Joerg

We are dealing with clans here rather than with smaller units like steads or family groups, though. These clans usually have a clear idea who they don't belong to - unfortunately this includes many of their culturally related neighbors, but foreigners who talk funny definitely aren't part of the "us" (unless they make an effort to join us). The Middle Ages and early modern era saw a lot of colonisation not unlike the American West in middle and eastern Europe. Settlers from an agriculturally more advanced or at least equal origin would come out of their own accord or attracted by local overlords in order to cultivate previously unused or only extensively used area. This is somewhat different from the Greek and Phoenician (or Irish VIking) placement of colonies as trading posts, or from the Germanic immigration into the decaying western Roman Empire (not all of which happened in the shape of invasions). The Lunars appear to have such a program, as the Redlands, the Risklands or the Grantlands show. The spread of the Esvulari along the Choralinthor Bay may be such a case where their knowledge as builders (and possibly seafront dam builders) made them welcome strangers in coastal Heortland and Esrolia. Chronology of myths is always prone to be contradictory. The Sword Story for instance is an extreme shorthand for the entirety of the Gods War, glossing over things like the Lightbringers' Quest or the destruction of the world by Chaos as mere asides. Orlanth first met Lhankor Mhy, Issaries and Chalana Arroy on the Lightbringers Quest. Eurmal made earlier contact in the Sword Story. Flesh Man was an Orlanthi tribesman of unknown allegiation (an everyman's grandson from any tribe). Lhankor Mhy was the scribe of the Nochet compact, I think before Argan Argar bound Vestkarthan (and Kodig's presence may have been "the early incarnation of bad man Kodig" as far as the Esrolian Grandmothers are concerned). Chalana and Issaries were active among the Vingkotlings and Durevings, too, at least in form of some of the subcults. The Making of the Storm Tribe includes the Lightbringer deities, but those presences might be later additions proven true through repetitive performance/questing. (In fact I wonder whether some of the Vingkotling tribal founders could have been cognates of the Lightbringers, with Goralf Brown a candidate for Issaries.)

There are some skills that should go up without experience checks, too - if you're spending a season or two with Praxian nomads, you should get an automatic chance to increase Praxian language, customs, and survival. The real question will be how many and what kind of skills will be used to handle such specialized knowledge/experience. The more different skills you introduce, the less able will a character be. Academic as well as physical skills have the possibility of learning the wrong thing which sort of works (and often can be acquired quickly), but only to a limited level of proficiency, which then has to be unlearned (painfully, with a decrease in performance) in order to rise to higher levels. I have encountered this with as different fields as languages, physics, archery or musical instruments.

There used to be a discussion whether the Cheruskans spoke a Germanic or a Celtic language, so Germania may very well have been part of the Celtic world before the migrations began. The Suebes that Caesar encountered in Gallia and in his expedition east of the Rhine were recent immigrants from the Baltic (and possibly part of the decision of the Helvetii to start their migration). The Belgae of Britain were fairly recent arrivals - a couple of generations prior to Caesar's arrival. As the name says, they may have arrived from the contact zone with the Germanic tribes (Belgia), which had been in a state of migration since a lot earlier - the Cimbri and Teutones arrived in Roman territory around the same time the Belgae established themselves in Britain. I think it might be more productive to look at the Germans prior to the 19th century to get an idea what "Orlanthi" do have in common and what they don't. The unified German language started with the Luther bible (but retained the high German/low German split until the 19th century), the German national identity was mainly found when there was a huge outside threat (Napoleon really made it stick after over a decade of occupation) although the general idea was around already when Otto the Saxon established the Holy Roman Empire of German Nation, religious unity was created with Christianisation since the 8th century, lost with the Reformation in the 16th century and not regained, territorial identity was extremely difficult, and the presence of minorities (or in the baltic settlement area, majorities of other comparatively recent immigrants) made the definition of the German nation difficult.

RQ2 had the stackable common rune spell Divine Intervention which could be sacrificed for. Each point gave you a cumulative 10 % chance that the god would grant you a miracle to get out of a fix. If the god didn't grant you her favor, you would keep the points for a later try (assuming that you survived the situation which made you attempt the intervention).

There you see the influence of the Larnsti of the Hendriki who were leaders of the early period of Orlanthland in Dragon Pass, Kethaela and Saird. They worshipped the Spirit of Freedom (depicted in the Prince of Sartar comic chained to Belintar) and proselytized their rejection of individual slavery. (They didn't mind putting entire clans and tribes under severe tribute, unless it was themselves, though - see the Foreigner Laws of Aventus in History of the Heortling Peoples.) Among the Heortlings, it is part of a decision the clan made in the Storm Age when they were asked to accept one of the minority peoples in the Vingkotling area into their tribe - as (near-) equals or as thralls. When a new clan forms, these decisions are sort of fought out between the ancestors the folk of the new clan bring along (actually by their descendants). The Sambarri show that you can be anti-Lunar and slaveholder. The Colymar used to be anti-slavery, but when Blackmor accepted the Lunar Way they had to accept the slave plantation in their midst, too.

Pure ancestor worshipping Orlanthi: Heort himself was a shaman and mainly a spirit user. The Theyalan missionaries included Heortlings and Esrolians, and members of other peoples on the Unity Council, although they would leave the approach of a new group still stuck in the Greater Darkness aftermath with their most suitable party members (meaning that they'd leave their uz guides and their elf companions behind). More often than not these missionaries married into the group. On the occasion of finding an intact group of ancestor worshippers they would gladly have lent assistance to these practices, IMO. And if those ancestors had worshipped or at least propitiated gods, they would have taught such a group how to do so, too. If you check the Dawn Sites in the Guide (p.710), the Deleskarings of Berthestead could be said to worship their founder and ancestor Deleskar over any Orlanthi gods. The Balurgans might qualify, too. If you leave the area covered by these descriptions further west, you can have all kinds of weird groups that were discovered later on. There is also room for groups hiding amid these survival sites for some time before being discovered by the dark trolls acting as the main scouts, though they would have had to hide extremely well to avoid detection (and inclusion in places like Urar Bar).

Already several of the Sartarite tribes and clans keep thralls - the Sambarri are (in)famous for trading humans. The Hendriki as a rule don't, but there may be other clans in Heortland descended from immigrants from e.g. Esrolia. Esrolian houses often keep slaves, and at a guess so do the Solanthi and Ditali (in their case captives from Kethaela or neighboring clans/tribes kept as thralls if not ransomed). Tarshites quite likely keep slaves, both those of Wintertop and those who accepted the Lunar Way. At a guess, several Far Point tribes keep slaves, too. Not sure about the Sairdites and Talastari - some of the Lunarized ones probably do. Safelstrans keep slaves, and the hill tribes of Ralios will likely do so, too. Jonating Orlanthi are kept in a state of thraldom, not sure that they would have tiers of this. We have no data on Oranor. Umathela probably has adopted some forms of slavery, living next to Fonrit. I don't see why the clans ruled by the Woodland Council wouldn't.

We have a couple of labels for the Orlanthi culture - Theyalan, Barbarian Belt, Orlanthi, Hill Barbarians. I like @M Helsdon's comparison to the label Celts/Keltic. I remember a discussion I had with Jeff Richard where I posited that the (Kethaelan and Kerofinelan) Orlanthi material culture was very similar to that of the (Danubian) Celts. Jeff disagreed strongly, and instead pointed me to the Hallstatt and preceding Urnfield peoples. The very ones I was talking about, but Jeff assumed I was talking about the Irish. The term Orlanthi has a double meaning, too - in the narrower sense it is a worshipper of Orlanth, in the wider sense a member of the culture that worships Orlanth and Ernalda (in various guises). The Theyalan mode of theist worship originated with the Heortlings of Kerofinela and Kethaela (including the Esrolians here). They spread this to the rest of the Barbarian Belt during the First Age all the way to the places where Westerners and their opponents had their own, distinct Gray Age experience and memories. Other than the Pendali, Enjoreli and the Dangkae, most of the clans in between didn't have distinct Gray Age memories but only vague ideas about surviving the Greater Darkness. The lowland city peoples had memories of the horse warlords instead (all the way to Oronin Valley), and a repository of writings and other pieces of art to remember their earlier culture. Many of the Hill Barbarians had at best distinct memories of their founders and their arrival in their settlement area, then bad attrition during the Greater Darkness. Those further west also may have had memories of contact with the Kachasti of Danmalastan who had come from the west and established a presence between their lands, and an exchange of ideas until their destruction. This Kachasti exchange will have influenced their material culture, their language and probably quite a bit of their magic, too. When I speak of the hill barbarian founders, I also mean their beast totems. The Vingkotlings didn't see many of the hill barbarians of Ralios, Tanisor and Fronela as Orlanthi but as beast folk, if I interpret the Plundering of Aron correctly - this describes a conflict between Ralian beast folk and Vingkotlings. Those Ralians became (or already were) the Enerali. I wonder what the Ralian version of the Plundering of Aron looks like. The Fronelan version might be hidden in the myth in Anaxial's Roster where the Orlanthi gods are hiding in beast shape from the sorcerers coming out of the west (leaving it unclear whether this means the Kachasti, the Vadeli who usurped them, both, or neither). When I include the Pendali in the definition of Orlanthi, I do so because of their eastward migration after their defeats against the Serpent Kings - some of their descendants ended up in Basim, others in the Solanthi valley. Greymane clearly is the epitome of a Solanthi Orlanthi. He also is a heir to the Pendali lion magics. Note that a lot of the Pendali descendants ended up becoming Seshnegi Malkioni after the monotheistic reform that followed the Serpent King dynasty. I include the Enjoreli (also known as Tawari bull people - a similar case to the Pendali Basmoli and Eneraii Galanini, linking a pastoral or even agricultural and early urban culture to a hsunchen folk) in my observations on hill barbarians even though most of these ended up to become upright Loskalmi westerners. This is supported in the Guide: The bull-riding clearly is a nod to the Tawari/Enjoreli, and probably continues at least as a ritual duty of the kings (much like the bull-drawn wagon that had to be operated by the Merowing kings according to Einhard's Vita of Carolus Magnus). (English translation of Vita Karoli Magni) (Einhard writes about oxen, but he is quite partial about the uselessness of the Merowings, and never witnessed the rite himself.) The Hykimi alliance shown in the same map, between the Enjoreli and the Talsardian Kingdom, mentions cattle-herding pastoralists. That means Tawari, and a continuum of Tawari bull people from the Esus river to the Neliomi Sea. When I see a mention of KefTavar in the Bisos cycle in Entekosiad, I see a hill barbarian origin that uses the same ancestor as the Enjoreli, which makes me assume that these folk had kin further east (beyond the bear lands, in Charg and Vanstal). The Talsardian kingdom probably built on the Bisos mythology. KefTavar descends from the sky when he mates with Esus - indicating a star presence (not unusual for Orlanthi deities) and a possible foreign origin of the god (foreign to Arir, that is).

@Ali the Helering They live where Genert's Garden used to be, We know that there are lots of things that have been forgotten about that place. These guys (or their parents) could for instance have sculpted the statues of the Plateau of Statues (I don't think they did), or have maintained Yamsur's light or Genert's Palace before the Chaos invasion. The people who would have known have mostly perished, or fled in a state of terror that made them forget their own identity, let alone that of a bunch of magicians at Orathorn. They could have hidden behind a Thorn Rose-like fence that only Sheng (or some of his Zolathi) could penetrate, to explain their inactivity throughout much of history. Or they are mystics themselves, and failed to avoid entanglement when facing HonEel and the Lunars, releasing a huge load of power that they accumulated on their unknown path to Liberation. Or the Night of Horrors _was_ one of their trials on that path, and the Lunars and Pentans simply were sucked into that horrific experience without proper preparation. The point is that they could be immensely capable magicians without having meddled with the world for all of history. The only magical entities that ever grew up in their neighborhood were the EWF (they sit right on one of the dragon wings for the dragon creation project), Sheng's empire, and then encroachment by the Lunar expansion. We have no tales whether they hid from the EWF or whether they joined (or otherwise participated in the weird mystical things that happened in the EWF). Their participation in the Night of Horrors may have been the tribute they had to pay to Sheng for their ongoing existence, never mind that Sheng was gone - an obligation that needed to be delivered to remain on the path of Liberation.

Actually, any surfeit of magic can cause a collapse of reality, whether chaotic or non-chaotic in nature. Both the Lunars and the Pentan hirelings fielded magic of near compromise-breaking dimensions, and when the two magics clashed, a rift in reality opened. Even illuminates could get lost in such an intrusion of the Void.

You seem to have missed the Prince of Sartar comic, which has seen rather few armored Orlanthi. The average carl family head probably has some armor, although hardly anything like the kind of armor a weaponthane would field. Other members of carl families probably make do with hard hats and some quilted cloth under leather, relying on their shields for armor (if any). A good alternative is woad, if the character is somewhat strong in magic. Spears are the typical weapon - affordable, and useful in other situations. Same goes for axes. Swords as we understand them are probably the province of nobles and weaponthanes, shorter blades like the seax or the Crocodile Dundee-style bowie knife would be more common (again serving for more purposes than just warfare). Weirdos might specialize on bows rather than slings. Slings are popular since they can convey Thunderstones and are cheap missile weapons to keep medium-sized predators away from the herds.

Sandy Petersen's Gods War boardgame, I think. The Kickstarter ought to start in very few months.

My campaigns rather had the problem that there wasn't enough advancement into the levels of competence I feel most comfortable when running a game. Specialisation wasn't a problem, either. The previous experience system even of RQ3 (modified by Vikings) allowed for professions that the people were identifying themselves by, like boat builder or carpenter (all of these with a mandatory background in farming, too). There is a limit how much a rather new Viking colony on Celtic shores can support single purpose characters, so having a somewhat broadened background seemed the right thing to do.

Paraphrasing Nick Brooke, there are three most difficult heroquests in Glorantha - the Lightbringers' Quest, the Red Goddess Quest, and I Fought We Won. All of them have a stage of utter defeat, with the LBQ's "Lost in Hell" stage maybe the least abject (and still utmost desperation). The quester has to face this defeat, his destruction, and then to go on.

To play an aldryami probably makes this to play a rootless elf or an emissary who has rootless tendencies. The closest thing to a HQ treatment of Aldryami I can recall was the cover of the Thieves Arm issue of the Unspoken Word, IIRC tied to a hero band inside that fanzine. There was an aldryami character in one of the hero bands in Masters of Luck and Death, too, IIRC with stats. There has to be some major reason to leave the forest and run around with humans. Perhaps having undergone an I Fought We Won heroquest (discussed here) from the aldryami perspective (and no, I have no idea what exactly Fwalfa Oakheart did) might create such a bond with non-aldryami. Given the age of your son, I would make this experience a character background info - you were trapped in this magical place, all alone, facing the big evil and destruction, and as you did so, you noticed these other people doing so too, so you left your beloved forest and joined them. In maybe a few more words, showing some of the pictures from the Prince of Sartar comic.

We haven't seen much of an in-depth description of Orlanthi outside of Dragon Pass or Talastar. The Talastari are quite similar to the Dragon Pass - they battled it out a millennium ago, and for a while Lokamayadon's ways dominated all the Orlanthi in the Bright Empire until Harmast "returned" the ways of Heort (as he knew them). Basically that's reformation and counter-reformation. A strong unification occurred in the early Dawn Age when Theyalan missionaries brought their ways and their addresses to the gods to all the Hill Barbarians, creating a greater unity than there had been as the consequence of immigrating pastoral clans or conversion of beast folk in the Storm Age. Later there have been numerous waves of obligatory doctrines like Lokamayadon's Greater Storm or Obduran's Dragonfriend, not to mention God Learner meddling in Slontos and Umathela (and possibly Fronela), and strong counter reformations like Harmast or Alakoring that spread out among the hill barbarians. Such religious indoctrination/renewal does help to create some continuity while maintaining local identities. That said, for most of the last 600 years, no internal re-definitions of the Orlanthi religion have shown up, and the struggle with lunarized Orlanthi vs. traditionalists is mostly limited to those regions described in depth. The Sylilans were Orlanthi following Odayla in his guise as the Star Bear. Does this offer enough variation to you? The Yelmalian Sun Dome Temples in Saird basically are Orlanthi in culture - compare them to the Germanic descended Limitati of the Roman Empire. The Harandings are (or were) boar worshipping Orlanthi. Greymane's tribe retain Basmoli/Pendali features integrated in their Orlanthi ways. The Ralian Orlanthi are infused with strong Arkat or anti-Arkat stances (depending when and where you ask). Some of them may still think that Nysalor's Bright Empire was the best thing that ever happened to them. Fronelan Orlanthi might be worshipping Vorthan as their war god, the god of the Red Planet that is anathema in the name of Jagrekriand or Shargash to the Dragon Pass Orlanthi. Then there is the question of Orlanthi with foreign overlords. Such as the Lunars, the Jonatings, the Trader Princes, the Safelstran city states. As an afterthought, add the Kingdom of Night followed by Belintar's Holy Country for the core region of Kethaela.

Harald (aka @jajagappa) gave you the full set of relevant research finds. I have forced the I Fought We Won myth to only one group of desperate lightbringers in the course of the first crazy run of Rise of Ralios - basically they faced a situation where all the world had gone badly wrong. Arkat had returned five times, and all of them far from the solution to their problems that they had envisioned, even the one they themselves had brought back. So they went onto a Lightbringers Quest another time, and received Nysalor for their troubles, and were pleased with that outcome of a slightly shortened Red Goddess Quest as they had a light to counter the encroaching forces of Darkness. Then the Arkats gathered to meet Argin Terror and the Chaos he brought, and the world of the lightbringers threatened to break apart, so they went on the I Fought We Won quest, and found the strength to face Chaos and avert the destruction. The main reward of the I Fought We Won quest is an unshakeable resolve to save what you value from utter destruction. The most corrosive effects of Chaos are dampened - you still suffer in body and soul, but that won't stop your efforts to stand up to it and fight it back. This is almost a mystical power of refutation, but not from exclusion of the trappings of the world, but from inclusion of all of Creation. This can be paired with the practice of illumination which lets you step back a bit from involvement with the world, a most powerful combination if you are ready to meddle with powerful magics better left alone - this is what Argrath and his warlocks are doing. There is another aspect to I Fought We Won - you find unexpected allies fighting the same foe as you do, independent from you and your own community, and there is a chance that you can join forces with them afterwards, leading to the benefits that allowed the victory of the Unity Battle where mortals and demigods managed to defeat the Chaos Horde that had won several battles against the great gods. In facing the big evil alone, they will make contact with other foes of that big evil, and they will recognize fellow absolvents of that quest, and be able to ally with them. One trouble with making this a group experience is the personal nature of the I Fought We Won experience as per the initiation experience described by Harald, which is why I suggested to land the players in roles alien to their culture - basically making them cultural heroes for other peoples of Glorantha (like mostali, aldryami, very different humans) and giving them access to (at least one use) of those peoples' magics. A character cast in a mostali version of I Fought We Won might receive gifts from Isidilian like giant jolanti or the loan of the Cannon Cult for a battle. A character finding himself as protector of the forests may receive aldryami growth magics. A character perceiving the I Fought We Won through the Zzabur perspective might get access to sorcery. All of these are just vague ideas - about as vague as the (highly chaotic, from a referee point of view) outcome of the 1995 Rise of Ralios freeform.

First off - I am a German who has been writing and thinking about Glorantha for more than 25 years now, and I hardly ever saw the need to translate those terms, or locations. I think about Glorantha in English, mostly... God Time is the magical realm that exists parallel to historical Glorantha, it is the full set of all the myths. Other terms for it are Cyclical Time, the Hero Planes, or simply the Otherworld. Geek alert on: The Gods' Age is a (large) subset of God Time. There was a mythical era before the conception of gods, and there was a Gray or Silver Age following the Greater Darkness that followed the rules of God Time only to some extent. Geek alert off. To the Orlanthi, those terms may be largely synonymous. To an eastern or draconic mystic, there might be a distinction which could be meaningful for early levels of mystical understanding. Malkioni westerners are treating the arrival of gods as a mistake in their creation myths which define their understanding of cyclical time and the hero planes. There might be a better set of German terms for these concepts if we sit down and discuss what these terms are meant to convey. Direct translations aren't always the best options.

The problem here is that if you put a party through a series of experiences, sooner or later all of the characters will have made the same kinds of experiences. Especially if these skills are ones that had no obvious champion in the party at the onset.

Little has been published about them - their main activity was their role in the Night of Horrors (or was it Nights of Horror? I always get confused about where to assign the piural). Sandy Petersen mentioned that he did some exploration and definition of these sorcerers in his games, and said he would consider writing that up. Failing that, we'd have to quiz him at Kraken's Secrets of Glorantha panel. They don't appear to be connected to any of the Westerner sorcerers, and I hesitate to make them an entirely unconnected group, so what about a group of exiles from the East studying the magical opportunities offered by the Hellcrack? Alchemy, the Pill of Immortality and other sorcerous achievements are documented for Kralorela and beyond.

Do you want to run this as an initiation scenario (initiation of the characters, or initiation of (former) dependents of the characters), or do you want your players to run the quest as a problem-solving approach? Casting the characters in supporting roles of an initiation quest might put them through the events of I Fought We Won in a non-Heort perspective (e.g. depending on which Bad Uncle they represented during the initiation rite of someone else).

Sorry, @David Scott, yes, I am slipping - I was thinking of the clashing of arms and magic, which hasn't happened. Waha's people do cross the Zola Fel regularly, and few are the cases where a khan is drowned by an angry floodwave. And if you look at the rivers monomyth, washing away bad chaos and closing rifts is thre most honorable thing a river can do. Although the Syphon gets some bad press for syphoning off some of the Creekstream River's waters to deal with the Foulblood void in the Footprint, Sky River Titan set the example, and the rivers of the world followed suit. Waha only helped the Good River to do the godly work.

IMO the HQ stats give you a guideline to create the RQ character (of whichever edition), and little more. The HQ abilities don't map to the RQ skill list, with the possible exception of combat skills. If you want to do the scrunchy ability conversion, take into account that the HQ ability is rolled against a difficulty as an opposed roll. An unmodified RQ skill of 30% may map to a HQ ability of 13 for normal difficulty (haven't done the math).

The oases are all manifestations of water spirits in the Wastes. They are holy places for all Waha-ites, and there is a lot of mutual respect. Waha visits the oases and does his things about the Protectresses and the altars. No overt hostility here. Then there are the water spirits we know from Nomad Gods - led by Zola Fel, including Dew Maiden and River Horse. I cannot recall any hostility between Waha and Zola Fel. The untamed serpents of the Wastes and also Prax are different. They are violent invaders, much like the Godtime waters of the second Flooding (which saw the creation of Worcha). They threaten herds and clans when they rush by. Violent invaders must be fought.

Chris, you're basically reliving the RQ3-based discussions on the RQ Daily some 20+ years ago. Lots of amends were suggested to get the priest out of his temple at least part of the time. I'll suggest a couple of those time-tested amendments: While the priest (or advanced other Divine Magic User) has to stay a full day in the temple, performing a series of rites at the right time at the right shrines, there is lots of other time during which he will do the priest's other jobs. Participating in high holy day sermons will regain a point of reusable divine/rune magic for any cult member. Leading a holy day service will give your priest a POW gain roll (and enough time to regain a point of that magic). Holding services with a sufficiently large audience (all of whom channel magic to the god through the service of the priest) will do so outside of holy days, too. Performing the Spell Teaching requires the priest to overcome the spell spirit's MP to initiate spirit combat with the supplicant - POW gain roll opportunity. There is a "down side" here, too - assume that a lot of that divine magic is cast on behalf of the cult, in the temple, not for personal gain. It is nice that the priest can shave off the spell regaining from his cult obligation time (which may have been 60 or 90% of his available time IIRC). And while I am expounding on the RQ3 improvement discussions of those years, let me introduce you to the concept of a pool of divine magic points that can be applied to any spell the priest has sacrificed POW for. But you are right - successful POW gain rolls were rare in my RQ3 campaign. Probably because we didn't use that much offensive magic where you had to overcome a target's magic points.