Joerg

Also unknown to most is that all Waha Khans can perform this magic, not just the Morokanth. Beware the friendly Bison khan...

I think only members of Waha's Covenant can be subject to this (expensive) spell. And Morokanth don't even like meat that much, they are ritually obliged to eat it. The rune point economy suggests this only happens if the seller pays for the magic to be used. (Which makes me wonder: can a person butchered subject to Alter Creature be contacted as an ancestor?) According to David Scott, Morokanth are a typical intermediary to return ransomees between Praxian parties, as they are known to keep their human-shaped companions healthy.

Alll of that applies to an intermediary sent to you, but not necessarily to an intermediary to ransom someone else from someone else, or returning with ransomees. Are such folk ethically taboo to rob?

Usually the payment will be brought by a neutral messenger (usually of the Issaries cult, possibly Argan Argar or Etyries) who will usually be tasked with returning the ransomed prisoner, too. People in the ransom trade shouldn't ordinarily be targeted, as that would ruin the ransom business for all others involved. Loss of equipment due to captivity is a major issue for players, especially if that equipment includes bound spirits or an attuned crystal. Are there conventions for ransoming back personal or community-owned equipment? Imagine your party in a situation where they need to offer ransom while carrying the Black Spear of the Colymar?

You might need to keep it as collateral. Wolf pirates getting caught may have trouble convincing their captain and crew they are worth their ransom.

Shamans sell spells and spend the income on upkeep of their community. A spell costs about twice the annual income of a freeman. Say four spells sold in a season, 20 spells in a year, twice the freeman income.

Whichever caves open into an active volcano will be flooded by lava during eruptions, and may wash back into the main shaft if there is another exit or when the eruption recedes. Depending on the temperature, lava moves like honey, which may mean that hydraulic equilibrium may take its time and may be prevented by the outer tendrils cooling down enough to solidify, plugging that outlet. An active shaft may be surrounded by a multitude of plugged outlets whose plugs might not be built to hold indefinite pressure, allowing them to open and possibly wash free as hotter magma re-dissolves the plugging material. Since eruptions come hand in hand with tectonic activity, plugs may be shaken loose or the surrounding cavern walls may split, creating new conduits for lava past a plugged lead. Thus you may have underground lava-falls emptying into lakes which may receive or maintain enough heat to avoid "freezing over" for your James Bond or Fu Man Chu villain caves. Or surface structures, like the Sog City Citadel of Brass. Lodrils dive (or Aether's ejaculation) implanted a renewing source of Heat into the womb of Gata, and the fiery seed still sloshes around (if slowly). Waertagi magics have exploded two main shafts (Mt. Ladaral and Mt. Turos). Other volcanoes have fallen dormant, like Solf's mountain in the southern Shan Shan, but still have some remaining heat below (for the smoke). Yet other chambers still have to open, a godling resting in that womb waiting to be awakened. Brass Mostali (and possibly Lead and Copper Mostali too) may know ways to leech on those regions of buried heat. Far from all underground environment needs to be bedrock. Gloranthan clay does not have to be sediment from erosion of exposed bedrock. Goddesses may have organs like the Faceless Statue had - I had a party entering a vein of Eiritha near Old, tracking back the source of a rubble runner molesting their camp site. The Womb of Gata may well have been a huge volume of clay, now partially turned into terracotta after fertilization by Aether. Gloranthan spelunkers down in the deep might be able to dig through fertile soil and approach pools or chambers of magma. Things getting unbearably hot is going to be a good indication what lies beyond. Some of these chambers might still contain some of the pure celestial plasma that Lodril brought down, compressed and as eager to expand as Umath was. This might happen through fissures in case of tectonic activity, which may be a regular, possibly even cyclical event in parts of the Underground.

At the very least, herdmen are not eligible targets of the Thumb Quest. Herdmen and Midget Slashers (troll descendants who lost their Man Rune) now seem to have the Beast Rune. (Which implies eyes, too.) People are made up from all the runes, but they can express only three of those magically through their normal adulthood initiation under HeroQuest: Glorantha rules. They can acquire more through interaction with the Other Side, and they may lose them.

The Sun Dome Temple just south of Karia may have been instituted by Palangion the Iron Vrok, much like the one at Vanntar. The followers of the deity may have kept contact with those in Fronela, or through Maniria, but as Sun Dome Temples go, it is pretty isolated. With the Evil Emperor often equated with Malkion, Ehilm can be a somewhat neutral, aloof sun god. Both Galanin and Ehilm are associated with the urban Safelstrans more than the backwater Orlanthi of Vesmonstran and Delela.

An argument might be made that Glorantha allows Lamarckian evolution (like the dark trolls inheriting the burns of their ancestors), although the Morokanth thumbs aren't one of these - they still have to be obtained individually by winning a contest against a human. (BTW, a contest can be lost - what does a human contestant have to gain other than keeping their thumb?) Any runic loreperson will assure you that sight is a function of the Fire Rune, but accounts about the construction/creation of Man by an assortment of deities always have them insert Fire. It isn't clear whether Kyger Litor came into being possessing eyes, or whether she acquired them along with the Man Rune that she passed on to her descendants. Sandy Petersen's Gods War miniature (heh) of the Hellmother doesn't show any eyes, but the stelae with the moomin-troll-like Kyger Litor undergoing her trials in Troll Pak has a very humanoid Trollmother.

Myth has always had an entertainment component. By giving the forces of nature a face, they become an entity you can deal with - even if it is the baby-faced smiling sun of the Teletubbies. Speaking as a reader, looking at a book on diplay behind glass is not even close to reading. It isn't even a potential read like you get when you visit a library. Seeng an rpg on display behind glass is like seeing the shrink-wrapped collection of a hard-core collector. Personally, I prefer shelfies of rpg books that have seen some use, that wait to be pulled out and put to work. If only to give ideas for a different rpg's session.

An interesting collection of way too short glimpses into the wider genre, but visiting it as a museum exposition would feel a bit weird to me. On the levels of the experience of myths that are presented in Cults of RuneQuest: Mythology, this is (barely) the first level, reading about there being myths. Little context is given about the people who are the target group of these myths - we might recognize ourselves in quite a few of the exhibits, but we may also feel ourselves being misrepresented. Not dissimilar from Imperialism Age anthropology exhibitions if visited by people from the cultures exhibited, I guess.

IMO she is somewhat upward from your typical wyter deity - an entity from Godtime, thus bound by the Compromise, but not bound to a piece of regalia, rather to the land her tribe had claimed around the Quivin Mountains. She might become the (minor) land goddess of the Kingdom of Sartar, on a hiearchy level below Kero Fin, but possibly with fertility and defensive blessings. The Vingkotlings were a warlike culture, and at the very least she would have been giving support to her husband Ulanin, one of the seven husband heroes of the Vingkotlings shortly mentioned in the Orlanthi myths. While Ulanin seems to have been a Hyaloring, his adventures would have gone both against the Dara Happans of Anaxial's dynasty and against the winter foes. The giants of Red Cow Fort would have been a side issue. That power over forces of the riverine empire to the north might have hampered the conquest of the Kingdom of Sartar by the Lunars, and may well hinder a future attempt at controlling the land. (The same could be said for the draconic alternative, though. Either way, the sovereignty introduced by Sartar would be backed up by a sovereignty from that piece of land.) Unless Orgorvale finds an avatar to reincarnate into (possibly something akin to that weird self-destructive dance in ) I don't see Orgorvale as having any physidal agency in the Surface World. Her cult can, though, and cult heroes might add to the magical arsenal of the cult. An existing Thunderqueen magic might be co-opted and integrated into the cult, especially if the draconic version wins out. The Dream Dragon alternative is an incarnate form that returned from dormancy, with a wider range of choices and agency.

During the Vingkotling Age, most of Ralios was part of the Greatwood, which received a famous counter-raid visit by the Thunder Brothers called the Plundering of Aron, so I doubt there were many if any Vingkotling settlements in Ralios. THe majority of the Ralians following the Orlanthi creed in the Third Age would be descendants of the Dawn Age population of Ralios, which were Serpent Brotherhood Hykimi and the agriculturalist Enerali horse totem people of Safelster (which extended all the way to the Tanier Valley that, somewhat ironically, has become the core lands of the "Kingdom of Seshnela" in the Third Age). The Vustri are one of the four Enerali tribes who converted before the rest, in opposition to the rest who were clustered around Hrelar Amali, forming the Dari Confederation at the time the Lightbringer missionaries (entering from Slontos or Dorastor) arrived. There were immigrants through Dorastor, displacing local Serpent Beast folk and/or converting some of them. The Battle of Zebrawood established the presence of agriculturalists in northern Ralios. Safelster was following the Lightbringers' creed when the Second Council turned into the Bright Empire after the Sunstop. Many former beast totems became weird ancestral spirit cults. Arkat's Dark Empire aka the Archonate brought a measure of henotheist Malkionism to Safelster, which the God Learner conquest then used to establish their orthodoxy or their experimental sects. Urban and rural Safelster remains a mix of Malkionism and Theyalan theism. THe two predominantly Orlanthi regions are Lankst on the uppermost Tanier River and the East Wilds. Lankst seems to share the Korioni ancestry of the lower porion of the Upper Tanier River, thus giving them an Enerali origin, some continuity from the Dari Confederation. The East Wilds Orlanthi include the Vustri and apparently various former Hykimi groups. There is little direct contact between the Orlanthi along the Tanier and those along the Doskior. Not much love either.

Depends on whether they are incarnate or not. Incarnate demigods - for a given value of mortal - retain free will and may act as they please (within their divine and mortal nature). Demigods as cult object in Godtime are bound by the Compromise. Worshipped mortals might be limited in their choices by the force of their worshippers binding them to their feats. Orgorvale is the child of two demigods, Vingkot (son of Orlanth and Janerra Alone, a mortal of the On Jorri folk) and the Summer Wife (daughter of Tada - avatar of Genert - and presumably Ernalda). She, and her husband Ulanin, are living and dying in Godtime, their presence there imprinted on the make-up of the world, engraved in the myth. Can a deity that died in the Gods War be worshipped? Of course - all of the participants in the Ritual of the Web were technically dead. Orgorvale is at best a godling, but she has become a genius loci for Orgovaleland - the Quivini foothills - and would have been worshipped as such by her descendants and their in-laws in the region. The tribe named after her (rather than her rider husband) disappeared when the Kingdom of Orlanthland came into being following the Gbaji Wars. Most of the bloodlines of her descendants were killed during the fall of the EWF and the Dragonkill - mostly by the Pelorian invaders or famine. Some of her descendants made it south into Heortland, from where e.g. the Red Cow clan returned into their ancestral lands. The EWF managed to draconize her cult, projecting it onto a dream dragon (possibly of a Dragon Speaker?), making her original persona irrelevant. Events in the GM Screen Adventure Book may change that.

The eponymous founder of the Vathmai tribe rode a Tusker boar, too, and his descendant Lalmor who spread the Lightbringer message to Slontos probably too. At least following the Seshnegi annectation of Slontos, no pig riders have been reported in Maniria any more.

Varankol te Mangler was a Great Living Hero of the EWF who received worship, and his civilized Tusker-riding human Aramites were part of the anti-Machine league forces. The half-troll look and feel needn't have started long before 1042 when the dragonspeakers were killed. By 1120 (the Dragonkill) there were Tusk Riders like the modern day ones in the region, and they retained leave to enter Dragon Pass like other "inhumans" after the Cross Line and Death Line had been set up.

God of Fluid Dynamics? The zero of Death doesn't necessarily mean Fertility/Life, it could simply mean being non-aligned. Putting Eurmal at Zero death doesn't seem right given his Killboy aspect. Far from Truth, close to Death puts him nearly in the corner of Storm Bull.

In the Second Age, the (hen civilized, human) Aramites appear to have been something like a warrior caste for the cities of Dragon Pass, with their Tusker Boars pretty much present anywhere in the Pass.

Getting full use of all the weirdness in Glorantha takes some traveling. There are some places like the Skyfall Lake, the Block, the Footprint or the Eternal Battle where Godtime still interacts with the world, creating quite fantastic environments. There are important holy places with slightly less dramatic Godtime presence that you can visit, or you can roam the unusual geography like ginormous skeletal pieces of dragons, impossibly tall mountains like Kero Fin. When it comes to cities worth admiration, there is Pavis next to the Big Rubble, there is Boldhome high up in a mountain valley with parts of the city sculpted out of the mountains, there is Furthest as the closest center of Lunar culture, and there is the metropolis of Nochet. Boldhome is supposed to get an official description this year, the other three have descriptions in the Jonstown Compendium, with Pavis also having the RQ Classic treatment and quite a bit of lore to absorb - but that's a possibility for any city you might play in. I had not thought of using Indian influences for Esrolia yet, but Punjab might indeed serve as a role model for the riverine lowlands of Esrolia. Using the Dune theme might require a maguffin similar to the Spice, indispensible and unavailable outside of the (newly assigned) Atreides holdings. Hazia doesn't quite cut it, even though it may be an integral ingredient for the magical regiments on both sides of the hero wars. Something draconic hasn't manifested yet. A clash of houses and imperial institutions is a very Lunar Empire theme, with moonrock a possible unique resource. Have you used the family history in character creation leading up to 1625? In that case, without contradicting the timeline, experiencing the Lunar occupation would be possible a clan in the Far Place, as that portion of Sartar still is occupied by Lunar forces. Unfortunately, that makes Prax a little more distant than one of the tribes bordering the chaparral. Still, if you are anywhere near Alone, then possibly the Griselda stories might give you an inroad to Pavis, although no description of Pavis after the liberation/conquest by the White Bull brotherhood has been published yet. Being anti-Lunar might well result in seeking help from that warlord in Pavis, especially if your party experienced some trouble with Lunar occupation officials, which might be a starting adventure. My own games usually try to hook on something from the players, who may have a shared goal, or who may have to defend or increase something under their immediate daytime job. Herders dealing with cattle raids (on either side), diplomats striving to keep the aftermath of such raids gone wrong within acceptable terms might go together. With some buy-in from the player of the Heler hermit, you could have the Heler initiate captured and the onset of a drought "until the dragon is slain" in a light version of the Aroka quest. Or perhaps the Heler hermit getting trapped in a flooded cave, needing the others to rescue them by ripping something apart (a beaver dam?) in another such variation of the myth. Draconic upgrades are a possibility, e.g. a stray dinosaur involved in the mishap. They could chance on a bunch of Praxians chasing or escaping from some Lunars, introducing some of the weird steeds of the plaines. While your Issaries character is a diplomat, he might get involved in some hyena skin business which might lead him into Prax to find a Desert Tracker to pass this item on to.

Not quite correct. Dividing RQG skills by 5 produces a much lower power level in Questworlds as skills above one mastery aren't that rare, and required to have a somewhat similar success rate with opposed rolls.

The rules are up for sale as a pdf in the Chaosium shop. The game pieces and game board would need some DIY, but unit listings and unit graphics are available for the virtual tabletop. Check the God Learners episode on Nomad Gods (Part 1) transcript for the links.

IIRC there was an illustration in the HeroQuest 1st ed publication Dragon Pass: Land of Doom - a Gazetteer to Kerofinela. The caravan path goes underneath it, approaching it from the southeast means to walk right into its maw. The Dragonspine Ridges are the remnants of Sh'harkarzeel's spine after Orlanth beheaded that dragon, from where Orlanth carried off that head, using it in many a myth. This head seems too small to be that item, or an incarnation or dream of that item. No idea whether it was in place before the EWF ruled in the region, possibly an atonement gift by a draconic hero of Orlanth (such as Obduran the Flyer).

The stars on the rim of the visible sky dome include stars from below the horizon, especially at the winter solstice when the sky tilts far to the south, spilling heat into the Sea of Fire. Those stars shed light, just like those from above the horizon. The planets that enter the Underworld (Dendara/Moskalf and Lokarnos on the Sunpath, and the Southpath planets Tolat, Artia and Twinstars) and the Sun Disk, do shed (deadly/death-bringing) light in the Underworld. There remains a question whether those bodies will be above or below the observer.

Jaldon was a mortal who became an immortal, re-incarnating hero. Waha is a deity or greater spirit and might need (non-chaotic) support similar to the Bat if carried out of his turf.