Joerg

Mycenae just doesn't work for me. It combines naval activities with highly centralized kingdoms in citadels, i.e. enforcing strong hierarchies, obedience... (everything you see in Sun County, but surely not in Sartar).

Even the Heuneburg Hallstatt people were too centralized for anything resembling Orlanthi clan life. The La Tene cities of Manching and Kelheim are much more egalitarian in their buildings, although they probably also had their privileged (thane) class.

My point for pressing for non-mediterranean parallels is the absence of the need of cooperation of an entire urban population to have gainful agriculture. The smaller social units like Germanic Hundreds or Island Celt clans work for this reason.

Such smaller economic/social units still can cooperate to have big cultic centers or highly sophisticated artifacts (Nebra disk, or the Goseck observatory) without creating the bureaucratic priestly hierarchies that we expect for the Mycenaean citadels. the Kretan palaces, or the fertile crescent cities.

Orlanthi are about the independent plowmen who take up weapons for raids, defense or even big wars. Cattle and sheep herders (possibly transhumant, like the Alpine farmers in the Noricum) and agriculturalists. They are about female earth cultists with fairly ecstatic rites while also hallowing the marriage similar to a Roman Catholic sacrament of marriage, and acting as the cool heads in their relationships, and as the cold long memory that sustains generation-long feuds. Priestly hierarchies aren't part of this, except in Grandmothers-dominated Esrolia, or Dara Happan-infected Sun Dome Counties. Vingkotling Kingship parallels the Heuneburg hierarchy, but still allows for the independent plowmen. And a would-be Vingkotling needs to be a powerful magician to avoid the fate of Arminius even after a great feat of victory.

2 hours ago, Iskallor said:

When I advertised for a duck only game i was overwhelmed with folk wanting to play. They are the key to the Herowars! 

Sounds like there could be demand for an all-duck freeform game...

5 hours ago, TRose said:

I want to play the Referee.

It's a dirty job. Lots of wet missiles, dust of healing, nagging teams, nagging team managers, and hard work to restore the playing field to shape or bribe.

I know what I am talking about...

I just received a notification that the crowdfunding for a (comparatively small) print run of the German translation of RQ6 was successful.

The Deutsche RuneQuest-Gesellschaft will be able to sell the remainder of the print run not covered by the crowdfunding rewards on conventions, at Essen Gamefair and possibly via a website.

No idea whether there will be a Mythras in German translation. Not before the RQ6 has sold off (and I think they have an option to print on demand, too).

15 hours ago, TRose said:

 I think having a few plants and animals that dominate the majority of the waste is OK.

 But then you could also have a  rare  plants and animals that  have limited range. A Blood red flower that only grows at Tourney alter or a Herb that only grows at the Well Of Eriniala . Or a beetle that nest only on the tops of Condors Crag. And of course these rare plants and animals are the ones you really, really need for making magic potions and the like. This would both fit in real life ecology and for a magical world  setting

Don't underestimate traders introducing new types of plant. Biturian did so when his (then still slave) future wife gifted Narmeed Whirlwishbane's bison clan with the flowers that later became their name-giving feature.

15 hours ago, g33k said:

I had always presumed that, after the Curse & later after Cragspider's work, the new Trollish varieties appeared in the very next generation...  

That's certainly the case, and those new developments like the Curse of Kin are rather comparable to the way Zika-virus causes microcephaly in pregnancies. The Curse of Kin (or the Muri loss of Cold) is like a viral infection that is transferred to the offspring, the Great Troll variant is like a one-shot infection/possession through the agency of darkness spirits.

The evolution chart of trolls matters more for the fringe species or (mostly) extinct species of trolls like horned trolls, stone eaters, or the Pamaltelan variants that "lost their man rune" such as Midget Slashers. (These latter ones get their best treatment in RQ3 Gloranthan Bestiary.)

1 hour ago, soltakss said:

I would agree that trolls are not the product of evolution but of magical events. Dark Trolls are the result of leaving Wonderhome, Sea Trolls were caused by Pocharngo mutating trolls, Cave Trolls are also Pocharngo's work, I think, Trollkin are the result of the Curse of Kin and Great Trolls are the result of Cragspider's attempts to break the Curse of Kin. Hot Trolls are slightly different and might be the work of evolution, but I cannot remember if Lodril, or his mirror in Pamaltela, had a part to play. Midget Slashers are also troll-related but it isn't clear where they came from.

Most troll variants are the result of some battle attrition. The dumbing down and regenerative abilities of cave and sea trolls is blamed on Chaos. Yet, the sea troll mutation doesn't look like a random Chaos thing, but rather like an entire specialist troll race losing to Chaos.

The Uzhim are an interesting case - devolved from mistress trolls, but apparently different from Dark Trolls. Allegedly immune to the Curse of Kin, too.

There are two more troll races that don't appear in the genealogical chart, the bat-winged trolls of the Blue Moon Plateau. One is an ancient tribe that has bat wings instead of arms, the other is of more recent (magical) origin that added bat-like or rather Balrog-like wings to a basic dark troll chassis. From playing one of these races in a convention game run by Greg, both were subject to the Curse of Kin.

A body modification as extreme as bat wings instead of arms (for those ancient Blue Moon bat trolls) or gills and webbed feet (for sea trolls) aren't really such a great deal. Uz are darkness creatures, able to fuse into a communal entity (like the Black Eater), and may not necessarily retain all of their shape in absolute darkness, either. It is quite possible for a dark troll tribe devoted to Qatanara (or however the Blue Moon trolls call their Bat goddess) to undergo a shapeshift to that form during the Lesser Darkness.

To bring this back at least a little bit on topic, I do believe that insect/grub life might be an exception to the general rule of "hardly any life left in the former Garden" - they were invaders to the place, possibly after the Gods' Last Stand. Coming from the Underworld, they wouldn't really notice the scarcity of life.

Unlike @David Scott I don't think that the Beast Rider herds are the only pinpoint for surviving ecological niches in the Wastes. I don't think that e.g. Cacti are related to any beast herds.

We know of successful invader species unrelated to Waha's covenant like tigers and lions (exterminated by Tada, who had been missing from the Gods' Last Stand rescuing Eiritha, slaying and skinning Basmol), and those sort of emulating the Covenant like unicorns and war zebras (who are based on the still extant plains zebras, IIRC).

The Praxian soil can support Kerofinelan agriculture given enough water and agricultural magic, at least within reach of the Zola Fel river. The same seems to be true about Teshnan methods (starting with the 1250 settlement of the Feroda environments in their quest for the sword of Tolat - it seems that the last survivors had trickled into Sun County by the 15th century, or possibly been absorbed by fisherfolk or oasis folk, when their colony finally failed). My guess is that they overstayed the welcome their magical support for the Battle of Alavan Argay had bought them with the Beast RIders rather than a general failure of their crops.

I am a little concerned about an absence of parasites in Prax and the wastes, such as ticks, fleas, lice, bluebottle flies, horse flies (I would bet they have a different name in Prax, or possibly retain that name for its negative connotations?), and all the other critters that make living with herds so miserable and ask for great stoicism. Nomad life isn't the same when the beast shit doesn't attract lots of nasty buzzing darkness entities.

Likewise, there ought to be scorpions, nasty spiders, centipedes, moths etc. to disturb them in their camps.

There ought to be weeds that cause trouble for the herd beasts, like common ragwort.

Transsubstantiation ought to be a major magic, but I have the impression that you regard the formation of plant life from soil as this step. However, I feel that the kind of corrosion that you postulate - direct soil formation from whatever organic refuse lying about, without intercession of the "living soil" (as earthworms, wood lice, soil fungi...). Composting is a function of Darkness organisms in Glorantha, and a necessary step in the normal cycle of life.

Direkt transformation of living matter into dead soil (like the Copper Sands) was a major magic of Genert.

If herd beast shit simply turns to dust, what do the Praxians use for fuel for their campfires? What about dung beetles and all the other Darkness beasts usually taking care of what the nomads don't gather?

@soltakss I regard effects like Ronance's tracks as similar to the Hidden Greens, a temporal effect that brings back aspects of Golden Age Genert's Garden.

From the description of Prax, huge areas are covered by dry grasses. That means there is a lot of dry vegetation that accumulates whenever seasonal humidity initiates another spurt of growth, only to be dried out if not grazed upon in time. What happens to this excess, dry stuff?

I remember a statistic that more than 80% of the biomass of a steppe or savannah is consumed by termites in our world (which in turn serve as food to creatures like the aardvark). Is that true in Prax, too? (And if so, are termite hills a mainstay in the diet of herd men?)

I did some research on picture material when I discussed the Fish Roads a few months ago, and I found a few images that I planned to use as "art direction":

I have had a few discussions since I last edited those old notes on my website.

I have come to regard the Syphon as an active water, behaving a bit like a jellyfish tentacle on dry ground when it comes to its shape and how it interacts with the river bank. A very flat such tentacle.

Calling the Syphon a chaotic river is correct only if you think about what lies at its headwaters. By the same reasoning, the Sounders River on the other side of the Storm Mountains which feeds the Devil's Marsh is chaotic, too. Yes, y drawing water from the Mirrorsea Bay makes the Syphon brackish. More so than before 1318 when Belintar slew the Darkness monster whose remains (the Lead Hills) blocked off the Creekstream River, redirecting most of its water into the Lyksos river.

I don't think there is much boat traffic up the Syphon. It often behaves like a whitewater even on rather flat ground, and this gets worse when it ascends small slopes in rapids.

From the name "Backford" I deducted that there is no bridge across the Syphon, but that the road traffic manages to wade through an especially flat stretch of the river here. The river ground will be covered in shingle, so that there is little to no risk that cart wheels get stuck. Most of the ford is going to be less than knee deep, except a few deeper portions which may shift over time.

The information about Belintar's Fish Road in the Syphon is rather new, and didn't weigh into my old descriptions. Obviously there has to be a sufficiently deep portion of the river up to the temple (area) which offers the entrance to its underwater portion, so it ought to be downriver of the ford.

Since I think that one can ride the fish road on a horse (or even high llama), this could mean that the Syphon has to be navigable up to Backford even in seagoing vessels. However, the Syphon is an active water, so much of this depth may come in the shape of a bulge on the water, and keeping a boat or ship riding this standing wave will take extraordinary navigation. A similar challenge is found e.g. when crossing or riding one of the doom currents out in the Homeward Sea.

I also doubt that users of the fish road (including Choralinthor Bay Ludoch) would react favorable towards ship keels threatening to collide with their heads.

Ok. First of all, I feel with you about your personal situation.

I agree - fan policies that strangle fan creativity suck. So does the rest of the people on this forum, including those who make a living out of our hobby.

"Fans" suing original creators suck big time, so a modicum of protection from a repeat of the Darkover desaster is the best way to ensure that there is a steady stream of more original material. Some protection of intellectual property might be necessary, too, to avoid IP trolls trying to disown you.

17 hours ago, Baron said:

Sharing is good. I've also heard rumors (for those who might be relatively new) that a lot of fan-made material was ordered removed from the net by the powers that were at the time.

That's where you hit sensibilities - not just Rick's, but mine as well. You're referring to rumors, thereby spreading them.

Doing so in a thread on Glorantha makes every reader assume that you have a specific problem with this having happened in Glorantha.

I was cooperating with the Lokarnos initiative at the time of the Fan Policy - a platform for links to Glorantha content and related stuff, so I had a fairly good overview over the websites at the time. I don't remember "a lot of fan-made material" ordered removed from the net.

I do remember some very few people throwing a fit and retreating from the forums when they suffered a "my vision is incompatible to official decrees" downer. Those web presences rarely disappeared at once, but usually they fell into a torpor.

Perhaps the greatest loss in fan creativity on the net was when Geocities closed shop, and all those pages hosted there disappeared into the limbo. I had a wiki project of mine disappear when the wiki provider folded.

Some great projects have disappeared - Oliver Bernuetz's Mything Links, the (slash.dot-based) Lokarnos.com, and numerous private web presences. Some fan stuff on the official Glorantha pages got lost when switching to a technology that is closer to state of the art web presences. (I lost about 20k pages...)

In all of this, "cease and desist" did not play a significant role in the Glorantha community.

Other publishers (especially those bought up by business outside of the hobby) did tear down well-established fan presence. Some still do it (Star Wars expanded universe started with the roleplaying material, then added a body of novels, and now much of that body of information is largely ignored by the authors of the latest movie - and they had no excuse about inaccessibility of that material, there is the thoroughly researched wookiepedia).

Breaks in the continuity of a setting (e.g. Elmal) are rarely greeted with enthusiasm by long time fans. They are supposed to sacrifice their investment of years of their time and creativity for a new direction that doesn't necessarily improve the setting. (My personal negative highlight for this was the Traveler New Era setting, but I didn't react too well to the changes made to Mage the Ascension either.) In these cases, I don't recall much of enforced retirement of fan-created content, though.

I can empathize with authors cutting short their research when faced with looming deadlines, but I don't really enjoy the outcome of this approach. (That's why Mongoose's Glorantha - The Second Age didn't work for me, there were a few fundamental flaws that multiplied into lots of highly irrelevant or plainly wrong details. There were quite a lot of brilliant ideas in those books, but due to those flaws few products conformed with the Gloranthan lore. The ones that did, like Dara Happa Rising, were real gems.)

@Baron - are you new to the Gloranthan web presences? The etyries.com page is at least 10 years old.

A lot of fan pages were taken down because keeping them up and alive was work or cost money, and interests may drift. Especially if the official line just made a turn that runs against what you thought was the one and only truth - and you will be hard put to find any Glorantha fan not qualifying for at least one or the other of the other 9 points in Nick's list. I know that my own involvement varied over the years with a) how well integrated my vision was in the official view and b.) how much I was involved in doing creative stuff or actual gaming.

The Glorantha Tribe is a community of real people, with personal likes and averstions, and wildly differing preferences. There have been a number of changes to my impression of Glorantha, some of which I accepted, some of which I hated, and of the latter, some of which I came to live with, some of which I fought, and of those latter some of which got better (from my point of view), and a few fights which I lost or gave up, and a couple of ongoing ones.

I have learned to be mostly civil about these issues.

The Fan Policy wasn't one of these. I had one project which made strong use of copyrighted material - so I gave it to Issaries Inc. for publication on their website. All I did to my own website was to add the legalese paragraph, register with Issaries, and then I continued to do what I had always done.

It would be nice to have an official website to host fan-augmented copyrighted material. That involves quite a bit of work, work to be done by volunteers with both the time, the know-how, and the perseverance. Especially perseverance in times when your hobby horse is grazing outside of canon.

Right now in the wake of the RQ2 reprint hype the RQ2 grognards have a heyday. "We were right all along!" Sure. Just not entirely canonical.

At the same time, there is the destillation of 30 years pf development since the RQ3 switch that are presented alongside those sentimental reprints, and the commitment of Moondesign cum Chaosium to carry on on this body of work.

We finally have a publisher who puts out quality material in predictable word count to time frame ratios, and a good such ratio, too, even not counting the reprints - making all of that out of print material available again, and keeping the decanonized Issaries stuff available as pdfs, too, is an excellent move. A bit of a shame about that Mongoose material - a lot of which was playable, but also had some significant flaws from the beginning WRT canon. We have third party publishers of quality Glorantha material, too, which doesn't produce canonical but highly useful and not counter-canon material.

We also have a lively base of fans who maintain their personal contacts even if their fanaticism has cooled down quite a bit. The European conventions with a strong Glorantha component are as much of a family meeting these days as they are gaming conventions. It is nice to see some of that return to the USA.
 

Or one of the non-riding Independents - a solitary Basmoli, a wandering Agimori, a follower of the Cannibal Cult, or a Baboon preparing for her Shaman quest.

If you are staying reasonably close to the river, an adventurous Zola Fel worshipper might be a good addition as a native guide, too. (An intelligent fish woud be rather limited in adventuring options, though - the other eligible species wouldn't pose much of a challenge.)

10 minutes ago, soltakss said:

One of the benefits that Arkat had was that he joined multiple cults and learned their HeroQuests, enabling him to realise that many of the HeroQuests had common factors/places/events, allowing him to jump from one HeroQuest to another.

Arkat learned how he could take on a different mythical role while on the Hero Plane (without falling out of it). Likewise the God Learners.

You don't have to belong to a cult to attempt a heroquest. The God Learners made do with fragments of stolen knowledge, and the Lhankor Mhytes are experts in putting together little shards of myths into a comprehensive and explorable path on the Hero Planes (which is what the God Learners liked about them).

This is a memory I cherish from running the original Rise of Ralios freeform - the stalwart band of Orlanthi questers was down in Yelm's Court of Ashes for the second time in the game (having found Arkat the Liberator on the first run, and ending up feeling underwhelmed/betrayed), so they went back for some deity of light to counter the Darkness of the Arkats. I made encouraging noises about the fact that there used to be a deity of light balancing Arkat, and that the Pelorians knew of a quest how to find this entity. So off they went from the ritual of the web, turning even deeper following the vague information they had on the Red Goddess Quest, and emerged from the Underworld riding the Star Bear carrying Nysalor. (It did help a lot that Nick Brooke acted as the leader of the questers on this run...)

10 minutes ago, soltakss said:

Waha frees Herd beasts to make them part of the clan, Orlanth steals them as a raider.

The Plundering of Aron was the raid to get back all the herds stolen by the Enchanter of Aron. While I am certain that there are myths about Orlanth raiding another tribe's herds, price bulls or horses, this one isn't.

10 minutes ago, soltakss said:

The end result is the same, the herd beasts belong to the raider. However, the herd beasts freed by Waha would belong to the clan in an entirely different way, they wouldn't want to escape, would obey the raider and so on. The herd beasts stolen by an Orlanthi using the Plundering of Aron would be chattel, belongings, not really part of the clan and not integrated with the raider. The clan that the herd beasts were stolen from might decide to raid the Orlanthi in revenge but not raid the Wahan because the Waha Quest legitimised the taking of the beasts.

Like I said above - the herds in question in the Plundering of Aron were magically stolen from the Vingkotlings, from under the protection of their wyters, and would make little to no trouble when led back.

1 hour ago, Mankcam said:

My reference of 'Ancient Thraco-Dacian-Mycenaeans' is meant to describe a fusion of vague cultural traits from those backgrounds, all thrown in together in an attempt to portray a culture unique to Glorantha. Any references of 'Anglo-Saxon-Norse-Celtic' influences is likewise. Just very broad brush strokes in order to portray a sense of a culture. I could have described Darra Happans as 'Persian-Assyrian-Hellenic' or Lunar Imperials as 'Persian-Assyrian-Roman', just to conjure up a sense of an ancient world style and culture. 

With Persian, I assume you mean the era of Cyrus and Dareios, I don't see much that is hellenic in Dara Happa proper - the Phalanx influences are from Peloria, which has more of a Hellenic influence. Personally, I try to look for the Indus culture of Mohenjo Daro and Harappa for influences. Replace elephants with gazzam, and off you go.

1 hour ago, Mankcam said:

I'm not sure if I have offended any ethnic sensibilities here by speaking with broad brushstrokes, and that certainly was not my intention. Please excuse my ignorance if this is the case.

Those extremely broad brush strokes tend to tickle all the wrong associations. Getting specific doesn't help much, though, if the recipient simply files them under his preconceptions rather than taking a look at the suggested specifics.

Given my own ethnic background which covers most of central Europe from the Baltic Sea to the Alps, from the Hugenot lands in France to East Prussia and Hungary, I feel kinship to most of the European groups discussed here. Less to the Thracians and Dacians, I have to admit.

1 hour ago, Mankcam said:

I find mixing real world influences together helps get a sense of a culture in a fantasy setting.

I have done so for my worlds whenever I could.

There are practical considerations to this, too. If you want your "barbarians" to use ox-drawn plows and yet have a decentralized society, to find a suitable real world parallel you have little choice but to look towards temperate climate Europe or possibly parts of ancient India where you have reliable rains and no need for irrigation or flood protection. I have made a point of taking a look at what I could find about pre-contact North American farmers and housing, too.

A perhaps underused good inspiration for the Orlanthi of the high regions are the cloud people of the Andes, just north of the Inca empire.

1 hour ago, Mankcam said:

Yes, I also use references of Halstatt and La Tene period for Theylans. The ancient cultures that Jeff has said are good reference points are Halstatt, Dacian, Thracian, and Mycenaean. Fuse elements of all these cultures together to get a sense of who the Orlanthi are, particularly in the Dragon Pass/Holy Country region. 

Oppida are a very good reference point, especially for villages and small towns. Most of the ones I have seen in pictures are fortified with timber palisades, although I suspect brick walls was also used at times.

Don't forget the earthen ramparts.

There are a number of rectangular earthworks in the Danubian valley known locally as "Keltenschanzen" (Celtic earthworks). Whether these were actual steads or rather enclosed holy places remains open to debate, but the later oppida used Celtic Walls (as described by G. Julius Caesar in De Bello Gallico) upon such earthworks. Both Kelheim and Manching had these. (Those are the ones I visited in person.) Both were coopted by the Roman Empire when they changed the status of Noricum from associated kingdom to province.

1 hour ago, Mankcam said:

I'm using this one for a Manirian village, as the G2G indicates that their villages are primarily timber based:

 

This is how I view an isolated stead - square enclosure, main house probably somewhat larger, one or two of these houses as separate homes for the cottars sharing the stead, the round house as workshop, the elevated granary, and gardening, a pottery kiln etc. in between. Maybe not a palisade but a larger version of the pig pen enclosure in the previous image.

1 hour ago, Mankcam said:

However I feel the more urbanised settlements would better organised with stone villas and such, more in keeping with the Mycenaean citadels rather than large oppida. Something like this:

Or perhaps this:

Possibly a little too vanilla-Mycenaean in some ways, although they do remind me of the citadels of Balazar, which I think were initially Theylan in origin. 

This is an aerial view of the map of the citadel of Elkoi.

The architectural style is Cyclopean as in giant-built. Similar walls are found in Old Karse and parts of Nochet.

These giants showed significantly more sophistication than Paragua and his friends at Robcradle, although all he did was to erect some field defence with stone slabs taken along from further north.

1 hour ago, Mankcam said:

(PS: I haven't worked out how to multi-quote yet, so sorry about the multiple separate posts)

That's simple - place the cursor where you want the new quote and quote the article you want to include, deleting all you don't want to repeat, or if it is all in a single post, create an empty line, then press return twice, to break the quote into multiple parts. (If you do it only once, you'll write from right to left...)

7 minutes ago, Mankcam said:

These images are a bit more 'barbaric' than how I currently view the Esrolians, Sartarites, Tarshites, and New Pavisites.

I guess this is mainly due to them being framed in a combat/ambush situation.

Especially the Viking culture is often reduced to the dragonship pirates and ignoring elaborate Thing rules, shrewd overseas or long range river trading, or seamless integration into the elite mercenary force of the Great Empire at Constantinople/Miklagard, alongside christian knights from e.g. Britain.

7 minutes ago, Mankcam said:

However it is very much along the lines of how I envision the more rudimentary Orlanthi folk, such as the Dorastor settlers, or the Ditali, Solanthi, and Nimistori of Maniria.  

There is certainly room for variation whether they have an emphasis on Thraco-Dacian-Mycenaean elements, or whether they have heavy Anglo-Saxon influences. I guess the factors that bind them are that they are all descendants of the people of The Dawn Age whose culture has a heavy emphasis on Heroic ideology, and who predominantly worship the Storm and Earth pantheons.

How exactly would you describe Anglo-Saxon influences? Are you talking about Nydam-boat riding invaders on the shores of Roman Britannia, or do you envision Northumbrians fending off invading Scoti from Ulster, Wessex guerillas stopping the expansion of the Danelaw in the bogs, or King Alfred's scholars translating classical knowledge into colloquial Anglo-Saxon, or the grand fusion of Anglo-Saxon and Danish culture under C(a)nute the Great?

LIkewise, how do you define Thraco-Dacian-Mycenaean elements? The Mycenaeans were gone for 15 centuries when the Dacians experienced a short spotlight in the reign of Trajan. The Thracians in the time of Belisarius were cataphract heavy cavalry, the epitome of knighthood in the late ancient world. In the time of Spartacus they appear to have been farmer-warriors like the Orlanthi.

If you are looking for an urban culture away from the Mediterranean, the oppida of the late Hallstatt and the La Tene period are the best place in Europe to look. The point about Orlanthi culture is that their farming is not relying on massive group efforts (like irrigation, land reclamation from wetlands) but that it works fine with small communities on comparatively friendly soil, furthering individualism rather than subordination to organizers.

I am a bit divided between using mythic parallels for mundane purposes as a quest, or as supporting scenic frame building for a known magical feat.

Just like the timing (auspicious dates as per season, week and day runes), identification of the opposition with appropriate mythical foes aids the magic of such feats. Still, all of this is happening in the mundane world, not on the hero planes.

A heroquest on the hero plane will drag aspects of the outcome of that quest into the mundane world - framing for the magic on a large scale.

I wonder if an Orlanth-worshipping Praxian could use the Plundering of Aron instead the Waha quest to regain stolen herd beasts, and whether he would have to have done the quest beforehand in order to get the appropriate magic for his This World task, or whether quest and task are one and the same.

1 hour ago, styopa said:

This may sound weird, and not particularly easy, but if you want to see what I believe are terrific representations of Sartarite steadings and culture, play LOTRO and go to Rohan.  Ignoring the overtly Equine symbology, IMO it nails it.

This is very (Anglo-) Saxon, with a Beowulf-like mead hall as main building on the steads. Including the horse heads.

On one hand, these are very nice visuals of the type of housing I was advocating early in this thread, and the Rohan version is perhaps the most picturesque variant of that. On the other hand, the Rohan culture is a culture of Vikings on horseback, and these are the "Norse" influences lamented by quite a few of the posters in this thread.

18 minutes ago, soltakss said:

Except that Gold Mostali are very old, very experienced and very magical so are not the kind of Mostali who would be influenced by outside influences.

Nope. That's the diamond quasi-caste of the Decamony. Gold is a regular caste that dwarfs are created for/born in., and present also among Octamonists.

1 hour ago, Ebaninth said:

Esrolia's Building Wall Battle was probably undertaken on an earth cult High Holy Day, when the Lunars were at a low wane. 

I don't think that Belintar was able to choose the day of the battle that freely, after all the Lunar army was pushing towards Esrolia, and placing the wall to make it a useful barrier against the Lunar advance (not easily evaded) means that he had to choose the location rather than the time of the battle.

Belintar may have had the seeds of the wall prepared beforehand, and his deployment of troops will probably have made less tactical sense initially.

If this was a heroquest, it wasn't one well known beforehand. As I said in an earlier thread, the Mostali are likely to use wall raising in battles, and they used such magic to raise the eastern wall of Boldhome, sealing in the cul-de-sac valley. Not in the middle of a battle, though. I still think that Belintar inherited that magic for his battle.

Usually gold or iron dwarfs/mostali. Gold are overseers and planners, iron are designed for interacting with potentially dangerous outsiders. Iron dwarfs are known to act on their own, while gold dwarfs are supposed to be attended by other castes in order to function, so gold is the more fun way to do this.

In Heroquest, you could have one central character with some of the skills, and then distribute other skills among his dwarf retainers. Doesn't work that well for RQ, though.

@David Scott - for all practical measures, it doesn't matter if your opponents are strongly temporary different or genuine mythical entities.

This makes me wonder, though, whether you are going to (en)counter God Learner intrusions even when questing starting from the Third Age. If the answer is yes, we are going to need some mechanical write-up for God Learner encounters in the hero planes.

Encountering Arkati probably is a standard element of otherworldly endeavors. Mostly you wouldn't realize that they were there for a purpose other than scenic extras. However, if you are going to warp the myths in a bad way, beware of those guys.

(Which makes me wonder - would those Arkati be in any way similar to the Kitori tax takers when provoked?)

For a grimmer variant, you could make the dwarfs like H.G.Wells' morlocks from Time Machine (take those of the most recent Hollywood incarnation), or the uruks of Isengard in The Two Towers (the Jackson flick).

1 hour ago, Paid a bod yn dwp said:

 Which are the known mostali heretic sects? Are the pavic dwarfs heretics? 

Ginkizzie and his compatriots are Openhandist and Individualist, like their True Mostali founder, aka Isidilian, the Quicksilver Mostali of Dwarf Mine.

Apart from these two heresies (each of which works separate from the other just as well as in combination), there is Octamonism (denial of Iron and other modern ideas, interestingly including Clay Mostali while being practiced mainly by Clay Mostali), some Pamaltelan ones practice Vegetarianism (use of self-Grown stuff).

(Note that it was Openhandist Isidilian who had the entire plnder of Machine City placed under a huge army of dwarfs.)

@Baron: The difficult thing to do with orthodox Mostali is to give them meaningful motivations that makes playing an ace-of-a-single-trade worth the while. Playing a broken dwarf doesn't require any background info at all, except for "the only thing you used to be good for and good at was X, but now you were forced to leave your people you are free to do whatever you want, and frankly, that scares you - what do you want?"

Add a few cool gadgets (like a limestone grinder for de-flavoring grown food - think parmesan grinders) and lots of nonsensical ones that were necessary for the job you no longer do. Maybe an animated stone pet for company.

From here on, we get into slapstick territory. Like, if there's a Yelmalian in gilt plate armor, report to him for your work shifts, and also report off shift. Best during the night when that character tries to sleep, or report off-shift in the middle of some action. Be over helpful, maybe like one of the minions. React in inappropriate ways to threats, demands, or friendly overtures, ideally by ignoring the interaction or pointing people to your foreman (the character displaying the most gold/gilt). Complain about the stringent taste of even the blandest food, but then eat a bowl of salt with a withered sprig of parsley for decoration, and go into lengthy poetic descriptions about the subtle notes caused by the mineral impurities.

In short, be a useless comic relief sidekick except when your speciality comes up.