon 2015 (IIRC) which has been the base for e.g. @hkokko's contributions to the Encounter Generator. Using old RQ2 or RQ3 material doesn't require too much adaptation, really. There was hardly any official sorcery material out for RQ3 Glorantha, and none at all for RQ2 Glorantha, so this blank slate can easily be filled with the Mythras version - although probably limited (at least in previous experience) in some way by schools or grimoires. I cannot really speak about sorcery in the Mongoose products, I never played that game (except one MRQ2 game with Loz in preparation of his Harreksaga, set in the early Hero Wars era). There are vague descriptions about which group uses which kinds of sorcery in the Third Age Glorantha documents for HeroQuest in its various incarnations. Depending on your setting, people on this forum will happily swamp you with Gloranthan information about what you are likely to encounter. Sorcery spells may be stolen from or traded with other practitioners or schools. You'll have to decide how much Glorantha information you are willing to inflict on yourself and on your players prior to the game, and how close you want to stick to published versions of Glorantha. Much has been published which creates its own variant canon, even by official publishers of Glorantha - the perhaps most variant publications are by Mongoose, but numerous fan publications take off on other tangents or use alternate recent or old histories for places which have seen more development since, and even older Issaries era publications show variant Gloranthas when compared to the new official line. This doesn't mean they don't provide good material for gaming in Glorantha, though. Your own campaign is going to create disturbances in the official timeline anyway, which may cause you to re-interpret information you may encounter later, anyway, if you play that campaign for more than a couple of sessions. And if you don't, and start some other game elsewhere in Glorantha, no big trouble, either. So: adjust only those rules you think you are going to encounter. Player choices may take you to strange portions of the rules, but even then you can ignore quite a bit. Steal (/get inspiration) from whichever product you can access easily, or ask around for specifics.

In a way, Gloranthan Mysticism is the result of Heroquesting - spending time in meditation of various kinds, then entering otherworlds in a deeper meditative state and approaching the root power of the ability in mystical understanding. These meditation techniques can vary from Zen-like meditation through various forms of trance-inducing activities (breathing, dancing, martial arts katas, austerities) towards ecstatic methods or tantric activities. Certain schools might use magic of one or the other kind as preparatory activities for mystical experiences. The abilities are something like a side product of the progression towards the Ultimate. For me as a practitioner of neither shamanism nor deeper meditations it is hard to define where to place a border between shamanic trances and mystical ones. Religious rapture may occur all of the major magical systems of Glorantha - the Western experiences of Solace and Joy, theist experiences of their godworld, animist communion with the spirit world, or mystical practices reaching past these on paths of illumination, draconic wisdom or Vithelan enlightenment.

Carse has pretty much become an interdimensional city because it has this wealth of playable material. You can find it in Midkemia, in the kingdom of Alba in the German worlds Magira or Midgard under the name of Corrinis, spelled in the correct Scottish way in the Holy Country of Glorantha, or with the somewhat strange name Caernarfon in Gwynedd. I hope that Mongoose did pay license to Mr. Abrams - the other instances (with the logical exception of Caernarfon) did.

I think that in order to get slight empathy for the characters you'd have to play Greatway individualist dwarves having to deal with Nidan or worse orthodoxy, possibly in service of a True Mostali like Isidilian, and with those irritating surface dwellers and the abominations of growth and hunger. You don't have to be open-handists - in fact, playing an anti-openhandist task force might be a good commando-style concept for a series of games. Basically, you could do cyberpunk-style scenarios in Glorantha - insert your party, distribute your dwarf constructs for preparation of the strike, then go in with a precision strike and exit again. This could be mundane insertions, or even insertions into heroquests or deeper myths. A Slon expedition into Umathela for dwarven diplomacy prior to the land-raising might be another remotely interesting concept for a Mostali mission, especially with humans of the eleventh caste. Instead, you have a duck, a troll or trollkin, possibly a beastman or bachelor newtling and two or three humans of vastly incompatible cults in your stereotypical Gloranthan mixed party. Silver Age or early Dawn Age gaming might actually have multi-racial party of Awakeners/Lightbringer missionaries. The only other occasion where you get this level of inter-racial cooperation is the fight against the God Learners, and even then you didn't mix all three of the major elder races. Jrustela works only because the elder races don't mix.

Having read said MRQ Aldryami book, it is good at creating a plant-man culture. I didn't quite feel the inspiration to play Aldryami in-culture, though. Shannon's ideas about the origin of the Brown Elves are interesting. I am not so sure whether they are canonical, though. I found those "evergreen oaks" for Tastolar a stretch, and a few other items as well. It isn't easy to get players into the mindset of a mobile plant more concerned with the welfare of the forest than with personal affairs, which is why I think that this race is better left for mixed parties of elf-friends and aldryami, or to have aldryami as patrons and/or adversaries.

I got the fork handle when the seller did, but the next few were too hard dialect.

This sounds like a recipe for a convention freeform game for between a dozen and two dozen players. Or a multi-party pen and paper game - I wrote and ran a few of those early in my career as a convention organizer (prior to my RQ phase), and they used to be quite the avantgarde thing to do in the late 1980ies in Germany. With a quite crunchy rules set, so doable in RQ, two. (Spelling intended.) Speaking of which, there was a huge (IIRC 40-60 characters) convention freeform featuring the struggle between traditionalists, God Learners, and the EWF - Between the Dragon and the Deep Blue Sea. While it had its usual Freeform game silliness (like the appearance of the Machine God bearing an unmistakeable similarity to a certain space delivery service robot), it delivered more canon than the Mongoose books dealing with that region. Definitely true. We could use a renewal of those communal efforts, whether as narrators coordinating a progressive timeline between interdependent campaigns (reusing major villains and patrons between them, much like the old Thieves World anthologies did), or as a communal creation of background material, NPCs and scenario seeds like the Whitewall Wiki produced. This could be done face to face on conventions, or via hangouts, in addition to old-fashioned text based exchanges like Wikis or forums/mailing lists. There are always creative narrators yearning to share their subcreations, and to profit from cross-pollination of ideas, and there will be other campaigns profiting from such endeavors. Even when they end up superseded by new data made available - something that is bound to happen less and less as some of the privileged Highest Level Kickstarter stuff will be available to a broader public than earlier, and possibly shared in a cherry-picking way. Setting out to produce new canon is doomed to fail, though. Setting out to collect the available canon and latch on playable scenario hooks or cameos is extremely fruitful, though. Especially where it invites "tribal" participation on all levels. WRT "modernism": aren't we experiencing a huge wave of "old school" nostalgia carried over to a generation that wasn't even alive when the original versions of those rules were published? Not just DnD20. The old Chaosium RQ2 has many admirers among people who don't think much of Glorantha as a setting. Getting a crunchy, simulationist rpg delivered in 120 pages, with the cults books as optional extensions, is a highly regarded achievement. If one wants to publish a game system both old and new, this seems to be the perfect time. And with evocative scenarios and well grounded expansions, players sceptical of the setting can be won over. It may take them a few years (about 3 or 4 years in my case, back in the earliest nineties), but it's possible.

Greg ran one, at a Tentacles convention. I don't quite remember all of the details, or who else sat in, but I was playing the Helamakt initiate, and I had read up on the various hints of that quest before (mostly hidden in the Finovan, Desemborth and Helamakt subsubcults in Thunder Rebels). So when the elves came and ambushed the party, my initiate stepped forth and called out for the lightning to strike at them. Greg went "Well, that's what Helamakt does." I don't quite remember whether I had to roll at all or whether against a resistance of 6. The encounter with the face guards was Finovan's chance to shine, and getting away with all the beasts (not just the ones we were going to get back) was Desemborth's feat. I remember that the face guards were quite unexpected in their appearance, and without the Finovan feat would have been a show-stopper. I am not quite sure, but we might have been off to get the four-legged component of our extorted taxes back. (Cannot have been a quest to survive the Fimbulwinter, although at least the Helamakt initiate could have gone after switching to Heler.) It definitely was Hero Wars, which might help date the con. Perhaps some other survivor might chime in? I do remember that these games always had ag few of the more vociferous folk in them. Anyway, that was my first cattle raid Hero Wars game. Highest stakes, deep into the myth when the clan didn't have the warband to do the job, but enough crazy magic people. In a way, the Sivin Event was as anti-climactic as having my Storm Bull not quite yet King of Dragon Pass participate in the Issaries quest and step forth to slay that chaos monster. The Plundering of Aron is one of the very few myths that encourages a party of adventurers to go forth and do a quest as a party. Given the Thunder Brothers as a collective, there should be lots of such mythical events that lend themselves to group quests rather than individual quests. The only other one getting detailed coverage is the Lightbringers' Quest, although there are a number of Vingkotling headlines (not really outlines) of myths about the four brothers or the seven husbands going on joint adventures.

I would ask a Gorakiki Beetle shaman to provide me with one of these - in XXL size. (good video but abominal voice over - better watch with sound off.)

Most weaponthanes won't be Humakti. And a cottar is generally not thought of as a good farmer, but as a good handiman or cottage industry crafter - if he was a good farmer and Barntar guy, he'd be a carl. The cottar usually provides the skirmishing element of the militia, but may very well be the expert archer or javelineer there. Carls make up the majority of the clan's mobile warband. They can afford decent equipment, and take time to train to use it efficiently, too. They might not answer the champion's battle, but then some individuals might, anyway. Is there a reverse to your myth, like "Barntar plows the Battlefield"? As such, it may be fine. It entered our discussion as a stretch use of an affinity to discredit the HeroQuest system for breaking canon, though, and applying it to each and every situation in everyday life. Again, if the product is tainted with death, I have few problems, although I would always call this a stretch, and give a negative situational modifyer even with a freeform BRP magic system.