Joerg

Are the Four Otherworlds separate? They are. The realm of energies and matter differs greatly from the Godworld or the Spirit Plane. There is no mystical Otherworld, btw.

All the four ways of magic address the Ultimate, and apart from the mystics the energies acquire runic flavors through the transcendent runes - and here it matters little if it is the materialist (or rather energetic) view of the sorcerers, the theist view of Great Gods, or the animist view of Great Spirits, holders of the runes. The magic encountered by the mortals of the Inner World is mediated through lesser manifestations of essences, deities or spirits.

Is it possible to worship an essence, interact animistically with a deity or sorcerously with a spirit? Yes. Does the entity mind being approached by a let's say variant method? Probably it is not the best mode of approaching the entity, but expect results.

Are magical modes miscible?

Evidently yes - the Easterners don't seem to have any problems combining worship of the Parondpara with sorcerous spells for everyday magics.

Does this mean that the Cults of Orlanth offer sorcery? No. Do they offer animist magic? Some might, others not. Do the Aeolians contact Orlanth? Sure, if strangely. Do they derive sorcerous spells from Orlanth? Not quite. Do they have sorcerous spells for the realm of air? You bet.

Do the Warlocks mix modes of magic? Sure. They all are "crazed" by magical insights beyond the normal scope of Orlanthi magics. The easterners probably are living in a daze of enlightenment pouring down on them. The Lunars are insane illuminates, or at least one of the two.

The old HQ1 orthodoxy had it that until the Hero Wars, there was no mixing of magical modes - unless you were one of the defiant entities like Storm Bull, Eurmal, the troll gods, Chaos, the Lunars... the list grows long enough to ask why to make exceptions for the few "misapplied" modes.

I do endorse Charles' theory. Humans from Danmalastan turn out to be just mortal humans when exposed to the rest of the world without the protection of their magic and their ancestral lifestyle. If they turn to gods to help them through their plight, can they expect to maintain their immortality? No, why should they.

So, do I have a problem that we find no sorcerous magic in the cult of Issaries? Not really. He probably traded it away.

More seriously, the power of communication is less of what you know (knowing other languages doesn't make you a conversationalist in those languages) but what you do. It is about accepting what your opposite does and says, and replying in a like manner. Having lost their distinctions of caste, the adoption of the theist ways or even Hykimi ways is a logical way out. So, yes, they trade their sorcerous ways for survival.

As I said above, the magic outside of the mystic system is channeled through the runes. The Kachasti connection to the Communication rune may well remain.

And, if there is an entity of another realm that stands for this rune, contact and communication will be made. Sooner or later.

7 minutes ago, Jeff said:

 

I think someone just got a point towards Illumination. 

Does that make me a Riddler?

14 hours ago, Baulderstone said:

This is why RPG rule books should be printed on real paper instead of that shiny stuff. I can lightly pencil in errata in the margins on paper without permanently defacing the thing. 

I have given up on marginalia and use postit stickers instead. They make looking up those passages easier, too.

Kachasti or Kachisti? To me the second version feels like bad spell checking...

The Helerings are one of several Storm Age arrivals of warlike demigods whose descendants became mortal humans. According to Revealed Mythologies, the Helerians fought the Waertagi during the Vadeli Wars. They came from the rainclouds, were good with ships, allied with the Banthites and enslaved some Vadeli dragonships and their Triolini attendants.

Before they attacked the Waertagi, the Helerians share the blame for destroying the Tadeniti. However, if they were taking slaves (as the example with the Waertagi shows), they may have done so with the Tadeniti earlier on, too. And while I hesitate to make any suggestion of making light of Vadeli enslavement, I wonder whether the Helerians didn't rather absorb their "slaves" into their own culture, making them disappear as Logicians. Still, this may be the entry point for Lhankor Mhy into the Theyalan myths.

So the original Helerians were shape-changing cloud folk with cloud ships that also worked on the sea surface, who entered recorded history from the southwest and fought the Tadeniti and Waertagi successfully. Whether as allies of the Vadeli or whether the Vadeli simply profited from their expansion by striking at a second front is another question. Neither Valind nor Solkathi are named as allies of the Vadeli, but that might have been an oversight by Zzabur.

After the defeat of the Banthites and the Vadeli in the south, the Helerians disappear from Western history. Enter the Helerings in Heortling Mythology from the lands of Andal which they share with Hykimi folk, in the southwest.

There, the Helerings ally with the seas surrounding Ernaldela to summon Worcha. After Worcha was defeated, the Helerings and the followers of Orlanth meet for battle, but instead Orlanth and Heler become friends (or lovers), and the Helerings become the third Great Tribe of the Orlanthi, along the Vingkotlings and the Durevings.

My personal theory for the Durevings is that they are the Golden Age Earth Folk that preceded the Storm Age. All those handmaidens of Ernalda, all those serpent temples of which two survived into the Dawn (Old Seshnela and Estali), and all those Lowfire husbands and tamed Wild Man giants like Entru or Tada. The people who the Kachasti met on their eastward Speaking Tour. Those who accepted the Beast People protectors to survive the Storm Age and Darkness, like the Enjoreli, Enerali or Pendali - note: not the Tawari, Galanini or Basmoli Hykimi, but the husbandized (or rather shared son) version of these Hykimi folk. Building cities.

Did the Kachasti go native here during enslavement by the Vadeli (or escaping from that)? I think so.

But note how the Speaking Folk and the Book Folk of Danmalastan disappears from the protection of Zzabur, and how we find a Speaking God and a Knowing God joining forces with a certain Storm God.

9 hours ago, metcalph said:

There are no longer any Saints Blessings - Everybody just has spells (or states of being) derived from a Saint's philosophical discoveries.  The chain of veneration still exists although it is no longer called veneration. Once could refer to spells derived from the Abiding Book as being a liturgy but I think the current thinking is to make everything part of general wizardly duties.

I did like the concept of secular orders in HQ1 where e.g. craft guilds had their own (really limited) grimoires linked to their craft which allowed them to use "spells" as an enhanced process of performing their skills. A magic of making and doing - something hinted at in the tribes of Danmalastan. At least I don't quite see Zzabur or other wizards as masters of the flensing knife or the preparation of glue or parchment in order to transfer Vadeli skin into book bindings.

On 11/7/2015 at 10:06 PM, Pentallion said:

I remember well the days when playing D&D got people labeled as Satanists.  Nearly two decades later, MtG dropped their iconic card Wrath of God just to not piss off the American Taliban.  Retconning the west to make it not a parallel to Christianity feels a lot like paying tribute to the American Taliban.  It doesn't really matter whether it's like Hindu, Jewish, whatever, so long as it's never, ever like Christianity.

 

Well, F that S, is how I feel about it.  

I strongly doubt that anybody behind the decision to take out the mediaeval and renaissance parallels spared a second even thinking about those people. The recent Glorantha publications aim at an adult readership and might have to be sold within brown paper bags if they were available in your FLGS in the Bible Belt.

Yes, of the real world monotheistic religions Christianity has been dissected a lot for conflicts and terms that create a familiarity. Crusades, saints, prophets, churches. Blame the card game Credo (which generates insidious insights to the nature and evolution of the Nicaean creed) and the freeform How the West Was One which started the Gloranthan community to work on the West, if you want. Or sit back and read some of the discussions we had in 1993 and 1994 while trying to find a consensus how the West in the Third Age worked. About how not to get lost too much in the trappings of Christianity.

Any Taliban (of whichever creed) are likely to get apoplexies if they read into Glorantha. They won't even get anywhere close to the point where they can make a comparison between the various Gloranthan religions and cults and their own twisted understanding of their holy books.

Just out of interest, what happened to the Chain of Veneration or liturgy or blessings? In terms of magical ecology (or wargaming ressources), are these still a thing?

When it comes to cattle/sheep/similar herd beast herding peoples, it is hard to decide whether they are Storm folks migrating in from the Spike area or native Hykimi groups. The region Bisos comes from is right next to the region where Varnaval led the Andam Horde into Pelanda.

The use of Hsunchen beast god names in Storm folks isn't necessarily an indicator for Hykimi descent, either - the Harandings of Mralothenyi are clearly Orlanthi, but their pig deity bears the same name as the Hsunchen beast spirit we find in Ralios and Ramalia. So if there is a Keftavar, we cannot say whether this is Tawar the Hykimi ancestor of cattle (in Fronela) or another bull god among Storm folk. (Note that Storm folk includes the Praxian Founders and their herds, too, as it does any surviving barbarian culture of descendants of Vadrus with their goats and goatlike herd beasts. At least to the uninformed Monomythist.)

I wonder if there were people who turned into Hykimi to survive the Storm and Darkness Ages. Shapechanging into beasts wasn't limited to the Hykimi - we find both Kodig's and Korol's descendants as shapechangers into beasts in King Heort's stories, and that Fronelan myth in Anaxial's Roster suggests a similar behavior, although that may have been some syncretic myth as the Eleven Beast Hykimi of southern Fronela accepted Theyalan theism.

There is also the question what became of the Kachasti whose Genertelan holdings were in the valley that became the Nidan Mountains. These missionaries/immigrants from Danmalastan penetrated into the Barbarian Belt of Fronela and northern and western Ralios, were enslaved by their Vadeli refugees/PoWs, and then disappeared. Eaten by Chaos always is an option (also with the Vadeli), but an assimilation into the Hykimi of those regions is a possibility, too.

I am certain that the Theyalan missionaries found plenty of myths among the Enjoreli and Rathori of southern Fronela that were known to the cults of Odayla and Storm Bull/Urox, too. Or Esus and Uralda.

Edit: The Battle of Eleven Beasts had beast people fighting on the Council side as well - presumably Praxian allies, possibly Galanini too. There were definitely less than 10 different Hykimi tribes involved (the eleventh being the not quite- or no longer Hykimi Enjoreli, who IMO were similar to the Enerali in their magical origin).

Daka Fal as an exclusive cult, or Daka Fal worship on top of normal Orlanth worship?

Thanks for the reference. To be honest, this is not the kind of "proof" I expected - while Newt makes a great fanzine, bringing up such an obscure aside mention from a personal campaign isn't really helpful.

"troll blood in their veins" - I'll play along and posit that there was a race of darkness-loving seven foot tall people with the appearance of humans that hated Nysaloran missionaries and killed them where they encountered them. Does this mean they have to be related to Kyger Litor?

The Dawn Age knew other man-shaped denizens of the Underworld inhabiting the surface world, like the Shadzorings of Alkoth - hellspawn of Shargash. There is no reason not to have another such race hidden away somewhere in the Elder Wilds. If they were foes of the Bright Empire, there's a good reason why we don't find them any more.

Another possibility could be some kind of vampiric cult that somehow bleeds troll blood into their veins to gain superhuman stature.

Losing the connection to Kyger Litor is a surefire way to get rid of the trollkin curse (doesn't help much if the subject already is a trollkin, though). The example that Sandy Petersen discussed at Kraken are the jungle trolls who lost their Cold to a wound caused by Pamalt.

There is little information on crossbreeding among the races of Darkness.

What we know:

An uzko mother mating with a Zorak Zorani demon will mother a male Great Troll thanks to a heroquest by Cragspider.

Bina Bang mating with the Dehori demon Lord Lurker in Shadows produced the male uzko Pikat Yaraboom (uzko mostly, but beware the demonic Left Hand of Death).

There could be a trend here - Darkness demons are able to father sons on uzko mothers. Unions with uzuz mothers might produce even better and valid forms of uz.

I think that Neep Trollbane might have managed to mate with uzko mothers, but it is unknown whether the Neepspawn were the result of such activity or born from matings with (superior?) trollkin mothers.

There is no data on other crossbreeding efforts other than with the Kitori. A (full) Kitori mating with an uzko mother will father uzko-shaped half-Kitori, never trollkin. If these descendants breed on, they may form a clan that looks like a clan of dark trolls. They don't belong to Kyger Litor without a ritual of adoption, though.

There are no recorded attempts for crossbreeding jungle trolls with dark trolls. The new/rediscovered race of Horned Trolls among some jungle trolls in Pamaltela hasn't been around for long enough to tell whether they can crossbreed with their jungle troll relatives and what would result from such unions, or whether they breed true.

If you go back far enough, the roots of Mazdaism and Brahmanism may be a good starting point for understanding Danmalastan. The Original (Runic) Beings of Danmalastan (including Zzabur) are the equivalent of the gods worshipped by mortals elsewhere, and the Malkioni regard those gods as great-uncles who strayed from logic for personal aggrandizement. The folk of Danmalastan underwent a split when the Vadeli maintained a school of logic that differed from that of Zzabur. Both Zzabur and the Vadeli got uglier and uglier in their means in that conflict. While neither the Vadeli nor the Brithini had gods that could be demonized, they had ancestors that filled that role.

I don't know of a single story where Vadel had a conflict with Malkion in any of his stages. It is always Vadel and Zzabur going at each other with gusto. Zzabur finally expelled Malkion, refusing to accept any guidance other than his own. The Vadeli wars corrupted both parties - the Pelandans interacted with different groups of blue-skinned sorcerers that we cannot identify as either Vadeli or Brithini-related Kachasti (or yet other peoples of blue skin that "learned" from Vadeli, Brithini or Waertagi in their conflicts).

The Malkioni are identified as former Brithini who left Zzabur's influence for a variety of reasons. The most prominent example is the exodus of Froalar to avoid a fratricidal succession war for the position of the ruling Talar of Brithos (basically Zzabur's governor), leaving this role for his brother. This established Frowal and possibly some of the other Seshnelan cities ending on -wal.

That dualistic thought is present in Fronelan sects/schools as well, with the Creator of the material world seen as the demiurge.

The Magi of ancient Persia are at least superficially a class of non-sacerdotal wise folk caring for the spiritual needs of their people, although their original duties included those of sacrificers of bulls. I don't know enough about the Indian caste systems through the ages to comment on how good a Malkioni parallel they are.

The Greek philosophers and their schools are probably the best parallel for the role of the zzabur caste in Malkionism. They adhere to the teachings of their founders without necessarily deifying their founder. Confucianism might be another place to look for.

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?

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.

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.