Joerg

Many of the Thunder Brothers in Thunder Rebels were basically faces for known rune spells of Orlanth, like e.g. Vanganth the Flyer or Hedkoranth the Thunderstone Slinger. They may be of local importance as ancestors or associated with local geographical features - essentially offering a shrine for a special spell otherwise available only at larger temples. Direct initiation to these Thunder Brothers would be similar to joining a spirit cult, although I would apply the Orlanth rune pool rather than a Thunder Brothers rune pool.

Rivers that only trace their ancestry to Heler are those cut off from the Oceans, feeding inland basins. In Genertela that would be eastern Pent, feeding the Hot Lake. Otherwise, there are three famous rivers that did not crawl in from the Seas but jumped down from above, the Creek, the Stream, and the River. These rivers were part of the waters that invaded the heavens rather than the dry earth, siblings of Lorion and hence children of the Manthi, and as they re-awakened their tributaries by re-spawning their connection to the Heart of the Seas they became the (adoptive) parents of these rivers (mainly the lesser rivers of the Quivin Mountains). Most other rivers crawled into the land with their source from the surface oceans, primarily Togaro spawning Sshorg (the first river) and Hudaro (with Neliom parenting e.g. the Janube).

So do you want to have a secession war like the US Civil War (or the Naboo incident in Star Wars), do you want a succession war (not necessarily of nobility) after a coup or otherwise end of a government, or do you want to have a doctrinal war like e.g. the 30 years war as your backdrop? Are there outside forces to ally with for either side of the conflict? What kinds of oppression are there to rise up against?

"The Cult in the World" section needs to go to some detail for either occurrance. The long Yelm Cult write-up for RQ3 tried to do that double stance for both Pentan horse nomads and Dara Happan urban nobility and didn't quite feel satisfactory for either. Transfer to e.g. Somash or the Pamaltelan new sun god Varama and his "not the same" predecessor Kendamalar would be tricky, and the weirdness of Ehilm's Flame in Yelm's Underworld court remains amusing. We're not going to find out before next year how this incarnation of the cult write-up will do that.

While not Gloranthan per se, Greg Stafford's campaign in either RQ3 Vikings or RQ3 Land of Ninja has plenty universal tropes for playing adventurers from a warrior society with an agricultural home base. The only original RuneQuest 3rd edition gaming material from the Avalon Hill period of Chaosium-written adventures that was not reprints of RQ2 material, but good enough to publish it twice without making it seem repeated thanks to the local flavor.

Slightly unexpected name, though: "Cults of RuneQuest" rather than "Cults of Glorantha". The Red Book of Magic gives you most (possibly all) of the spells, so no biggie in terms of game design. I want those as well, and I can live with scenario books providing some local information to satisfy people's cries for scenarios (in print, rather than in pdf). However, the rather tight focus on greater Dragon Pass and maybe Saird for the forseeable future (before my pension age, in slightly less than nine years) makes books on other regions rather unlikely within that time-frame. I'd also love to see Pedro Ziviani's Mythic Iceland for RuneQuest and its continental corrolaries kick off.

This tells us that the Chaosium layout and printing schedule for RuneQuest is booked until deep into 2024 (and Beyond - which I hear as spoken by Ludo @Lordabdul at the end of our podcast episodes), which would need to deliver six books to finish this batch. Which means that there is still a huge logjam of written supplements without even getting into the production queue next year. On the plus side, this gives Jeff ample time to finalize the Sartar campaign part 1, and it keeps the "must buy" expenses manageable, leaving some budget for the Jonstown Compendium. (But hey, if you want to finance your JTC desires, go and publish some nice stuff there...) Still, not getting any pdf releases for another five months isn't pleasing. (Although that time could be shortened e.g. by releasing the extra player characters for the Starter Set.)

Lowland Tarsh exports vast amounts of maize downriver into the Heartland cities, including Glamour (which is connected to the Oslir via a canal). That alone may be enough to take care of imperial taxation. This surplus will be harder to sell once Argrath (or rather Mularik) takes over, reducing the net worth of the kingdom. Otherwise, Furthest gets to see most of the wares northbound from Boldhome, earning from tolls. That would not change under any ruler. Salt brine evaporation powered by the sun doesn't work well in cold climate. The water needs to be boiled off, which means fuel needs to be spent. If there are salt marshes, air-dried saline peat might be used as fuel, then added to the brine to increase salinity. (Air-drying peat works fine in cold climate...) What are the main exports from the Heartlands to Tarsh? Mostly payment for the luxuries required by Lunar nobility, which would have to come regardless of changes in the regime. The hilly parts Given the amount of marine fossils found at Snake Pipe Hollow and presumably under other parts of the Rockwoods foothills, deposits of salt in the mountains shouldn't be that rare. In that FB thread on Sartarite trade, Jeff replied to my mention of the salt trade as an item of potential importance in the Sartarite revenues:

Sheng did reach his near-enlightenment through a century of torture austerities. And this was a different Age of History, with different magical rules (such as allowing the Telmori a no-cost shape-shifting gift). That Gaalth character (the chief missionary "reaching out" to Seshnela was no doubt a psychopath, but may have been a Logician believing in efficiency. Carrot and stick... Yes. And maybe Humakt was the ally of choice against the undead immortality of the Vampire Kings of Tanisor, but against general Chaos, he is as bad a choice as is Orlanth (other than gaining the allegiance of many Orlanthi cannon fodder). Allying trolls was a necessary step to get cannon fodder for the invasion of Dorastor after the Orlanthi decided to go against the Dara Happan Empire instead. ZZ (Arkat's cult of choice) was pre-destined (as Arkat received the Unhealable Wound from himself questing as ZZ), but calling trolls a "less blunt instrument" is rather funny. I wonder whether Arkat fielded spearkin, or whether the multiple births were too recent (or possibly not even yet invented while Gbaji was still around). If he had the complete set of Kitori shapes, he could have hidden in shadow in his Dehori shape and join the trolls in Guhan (making that illumination in Nick's History of Malkionism real).

I wonder whether those meals for the high priestess and the virgins are sourced from volunteers.

While it may be poor strategy, it might be necessary tactics if you have allies/mercenaries like Wolf Pirates and Praxian beast riders. Mongol tactics might not work all that well in Orlanthi society, but it may work on Lunar populations. Cities that surrender before they get enclosed will be treated differently than cities that fought. Gates can be opened by commandos surprising or otherwise overwhelming the guards. Happened in Bagnot 1440.

The MRQ1 edition had some flaws as stuff in King of Sartar and the History of Heortling Peoples was ignored when collecting the sources for the EWF, resulting in Vistikos and the huge dragon project getting the main stage rather than the Third Council with Isgangdrang and the other Short Cut dragonlords, which is why I would advise to use only the MRQ2 edition, that had some of the worst omissions rectifiec by LOZ. (I didn't boy either of the MRQ serries before it became available in Humble Bundles after getting the chance to read the EWF bit.) I seem to recall that there were two named colleagues of Delecti from Remakerela, but cannot find them with a cursory search of my disjunct pdfs.

The Bell Digest archives have an early version of scenarios from the RuneQuest Adventures fanzine: https://glorantha.steff.in/digests/BellDigest/vol06p09.txt

If it isn't Glorantha for Pathfinder, might it be BRP for Golarion?

Praxian Serpents are sort of "undead" or hibernating rivers. Many have headwaters in the Indigo Mountains or the Stormwalk Mountains. Others come from cacthment basins inside of Prax where the parent river has died or is hibernating, too. Having lost their connections to the Heart of the Seas, the Praxian oases are ersatz-headwaters for the Praxian waters, available for the River Horse to visit. The exact function may remain a mystery for the time being. You mean downhill? The Syphon is the only river I know of that has retained its active shape and its uphill course, running to the big void of Chaos at its head. It and the Sounders River (flowing downhill from the Storm Mountains into the Good Canal dug by Waha, then quenching the buried Devil) are riverine heroes who fight Chaos. The Erinflarth cleansing at the Densdam in Dorastor is a river miracle, too. Pollution of waters is a sad but known fact. The Nidan River and the Dwerrow River are the main wastewater channels for the main Genertelan dwarf colonies. To the dwarfs, rivers on the surface are a sad side-effect of the Breaking of the World. If Somelz is a re-creation of the Earth surface as it was meant to be, then rivers don't deserve any protection by the repair crews of the World Machine. To the Water tribe, polluted rivers are the sad proof of the enmity of the dry folk against the waters.

The name comes from the publically accessible source https://wellofdaliath.chaosium.com/home/gloranthan-documents/greg-sez/the-kings-of-seshnela-part-one/ which contains more historical detail than the summaries in the Guide. By referring to Niebie, it is made clear that this shows the Seshnegi and Brithini perspective on the fringes of the Bright Empire. Nysalor never made a personal appearance on this fringe of his influence.

And the problem with that is? Deities may be in several places at once.

It would be remiss not to mention the result of the 1613 duck pogrome, the enchanted duck bill worn as a necklace, granting the wearer a rudimentary swimming ability, increased agility, and the immediate hatred of any durulz they encounter. (I wonder whether rostrectomy with surviving subjects wearing prosthetic bills afterwards was practiced anywhere.)

I would play it that Second Sight gives you the senses to perceive covert possession, but that the ability to recognize it may require training, or Insight (human), etc.

Amusingly, the Rokari of Tanisor used to be portrayed as licentious in their sexual relationships with marriages primarily establishing an inheritage for any resulting children, but all this license remaining within the caste. This may have been inherited from the linealist Hrestoli of Seshnela, some of whom survived in the lower Tanier Valley after the breaking of Old Seshnela. (Which means that the Castle Coast will have the same level of licentiousness, and its men-of-all and women-of-all allowed to mingle freely with all the castes. Essentially a ping-back to Malkion's favorite wife, Tilnta the Goddess of Love, who mothered a number of male/female pairs of twins that went on founding talar caste lineages in Brithela.) As far as I can make sense of it, the Seshnegi linealist Malkionism caste system did not (ever) allow a change of the birth caste. It did allow advancement to the status of a (wo)man-of-all-castes. The Rokari system of adopting suitable boys from all castes seems to be a short-cut of this superior qualification, and gives their monastic sorcery a quasi-monopoly except for "acceptable ancestral powers". The breaching of this monopoly might be a major theme in Rokari higher society of all three castes that you can be born into.

The Invisible God of the Abiding Book, which they called (or understood as) Makan the Creator, or if they were heterodox heroquesting manipulators, Malkioneran. The Zzabur mythology in Revealed Mythologies has a Devolution of the One Mind/Prime Mover through various stages of realisation as the One World (result of the Second Action, the stage for the Third Action) devolved into Danmalastan, which then collided with (integrated with) the Surface World of Creation that shares the Monomyth. Ancestral Malkion - the child of Aerlit and Warera Triolina - is an emanation of this deity in its Devolution, reborn in a demigod body which inherited from the body's parents (local storm god, water demigoddess), too when he sired (and/or created) the people of Brithela with a bunch of Goddesses and/or the migrating Logic Tribe that descended from the Spike. All of these ancestries are true, instantiation of the pluripresence of the Prophet who is an emanation and part of the Prime Mover/One Mind. This ancestral link to Makan changes the perspective of the descendants of Malkion, making them descendants of the Creator.

Niebie's prophets spreading a disease only they could cure by enlightening the victims may be seen as a form of austerities meant to lead to illumination. The perpretators may not even have perceived this method as evil but as benevolent, to spread a spark of illumination to as many recipients as possible. The Niebie disease may have been a Riddle. To start with, these allies of Nysalor got access to raw Creation for their powers - the godly beast of the Telmori, and a chance at immortality for the Tanisoran kings in an initially not too malevolent pyramid scheme. It pretty much says so. Use of raw Creation gets out of control. The users of these powers get to choose helpful features, or learn to refute detrimental ones by controlling that Creation to some human-possible extent. A logical choice then would have been Storm Bull rather than Humakt, except that the foe at the time may still have been the Vampire Kings, and Arkat still learning about the nature of his adversary. His path into Darkness would have been pre-ordained when he faced his Darkness Self, contracting the Unhealable Wound from Zorak Zoran's powers - again an austerity leading to another stage of Enlightenment. (I'll idly wonder how Gloranthan history had turned out if he had received a draconic injury instead.) He does not betray them - Arkat's Command grants the trolls of Dagori Inkarth a share in the rich Dara Happan plunder his Heortling allies collected while the trolls fought and bled against Dorastor (to be collected by the Kitori Shadowlords already upholding the Only Old One's cohesion through the older Shadow Tribute/mutual aid program), and he establishes the new colony of Guhan near his seat of retirement, possibly visiting them regularly, possibly in Troll shape. In post-Gbaji Wars Kerofinela, the Kitori Shadowlords were named Arkati (or Arkatings) and vice versa (as per History of the Heortling Peoples), and the shape-shifting power seems to have been available to the more dedicated followers of Arkat. If his followers knew the secrets of the Nightcult, there is a good possibility that Arkat and his companions themselves possessed this secret as well, making all of his human appearance after the battle a rather trivial thing. He did so already from the outset. And my personal ("dumbest") theory still is that Gbaji was indeed the layer of Deception that separated Nysalor from Arkat and Arkat from Nysalor, the perceptive filter that made either perceive the Other as a vile abomination rather than the mystical shadow, reunion with whom was a necessary prerequisite for further ascension. I think that to Arkat, deception is Gbaji's original sin. While it may be Chaos or at least Wakboth's brand of Moral Evil, I regard Gbaji as the evil entanglement keeping Nysalor and his Shawo Self apart. After having overcome that barrier, Arkat spent much of his remaining time among the mortals in contemplation to finally find union with his Other, and then to ascend, leaving behind a bodhisatva-like presence for his disciples which is what the God Learners sealed away or shattered. The fivefold Arkat separation is the result of this, with the thing separating the five probably needing to be overcome in brutal conflict, too. A purging of self, not unlike the draconic path taken by Ingolf.

And of course virtue of birth brings the innate ability to do your caste's work, and nothing else. Unless you get chosen as a zzaburi candidate, when virtue of birth is ignored. It's all logical, trust the watchers.

You just declared the trolls of Glorantha as a chaotic species. (However, most uz would balk at letting Fire mess with their food if they can have it without, except perhaps as a transgressive "spice".) You can argue that butchering sentients for eating is a transgressive behavior that may lead to Chaos when taken out of other mythical context. Funerary cannibalism already is something else again, whether done to kin, foes, or as a ritual to guide the dead on their way. Survival cannibalism in extremis is yet another situation, where "in extremis" may be the mythical framing for reliving the Greater Darkness.

Boldhome doesn't exactly have a city confederation of neighboring tribes, its immediate neighbors are part of the Swenstown tribal confederation. The city will have a chief magistrate and leader of the militia fielded by the urban residents, whose number equals one of the larger tribes or two of the more average ones. Also, the Prince will have an appointed deputy to keep the day-to-day business running with the princely seal (or whatever item of authority is required). If Leika was appointed something like city rex or royal deputy of Boldhome while remaining Colymar king, would that bring the Colymar together with the Boldhome citizenry as another tribal confederation, or would that just give Leika two hats under which she can raise militia?