Joerg

Depends on how your bases are distributed. If you have a service station near a jump entrance vector, you don't need the ability to last for months. If you spend months patrolling in stealth mode, amenities and provisions have to last, but that's more a pirate habit. Alternatively, you could have a supply and repair ship servicing the outlying patrols. I would give them a basic duration of about a week if operating near a base.

A System Defense Boat is basically a warship without FTL capacity. They can be any size you want, from hollowed out motorized asteroids with thick crusts of rock to protect the inside to thin-hulled fighter craft that could also be called crewed missiles. Take any class of warship and increase the fighting power for removing the FTL ability. That said, a typical use of sublight armed craft is traffic control and customs service. If your opponent is a soft target like a freighter, "corvette class" vessels are typical. Reserve some space for boarding crews (if only system pilots or customs inspectors).

Maniria becomes a good choice for a playground once we have a better idea about playing in the Holy Country. The Trader Princes are an interesting micro-culture - a bit like Greek or Phoenician colonies among somewhat cultured barbarians of wildly different creed, only relying on mule trains and (comparably) heavy cavalry instead of trading ships and galleys. It could be fun playing at the court of the Trader Prince nominally ruling over the Solanthi valley, with Greymane and his sons regularly mustering huge raiding bands luckily marching eastward. Safelster can be a fun game area. My ideas for Lake Felster feature navies of galleys patroling against pirates and neighboring navies while keeping an eye on the mercantyle vessels (and occasionally their cargoes). If I were to play a game of FGU's ancient Bireme and Galley cosim (https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/18789/bireme-galley) anywhere on Glorantha, Lake Felster would be my first choice. I have fond memories of a play-by-mail RuneQuest game set in Kustria, involving a tour of the Tower of Xud. My character was a member of the Old Arkat Kult Alliance and an initiate of the lady of the lake, a former sailor turning gang leader in the port quarter.

The Esvulari and the Pelaskites from the Vulari peninsula (just northwest of God Forgot) were reckoned to be part of the Hendriki kingdom already in the days of Aventus. Fazzur chose (or was ordered) to leave the Bandori alone after his victory over Rikard. We don't know whether Rikard claimed authority over the Bandori, or whether he supported (or continued to support) the marchers as a shield against Praxian or Lunar aggression from the east. I still like the concept of one major fortress holding enough cavalrists to make a sally in force, occupied when the king of Hendrikiland provides for the warriors, and reduced to a self-sufficient skeleton crew as small as the independent marcher "barons" in their own little fortified steads (or more likely steads with a stronghouse to retreat into in case the nomads come in force). I would expect it to be younger than Exilestead aka Barbarian town further north in the foothills. It might have started as a semi-fortified assembly ground for the local levies, possibly expanded into a more permanent structure during or shortly after Andrin the Mover's reign. Under Belintar I expect something like a half-strength to full strength force to be garrisoned here, possibly depending on the availability of mercenaries and the need for them here or elsewhere.

It is a separate County. There are three counties in southern Heortland - Isles, Bandori, Praxian Marches. The map on p.246 has a clear border along the coastline for God Forgot (also known as Leftarm Isles) towards both Bandori and Marcher County. Given their island location, the inhabitants of God Forgot don't have much to fear from the hydrophobic Praxians. There are "Brithini" in Refuge - that's their only sizeable settlement outside of the Leftarm Isles. I don't see any evidence for their presence outside ore east of Refuge.

I beg to differ - Knight Fort is part of the Esvulari lands, like the Bandori valley and the southern part of the plateau. The Esvulari combine Malkioni and Orlanthi traits, and they imitate the Westerners and their heavy cavalry, aka knights - hence the name. The marches are a place to send malcontents and dissidents to cool off in the constant skirmishes against Praxian braves.

What about RQ2 Snake Pipe Hollow and Apple Lane? Or RQ2 Trollpak? Unlike the RQ3 editions by Avalon Hill, these copyrights should still be with Chaosium, correct?

A mouth-to-mouth wasn't that risky... I had two freeform characters going the sacrificial king routine happily, and there are myths that have attractive versions of Maran. Plus, Maran is a mother goddess skipping the parthenogenesis part. The Illaro dynasty's Sorana Tor wasn't that bad.

Haven't done that since before I discovered that there were rules for an activity like roleplaying. I even have a stack of world building notes for those juvenile heroic games somewhere. That experience helped me a lot when using published rules, though. As kids, my younger sister and I used the Lego city and railway stuff for projecting characters in a modern (well, 1970ies) world not really distinguishable from diceless roleplaying. We didn't have those moveable arms and legs back then, though.

Rather I fell foul of the strange effect that the text editor frame isn't shown while typing on a tablet, so I missed the wrong position in the first publication, and wasn't able to edit because of some time limit. Ho-hum... Back to topic: Griffin Island definitely was labeled Gateway, but then that was the collective term for anything not specifically Glorantha. Why did Gateway get such a bad name in the AH period? Because it was eating up slots for long awaited Glorantha supplements (not to mention the boxes for character sheets...), I suppose. There was a disgruntled customer base of people with Rune Lord characters suddenly faced with sorcerers, rules changes, and a three or four year gap of Glorantha publications, with the detail level in Gods of Glorantha a very far cry from Cults of Prax/Terror. Having missed out all the RQ2 era stuff, I was happy to get the RQ3 Troll Pak, did ignore the extra Kyger Litor cults, and avoided reading my Genertela Box to pieces by typing in the text and distributing it into a database format. (My Gods of Glorantha was less lucky.) At that time I still played on my own campaign world, though, a continent featuring two inland seas separated by a mountain chain, and I would have happily bought all kinds of historical adaptations for RQ3 in addition to more Glorantha material. If the entire pre-renaissance AH publications had been released in a ) an affordable (and durable) format (compare the Oriflam editions, and weep) and b ) within the years 1984-1986, nobody would have minded the crappy scenario that nowadays usually is auctioned off bundled with a lighter. By the time Sun County initialized the Renaissance that lasted through 5 or so more products, the Gateway approach had died. We never managed to boost RuneQuest as much in Germany as I managed to boost the German Midgard rpg that I helped promote by spotlighting it at our local convention, even though we had the Chaos Society putting out a fanzine for it. Not from lack of trying - we managed to get "Free INT" and even two original Glorantha scenario booklets into the FLG shops open for non-mainstream games, but more because of the delay into the 90ies and the rise of the CCGs. I don't like the idea of a collective label for the entire range of RQ settings. Talking about "Mythic RQ" for fantasy historical settings is fine. It is harder to label settings like Future Earth or Luther Arkwright (I'll have to read up on what that's about some day, it doesn't ring any bells for someone with only a moderate level on general geekhood from the continent, although well balanced by over-the-top geekhood in things Gloranthan and a number of other fantasy backgrounds). None of these settings are generic. Classical Fantasy on the other hand is (purposely so, or rather "universal"), and as hard to press into a collective label. On the other hand, why not borrow from the Leicester convention (I think Loz was involved in) and talk about a RuneQuest Continuum?

The colliseum (a so-so mix of pregenerated fighing encounters and gladiatorial stuff) The vikings box - excellent stuff Griffin Island - ripped out of the Elder Wilds Land of Ninja - by the author of Bushido, reprinting most of the Vkikings campaign, otherwise brilliant And two later, highly flammable products I won't go into detail about, one a ruined city setting with a few merits and original rules bits, and the other a scenario book that somehow saw print.

This almost sounds like "Sword Fighting is a limiting ability for the Humakti's Death Rune ability" - while the Humakti gains the special advantage to have a Sword Fighting ability equal or higher to his death rune ability, he alway has to raise his Sword Fighting ability before being able to raise the Death Rune ability to the same level. Unless it is an "Orlanthi all", meaning "it is extremely frowned upon in Humakti circles to have a Death Rune ability greater than the Sword Fighting ability."

The Karn, as in Vampire Legion of Karn, as in Karn's Stead, or something else? Where is that term from? The Tusk Riders probably still call themselves Aramites, regardles of their changed appearance. One old theory was that the son of Harand Boardick that was given to Jogo Zaramzil might have been a missing link to the Aramites. I discussed a possible sidestep to the trollkin curse when the nature of the Kitori was discovered on the World of Glorantha yahoogroup - a troll mother mating with a (full) Kitori would give birth to a dark troll shaped Kitori half-breed, never a trollkin birth. The problem with this was that the offspring somehow was not reckoned to be a descendent of Kyger Litor, if I understood Greg correctly: https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/WorldofGlorantha/conversations/messages/5831 and https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/WorldofGlorantha/conversations/messages/5839 So, while this specific troll mother wouldn't spawn trollkin, she neither would spawn valid heiresses for her lineage from Kyger Litor, as far as I read this exchange. By becoming something else than Kyger Litor's spawn, the uz cease to be uz. Their shape or size is meaningless compared to this loss. The Aramite method (relying on a darkness demon which Gouger had been sent out to kill) might enable a troll mother to give birth to tusked aramites. I don't see how that would be any more desirable than it would be for a non-aramite human woman. According to the Tusk Rider side story in David Dunham's King of Dragon Pass, the Aramite traits can be acquired through an initiation/rebirth rite at the Ivory Plinth, and they breed true when an Aramite couples with an Orlanthi woman. (Although the ability to spawn a child at all may have resulted from the father being a converted human rather than an Xth generation Aramite.) On the other hand, both Cragspider's Great Trolls and the half-Dehori Pikat Yaraboom are counted among the uz without any problems. Maybe it is that iron tolerance that breaks the ancestral bond?

Nope. But one AD&D group that I visit occasionally uses smurfs instead of minis.

Maran has these only above the belt, unlike Dendara's dark sister.

I am intrigued by the mythic Saxons (living in the lands of the Saxons and working in the lands of the Angles before their emigration to Britain). Will this include their activities that gave the gulf of Biscaya the name Litus Saxonicus? Does this include the Nerthus cult as mentioned by Tacitus?

One reason why I doubt the connection between Tusk Riders and Uz is the fact that they don't have any trollkin. The Aramites of the Dawn Age had ordinary human appearance, even though they were darkness worshippers already back then. I have theorized a descent from the Harandings of Maniria or an Entruli background. The Aramites don't appear in Vingkotling tales, but are present in the Heortling tales of Dragon Pass. The epithet "halftroll" appears to be of Orlanthi origin. It is also applied to Urrrgh the Ugly (an individual suggested to have ties to the House of Sartar and/or to the Kitori tribe). The first Aramite called Halftroll is Karastand, the warleader of the Stinkwood forces in the troll wars during the early years of the Inhuman Occupation (described in King of Sartar). Their tusked appearance already spread during the EWF wars, when they were fighting in Ralios, even before the machine wars. In any case, the tusks seem to appear after the trollkin curse.

The only surviving nest outside of Genertela is on Teleos, and it isn't a functional nest with an Inhuman King, either. Dragons are known in the history of the Vithelan lands (e.g. Dogsalu), but have a different origin story there. The Kralori have a different view and might regard Dogsalu just like Sekever as an enemy dragon. Dragons do hibernate elsewhere, too, but don't show much activity there. For the Dragonkill, dragons flew in from all corners of the world.

I still think that that the Aramites managed to get Tusker blood into their folk. I doubt that they are connected to Kyger Litor, although they qualify as darkness creatures for an easier rite of adoption.

I suppose that the sexual frustration of her daughters feeds her magic. Her three named sons are heroquesters or magical leaders rather than major H Heroes, IMO. I think that Yolanela has a few matches in the Guide, though: In the Empire, there is Feathered Eye Woman, the Satrap of Darjiin who sent Harrek to kill Ignifer. While her offspring hasn't received a named mention, she has proven herself as deadly enough. As the mistress of the Dorkath rites, she is about to add another mask to her list... Not sure whether it would be fair to count Moralatap of the Anger, since he's currently male again. Bazkalia Oskor of Ralios is a shamaness who already was active as bounty hunter against the last God Learners at the end of the Second Age. The Orlanthi candidates still wait for Argrath to draw even: The priestess queen of Greenstone, Entarios the Supporter, has quite a bit of magic at her disposal, and did play a major role in the recent history of Sartar. Samastina has vast potential. (Inkarne isn't named in the Guide yet, but she easily outdoes Yolanela.) There appear to be a few alibi heroic fighter women in the Guide - a virgin Woman of All in Fronela, a martial artist in Kralorela

There is a "spoiler thread" in HeroQuest Glorantha, p.68.

Griselda and her female (and male) misfit friends are an undeletable part of the city of Pavis in the 1610s. She didn't make it into the guide except in the authors bio of Oliver Dickinson mentioned for a book on the Aegean bronze age, though. The stories also make clear that she was far from the acceptable or expected norm of females in Pavis (as "Holding the Baby" testifies). A typical kickass female would be Ernalsulva from Sartar - Kingdom of Heroes, especially after her marriage to either the player character or the Lismelder hero. She is wielding her husband like Griselda is wielding that little sword of hers. Kallyr failed miserably? She was killed in a battle that prevented her kingdom from being re-conquered. Before that she masterminded the Dragonrise star dance and fought off the first Lunar counterinvasion through sheer inspiration. Yes, the first rebellion under her name failed, but her come-back changed and shook the entire world. Her role in bringing back the Boat Planet shouldn't be underestimated, either. And Argrath didn't kill Jar-eel, that was Harrek. Having talked to Jar-eel after that battle, I can attest that she was up and about even without her heart beating in her chest, and far from undead... (the latter from the fun freeform game played at this year's Eternal Con) So, are the goddesses boring? At a first glimpse, I'm afraid I have to say yes. At Kraken I had a workshop about my scenario project for supporting the German edition of HeroQuest 2, and in order to keep the deeper Glorantha background manageable and in line with the available information, we discussed what deities to choose for 6 female descendants of an Asrelia priestess through the maternal line tasked with bringing her body to her family tomb in Nochet. We compromised on one Etyries worshipper, 2 worshippers of Ernalda, one of Vinga, one of Lhankor Mhy and one of Yinkin for the German scenario. Basically that's just two characters worshipping a (or rather the) standard female goddess of the Sartarites. I wanted a Lunar cultist among this group of matrilineal descendants to show how far the female offspring can spread through the clans and tribes of Sartar (assuming strict exogamy). The Yinkini is both a nod to Onelisin Cat Witch, the (in)famous daughter of Saronil Sartarsson, and the wish to have a non-conformist character in the group short of sending out a Eurmali. The Vingan is the only woman in the group who has fighting experience for herself, although the Ernaldan healer has lots of battlefield praxis, and the Yinkini is a hunter and tracker in addition to her role as an Orlanthi steadwife. We chose to have a female Lhankor Mhy worshipper rather than one of the Ernaldan/Asrelian tradition keepers in order to offer that peculiar occurrance of a female in a patriarchalic-looking cult to newcomers to the weird of Glorantha. All of the women are married into clans not their birth-clan, as were their mothers (and in two cases their grandmothers), away from the clan of the Asrelia priestess. They all identify with their new clan, but they also retain links to their maternal clan, and back to their matrilineal ancestress, too. This makes Sartarite females networkers in their society. If you are a Sartarite approaching a "foreign" clan, you had best remember whether one of your childhood girl playground friends (sisters, cousins) has married into this clan, or whether one of your "aunts" was born here. The odds are that you have female kin or otherwise in-laws in this clan. (Not that the latter always means that this will help make you welcome here...) The odds are good that some of your party or at least close kin of theirs have already been a guest here for a wedding or a funeral feast. On the other hand, this also means that the six example heroines in my scenario come from clans that are at odds with one another, something their husbands or sons will be sure to remember. Do I expect these characters to be kick-ass? Not from the beginning of the scenario, no. They will be put in situations that are new and alien to them, and occasionally overwhelming. By overcoming the difficulties of those situations, they may become kick-ass. If you take a closer look to the cults of Ernalda, you will find a great variety of behavioral options. Ernalda can be the peace-maker, but she is as much at home in the role of preparing and heating up the feud with a rival - read "The Making of the Storm Tribe" and her role there. She can be the dedicated and loving wife while using her "mother knows best" mindset to undermine whatever stupid idea poor emotional hubby wants to act out against better judgement. Are husbands the only way to take an active role? No, only a very common (and convenient) one. Note that several of the named females have gone through a series of (powerful or otherwise influential) husbands. Both the husband and the wife receive huge benefits from the heroic marriage, which often appear to linger a lot longer with the wives than with the husbands. And while pregnancy puts a damper on adventurous fighting, giving birth or being a mother provides a female hero with strong magical potential that can benefit her later actions. Do you want to play a cool-headed, calculating character? Then don't play a male in the standard role. (Don't play a Vingan, either - these women often outdo their male rivals in displays of emotion.) Do you want to play a changer of worlds? Then don't just rely on your deity's example (unless you chose Larnste or Eurmal). Transcend the limits of the cult. In that case, does your choice of gods or goddesses matter? And remember that the "boring mainstream deities" like Orlanth and Ernalda have the weirdest sets of specialisation hidden behind that apparent normality.

While this feels like grave-digging a thread, it seems that what it takes to get a preomium reprint is the 50th anniversary of Glorantha in 2016, probably a minor kickstarter, and Chaosium being taken over by MoonDesign.

As usual, such name dropping creates lots of questions leading on. Redel the Bear God sounds like a civilized version of Rathor, possibly the form venerated or propritiated by the sedentary folk of the Janube valley and Syanor. Was Jonat subject to the need for hibernation? (And if so, how did he overcome that?) Jonatela grew to be a direct neighbor of Carmania when the Carmanian lion shahs were succeeded or rather overthrown by the bull shahs. What sort of conflicts have there been over Charg before the Ban? Is the yellow bear in any way similar to the blonde spirit bears of the Pacific coastal forests of the USA and Canada? A sun bear (deity)? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kermode_bear Enslaving bear gods appears to be a trend in Third Age Glorantha - Jonat's Yellow Bear, Teelo Estara's Sky Bear and Harrek's White Bear.

I always wondered about these cannibal virgins. Are they obligate cannibals, eating no meat but from (sacrificed) humans, or are they the ritual eaters of some pieces of a sacrifice? Shaker Temple is known for its human sacrifices, and it is considered bad luck to get captured by the warbands worshipping there. I wonder whether they get voluntary sacrifices, whether they trade for slaves for feeding the sacrificial altar, or whether the surrounding clans don't have much of a penal system but are wont to nominate duty as sacrifice in case of major demeanors.