Joerg

The vast majority of cults that I am aware of has been written for Glorantha, and a lot can be lifted from what has been published for these for other settings. Cults and deities are always specific to a setting. One setting's death deities may be very different from other death deities, whether within the same setting but belonging to a different pantheon or culture, or whether from a death deity with a different history/myth in the other setting. The same for sun, storm mountain, lightning, earth... deities. Your games don't need to care about any licensing, unless you mean to use only officially supported material. From your mention of Hannu's encounter generator, this doesn't seem to be the case, though. I have used runes as building blocks for the magic of a compatible setting of mine, using the Gloranthan runes as constellations in the (fairly normal) sky above an earth-like planet. If you use a different setting, you aren't limited to the Gloranthan set and can create new ones, pair some runes, dissolve some other pairs for triangle or even more multilateral relations. You an create specific lesser runes which inherit from certain parents, basically a magical short-hand for a derived magical principle. Writing the Runes was a type of Viking magic, mentioned e.g. in Egil Skallagrim's Saga, and refers to a magic using their symbolism. This is a type of sorcery in my game setting. Mastering or integrating a rune is a heroic or divine form of magic, and allows that hero or deity to use magic tied to this principle, and even grant such magic to worshippers in exchange for magical support. Heroes usually grant a feat that goes with their rune and a glorious deed in their history. I have seen rules for Gloranthan spirit cults in RuneQuest, but no official rules for Gloranthan hero cults. The scope is similar, though.

I did a short fact-checking dive into Griffin Mountain. The information that Gonn Orta is trading with every imaginable magial item is in the rumors section, labeled B for basically true, but with a significant falsehood to it. I said that Gonn Orta was living among his kin. You managed to gloss over the first sentence of Gonn Orta's write-up: It states very clearly that Gonn Orta had his origin in the eastern Rockwood Mountains and the Elder WIlds, but that he left for adventures in the west. It is Boshbisil who is an immigrant, from the Yolp Mountains. He is several hundred years old, perhaps old enough to have accompanied Gonn Orta to the Nidan Mountains, but definitely during Gonn Orta's Pelorian journeys afterwards. He is mentioned to have lived among the Carmanians, known foes of the EWF. Gonn Orta may have aided them fending off the EWF. Are you referring to Sa Mita and Hen Cik as "not his people"? True, Sa Mita is a lesser giantess, although she, too, claims kinship to the Big Giants that form some of the bigger peaks of the eastern Rockwoods. The story could be possible despite your mixing up the origins of Gonn Orta and Boshbisil. Controlling a pass makes an ideal place for a sedentary Issaries trader. Access to the magical artifacts from both sides of the mountains certainly plays a role.

So did Hero Wars, but maybe you had to be on the conventions and play the weird stuff like the Plundering of Aron quest, or representing an entire tribe with a few players. I'll admit that I had serious problems with the scenario structure that was all the vogue for Hero Wars. It didn't fit my style of narrating. MRQ did bring back a RuneQuest, and I haven't said anything about the RuneQuest side of the MRQ business, only about the Glorantha side. There was a high output of generic and useful material for gamemasters who need help fleshing out their campaign background. Classical expansion stuff - I have seen TSR do this for D&D and AD&D (1st edition), and lots of independent publishers, too. It may be heretical to say so, but few of these considerations are really depending on the game system. I didn't see anything that made me wish to upgrade from RQ3 rules, or the RQ AiG playtest rules. I dabbled in Hero Wars at the time, in a family game with players entirely new to roleplaying and Glorantha, or in cooperative efforts to share background material between different tribal campaigns. Chasing disappeared cattle - of course, that's how you steer your players into fairy/dragonewt/wyrm... territory, if they are from a rural clan. To chase the Lunar caravan that carries your kinfolk sold into slavery was another approach to get the game moving. I didn't feel anything was missing in the gaming offered by HW. I had written about clan and cattle raid already for RQ3, and I ran urban scenarios for various systems. When MRQ came out, I really wanted to see a game which allowed me to play in the strangeness of the EWF, or rape the myths of unwitting Theyalans or Teshnans with my team of sorcerers. I was offered neither. What I was offered was fairly ordinary gaming in a God Learner Ralios without the God Learning or the Arkati hunting or adopting, a glimpse of the Jrustelan homeland which didn't really invite me to start a RuneQuest game there (a Hero Wars or HeroQuest game there would have been more appropriate, IMO). The Machine War didn't really excite me. A Black Company style participation in the Kotor Wars might have been interesting, but again, I don't know whether RQ in any of its incarnations is the ideal vessel for that style of game. I was periphally involved in Gloranthan fact-checking for a few HeroQuest publications, which I found to be fairly easy. Loz said it all about the value assigned to Gloranthan canon by Mongoose in its initial products, which created MRQ's internal canon. MRQ fell flat as a Gloranthan game, despite claiming Glorantha as its background. If I want to play Gloranthish RQ, I have a game setting of my own with enough story potential to last me beyond pension age. For Gloranthan RQ, I got by with modified RQ3. I am rather curious how different the RQG is going to be from my mods. I'd love to see the work Loz did on the Harrek campaign published, no matter in which system really.

Start reading History of the Heortling Peoples. While there is still very little on how the EWF worked in everyday life (the most valuable snippet for this is actually in Middle Sea Empire), you get at least a couple of pages. The Machine Wars description has peripherally useful material, too, even if the most prominent participant from the EWF is the hero who turned the Aramites into the Tusk Riders (IMO, at least - in the Dawn Age they were still humans). I'd start with the Dragon's Eye illustration by William Church if you are after strange architecture. The Elderling novels of Robin Hobb have some idea how draconic devotees might be altered by their magic, if you want that kind of stuff - this can make for interesting skeletons or mummies when plundering ruins, and as interesting frescoes. While speaking of interesting skeletons - this may apply to sheep and cattle, too, at least in the later period of the EWF. You could get all manner of fun from a lost draconic legion, ambushed and destroyed in the Elder Wilds - battlefield archaeology at the site of the ambush, then a long series of mopping up the fleeing surivors of that initial ambush. Supply depots from the march into the Elder WIlds, too. Quite a lot of the finds will be boring, Yelmalio stuff, but alongside may be dinosaurs, dragonbone artifacts etc. For the most part, the EWF still was an Orlanthi culture, though. The farther you were away from Dragon Pass, the stronger magic you needed to have a similar degree of draconic oddities. You can always have places where the dragonfriends hid before they got the upper hand on the Ring of Orlanthland. There was a period of probably 80 years when the dragonfriends were actively persecuted by the traditionalist ring and had to hide away. They didn't just sit down, though, but waged a hidden war, similar to the war fought by Hendrik against the Bright Empire. If you stumble across one of those hideouts, it may contain defenses against non-draconic intruders, but also teaching objects that may appear weird. Gonn Orta was anything but a dragonfriend, so it makes sense that he kept an eye on those who allied with the ancient foes of his people. Living among his kin. The Eastern Rockwoods east of Greatway are Elder Giant mountains. Gonn Orta settles in the only pass between Wyrm's High Pass and the end of the chain east of the Redlands.

Of course, it wasn't called Heortling back then. Vingkot married the daughters of Tada, so his children are likely to have had as much exposure to Earthtongue as they had to Stormspeech. The Vingkotling language was shared by the Durevings and the Helerings (who brought with them influences of Seaspeech). I am still not quite decided how "Orlanthi" the Durevings were and how Old Earth Culture. Two of Vingkot's daughters married Hyaloring riders. This will have brought in some Hyaloring terms and phrases, especially in connection with horse-keeping and -breeding. I agree - the effective repetition of the betrayal at the Sword and Helm Saga at the start of the Third Age would have been a strong opportunity to re-invigorate the Earthtongue roots of Esrolian. I don't see the Heortlings or the Grandmothers using language as their political weapon. The inflitration will have come through administrative terms, cultic observances, and simply being fashionable. Both the Hendriki-led tribes of Heortland and the Esrolians had been subject to strong Slontan presence, and probably linguistic influence as well. The Auld Wyrmish influence on the everyday language never got much foothold in the Kingdom of Night. I think you read too much detail into Jeff's timeline. Languages are rarely changed by events, long-term changes such as adoptions of terms and pronunciation may be initiated by such events, though. The Dragonkill did cause a separation between the northern (Pelorian) and the southern (Manirian: Heortling) dialects. The Auld Wyrmish influence had taken a huge setback with the assassination of the draconic leaders by blue moon trolls. The Sairdites were allies of Dara Happa and Carmania, and they will have spoken a common secondary language among the various anti-dragon factions with a role similar to Tradetalk. After the death of their draconic leaders, waves of refugees entered Heortland and Esrolia (not the north, though - the build-up of the Hordem. Draconisms in the language fell out of fashion even in Dragon Pass, and only backwater Pavis preserved it as a living language. The northern traditionalist tribes marched with the kingdom of Saird. They may have synchronized their dialect slightly with Dara Happan. The Hendriki as the dominant tribe in Heortland would have promoted their own dialect. In this way, the separation between Manirian and Pelorian dialects may started earlier than the Dragonkill.

Fixed the Auld Wyrmish position and a few remaining minor artifacts. I'll admit that Martin's version looks nicer. Languages Dragon Pass 1.svg

Correct - AW is a nonhuman language that influences the Theyalan of its time. Tradetalk has strong Theyalan and probably some Western and some Dara Happan influences, but doesn't really have an elemental origin.

For ease of discussion as an inline file in png format. Changes or rearrangements can be easily applied to the svg file, e.g. colorizing the vertical and horizontal bars.

A version with various influences, beyond Jeff's sketch. Languages Dragon Pass 1.svg

Now to the content. I see Earthtongue influences already on Vingkotling. Theyalan would have had Darktongue influences (Kingdom of Night, Kitori). Hyaloring influences might be found in some dialects of Vingkotling. Perhaps in Sairdite, too. Bright Empire: Cross-pollination between Dara Happan and Theyalan. Old Pavic may have Pure Horse influences. Carmanian influences on Dara Happan/New Pelorian. Few Pentan/Kralori ones. Esrolian and Heortling have a history of combining and separating, starting with the Sword and Helm Saga (separation), then with the Theyalans (reunion), EWF period (separation), the Adjustment Wars (reunion, and separation again). New Pelorian influences on Tarshite - only the Furthest dialects, not the WIntertop ones. Tarshite and even more Heortling influences on Grazer Pure Horse.

In that case, download Inkscape, and you can manipulate it yourself. Or try opening it in Safari - that shares much of the Chrome machine. SVG is a web standard, after all.

@Jeff A first pass, and a test whether the SVG is displayed. Languages Dragon Pass.svg Not displayed, but clickable - you can open this with Google Chrome or with MS Internet Explorer.

I started with SVG format (Inkscape). Do you want color-coding of language groups?

Isn't Tanelorn an eternal city found in every universe? Meaning you could exit in another version of it?

I haven't had too close a look at their setting-less RQ material. I found the minimalist HeroQuest rules quite a good tool for simulating empires, big organisations or rivaling organisations in the background of a campaign, regardless which rules I inflict on the player characters, and I wouldn't go back to RQ crunch for detailing an empire. A few resources, a few challenges, a few conflicts, a few rolls, so I can keep my back story alive without having to dice out everything. I haven't really GMed any published RQ scenarios except my own, and very few published RPG scenarios outside of RuneQuest. I use some of them for quick reference when I don't want to roll up an opponent, but usually my RQ scenarios for my own use are written like HQ scenarios. Maybe a little more crunch for core opponents, but then I like to drive my stories by the actions taken by major and minor opponents in preparation for or reaction to player activities or by framing obstacles of a different, non-combat type rather than by providing room by room dungeons for tactical team combat. Or, in other words - I didn't miss out in anything when the Gloranthan background was produced for a different game system. I didn't go for über-crunchy western sorcerers, and I didn't go for excel spreadsheet long duration sorcery. I would certainly allow you to entomb the harvest, or to kill it on the field. Trying to live on this stuff would have consequences, though. It would be a once in a life-time activity - you wouldn't die of it, but it might make you wish you had. Don't you confuse Humakt with Orlanth, here? Humakt is the cool warrior, almost like an Orlanthi woman in how he may kill unnecessary emotions. He knows his duty, and won't be baited. That might be the case. Still - Vistikos is a preliminary guy who creates a missionary tool for the fledgeling draconic consciousness among humans, the Hunting and Waltzing Bands. He takes off with them, goes dancing with the dragonewts, and disappears from polite society, long before the EWF was even conceived. If he still lives by the time the ruling ring of Orlanthland accepts a draconic member, he'll be a hippy meditating on draconic koans, far removed from any political entanglement. It isn't even clear whether Vistikos ever was an Orlanthi. This is a bit like making John the Baptist the supreme patriarch of the state church of Constantinople. About as much as we regard a theory in biology as sacrosanct - if it was arrived at by careful observation of as much evidence as possible, we will accept it. If we have reliable dating for an event, we will use it for that event. If we have a reliable report how Obduran was the first to display that it was possible to be a draconic mystic and an Orlanthi, he became eligible as the first dragonspeaker to sit on the ring of Orlanthland. When other dragonspeaker followed his example, they maneuvered the traditionalists out of control. Somebody would have noticed if Vistikos or some other non-Orlanthi dragonspeaker had already been part of the government formed by the coven of Orlanth priests. Then Vistikos wouldn't have been on the ring when it became draconic. The history of the EWF was written by its enemies. The Third Council didn't leave any documents behind confirming their greatness, they were much too absorbed in manifesting their greatness. I did fix it - I disregarded everything that didn't fit. Which was, alas, the EWF side of the Mongoose Glorantha line. The Jrusteli side was less flawed, but still there were too many things to offer good hooks for canon. Sorry, but the Mongoose Glorantha did have a bit of the feel of RQ Glorantha, but it was an alternate setting. And when it comes to alternate settings, I can do these on my daily bus ride: And you know, I'd rather play in this weird setting than in a EWF that has Vistikos as its head. It is as Gloranthan as the Mongoose offering. It may have something less to do with the Third Age as we know it.

Taking this away from the Barbarian Town thread. I found I had to reconsider the Pol Joni story from the depiction of the incident in King of Dragon Pass (which has Derik as a member of your clan, and the loss of his parents as a result of Jaldon's Great Raid - which, reading the Tarsh section of CHDP, cannot have been the case, since Jaldon is described as a mercenary who betrayed his Tarshite patron when Derik already was part of Yanasdros entourage, and started his great raid after having visited Tarsh. It isn't quite clear whether this happened before or after Yanasdros took over from his father. It is clear, however, that Derik was a personal retainer of Yanasdros before Yanasdros became king, since he participated in the raid of the sacred Grazer herd which led to Ovartien's abdication in 1395. (That would mean that Derik was around 120 at the battle of Denzis Water. Given a comparable age of Hofstaring when he was drawn to Hell, not impossible.) Derik's victory over Jaldon seems to have altered his ambition, away from personal revenge towards a lasting solution for the Praxian border region. This would make sense if Jaldon had been the leader of the raid in which Derik's parents were killed. It is quite possible that the final duel between Derik and Jaldon was a high stakes, other side duel where Derik robbed Jaldon of something significant - possibly his khan heritage? It took the intervention of Argrath White Bull to reawaken Jaldon, and when he did, the personal followers of Jaldon were the very clans of the Pol Joni, and their magicians using the same techniques as the Sartar Magical Union. Jaldon had a lot of precedence to give to Derik. Jaldon proved that you didn't have to ride a recognized Praxian beast in order to be a khan of khans. He had the magic to unite riders from the most diverse Beast Rider background to follow his military leadership, which may be how Derik managed to attract all those Praxian exiles despite the nasty demand that they stop riding their ancestral herd beasts, and ride horses instead. And I do wonder whether Derik really managed to make all of them give up their original mounts in the first generation of the Pol Joni, even more so in light of the fact that the Sartarites use Praxian mounts in sufficiently high numbers that the sample mounted warrior in HQG is riding a sable. Are Praxian beasts permittable as secondary mounts for the Pol Joni? You wouldn't ride them when attending a tribal moot, but you might very well shift back to that trusty old bison when visiting an oasis altar incognito. Keeping a herd of raided beasts is very Praxian. I wonder about Derik's epithet Furman. I sort of doubt that he flayed fallen Praxian enemies, or that their however hairy skin might have been regarded as fur. The only furred Praxians are the Baboons, and they appear to coexist with the Pol Joni in western Prax with only the usual problems between a possession-less hunter gatherer community and a culture valuing possession. Derik started out hating the Praxians, and especially sable riders, with a hot and destructive passion. Did he wear a ball of tails so big that he could wear it as a cape? The first historical map in the Guide showing Pol Joni shows them as part of the Quivini marches outside of Yanasdros' kingdom of Tarsh proper, around 1440, unless this is meant to indicate that Derik was still considered a Tarshite vassal whose job it was to protect the Tarshite tribes in the Far Point and the Bush Range from Praxian and Quivini raids. Derik clearly never succumbed to the Seleric Empire. The presence of Seleric lieutenants might have been a factor in creating enough exiles to join the Pol Joni, even though that meant to defect one horse-tainted side for another, with even greater personal exposure to the stink of horses (rather than the sweet perfume of the tribal herd beasts). Or might it have been Seleric followers who fell in disgrace during prolonged absence of Seleric authority figures who were cast out of the tribes, and who found refuge with Derik? But how much are they part of the covenant? Worship of Eiritha in her role as land goddess and nurturer of the (cattle) herds makes sense even without being part of the covenant, and if the price for that is the ritual of butchery and the Peaceful Cut, then it makes sense to follow that practice, even if you were born as a Grazer or as a Heortling. I imagine the Waha cult to have come from the considerable influx of exiles rather than from Derik's personal effort to establish himself as a khan. Ignoring the "not born here, from a lineage of khans" problem, going into the Devils March to slay a chaotic horror wouldn't have been a deed of note for a warrior as accomplished as Derik. Wrestling this from Jaldon might have been Derik's window of opportunity. Given the fact that Jaldon is named a mystic, I have a lingering suspicion that Jaldon might have performed something resembling utuma in that combat, taking possession of Derik. The Pure Horse folk didn't have any cattle herds (making their herds useless to the Praxians), but neither had they any problem with their horses not breeding true. Joraz Kyrem's big feat of creating the War Zebra didn't spread beyond the Pavis tribe of horse folk, leaving the majority of Pure Horse Folk still riding their hyaloring beasts. The Opili-breed cattle were very acceptable to Eiritha, and seem to have responded well to the Peaceful Cut and butchery rites. We don't know when and how the former horse warlords of Dara Happa acquired their bovine stock after Argentium Thri'ile. There may very well have been similar heroics for magical cattle as practiced among the Red Cow clan of the Cinsina (and possibly the Black Spear clan of the Colymar) among the Pentans after Hyaloring, Hirenmador and Veshtargos fusioned into a single ethnic whole. If the Lenshi were expelled to Pent, too, they might have brought a Tawari or Bisosae bull breed with them. not pure, or worshipers of the Prax and Paps deities. We do know that they include Waha and Eiritha worshippers, and the practice of ancestor worship is common for all humans in Genertela. The Praxians don't mind great numbers of worshippers of non-Praxian deities, like Yelmalio, among themselves. So what is it that they criticize about the Pol Joni religious practices? That Waha isn't their path to chieftain- and khan-hood? Trade passed between them. Do the Praxian clans have trade officers like the Quivini, or do they rely on Issaries cultists from Pavis, the Quivini or Kethaela, similar to Biturian? The bickering tribes of the plains include other foreigners like the Men-and-a-half, the Basmoli, and to some extent the Sun Domers of Mo Baustra, too. They included the Pure Horse Folk for more than 630 years (the battle of Denzis Water in 620 was . Interesting. The Heortling neighbors of the Praxians have always been the Orgovaltes, the other (presumably Hyaloring) rider tribe of the Vingkotlings and later the Heortlings. Before the ancient Praxian culture was superseded by Waha's Beast Rider culture, that horse relationship didn't hurt anyone. Hyalor worshipped Yamsur, one of the deities of Genert's Garden. The sons of Storm Bull may have grunted derisively, but whatever enmity there may have been, it wasn't enough to break the peace of Genert or Tada. Both Waha and King Heort were active in the earliest Gray Age. I have no idea whether Waha shares the I Fought We Won myth with Heort and Ezkankekko (and a few other leaders, possibly including Aram ya Udram and a green elf from around Tallseed Forest). His Beast Riders weren't part of the Unity Council, anyway, and while they were among the first contacts of the Lightbringers after the Dawn, I would assume that contact may have been made already before the Dawn, in the Gray/Silver Age. Cults of Prax still names Humakt as an Invader Cult and gives a single digit date for its arrival. Little Brother may have been part of the Bison tribe cults before the Dawn, but there would have been only little response before Orlanth and the other deities re-emerged at the Dawn. When you say more Theyalan, do you mean that the beast riders used Hantrafali sacrifice rather than shamanic spirit cults for the Lightbringer Cults of Prax?

Where did the elves get the tails? The hidden oasis might very well be a place without a well, but with sufficient underground moisture to support deep-rooting plants - perhaps skullbush. The place might be better suited for High Llamas than for bisons (alticameli are browsers and only reluctant grazers, other than the grazer bisons). The Praxians (other than High Llamas) aren't interested in trees, they will take any low growing plant that doesn't cause colics or similar diseases. I don't know about collective entities of grass steppes. There is no hay goddess among the daughters of Esrola, even though the hay harvest is essential for bringing the herd through Dark and Storm Seasons, and while I see a remote potential for bamboo aldryami, there are no runner or sprite equivalents for grasses (or grains). Beans and even salad or clover get covered by pixies because they flower. Grass doesn't. Mosses and ferns have red elves and special dryads. Algae and kelp have blue elves, and possibly water nymphs. Trees have true elves (green, brown, yellow) and dryads. They serve the giant flowers in the Vale of Flowers, too. Captured aldryami will communicate with plants other than their native ethnic type, as will gardeners of Aldrya. Their songs may be less effective than full gardeners', but they will surely beat anything humans could offer (except for grains). Dates, citrus fruits, figs and various types of nuts would be right up their ally, leaf or root vegetables only so-so, Elves and their relationship to grains is almost similar to the relationship of the beast riders to horses. Would you hire or buy a Praxian-descended stable hand for horses (other than a Pol Joni)? The best thing an aldryami can do in a wheat or barley field is to direct the weeds to grow elsewhere, or to grow thorny hedges around those fields to keep beasts away. We know precious little about the gardening of the oasis folk. From David Scott's discussions of Prax I would expect a much greater variety of plants than found elsewhere in the Wastes. Any farming would have to be done without the benefit of beast-drawn plows, though, because those draught beasts would end up as dinner whenever a praxian tribe takes possession of the oasis. Herd men as muscle for heavy work might last a little longer, possibly disguised as oasis folk (Praxians don't have any respect for the oasis dwellers and might be willing to believe that they are little above the herd men, even though the oasis dwellers are in all likelihood at least half beast rider in ancestry). Meat animals might be song birds or rat-sized rodents, beneath the hunting threshold of Praxians (except herd men), or termites. While I am disgressing badly: Would Praxian beast riders feed horse meat to their dogs, or their herd men? Do they have any general taboos against eating goats, or the meat of predators and scavengers (other than hyenas)?

Annstad of Dunstop? Harvar Ironfist? Kallyr? Gunda the Guilty? King Broyan?

Moonson himself, or Great Sister? Countess Yolanela? Feathered Eye Woman? The head of the Tax Demons? Poems for Jar-eel are dozens a dime, so no potential for scandal there.

A pig tenders daughter ? Rather Granny Keeneye or a giantess. Possibly Bina Bang or Androgeus.

There was a lot to criticize about the Mongoose approach to RuneQuest (prior to Loz and Pete re-writing the rules). The HQ rules do not encourage you to make up myths that break the canon. That statement is about as true as Trump's claim that his inauguration was the best visited ever. Making up a myth where Orlanth strives to become a sun god and succeeds is wrong. Making a myth how a drunken Orlanth boast makes him make half a fool out of himself acting like a sun god is within parameters. Invoking Humakt for joining stuff goes pretty much contrary to his Death/Separation power. If you can make the Humakti shape something by applying separation, that's fine. Chop at the unfriendly tree/giant/whatever until what is left will fit exactly to the task at hand is a cartoon feat of sword mastery, but remains in the realm of the blade. Using the blade to drive nails into wood - no cookies. Using the blade to provide nails from bigger pieces of wood - barely acceptable, especially in face of the sample myth of the Sword Story which explicitely has Humakt complain about being treated like a cottar (crafter). I think that your conception of Gloranthan canon isn't what that canon was about, either. I accepted to play the role of a guardian of canon and consistency during the delivery of Hero Wars and Heroquest 1 as one of the so-called regional experts, and again as caretaker of the Buserian incarnation of my index. At roughly the same time, I was a fairly active contributor to the (sadly disappeared) Lokarnos project which provided an overview of fan activity in the Glorantha and RuneQuest area, which did keep track of explicitely variant ideas and stories, too. Greg Stafford is the creator of Glorantha, its myths and its history, and while Greg cannot know or remember every detail of things he barely brushed in his creative process and which might be detailed in later creative visits to the subject, there is a rather consistent body of Gloranthan material that defines canon, or if you want to be sarcastic, the party line. There is significant room for other authors to fill in blanks or to extrapolate from that body of material, but there are contradictions that ought to be avoided rather than introduced and then retroactively diminished. That was part of the mission statement for the regional experts. To be available for authors to check facts, to get quick references. This resource wasn't used by the authors for the MRQ Gloranthan material at all. Mongoose got lucky with the editors of the Gods books, and very lucky with contracting Loz and Pete Nash, but by that time they had produced their own very variant canon, due to some blatant oversights and blunders which could have been avoided with minimal effort. I was genuinely shocked by the EWF description in the Second Age book. While it did not contradict anything in the few (and often misleading) paragraphs written on this subject in the Glorantha Book of the Genertela box and very little of the history outlined in Troll Pak, it omitted almost everything in King of Sartar, and pretty much everything Greg had prepared about the EWF since - not a single mention of Obduran the Flyer. Having a doddering Vistikos Left-eye as chief administrator of the Great Dragon Outline project as the core of the EWF was a major fumble and soured the entire EWF side of the two rivaling empires. The EWF martial artists were a fun idea, and worked with the canonical concept of the EWF. Later supplements tried to retrofit the available EWF info into the Mongoose canon, but it remained a retrofit. Dara Happa Stirs shines by ignoring the Mongoose EWF canon, and going to the source. More of that approach, and earlier, and my verdict about the Mongoose Glorantha content would be different. A number of authors went off with their own interpretations of Glorantha, both for the Hero Wars/HeroQuest series and for the Mongoose publications. On the HeroQuest side, some let's say variant interpretations of Glorantha made it into print, while others like Jamie Revell's take on the Malkioni of Seshnela or Loskalm or Shannon Applecline's take on the Aldryami were not published by Issaries. On the Mongoose side, it appears as if everything was published that didn't have too many spelling mistakes. I know very well how it feels to have worked on a tangent or aspect of Glorantha for quite a long time only to learn that certain basic assumptions from earlier works weren't meant to state what I read from them. Quite a bit of my own material on the Holy Country was built on such tangents, and I had to keep it out of the publications, regardless of it having seeped into "fanon". It took several approaches to the presence of the Malkionized Orlanth worship of the Aeolians to produce something that was consistent with Greg's vision, and a few of those approaches were published by Issaries, anyway. Admittedly the History of the Heortling Peoples appeared significantly later than those publications and brought new insights, but there have always been pipelines to the source for the authors, and the Issaries publications didn't ever contradict the then existing canon, although they may have spun their presentation in ways that could mislead. I keep getting surprised when re-visiting Glorantha material, much of which I have re-typed and somewhat re-phrased over the course of the years in order to create my index and its descriptions. I get greater suprises when looking through new material, or taking a closer look at text blocks that appear to repeat an earlier source, except for a few small changes. Some of those small changes that are so easy to overlook when reading a very familiar text have big consequences. I don't touch the long cult write-up of Kyger Litor even with a very long stick - by now there must be a dozen versions in fairly high-rated canonical credibilty sources, and more if you include fan versions that may have made it into fanzines, convention books, freeform games' background material or Mongoose products. So: I care about canon. And I wince when myths are proposed that bend canon badly. I like to add twists to those so that the net outcome will be salvagable. Adding a bit of ridicule, for instance. Comic relief is an astonishingly significant part of myths. It is fine to have gods act against their core nature - if you have them face failure in a tangible way. The story may focus on how the day was saved despite the blunder of your favourite deity. I don't feel too secure as a gamemaster using HeroQuest rules, mostly because I have trouble framing the contest difficulty with those opposed rolls (I can calculate the probablities with a BRP approach very easily even if the mechanics are more involved, and lots of die rolling ensues), but I feel very secure as a narrator of Gloranthan stories and adventures. I have been adding myths or at least deep history to my campaign settings already during my RQ3 days whenever I created a somewhat magical location or situation. It is what you do if you prepare your own games rather than playing some prepared scenarios. It is not a special feature of HeroQuest as a game system, or of narrative game systems as a whole. Any story-oriented game with the crunchiest of systems will have speculative myths and histories not covered by official background. A well informed narrator/game master who respects the setting will be able to twist player-suggested variations in a way that hurt his knowledge of canon the least.

There might be a trade in Runners, too - they were a fad in the Jrusteli Empire, and the current mask of the emperor is diligent in his studies of depravities, and might have reawakened that one in addition to other idiocies like the Angazaban diet (pearls) or similar. There are elves in the garden of the Big Rubble which might easily fall afoul of Lunar patrols. Many Pelorians (quite likely including the eel-Ariash) hate elves for their reforestation efforts (in the past, even though they are ignorant of their future plans to do so) and will take pleasure in capturing and enslaving such creatures. Sairdites may have suffered Moonburn retaliations by the Rist elves before they disappeared into the Hellwood forest of Dorastor, too, so both the Jasper phalanx and their peltast support might be active elf-haters.

Sure - I didn't mean that founding the new market place was all that Derik did, but that is what was left in the Verge. I don't quite see how Derik could have come that far into the Pure Horse knowledge of the Grazers or the nomads ruling parts of Peloria. Derik likely was part of the 1395 raid that gave Yarandros his Goldeneye stallion - a feat pretty much unparalleled outside of intra-Grazer raiding. The Tarsh section of CHDP does tell us that Derik dreamed of the Horse Path. Derik did manage to find Grazer allies in his establishment of the Pol Joni tribe - probably after Jardandarin Lifeshield made peace with the Tarshites again. The Grazers were beginning to disintegrate - dissident clans may already have looked for a different place to settle after Tarsh had proved to be a fickle ally. Derik's invasion of Prax occurred six generations after the Battle of Necklace Horse. Even though the Grazers had abandoned their Praxian Pure Horse ancestry through Ironhoof's adoption ritual, there may have been enough memory of the life in Prax that Derik's proposal could have drawn some of the Grazers out of their somewhat diminished lands. Are the Pol Joni as much of a Praxian tribe? I view them more as a less confrontational repeat of the Pure Horse Folk presence. When he entered Prax, Derik had 20 years of support by Yarandros left before he had to survive by virtue of his own resources. Sorry, but Derik did not follow the Pure Horse tenets - his tribe herds cattle, children of Storm Bull if not necessarily of Eiritha, and this makes his herds attractive and acceptable for Praxians. Praxian intertribal raids rarely go for the steeds, but for the herds which feed the tribes. The Black Net is a reference to the Battle of Alavan Argay, true. The Teshnan presence around the Zola Fel delta will have been eliminated by the time Derik entered the marches in force, which might re-open the solar magics for horse riders. I find this pretty far-fetched. And we never learned about this important female in any of the stories about the Pol Joni - not as an ancestress or goddess for their steeds, not as a human heroine or avatar. Does the Paps reach back into the Green Age at all? Eiritha was a mobile daughter of Genert, if present in the Green Age at all. It was Tada who rooted her under the mountain and hill range when hiding her from Death - definitely not a Green Age event. On the other hand, going that far back will make Ernalda the ruler of this holy place. She does not have a problem with horses, and might provide a horse handmaiden. The question is whether this affects the Eirithan stance. I don't see the Paps as integral to Derik's success. The Pol Joni never approached the Sacred Ground around the Paps in clan or tribal groups. I see no indication that horses are accepted at the Paps. We do know that individual Pol Joni visit the Paps, and being Praxians, they probably approach the place mounted on their tribal steeds, but we cannot say whether these horses are allowed to graze on the Sacred Ground or whether they must carry bags of oats to feed from. Joraz Kyrem's "only in bondage" doesn't have to mean painting stripes on the beasts, it might as well be realized by applying something similar to shackles to the steeds. There wouldn't be any problem leading a herd of cattle onto the Sacred Ground, though, and the priestesses would appreciate these as gifts or sacrifices without the least qualms. We know that Olgkarth's zebra riders shared the pastures of the Pol Joni some 120 years after Derik led his tribe into Prax. I find it quite possible that they provided the escorts for those Pol Joni who wanted to visit the Paps. Derik's arrival fell into a time when the hatred for horse folk was somewhat mitigated by the Beast Riders following Sheng Seleris. By bringing cattle bred from the sacred bull of the Opili tribe of Pentans he may have provided a sufficient link to the Garden to let the tribes ignore the fact that his folk weren't riding these bulls. Derik did undo the magic of the Alavan Argay aftermath. He did release the horse folk back onto the plains. I am not sure about the canonicity about this information, but I learned years ago that at least one Pol Joni clan - IIRC the Amber - was more or less a Grazer clan converted to Pol Joni ways. In the Gloranthan now, there have been horses in Prax for slightly more than half the history - Pure Horse Folk from slightly before 620 to 1250, and Pol Joni since 1420. They weren't accepted by the Paps for their first 630 years, and I don't see why they would have been for the last 200 years.

So the characters carry some identification with Tada which is supposed to bring them to the Green Age, where they are going to drop that aspect and go do something else. One way to treat this is that whenever you go to the Green Age and do something, you are automatically carried over into the Golden Age, and have imprinted the myths with your action, just as your action has been imprinted on you. From the sound of your party composition, your players are very likely to fill the part of the disruptor. In Pelandan myths, this guy is called Vogmaradan. The Esrolians have a myth about the Three Bad Men, one of whom is Kodig - the same Kodig who is later named as the eldest son of Vingkot, but in Esrolia - Land of the 10,000 Goddesses he appears in what looks like late Green Age or Early Golden Age troubles myths. Now Kodig is a convenient way out, a jump to the Vingkotling Age. Note, however, that emerging in Ezel with the marks of Kodig is bound to cause all kinds of grief for the characters. But it doesn't have to be Kodig. You might just as well end up as one of the core supporters of Genert, and on the horizon there is this horrific army of Chaos gathering. You are right in the middle of Genert's Garden, you are honor bound to lead your portion of the Garden's forces into the maw of the opposing forces. You may exchange pre-battle witticisms with Yamsur, Seolinthur and all those other guys whose faces and names you cannot remember, for some odd reason, and strangely few if any of the other leaders present can remember your faces, or names, or may even bump into you as if they weren't aware of your presence. The Battle is approaching... Okay, this was really nasty. But then, entering the Green Age is already big and fairly often bad mojo. Jumping off a somewhat trodden and predictable path will most likely place you in a much bigger fix. You might use the cut scene above, and possibly a small number of similar unexpected consequences, as ominous flashes as the players prepare to deviate from Tada's path. Finding yourself in the Sword Story, as Grandfather Mortal. Fighting alongside Kargan Tor, leading the defense of the Celestial Palace atop the Spike. Plunging down from the Sky next to Sky River Titan, Hard Earth and a couple more deities, ten altogether. Appearing as the sworn bodyguards of King Vingkot in the Battle of Stormfall. If your players know at least some of these myths, they might wish to reconsider, and take on whichever burden Tada carried out of his myth. Maybe, after presenting these alternatives, you might saddle them with their desired outcome on a wave of very weird and possibly devastating changes. Maybe there could be a cut scene where the rebels approach Yelm to deliver the fatal strike, but it all ends with two marriages - Tolat with Artia, and your Vanganth Character as Orlanth taking wedding vows with Sedenya. I don't know what makes your players tick, but things like this might shock them. You might have them emerge as Rashoran, teaching their new insight of illumination to the other gods, finding eager disciples in Orlanth's Other Brother and his betrothed goat goddess. The Green Age is deep trouble. Refusing the reward of the Lightbringers' Quest may look like an easy alternative.

I am a rather obsessive completist collector of Gloranthan texts who has spent serious money for e.g. freeform game sets that were auctioned off at conventions, and I don't have a complete set of the Mongoose era pdfs with Gloranthan theme - only those I could acquire as cheap bundles. Sometimes it hurts to see how excellent ideas, concepts or good workmanship is mixed with research blunders or irrelevant tangents getting promoted to a supplement's spotlight. There might be some personal disappointment, too, because I had managed to get my Glorantha index as a research tool running on the glorantha.com site at the time, which means that often enough the information was less than two or three clicks away from anyone who cared to look it up. I confess that I did not update the beast to keep up with the internal canon started by Glorantha the Second Age. While the God Learner stuff had profited from rather recent Unfinished Works, much of the EWF canon was still spread across many sources. My overall judgement - if you want to play a game with gloranthan concepts without caring to go too deep into background details, the Mongoose products can serve you well. They provide an alternate Glorantha. If you want to mess with your players' grasp on reali If you want to steal Gloranthan ideas and concepts for another setting, the Mongoose books on the various races might be a good resource. Their veracity for canonical Glorantha is about on the same level as speculations on the various incarnations of the digest - some ideas are spot on, some are tangential spin-offs suddenly presented as core components. I liked the concept of active Timinit participation in the Jrusteli development of Malkionism in the Jrustela Book. No idea how the humanists would have reacted to this, or Brithini expatriats arriving in Jrustela, but I can imagine that there would have been parts of Jrustela that had active Timinit participation in the religious life of the Jrusteli humans.