Joerg

The two most important cities of or adjacent to Hendrikiland are Karse and Jansholm. Let's say of the remaining 8500 Esvulari there are some 2500 in Hendrikiland, that gives us urban populations in each of these cities of about 800. I am a bit curious about the depiction of an elderly god with thirteen heads wearing a crown. Do we get to see all thirteen heads in the same depiction, or do we get to see a series of depictions of the same god wearing different faces while performing his mythical feats? Managing 7 heads in one depiction (like the Arkat seat occupied by the Alangellia in the Guide p.377) is already hard, twice as many will look quite strange. As far as I am concerned, "Aeolus" is a transliteration of an ancient Gloranthan language (Western?) to latinized Greek, much like the term "Stygian". I believe it to mean "(Speaker for the) Wind", a title or nom-de-guerre of the founder. Since we don't call them saints any more, the ascended master who made a cultural religion out of the concept, some time around the Dawn (possibly already in the Silver Age). Given that Malkion was preceded by Malkion, that God Learner identification with Aeol does make some sense while simultaneously keeping an extra position for Malkion. When you write that the castes are endogamous, what does this mean for offspring of marriages/sexual relationships outside of the Aeolian community? Do they have adoption rites for outsiders/converts? Do they excommunicate instead? Does caste membership influence their choice of occupation, or is it possible to find merchants of the noble, advisor and freeman castes? Crafters? Warriors? Street sweepers (echoes of Dara Happan Avivath, a proud Yelmic noble)? What type of magic do the commoners have access to? Does the absence of a warrior caste mean that every Aeolian is a (potential) warrior? (The Orlanthi influence isn't exactly fixated on non-combatant leaders or magicians...) Does the concept of the Men-of-all spread by the Hrestoli (including all the God Learner brands of Malkionism), formerly known as knight (mounted warrior with some minor magical ability) mean anything to the Esvulari, or are all of their castes a bit men-of-all?

I have to admit that I liked the POW economy on the spending side, but I loathed the POW gain side. Somehow none of my players ever got their hands on Disruption - I think the only offensive spirit magic spell they used was Befuddle. Other than that, everone's favorite was Bladesharp or Heal, with side orders for Protection and Countermagic. I am fine with the "divine IOU" nature of spend n points of POW to learn rune spell X. There are good setting reasons to demand this as a prerequisite for access to that spell, and for defining the maximum effect you can pull off. I was part of the people who suggested that already initiates should get a chance to regain their divine magic through mechanics other than sacrificing another point of POW. When your character regains the use of one point of divine magic, another can of worms is opened. Do you have to assign that point to a specific spell ro mark it as active? That's what the Runepower concept tried to address. But then, if you have just sacrificed say 2 points for Shield, can you cast a Heal Wound instead that you used up earlier? POW economy has issues. I probably would live with specifically assigned activation of spells, and "permanent" POW sacrificed for spells (or initiations) regainable through participation in religious activities, but POW exceeding your previous personal highest level of POW requiring the much rarer POW check via POW vs POW contests. Possibly including resistance against hostile spells, too.

The Aeolians are an urban minority in Jansholm - an ethnic minority, as most have Esvulari ancestry (there ought to be inter-marriages within the craft guilds across the religious divide, and the military order will also recruit outside of the philosophy). They are strong in the craft guilds, as guild magic is likely to be sorcery aka alchemy - although it might be said that quite a few crafts that rely on bodies of non-physical knowledge are likely to feature a significant portion of Lhankor Mhy worshippers in Orlanthi cities. They also have the military order of St Elmal, and take a role that would be covered by Sun Dome Templars elsewhere, but with mounted fighters rather than hoplites. Outside of the city, there may be an occasional manor (aka fortified stead) operated by a minor Aeolian noble, but actual rural Aeolians are found only in southern Heortland. In the north, they fill specialist roles - also as bureaucrats in the Godking's administration (what's left of that after 1616). They tend to be somewhat literate. Aeolians are Mostly Harmless. They shun sacrifice of live animals, offering baked goods in animal shape instead. They are free to join Orlanthi cults as lay members, and may advance to higher forms of initiation. They tend to be less rowdy and emotional than their Orlanthi contemporaries, but they organize well, and a coopetative of Aeolians can be quite ruthless and convincing. Their popularity isn't that good in places dominantly inhabited by normal Heortlings because of some of Belintar's Esvulari governor-kings who stepped down hard on second-amendment-like Orlanthi traditions like maintaining clan feuds, cattle raiding and similar disruptive activities. But they are useful in the towns where they provide a significant portion of specialized craftsfolk, contributing in a major way to the town's resources. In my Glorantha there is an Aeolian community in Wilmskirk, too, specialist crafters imported by Wilms to make sure that there were the necessary tools available for the new times in Sartar's kingdom. Would you trust an ordinary Orlanthi to handle technology on loan by the dwarves? Aeolian wizards and hedge wizards (like guild craftspeople or men-of-all) use sorcery. Not necessarily exclusively, especially in the case of men-of-all and guild magicians. They have grimoires with special spells that cover runes shared by the Orlanthi. Their spells often are similar to Orlanthi magic, but with some twists, but they also have access to the magics that came with the Abiding Book that was brought to them by the God Learners. A short note about the history of the Aeolian Church in Glorantha publications: Those Tradetalk texts were the result of the first effort to describe Aeolians living alongside Orlanthi. The notion of sorcery users in Orlanthi cities was about as popular when I presented it around 1994 as were Lunar cultists inside the Sartarite tribes (regarded by most people as a no-go area despite official information about Blackmor). I wrote up the first version of the Aeolian Church as an attempt to explore the combinations of pagan Orlanthi and monotheist Malkioni societies. These were labeled "Stygian" (Greek for Darkness-related) in the publications of that time if they mentioned them at all (Gods of Glorantha, Genertela: Crucible of the Hero Wars). Parallel to my RQ3-oriented exploration David Hall wrote the Aeolian faction for the How The West Was One freeform game, which promoted the theme of bishops and churches in a big way. I also created a number of henotheist, non-darkness sects for Ralios for the Freeform Rise of Ralios, like "Aetheric church of Galin" or "Chthonic Church of Estali", and exchanged ideas with Nikk Effingham about his Henotheist Church of Otkorion, carefully avoiding the Arkat/illumination issue that came with the Stygian write-up. I remained true to Aeolian Heortland during the RQ4:AiG playtesting in the mid-nineties, and wrote up and played in a mixed Orlanthi-Aeolian community of Jaransbyrig, located in the triangle between Jansholm, Backford and Sklar on the plateau - a rural market town for the plateau. When Hero Wars came along, other authors picked up on the existence of the Aeolians and provided their own interpretations (Glorantha: Introduction to the Hero Wars, Thunder Rebels, HeroQuest 1st Edition). The Aeolians became a showcase why the idea of misapplied worship wasn't that playable. Still, their mentions in Men of the Sea or Dragon Pass:Land of Thunder should be pretty uncontroversial and useable. The best canonical information on the history of the Aeolians in Kethaeala is found in History of the Heortling Peoples, often hidden in the events described from the Hendriking point of view. I am fairly confident that the upcoming RuneQuest:Glorantha will have rules that work for Aeolian characters, though I don't expect them to receive much (if any) mention in a 200 pages rulesbook for a simulationist game like RuneQuest.

Oh my, you're using my 22 years old RQ3-based stuff. Yes, the Aeolians are a henotheist sect of Malkionism that treat Orlanthi deities like ascended masters. Biggest problem here: there are no rules in RQ2 for western sorcery. Even the Mostali in Griffiin Mountain use Battle Magic. I think that it remains canon that the knights of St Elmal get their armor and weapons boosted by magic, magic that lasts for the day or even for the campaign. In RQ2 spell terms, the knights could use Shield and Extend, or have it used on them. They are elite horse riding fighters with special training/experience against trolls and chaos. Bishops are references to the Late Roman Empire/Anglo-Saxon England flavor christianity I used for that write-up, in keeping with the contemporary efforts to flesh out Malkionism. That old expression of christianity had no parish priests, and episkopoi were required for baptisms and similar practices. Malkioni terminology changed - knights are now "Men-of-all", and bishops would now be known by other titles like e.g. Watcher. I used parallels to the Henotheist sect of Otkorion in my terminology, and I notice that Surantyr now is called High Priest. More later, have to go right now.

From the context above: self-guided anti giant missiles. A certain small chance for reusability. Pointy end goes first.

There is a lasting familiarity with the BRP mechanics thanks to the legacy of Call of Cthulhu, even if it has given up the position as most popular secondary rpg years ago. Looking at the homebrew offerings of e.g. the idiosyncratic and in commercial terms quite small German market, I think that the least hurdle for a system change for one of the three Gloranthan systems would be RuneQuest. You'd still have to sell the different background. Dropping approved adaptation kits for other established systems may create a few Glorantha converts among other niche roleplayers, too - like e.g. a Fate adaptation. These are enthusiastic players and GMs willing to try out new stuff, and probably proselytize it for a while, but this very nature may make them go their own ways afterwards, too. While generating some sales and possibly expanding the fan base somewhat, I see a larger target group in people barely involved in roleplaying, but e.g. fascinated by Game of Thrones and similar media phenomena. Seeing how thirty years ago "Das Schwarze Auge" (DSA) was picked up by thousands of German players who don't interact with the roleplaying communities at all, and hardly ever with other players outside their personal gaming groups, the potential there might be just below our radar. (I have to add that there is a thriving DSA community that keeps attracting non-gamers, too, ably aided by expansion to other media like the Drakensang online game employing @Jason Durall right now.) What system would you propose for a target group - let's call them young adults, like the book sellers do - that has had no real exposure to roleplaying but might be hooked? Especially if there are to be no old farts like our generation involved in setting up the game and running it?

There is a lot you can do collaborating online, and I can attest that at least Jeff Richard has years of experience with that. Nowadays with hangouts available you can do everything (but physically manipulate what your cooperators have in front of them) online. Separating the development tasks into areas of expertise sounds like the smart thing to do at the current stage of the project. Earlier attempts at a RQ4 over 20 years ago probably suffered from too much open discussion with the fanbase. Those experiences are still available to the current designers, too. What is being designed is a RQ tailored to the setting of Glorantha. RQ2 managed to convey that impression rather well, and did so on admirably little space when compared to other contemporary rpgs. It failed to address core regions of Greg's Glorantha even back then - the entire Malkioni body of background was left uncovered while RQ2 lasted. The existing Glorantha fanbase is going to follow RQ Glorantha. The existing RQ (6) fanbase unhappy with Glorantha will probably take a good look at the adaptations for Glorantha and see how to transfer those to the setting of their choice. I know I did when I designed a setting useable with RQ3 Vikings, inheriting lots of other BRP ideas for magic, and adapting the body of Gloranthan magic for that setting. From a player perspective, I was perfectly happy to sit in one of Loz' Harreksaga games (at that time using MRQ2 while RQ6 was under development) finding the expected range of magical abilities and mundane prowess for that sample character. As a GM designing my own scenarios or campaigns, I need quite a bit more background info than just a few sample characters. One of the main attractions which sold me on RQ (quite a while before I got sold on Glorantha) was the information on world building and magical ecology in the RQ3 Gamemaster book (first encountered in its Games Workshop edition). Pretty much everything I needed to design the setting. I don't expect to find this in the upcoming project because you don't need this to run a game - especially not when you use the available body of scenarios from previous editions. For newcomers to pick up a game and start playing it, the slim format of RQ2 or Elric! was perfect. As this community attests, BRP is an engine easy to grasp and to adapt to, and what we want RQ Glorantha to be is an avenue for new players to explore the weirdness and richness of Glorantha. When it comes to playtesting, I would propose getting feedback from GMs and players outside of the existing fan base rather than from the nitpicking grognards - these will find plenty to match their personal preferences and to irate their personal pet peeves anyway, whichever direction the development may go. This situation is markedly different from that the developers of D&D5 were facing - they had to bring the straying converted D&Ders back into the fold from their excursions to related systems like Pathfinder et al., while what Chaosium needs to do is to convert the non-RQ/non-Gloranthan population of roleplayers and of role-playing layfolk (muggles).

Yes - I sat in a situation where the spokesman of our young Orlanthi tried to act modest and coy when dealing with an important thane of a somewhat hostile clan where boasting and hyperbole would have been appropriate. If the player had made a useful roll before the attempt, at the very least he might have gained an insight how to deal with the NPC as character knowledge (or insight).

I don't think that anything delaying the game would be that much fun to play. A single game doesn't run that long, and it is fun when played at a good pace. Dragging out the player turns could reduce the enjoyment quite a bit. The gather phase could be done by an administrator who manages the board that is streamed e.g. via webcam(s - one for the total, and a second zooming in on actions). The action phase has a couple of interactive steps, like trading (e.g. the Black Market heroquest of the Darkness faction which can trade away a rune once per turn) or combats, or non-interactive ones like placing a unit on the board or moving the units from one area (or, if Yelm makes it out of hell, all of the Solar units regardless where they stand - possibly only after placing a heroquest, I only played Chaos and Darkness so far). Combat consists of counting the dice for each size, rolling them and counting the kill and hurt results, and applying special rules like automatic kills or hurts, then applying these results to the units in the area. The player moving a hurt unit out chooses which unit, the player having caused the hurt chooses where it goes. Rolling the dice could be done via an app, or simply under the eye of a webcam. Assigning losses and acting those out is probably best done by talking to one another. A hangout with webcam coverage and a master board doing all the moves would be possible, I guess. That takes some work for the host, though. Copying all the moves to your own physical board at home would create differences sooner or later. An adaptation to a virtual game board could be done, I guess, or score cards, possibly printed, with the units shown as symbols. Not manhandling those miniatures takes away the haptic component of placing your units.

No Praxian faction, but Genert is part of the Earth faction. Sea, Earth, Lunar, Malkioni are player faction expansions, and get their war god/magic god/other god in the respective expansions. Ducks, dragonewts, Vadeli, and I guess ´aldryami and mostali are independent factions in the Elder Races expansion that can be allied.

The plan always was to make a RuneQuest optimized for playing in Glorantha. As has been revealed, the design process for RQ3 (dating back to 1982-84) had a lot of Glorantha-specific developments that weren't included in the product for Avalon Hill which now are meant to be reunited with the development from RQ2 to RQ3 and further to a modern RQ as in RQ6. Details about the how and why remain private between The Design Mechanism and Chaosium, but the recipe to make a Glorantha supplement for RQ6 seems not to have gone far enough for Chaosium. This isn't the first time a RQ version under development named "Adventures in Glorantha" failed to see publication beyond a playtest edition. That name appears to be poison.

How do you keep a walktapus secure? Pickle it in gorp? The problem I see with everlast biscuits is casualties. As soon as the host stomach stops producing juices, you get a baby walktapus in a feeding frenzy. That's ok if you send a forlorn hope unit into enemy territory (let them get raped by broo and infected by Mallia before the action, too, for double measure), but icky if your soldiers are in a defensive situation.

The higher peaks have snow cover all year. Remember that short passage about the guy finding King Broyan and his followers frozen on a mountain peak? That was in the Storm(walk) Mountains. They also have wind children roosting high up, claiming some territory there. Raiding the nomads: a lack of mounts would be the first thing to be amended by raids... there is little else the beast riders have worth taking, unless you happen to be in the slave trade.

Hmm sounds a bit Godlearner to me. The oceans had no effect on the Wastes as the land rose up, defenders Shore and all that. I can't see them having an effect now. Next thing you'll be saying that is that there's a climate:-) The ocean currents have been designed to create that climate. Don't you dare undo Greg's painstaking attention to such detail in his world building! Most of the fire damage to the Redwood savannah was done by Oakfed, in the long and bitter cold dark. Of course you will find echoes of the savannah burning in the spirit world, but these are balanced by the bitter cold before and afterwards. Neither the Monkey Ruins nor the Crater Lakes are really deep into Genert's Garden, and rather close to the major mountain ranges (Storm Mountains and Rockwoods) which have some sons of Lodril among their peaks. I don't see the Men-and-a-half profit much from this Fireground, either, and they should. No, before Tolat disrupted the sky dome by crashing Umath into the northern support, Genert's Garden had the same pleasant conditions as Murharzarm's Empire. Seolinthur provided warm waters after branching off from Sshorg/Nestentos, Yamsur provided the sunlight, everyone was well-fed and knew no thirst. Valind changed that when his glacier overran Peloria, the northern parts of the Garden now known as Pent, and insignificant islands in the far west. His advance was broken by the chaos invasion from the north, but his presence remained quite a bit before receding. The implosion of the Spike re-invigorated the seas south of the Garden, and brought fresh warmth to the coasts of the Garden. Nobody can say how long it took, but after Oakfed's fire had proved its impotence to push away the cold when all the fuel was consumed, it was up to the seas to bring back the warmth that belonged in Genert's lands, and up to Orlanth's storm to steal it from the seas and distribute it into the adjacent lands. Valind never gained a foothold in the southern parts of Genert's Garden (with the exception of the Windstop covering Prax in 1621/22). But IMO neither did Lodril, except at the western edges.

While discussing sea currents under the heading of Prax might be a bit off-topic, the original invasion by Sshorg(a) the Blue Dragon aka Nestentos was first resolved by Vadrus, Valind's daddy, in a quest that served as the template for Orlanth's and Barntar's quests to combat Daga (a nephew of Valind, btw). (And Inora would be his aunt, rather than his daughter - unless Valind mated with grandma Kero Fin.) Sshorg is a child of Togaro, and carries the hot waters in from south of Pamaltela where even the water burns. (Thankfully it didn't bring in Firebergs..) By the time the first river creeps up Ernaldela, much of that heat may already have been spent. Still, we are looking for a myth about a deity losing heat... We have heard about the tragical opposite, Qualyorni the Cold One losing its signature cold, creating the hot trolls of the Errinoru jungle. Pamalt, champion of the hot lands of the south, did this, by wounding the invader. The trouble is - Sshorg(a)/Nestentos is the parent of Seolinthur, the ancestor of the rivers of Genert's Garden. Seolinthur (and its child Zola Fel) ran uphill in that mythic age, same as Sshorg. Anything preventing the spawning of Seolinthur would create mythical trouble of great dimension. We don't know about the birth of Seolinthur, though - probably lost along with many other myths about the creation of the things in Genert's Garden. But one likely scenario could be that someone wounded Sshorg(a)'s right flank, and a mighty but still lesser river parted from its parent, searching its own course into the lands of Genert. A possibility, at least. Now, to make sure that causing this wound makes the river spill its heat? (A thought - some giants might remember the myth, even if the survivors from Genert's Garden don't. Getting a workable story out of them might be an adventure in itself. And they, too, ought to like getting a dragon shown its limits.) Maybe ask Inora or Zorak Zoran - between these two, Yelmalio got rid of his fire ability, and remains as (unquenchable) light without heat or flame. The Rozgali is part of the later invasion of the seas, but carries on the course and the source of its waters. Its precedessor even choked some of the giant mountains when Vingkot's kingdom was an island attacked by the seas. And while Orlanth beat back Worcha, the raging child of this sea and a number of others, it was Valind's glacier which helped end the floodings by binding up all that water. That could be done with a drinking contest quest where Valind cheats by freezing most of the beverage offered to him solid. (That also leaves any alcoholic beverages a lot more potent, leaving room for amusing side stories about getting drunk stupid, and creating a somewhat different challenge for your hero.) Ok, in modern Prax/Genert's Wastes there rarely is a problem with too much water, but occasionally, that's the case, and highly feared by the Praxians. In such a situation, playing out this freezing myth might be regarded as helpful.

There is already the White Princess, the Inora-related spirit of Darkness which causes local night frosts, with the beneficient side effect that her going away leaves humidity behind. Further out on the plains, a hero of Valind might be regarded as an ally of the evil (Pentan) horse riders who claims contested parts of Genert's Wastes for the horse riders, as the Snow Line forms the divide between the Beast Riders and the horse nomads. (I wonder if there is some sort of agreement between the Pentan and the Praxian spirits behind this...) Storm Bull is a disruptive cult, kicking everybody's ass (except Chalana or Little Brother at times) is his job. Valind (and Gagarth) as a son of Vadrus doesn't really care to please, either. There are ice fields high in the (giant) mountains, so we know that the White Princess is an ally of the giants, and by extension, Valind too. Why are Genert's Wastes considered to be a warm place? First and foremost, it receives warmth from the coastal current that spawns off the Sshorg current, fed by the boiling waters of the Togaro. The undisturbed climate of the Zola Fel valley is actually quite clement and humid, and only the Storm Bull influence with its dry spells changes this. There is little evidence for geothermal activity (Lodril) anywhere in the Wastes. The Crater Lakes east of Dagori Inkarth are the only such place I can recall offhand. Still, the concept of Genert's Garden in the Golden Age implies pleasant temperatures.

Outside of the Guide, Revealed Mythology, and the two antecessors of the Guide (G:IttHW and Genertela: Crucible of the Hero Wars) Teshnos sees few mentions. Argrath accompanying Harrek visited, so we find a one line mention in King of Sartar. Tarkalor and Monrog(h?) visited in Tarkalor's youth, which influenced the Sartarite and Praxian Sun Dome templars, according to the Baltimore RQ con booklet - little info on the place. The info on the Opening of the Seas by Kethaelans in the region is more or less repeated in the Guide, but can also be found in the RuneQuest Companion which is part of the RQ2 reprint Kickstarter. That same book has a few Jonstown library snippets mentioning Teshnos. Elder Secrets mentions the lack of communication between the Diamond Mountain octamonist dwarves and the humans of the region, and the resident yellow and brown elves (also taken over by the Guide). Men of the Seas has a summary of Teshnos as it presents itself to sailors. Heroquest Voices has a Teshnan section, compatible with Heroquest first edition, which had a few keywords for the homeland - no idea how much of that still is useful. Anaxial's Roster has a few local beasties that may be useful with the attached myths. The city map of Nochet on glorantha.com has Teshnan inhabitants in Nochet, and the region may have come up in a few Q&As on that site. Then there are the digest archives with unofficial ideas about Teshnos. Some of those may have found their way into the Guide, too.

I wonder whether low-G characters would be used to high accelerations as a matter of their life away from the gravity well. Distances in the belt or the Jovian Trojans are a magnitude greater than in the Earth-Moon orbital system (including the Lagrange points 4 and 5 with their dust collections). I wouldn't necessarily reduce CON if these guys have taken biological or technological measures to deal with high-G stress in acceleration situations. Moving around under standard or higher G will still be difficult without support, but with an exoskeleton harness support or other invalid help they wouldn't black out.

The Flintstones are a different kind of dinosaur craze. Stop motion giant lizards or real lizards with glued on appendages in a diorama are an ancient staple of the dream factory. Can you imagine growing up without those cheesy Godzilla movies?

In the original PC/Apple version of King of Dragon Pass, assigning the harvest could be an important step in the spring activities, balancing wheat, rye and barley. It also made you track your herds of swine and sheep more closely than the current version. Pork (and poultry) appears to be commonly used throughout the year, while beef and horse meat gets consumed in sacrifices or in feasts. Dairy wasn't measured, but is the way to feed from the herds without slaughtering. While that game missed the importance of the hay harvest and autumnal slaughter, I think that the basic foods for the agricultural Orlanthi are pretty much covered by this. I am a bit un-decided about the relation between bread consumption to porridge consumption to dairy soup consumption (like the butter soup I read about that appears to have been the staple of heroic Age Ireland). The Pater Noster emphasizes daily bread as the staple food for any (but possibly the richtest) status, but then wheat was the main source of protein (!) in the Roman Empire during which this prayer was created. All storm-descended cultures (Orlanthi, Praxians, Malkioni) appear to be lactose-tolerant. The Doraddi rely on the Tanuku milk antelope, too. The East Isles might not, and have fishing for their source of animal nourishment. Not sure about the rice farming cultures (Peloria, Kralorela, Teshnos). Plowing implies the use of cattle or water buffaloes, both of which are sources for dairy. But then, as noted above, dairy consumption can be about butter (which is pretty poor in lactose or other carbohydrates) or cheese (another staple in a carbohydrate-free diet). Someone will consume the milk sugar products, though, whether whey or butter milk, and I don't think that they went into feeding cattle or pigs. They might go into feeding the children. Strange stray thought - could adulthood initiation have been defined by the point when the children in lactose-intolerant herding cultures had to go away from lactose-based child feeding? What to travelers eat? For the most part, whatever their hosts offer them whenever accepting hospitality, supplemented by bread or cheese or pemmican or dried fruits if the hospitality is restricted to use of water. Cooking porridge with earthware vessels is a 24 hour job (according to the people in the Danish experimental archaeology sites I talked to) which cannot be done on a journey. From yesterday's production of pea soup, the same goes for legume from the dried (transportable) stuff, unless you grind it up. Grinding requires stone implements like the quern, or possibly an earth ware mortar, neither of which are the most comfortable travel utensils. Hunting and gathering takes up valuable daylight time that could be used for traveling. So does foraging. How do marching armies cope with the problem of having a porridge after a day's march? IMO most likely by having a fresh porridge from a metal cauldron the morning before the march, and cold and stale leftover porridge from the morning with some more savory addition like meat in the evening after the march. The train is essential for warfare, without it, you cannot move armies away from their bases. Water logistics are incredibly important here, too - preparing a meal out of grain, lentils or similar transportable staple stuff requires a lot of water. Making bread requires an oven, unless you count stick bread or flatbread prepared on heated stones. For a marching army, that would mean that bread produced by their train would require a camp of two or three days (at least) to get the ovens into operation,

How to pitch probably depends on who to pitch for. Basically, you want to play the classical game in the classical setting. What's the harder sell, game system or setting? System: No fire-ball tossing wizards or greater wishes, but devout priests and holy people calling down the aid or the wrath of their gods, and your characters able to do so on a smaller scale, too. No classes but backgrounds that define your skills and cults that define your magic. I would collect the other stuff in three handouts for character creation - urban, nomad, occupation soldier (on leave? Dismissed?), and probably add the sturdy Pavis County/Sun Dome County farmer as another option. Perhaps even the "exotic refugee" type, origin at GM's discretion - showing that there is a rich background by asking leading questions and then providing a suitable background, although RQ2 pretty much excludes standard western chararacters with sorcery.

I am not sure that the dinosaur connection was intended back then. As late as Anaxial's Roster, demibirds are listed alongside augners and ostriches as running birds. Next thing we will have to decide is whether dragons have just scales or also some downs or even plumage (while retaining their chiropteroid wings), and how much plumage we have for the Earth Shaker or gazzam dinosaurs, and how much for the degenerate dragonewts. The triceratops in the dragonewt picture and the Slon T Rex in the Guide are depicted as classical scaled reptiles.

Actually, the sources are quite unclear about this. A typical clan has between 500 to 1000 members. The (nowadays moblle) computer game King of Dragon Pass (which managed to make me form a habit now on my 90 minute long bus rides) makes a number of assumptions which are mostly in keeping with what we find in Sartar - Kingdom of Heroes, Thunder Rebels, Sun County (the Garhound contest) and the Report on the Orlanthi in King of Sartar. There appears to be a central village, usually around the chieftain's hall and the local temples and shrines not situated at isolated landmarks. It isn't clear whether that hall is held by the chieftain's extended family and gets promoted to chieftain's hall when he is elected (in that case, owning/holding a suitable hall in a suitable location would be a prerequisite for being elected as chieftain), or whether it is a clan-owned drinking hall with living quarters for the current chieftain and his followers, away from his family stead. Knowing the Orlanthi, either statement is true. Special buildings like the silver-roofed Balmyr tribal king's hall in Halfort doubtlessly are of the latter type. Property in an Orlanthi clan is difficult to describe, too. No individual person owns any land or stead, but usually the household head(s) of a family of appropriate status are assigned holdership of a stead. A steadholder household is at least of carl status. The stead may have more than carl household on its premises - each of these will have a modest longhouse which is half stable area for the kine, and half living and working area for the kin plus the hall where the steadholder holds his table. In addition, there are likely several lesser houses (cottages) of cottar families sharing that stead, probably slightly more than one per longhouse. These are similar in design to the longhouse, but a lot shorter lacking the hall portion and providing shelter for just a handful of cattle. Before construction of these houses, the future stead was assigned to the households. Erecting and maintaining the buildings falls to the households, who basically hold it on unlimited lease but may be ordered out by a powerful chieftain and/or a unified clan ring, depending on how strong the chieftain is and whether the steadholder or other resident households have earned special pleasure or displeasure. A small stead will consist of a longhouse and maybe a cottage or three. A large (noble's) stead could resemble Apple Lane (aka Gringlestead), although usually with a lot less special/unusual buildings. The central village may or may not be addressed as a stead, and will house a number of noble and carl households, and a greater number of cottages. The central village of the Orlmarth clan is shown in Sartar - Kingdom of Heroes. There may also be isolated or paired cottages, often belonging to hunters or crafters with unusual demands on location. Another workshop-style building was the roundhouse, resembling a teepee above a hole in the ground with some low side walls. More on special buildings later. Overall, these arrangements resemble middle European settlement patterns which didn't change much between the neolithic farming communities and the post-Roman Iron Age. While there were regional variations in building style etc., these patterns appear to have been shared by Scandinavians, Germanic, continental Celtic and sedentary Danubian tribes. Only the mediterranean and the distand island Celts had somewhat different building types.

A myth comes to mind - Ronance, the lover of the many oasis spirits, who can make them gush forth...

The artwork that was used as the basis for Daniel Fahey's model of Ronance's chariot, IIRC featuring a Ken doll as the rider. I don't have my NG rules scanned in yet, so I cannot look those up, but knowing Daniel Fahey wearing his hat as a Praxian shaman this is based on good source evidence.