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Joerg

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Posts posted by Joerg

  1. The Karn are described as having troll blood, being larger and stronger and being known for their assassins, which suggests an affinity to darkness.  Yet they are neither Tuskers nor do they give birth to trollkin.  So I would think that A:  Tuskers could be troll related and B: the answer to the cure to trollkin lies somewhere in the answer to why at least Karn don't breed trollkin like offspring.

    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?

     

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  2. 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?

  3. 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.

  4. 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.

  5. They aren't entirely human, and bear the mark of troll ancestry as well; some sources say this interbreeding dates to the Great Darkness before Time but more reliable sources indicate the troubled times at the end of the Second Age. Their skulls are human, save for the troll-like elongated face, diminutive tusks and the ridges at the back of the skull attached to their jaw muscles.

    The skin-walker Tusk Brothers, despite the similarity in name, are different in nature and behavior to the Tusk Riders.

    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.

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  6. It seems to me that the core of Glorantha points to the point of view that men and women are equal in power but not identical in motivations. Furthermore, the gender of the gods is generally driven by mortal identification rather than being an intrinsic property of the deity. As to Ernalda, she is generally believed to be a stronger magician than Orlanth.

    In my opinion, the most dangerous mortal named in the Guide is Yolanela  (as Jar-Eel, Harrek, Godunya and the like are not mortals).

    Yolanela, called the Taloned Countess: ... She openly murdered one rival satrap, and is suspected of secretly murdering her husband as well, and forbids any of her daughters to marry or engage in sex. ... She is forbidden to come within three days’ travel of the capital, Glamour, and is required to have knees, wrists, and nose on the ground whenever within range of the Emperor’s Voice.

    She also happens to be the mother of 3 Hero level men and seven other knights of renown. I've not yet found a mention of what her daughters are capable of 

    Charles

    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

     

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  7. 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.

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  8. 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.

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  9. 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.

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  10. Female adventures are a bit diffferent, but females are essential on heroquests on behalf of a community. It is close to a miracle that the Lightbringers succeeded with only 1-2 females on board, but then the second protagonist spent much of the quest sleeping in the Underworld sending spiritual support, beckoning the questers towards her.

    I am in the process of writing a (HeroQuest, or rather system-less) scenario for the female descendants of a Sartarite Asrelia priestess and their associates. It contains things only the women can do (such as performing a burial and enbalming rite), and things everyone is somewhat good or bad at, such as negotiating, theft, feats of strength, and if unavoidable, combat.

    The group in the play examples of HeroQuest Glorantha is (somewhat loosely) based on Jeff's house campaign, which is female-dominated with four powerful but quite different female protagonists, doing heroquest stuff that might not be considered heroic in a swords and sorcery style, although such things appear in the sorcery part of Swords and Sorcery fairly regularly.

     

  11. The Kraken seminar on upcoming Glorantha publications was mostly recorded by Fabian Kuechler, and might be in post-production now. I think you have most of the topics and subsequent Essen game fair developments covered, at least those without the gentlemen's NDA that got recorded.

    You did miss out on the Kraken chapbooks which should have been made availale by now (at least as pdfs): last year's Robin Laws' Sharper Adventures for HeroQuest, and this year's transcript of Sandy's Secrets of Glorantha seminar from last year.

  12. So here's an introduction of another newcomer to this site with a loaded history of activity in the RuneQuest and Glorantha community.

    I am Jörg Baumgartner, active on RQ- and Glorantha-related mailing lists and similar newfangled stuff like yahoo-groops, forums or social networks since 1993, and responsible for some sense and some nonsense on those lists, and in a number of cooperative efforts to explore specific corners of Glorantha like Whitewall, the Wilmskirk tribal confederation, or the city of Karse. I've been involved in the Chaos Society (officially Deutsche RuneQuest-Gesellschaft e.V.) almost since its beginning, in various roles (such as president, editor of the German fanzine for 6 issues, giant referee in the life action trollball games at Castle Stahleck, associate editor of Tradetalk), and a somewhat regular attendee at the German RQ/Glorantha/BRP related conventions at Stahleck and lately also the Kraken, as well as a couple of European ones (Convulsion, Chimeriades).

    Other than the (now defunct) Buserian Index to Glorantha that was hosted on an older incarnation of the Glorantha site, I still have to deliver my magnum opus for Glorantha. After a long pause I have returned to writing for publication of Glorantha-themed material, and I might even get around to getting my sentimental collection of Glorantha pages back into shape.

    I am without a steady roleplaying group right now (or rather I am on a long term leave from my former gaming group due to commuting interfering with my gaming time), so I do most of my roleplaying at conventions (and little enough of that, too).

    My major RQ/BRP project was a RQ3 campaign in a fantasy version of RQ Vikings, with a world inheriting from history, Norse myth, popular literature on Welsh and Irish myth, Midkemia, Glorantha and even Pern that also was shared with other narrators of my group. I modified some Stormbringer and Drakar och Demoner rules for inclusion in this world, too.

    I have a weird idea for a space opera setting featuring atolls and dugout ships from space plankton and nekton crewed by savages alongside with technologically more advanced human and nonhuman (and mixed) civilisations that I want to write up as a gaming background. (Those space organisms are the feral offspring of an earlier culture's biological space ships and stations. There are no psionic powers without sufficiently advanced technological crutches to explain them, a number of different methods for cheating interstellar distances in space, and a number of ideas for borderline transhuman cultures forming the leading edge of humanity's development.)

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  13. I tend to regard spaceships as three-dimensional mazes with access crawls to whatever piece of equipment is crammed into this volume inside the hull (or connected on the outside). Think e.g. of the position of the crew quarters on the Firefly - below the access corridor to the bridge.

    You'll find clean corridors mainly in passenger-accessible areas, and depending on the availability of artificial gravity and acceleration compensators there would be a varying regiment on loose parts inside the ship, whether during planned acceleration phases (such as airplane take-off and landing) or during cruising periods.

    A military transporter won't have any smooth corridors except where needed for speedy exits - expect utility hand-holds, cargo nets clamping optional equipment to the bulkheads, and low comfort for the payload (i.e. the grunts or special forces). A ship for exploration missions - whether intelligence gathering for military, political or economic purposes, surveying of ressources, or scientific expeditions - will have corridors stuffed with workplace niches for specific instruments/experiments, even if those are usually overseen from a central control area, if only for maintenance purposes.

    If you have gravitation control, you could have segments with different directions for "down" in your ship, allowing for a foldout floor map wider than the exterior bulkhead, with creases offering some transitional effect similar to the centripetal space stations of e.g. Babylon 5 or Clarke's 2001. This can be especially fun for investigating unknown space ships or space installations.

     

  14. You could create a template for kingdom stats similar to the ship stats that exist in a number of RuneQuest variants and use those.

    I would rather look at what wargames or strategy would make of information like those about provinces and lands surrounding the Roman Empire in Cthulhu Invictus, and use that kind of data.

    I would work with subdivisions of those kingdoms (that could change their administration without the former owner being put out of business), and assign traits to those subdivisions. Traits like overall satisfaction of a subdivision, of social groups inside those subdivisions (e.g. nobles vs. freemen vs. serfs, and minority groups).

    Loyalty to the king would be an important stat, likely modified by satisfaction. And I'd include a rule that too high levels of satisfaction create new demands by groups within that subdivision that have to be met to maintain satisfaction.

    Factors like military expenses, military presence, presence of peace-keepers, access to luxuries, education, healing, food, water, arable land for expanding populations all would figure.

    I played in a game with a similar premise under a variant of the Heroquest rules at last year's Kraken convention. There the status of the kingdom was formulated by internal and external problems, or problems resulting from interaction with a rival group. Basically, the skills of the kingdom were matched with the severity of the problem and the applicability of those skills. Something like this should be possible with the percentile skill system of BRP, too.

     

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  15.  I do take the point about regional variations and accemts. But it's nice to know what the "proper" pronunciation would be. Which nakes me think - I wonder if this is an area in which Lhankor Mhy sages would clash with Issaries cultists, the written word vs the spoken word?
     
    I don't see why the Lhankor Mhy sages would need any outsiders to clash about such a topic - there are entire schools of LMites dedicated to oral tradition.
     
    Given my moderate knowledge of European languages, there is a continuum of similar sounds for certain consonants or consonant combinations. The sequence g - k - kh - ch - kj/sh/sch/sk - zh/j - y (the latter a consonant as the J in my name or as in "you") doesn't really have distinct steps if you take local variations of Scandinavian, German or Romanic languages. A Switzerland ch and a Norwegian k (followed by an e, i, y or umlaut) or kj can be quite similar, or worlds apart. Not to mention the subject of long glottal consonants (as kk in Finnish).
     
    Then there are pronunciation differences on an entirely different level: Do you say Lodril, Vestkarthen, Turos, Baba Ulodra or Balumbasta?
     
  16. There are a number of stories around the Cradle incident that would benefit from some exploration.

    How was the cradle built, was there a baby shower by the Elder Giants of the Rockwoods? With the mother busy giving birth, I suppose it is up to the Elder Giant father to construct the Cradle and to equip it with its magical implements and crew.

    I suspect that it is traditionally built from Redwood Trees from east of Dagori Inkarth, possibly Nemolayope's entire dryad's grove gets transformed into the ship and its animated crew.

    I think it is safe to assume that the person Gonn Orta was searching for all those years was Urrrgh the Ugly, whose prayers awakened Pinchining the Gold Wheel Dancer. I don't know how he died (all I know is that Londra of Londros was heir to his hoard of gold wheels), but he is present on the Cradle as Blorn the Statue.

     

    It would be a strange but possibly entertaining scenario to assist Gonn Orta in assembling the Cradle or its treasures.

     

    The Lunar side of the Cradle scenario is strangely one-dimensional. The best piece of motivation we get for a Lunar participant is the description of the priest covered by hoplite and peltast guards exploring the Cradle after they managed to capture it north of the Rubble.

    In fact, the Lunar command of the Cradle actions would be a worthy freeform the size of Tarsh War.

    Tatius the Bright oversees the siege of Whitewall, and any direct order by him will reach the Lunar forces only towards the end of the journey downriver, even if carried by magic or wyvern. I think it is safe to assume that the use of the Watchdog of Corflu has his personal approval - he might even be present for this part of the scenario. Tatius will have a direct representant of the Lunar College of Magic in Pavis, though, who will act in his interests. And one known interest of the Dara Happans is to retrieve those treasures they sent to the EWF overlords all those centuries back which disappeared before or during the Dragonkill War. Pavis with its EWF connections is a legitimate source of plunder for these folks, and I suppose that's what the majority of the Lunar commanders behind the imperial side of the Cradle incident is motivated by. With different opinions about the distribution of any plunder, of course.

    Sor-eel is a member of the Eel-ariash clan, as ambitious a bunch of heroquesters as you can find inside the Empire. I would be astonished if he didn't have secret orders by his clan to deal with opportunities on giant artifacts that don't necessarily comply with what Tatius or the army wants. He might even be behind a Lunar pro-Cradle black ops team.

    Gim-gim might have yet another agenda. He too might have hidden agents among the defenders of the Cradle, or infiltrate some when it lies beached.

    I am not that familiar with the Lunar elite of New Pavis, though - I'll leave it up to you old Pavis hands to come up with other Lunar characters to mis-manage the Cradle incident.

     

    Then there is the off-screen hunt/quest for Pinchining, in the script performed by Garrath/Argrath and his personal retinue between the liberation of the Cradle and its arrival in Corflu. There is no reason not to play this quest. Any ideas what stations there would be?

     

     

     

  17. The Dead of Glorantha

    One of the greatest magics in Glorantha is the living body of a person. There are magics to partake from this magic for other purposes – voluntary sacrifice of magical energy, blood, emotions, even pain and death, but also involuntary donations such as a wraith's or vampire's drain of life, a sorcerer's Tapping, or gruesome sacrifice to enemy demons or deities.

    But the dead still retain quite a bit of the magic that the life person had. Why else would there be head-hunters (besides the Thanatari) or reliquiars of ancestors or heroes?

    Even in societies that destroy the body (by cremation, exposure to scavenger birds, ritual consumption of the dead by friends and family, or unconserved burials leaving the body to the worms), there are remnants of the dead which can (or need to) be interacted with.

     

    Death was introduced to Glorantha via the Sword Story and subsequent branches of that story. Apparently, destruction or annihilation of a person or deity was known before Death entered the world – Umath for instance was shattered into more pieces than could reassemble.

    However, Death wasn't the end of existence. It only marked the transition to another stage of being. Something important was lost, but there remained enough that was recognizably the former person.

    One of the most important cultural accomplishments in order to start into Time was the Separation of the Living and the Dead, a feat usually assigned to the Silver or Gray Age that followed the Greater Darkness (for those who recognized or remembered such a period). King Heort did this among the Theyalans, and other Darkness survival heroes did so among their own cultures.

    Even after this separation, the dead didn't simply disappear, but they were excluded from the activities of the living for most of their existence (time).

     

    With Death also came Undeath, where the dead prey on the living. The Vivamort (or in Ernaldan myth, Nontraya) myth is a companion of the Sword Story, of sidestepping Death by giving up an important portion of Life. A common tale of horror and woes is the rise of dead bodies that attack their former kin or foes, usually under the influence of some foreign and malign controlling agent. If the dead rise on behalf of their kin/comrades, these actions may be regarded as laudable and beneficial to the community, and not necessarily as undeath. In other places, the dead are made to mimic the actions of the living, or do so out of their own volition – e.g. the Fonritian or Dorastan plantations tended by the dead, or the zombie rowers of Kralori warships.

    Another not so uncommon occurrence in Glorantha is the prescence of a spirit, shade or other uncorporeal remnant of the deceased, as exemplified by ghosts. Sometimes these are counted among the undead – usually when forcefully attached to some remnant of their dead body – but in other cases they are regarded as restless dead. And not all cultures think that the dead should rest – even the Death fanatics of the Humakt cult accept the continuing service of their comrade's ghost to the cult, although they strongly oppose any case of somebody or something else controlling these ghosts than their cult.

    Then there are the revenant dead - vampires, liches, draugr, active mummies, or even weirder forms of dead flesh animated by its own spirit/soul/whatever (thinking of the impressive noble undead as seen in Tekumel here), fueled by a self-inflicted or external curse.

     

    The different cultures have vastly different ideas about what they are made of, what's important about that, and what changes when they lose Life. The Malkioni regard themselves as embodied intellects and energy, and possibly the impression they make on other minds, including the World Mind. Depending on their school of philosophy, their identity simply disappears (Brithini), enters Solace, enters Joy, or even attains an angelic or saintly existence.

     

    Theists say that they are made up of souls (some define their body as one form of their soul), and assign different origins and functions to these souls. They also expect the part of their soul that formed a connection to their god(s) to return to the deity's realm in the Otherworld. (They don't have any problem with that existence to be in different "places" of the Otherworld at once, having experienced the non-linear Godtime themselves in their cultic practices. Hence there isn't a conceptual problem for initiation into multiple cults, either – being in one Otherworld place doesn't preclude a simultaneous existence in another place and/or perception. Illumination makes it clear that these really are perceptions of the Otherworld if viewed from beyond.)

    The Kralori think of their souls as a unit that goes to the waiting place to join the god/dragon-emperor when he ascends.

    Animists perceive themselves as part of the spirit world to which they will return after their embodied existence. Possibly to be cleansed of identity, possibly to be reborn, possibly to retain their identity in the company of their ancestors (and after a while their descendants, too).

     

    All of these cultures accept that they leave something behind, too, and that the stuff left behind still has some connection to whatever notion of self they have. That's why they have funeral rites or commemoration services, even for absent bodies (like e.g. drowned sailors, victims of "natural" catastrophes, or bodies lost on a battlefield yielded to the victorious side.) All fear the abuse of these remains.

     

    I wonder if there is (or was) a culture in Glorantha that had its members turn into a trove of memories (like a book, grimoire, clay tablet, seal, or a crystal storing visual memories, to be left in the care of their surviving kin/company.

     

    If the Praxians summon their ancestors to stand besides them in battle, is this viewed as necromancy by their foes? If a dead cultist continues as a cult spirit aiding a living member of the cult, is this sidestepping Death? When a dead hero is manifested by its worshippers to aid them, is this breaching the searation of the living and the dead?

     

    When the dead claim the place of the living on those special holy days in Nochet, how do the many non-Esrolians deal with that? And are their own dead – probably having received a funeral service in the manner of their own culture – participating in this parade of the dead? Will smoky bodies of cremated Orlanthi walk in stride with mummified buried bodies of Esrolians, and possibly skeletons picked clean by scavenger birds (in Grazer style), and whatever burial customs the other foreigners in Nochet practice? Would Kralori who expect their dead to wait for Godunya's ascension meet the "rest" of their deceased? How do the Malkioni deal with this (and the proximity of the Antones Estates to their own part of Nochet)?

     

     

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  18. The normal course of the adventure is that the Lunars succeed to stop it, but that the rebels re-capture it.

    One point about the scenario is the return of Pinchining to the Cradle. Without the Gold Wheel Dancer, the entire trip onto the ocean is pretty pointless.

    If the Lunars manage to hold on to the Cradle, the next question is whether they'd kill the baby or whether a blue moon connection is emphasized by the Lunars.

     

    • Like 1
  19. This is one of the few Gloranthan terms which I pronounce in German: h Soon KHen  (with KH for the scottisch "loch" sound).

    I tend to lose the initial h in hsunchen, but never in Hrestol.

     

    For me Lhankor gets a faint aspiration after the L. I wouldn't insert any glottal stop after the L. Similar e.g. the Khor in Khordavu, or in the alternate spelling Lankhor.

    Another (potentially personal, possibly German only) strangeness is my tendency to ignore the h in th at the end of names, as in Orlanth(i), Skanthi or Glorantha. At the very least, a t- or d-like sound may creep in instead of the sharp th (the one in "think").

     

     

     

     

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