Joerg

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I would prefer something Jurassic rather than Cretaceous. And I imagined them to have much mor musculous upper thighs on their hind legs. Ronance and movement: His connection to the magical roads is well documented. He doesn't cause fertility, but helps find it in the Wastes. His chariot wheels are movement runes.

More thoughts on the bola: It attacks by attacking the mobility of the target. I suppose that magical bolas would be able to capture a target's movement and transfer it to the rider. Maybe a standard Mobility charm among the Bola riders.

The bola is the physical manifestation of the movement rune. Do you think that the Bolo Riders have a special connection to Ronance (after all a god with reptilian associations and the movement rune)?

If you want to adapt more recent dinosaur lore for the bolos, please keep in mind these "design" restrictions based on the Nomad Gods boardgame: - they are herbivores - when running (on two legs, ostrich-like) they extend their heads on their long necks horizontally to the front and their tails horizontally to the rear, allowing their riders maximum freedom to whirl their bolas about. I'd make their tribal element earth and refrain from giving them downy feathers. The beasts aren't supposed to be intelligent, that's what they have their riders for. Like the ostrich riders, bolo riders are rather territorial for Praxians since they have to guard their nesting sites. Bolo lizard eggs ought to resemble dragonewt eggs more than ostrich eggs, with quite leathery, not very chalcic shells. The used shells might be a good material for Praxian armor. I don't think that they have any relation to Storm Bull other than through the Waha chieftain lineages that probably married into the tribe at the time of the Covenant. IMO the lizards are beasts of the Covenant and can be ridden by Impala Riders, Ostrich Riders and not too large Sable Riders, or by children or midgets of other tribes. Bulls/cocks are ridden or slaughtered, while cows/hens are kept for laying eggs.

Zebra riders are tolerated - Olgkarth, the zebra chief who accompanied Dorasar to Pavis, lived among the Pol Joni with his tribe. Given the reliance of the Zebra riders on horse mares to breed their cavalry zebras, I would expect a small permanent presence of Zebra riders among the Pol Joni.

There is a way around the marriage rites. A lot of the fertility festivals include a period of divine licence even for married couples, not necessarily restricted to the re-enactors of the rites. A good marriage will use these opportunities to make children within wedlock, an infertile marriage (including homosexual relations) will take this as an opportunity to overcome their biological restrictions. In Orlanthi society there are no (non-ritual) marriages within a clan, except for widows (who are from another clan in most cases) remarrying in order to stay with their children. The person who joins the marriage partner's clan will bring a dowry which is used by the pair while the marriage lasts, and when it ends the person from outside of the clan will be re-imbursed this dowry from the host clan. It doesn't really matter which sex the mobile partner of the marriage had, or which sex the clan member had. Whenever a household (formed by marriage) is dissolved, the household property is distributed according to the dowry, the (few) personal belongings of the involved clan member, and the hosting clan, whose council might re-distribute the accumulated wealth to other households in the clan. While a former carl is unlikely to become a stickpicker due to a divorce or widowing, massive loss of available wealth might be a consequence of a separation.

True old timer - not quite. While I read about RQ when I started roleplaying around 1984, it wasn't before the Games Workshop edition of RQ3 that I got my hands on the system (around 1989), which led me to translate it to German. Then I met Lutz Reimers who had already finished his translation at STARD convention in Hamburg, which led to me attending part of the first German RuneQuest convention 1990 in Cologne, and after my return from a year working in Norway (1991-1992) joining the Deutsche RuneQuest-Gesellschaft and taking over their magazine Free INT for 6 issues. In 1993 I was still a newcomer to Glorantha, with about three years of reading and a bit of Gloranthan gaming (mostly Dragon Pass and very few Gloranthan convention games) and the tentative beginnings of my Glorantha index (started in the solitude of northern Norway to reconcile the RQ3 Genertela Box data with the Pavis info, then including data from King of Sartar) under my belt when I joined the RQ Daily. That means I missed 15 years of RuneQuest/Glorantha activity... I do admit to having been one of the most prolific writers in the early years of daily mailing lists, but RQ2 and all its supplements were mythic tomes back then, unavailable in provincial Germany. In a way, this late entry (compared to the RQ2 clan who are the real old timers) into the Glorantha tribe may have sharpened my awareness about how difficult it can be to start with Glorantha. Back in the early 1990ies, things looked rosy for Glorantha, with the RQ3 Renaissance, King of Sartar and an active community on the internet, a number of Glorantha-themed conventions all around the world (Leicester, Baltimore, Melbourne, Germany). In fact, 2016 may be the first year since the mid nineties which offers more specialized convention activity than those years. Some things have changed. In those early days of the Digest, we felt that we could still shape the official Glorantha with our ideas, and I guess that we managed to influence some of those bits. Now we have this huge body of canonical Glorantha in the shape of the Guide to Glorantha, which I personally think of as "a good start". We also have a huge backlog of not so canonical any more Gloranthan publications with great ideas still worth using in your campaigns. Now we no longer try to fit material into a temporarily static 1618-1621 setting (or harkening back into historical periods) but we can take the info from the Guide, warp it with events vaguely described in the prophecies, and produce heavily altered settings for gaming in the era that we first visited with the battles in the Dragon Pass (or even White Bear and Red Moon) boardgame. In my advice I forgot one component for getting familiar with Glorantha which helped me a lot - exchanging GM info with other GMs in adjacent areas. I was involved in several such cooperations, such as the Wilmskirk Tribal Federation info exchange which had campaigns for all four tribes putting together their data, or the Whitewall Wiki. As a narrator I felt a lot more secure about presenting a living world by getting feedback from the other campaigns in the neighborhood, discussing scenario ideas and outcomes. So if you want to have a review board of other Gloranthan GMs, go networking. One of the most recent technologies are private G+ groups where GMs invite interested people to have a look at their campaign and current scenarios. Even if you should get no new input to improve your campaign (an unlikely case), presenting your plans before actually playing them out will make you focus, formulate and fine-tune your ideas. You don't have to be a GM with 20 years of Glorantha experience. Some of the people who comment or listen in are bound to be, make use of their experience.

Use a clan which includes fairly orthodox Yelmalians - in the Yelmalio cult these things are pretty much a controversial issue, up to having geasa specifically prohibiting such activities.

This is a Big Change to conceived knowledge. Do the other Praxian myths (like descent from the Spike, following Storm Bull) still apply? Or will we find similar revelations about the other Founders? So the Storm Bull descent comes only indirectly through the Waha Khan dynasties (which make sense as such, given that the majority of the Sable Riders started out without Storm Bull as ancestor. Nowadays one can expect every Sable Rider to have some Waha Khan as an ancestor, but at a guess 2/3 of them not through a direct male line. (Compare the genetic evidence for direct male line Cohanim descent in the Jewish population, as cited in one of the Science of Diskworld books.) How did the female appearance of the Twinstars at the gates of Glamour come across? Shamanic gender uncertainty (vaguely remembered from another thread on the Hungry Plateau Sables)? And what is the chance that the Twinstars are offspring of Storm Bull?

x: Fertility Rune e: Earth Rune t: Death Rune Correct?

The Orlanthi have several somewhat accepted roles for non-standard sexual behavior. Vinga is of course the butch daughter of Orlanth, protector and fighter, the role for women in the Orlanth cult. Heterosexuality isn't necessary in this role. Then there is Nandan, the role for males in Ernalda roles. Heler stands for sexual mutability, up to physical gender changes as the mood demands (in especially magical people), but any kind of sexual orientation can be found in this cult. Yinkin is known for rampant sexuality, not necessarily about crossing gender borders, but almost anything goes. Humakt accepts anyone, regardless of gender, so do the Lightbringer cults Issaries, Lhankor Mhy and Chalana Arroy. Note that it might be considered "straight" to interact with some of these above in their adopted sexual role even if the person bearing that role doesn't have the gender for it. Overall, the Orlanthi care about marriage, but not so much about sexual activities as long as they don't contradict marriage (e.g. sexual activity in cultic activities doesn't count against marital vows, but many such are forms of the lightest form of Orlanthi marriage.)

The MP spent definitely add to the strike rank - just like boosting the spell (in order to bypass Countermagic) or similar extra MP expenditures do. It is still better than Heal - you can do a Heal Wound 10 to restore a leg, chest or abdomen wound from -5 to +5.

How much is water/thirst an issue for a troll or trollkin presence in the wastes? I am still thinking about a heroic rebel trollkin civilization somewhere remote if a troll society should decide to get rid of those weaklings.

The compromise isn't about friendship, but about grudging toleration. The Solars don't have to like the fact that the sun isn't in the night sky, and the uz don't need to be happy about either being tormented by the unbearable brightness of Yelm or knowing that he keeps devastating their former paradise every night. Kyger Litor's honor (as far as that is relevant to uz society, as opposed to her hunger or her fertility) demands revenge on the Bright One who damaged her womb, reducing her fertility once more - the first such damage was when dead Brightface caused the Mistress race to give birth to the stunted uzko. Uzko doesn't translate as dark troll, but as hurt troll or burnt troll. And referring to a thread in the Glorantha group over on G+, maybe part of the hurt was the loss of all shape adjustment for the males, and much of it for the females of the uzko: https://plus.google.com/u/0/108824867722453475707 Luckily the previous experience of Zorak Zoran with Aether inside Gata's womb gave them a viable though somewhat hurtful template to reform. There was no such template when D'Wargon invaded the Black Eater, resulting in the parody of uzness that the enlo are.