Joerg

This started as a reaction to https://basicroleplaying.org/?app=core&module=system&controller=content&do=find&content_class=forums_Topic&content_id=17979&content_commentid=276001 but drifted off-topic while I was typing, so why not make it a new topic. According to the Starter box, citizens of the Sartarite cities don't seem to buy their basic food piecemeal. They pay their real estate tax (which gives them citizen status) and receive their dividend from the city granaries, butcheries etc. according to their tax status. This will allow additional food for a certain amount of dependents and/or guests, the latter probably for a limited time. The granaries are in the domain of the Earth cult(s), with milling or baking or brewing the job of associated guilds. There is a bakers' guild in Jonstown which processes the granary grains for these food stipends for citizens, in a way not dissimilar to the navy bread distribution in Byzantium. It is a top-down distribution organized by the Rex, delegated among others to the Earth temple and the bakers' guild. (New Pavis has a similar food distribution scheme, with less grain and more meat in the distribution.) The bakers will receive some guaranteed excess grain for this service, and/or payment either in coin or in tax deductions. In addition to this, bakers, inns and similar food service industry will be able to buy extra resources from the granaries etc., probably at rates dictated by the temple or negotiated by the appropriate guilds. This bread will be sold like on the market, and probably also on a stall in the market. Effectively this is the same as in the clan village where the local granary divides out the grain for consumption, the main difference being that non-citizen residents need to purchase their food like in our modern economy as they aren't subject to hospitality laws. So what about residents without citizenship? Some may be guests (enjoying the hospitality) of resident citizens, guilds, temples, or the tribal manors, and receive their sustenance from the high status dividend of their hosts. Same with contracted labor. This includes e.g. the students at the Lhankor Mhy temple, mercenaries residing in the bunks of a hiring hall (paying the hall for the hospitality benefits?), or the caravan personnel of visiting merchants. Then there are the drifters, taking occasional day jobs to get some coin to be spent on food, drink, or (temporary) housing, or company. People like Olav Dickin's Son, the narrator of the Griselda tales. Little different from visiting adventurers unaffliliated with any citizen group or guild, really. Unlike in a rural village, such intruders free from any hospitality obligations are tolerated in the cities. This might include tribal refugees from the countryside (e.g. after a foraging military force passed through) who outstayed their reasonable hospitality at the tribal manor or their temple, or those who would rather claim kinship to a dog than to the factor at the manor. Adventurers hiring the service of a trainer may expect that trainer's hospitality wrt utilitarian bed and board, or they may have made their own arrangements with resident (hopefully citizen) kin or local inns (in order to upgrade the accomodation).

In my Glorantha, there are a couple of cults heavily involved in craft magic. Looking at the Orlanthi: Gustbran, of course, for everything fire-related requiring hotter temperatures than boiling water - baking, pottery, glassworking (beads), smithing and metal casting, lime-burning for mortar or surface chalking, (fired) brick-making, charcoal, mining or tunneling using fires... and all manner of preparatory work for any of these activities. Lhankor Mhy for everything using or requiring written instructions, or some deeper knowledge. Including some of the crafts mentioned under Gustbran, and alchemy, mills, any lore related work (herbalists, surveyors, architects etc.). Masonry, too ("son of Mostal"). And any kind of guild sorcery. Ernalda, for spinning, weaving, sewing, basket-making, working with wet clay, cooking, food preservation. Even brewing (Minlister might be a subcult). Waha for working with animal parts. Perhaps up to cobblers. Woodcraft has a few specialists, like Diros for boats and ships, but also many generalists. The name Barntar suggests rural carpentry all in itself. Fletchery is a necessary skill for any archer other than posh nobles, and should be at home with Foundchild, Odayla, Yelmalio and Orlanth (Jorganos the Archer), and others, and what goes for arrows goes for spears and javelins, too, with weapon heads either purchased or DIYed. After all, Humakt has blade-smiths, too. Ancestors may be involved in hereditary crafter lineages. The Lunars use whatever pre-Lunar substrata there is, like the Orlanthi one above, with Lodril in Dara Happa as the universal workman, called Turos in Pelanda. LM may be called Buserian, or replaced with Irrippi Ontor. Deezola and Jakaleel might contribute rather narrow textile expertise, same as Dendara. That's a very RuneQuest answer... Many of the RQ2 guilds are basically trainers' associations. That's a weird thing to say in a world where you can contact the spirits of ancestors and heroes to pass on their knowledge, both spell knowledge and some of their skills (the latter possibly through dominant possession/heroforming). Or you can go on a heroquest and challenge some of the mythical masters into duels of craftmanship, or with craftmanship as the price. Many a technical skill lost to mankind may be the result of successful mostali intervention. With gobblers and gremlins to plague and possibly kill practitioners of unlicensed technologies. You can learn spirit magic from cults as an occasional lay worshiper. Less so from guilds, who tend to require a "social initiation". Spirit magic is something you have, something you don't usually lose from slacking or reneging on a cult. When best to cast a craft spell is a form of expertise, too. Rune magic for crafting is not sustainable, except for enchantments (which has another bottle-neck in its POW expenditure). The everyday augments in the form of work-songs don't happen? True, this seems almost mundane, but what mundane thing in Glorantha is not coated in myth? It is hard to defecate without pleasing a trickster entity somewhere... So alchemy becomes a mundane skill? Or is surveying and measuring a major building project still an exercise in sorcery, or at least a very closely sorcery-adjacent activity? Interesting - harvesting the reeds or willows remains a sacred activity surrounded by ritual and possibly sacrifice, but processing them is entirely mundane? How does Growing remain surrounded by mystery and Making become completely de-mystified? Even one of the great 18th century poets in Germany, Friedrich Schiller, provided a five pages long (mostly iambic, with coupled or alternating end rhymes) poem about the founding of a bell. How does this manifest for the various deities? Does Gustbran become a mystical society rather than the cult of pyrotechnologies? I did like the (cult-less) handmaidens of Ernalda with their specialized husbands as fire-siblings of Mahome as the expression of this convergence (or perhaps as undoing of an earlier divergence). This plural nature of a single cult entity shouldn't be that much of a shock for people growing up in a Christian society, which has the concept of Trinity. But I disagree that you don't need to be a professional fighter to perform the Adventurous mysteries. There is a reason why this cult has rune lords rather than rune priests. The Rex cult is a very narrow occupational cult, special for two powerful magical options, but these two rune magics won't keep a bad ruler out of trouble for long even if he is fully loaded with rune points. I don't see why the skill-driven guilds accompanied by fully initiated Lhankor Mhy officials in their administration should not have a body of magical knowledge applicable as RQG sorcery. To me all of these notions sound very "Fourth Age", and not at all appropriate for the majority of urban Sartarites.

Minor flaw in this theory: the route taken by Gash and Gore was exactly that - a narrow path viable for individuals and small groups of raiders, but actually quite unsuitable for the mass exodus led by the twin heroes. Their horde separated after some initial conflicts with some Lightfore or the other, with only the smaller part following the twins into Dagori Inkarth (and possibly the Elder WIlds), and the larger group (including Eristi the Doubter) moving on northward. Even if the trolls of Dagori Inkarth had a few centuries of Yelmic time to breed their numbers, the host following the twins out of Wonderhome may have been a lot bigger than the number of trolls who contributed to the Castle of Lead. However, the starting point of that escape had turned from a pleasant and rich dark complex into a burning hell, and whichever place the trolls go to after facing the Judge of the Dead has been separated from this route and others departing from Ashliege's burning (but still cold) court. Who says it isn't? That might be one reason why Zorak Zoran has such a cheap and easy way to make zombies. These paths back from Death might be limited to Mistress Race trolls, with the Dark Trolls mostly having lost that ability to navigate these due to their (inherited) burn wounds. It is certainly beyond the ability of trollkin. Or ancestral wisdom bestowed on the Mistress Race.

The Romans did not bother to try and conquer the Germanic people who didn't even have tribal seats of note. The Ubii of Cologne (who might have been Germanic-speaking) received a new model Roman colony (hence the city name) and lots of imperial citizens, some related to the emperor, without any native structures remaining. A lot like Lunar Furthest, except that the river was navigable upriver as well as downriver. However, the Roman legions remained active deeper in the Germanic forests than Varus's expedition reached, as proven by the 2nd century battle of the Harzhorn, well east of the Weser confluence (of Fulda and Werra rivers) where Varus set up his summer camp. There are a couple of nice German-language TV documentaries on these incidents (and the German Limes). Why does Joerg speak German and not some vulgate Latin derivate? As already mentioned on Facebook, both my grandfathers can trace their origins to regions that the Romans had acquisitioned from Celtic-speaking natives, the Noricum (nowadays Austria) and Gallia (wherever there the Huguenots who found refuge with the fluently French-speaking Brandenburg overlords of Prussia came from). The difference whether the migrating Germans adopted the Latin or Greek language or retained their barbarian dialects was more a question of whether there still was an operating Roman administration after their arrival or not. In most cases (even the Vandals), there was, but the Angles and Saxons had no such resource, and stuck to their barbarian lingo. It took another bunch of barbarians who lost their linguistic identity to the Franks who had lost theirs to infect England with an oddly harsh dialect of the French language for a while, later softened by their acquisition by marriage of large parts of the Languedoc. Only to re-discover their Germanic inheritance when they were sore losers of the 100 years war. As for Germany, the Franks conquered those Germanic tribes who had taken possession of the lands behind the German Limes after the Roman administration had given up on them, and their lower Rhine dialect mixed with the Suebic holdouts to form the language of the barbarian half of the Frankish kingdom. When their Roman administration of Gaul fell apart for lack of papyrus to do bureaucracy on (and for general loss of the Mediterranean trade with what now were the Islamic lands), an obscure lineage from the barbarian part of the Frankish kingdom took over and removed the Meroving kings. Implementation of the Frankish inheritance laws then broke apart the Carolingian kingdom and separated France from Germany, with Lotharingia and later Burgundy an on-and-off buffer zone between the two. You mean your ancestors' pagan excesses? At a guess your distant ancestors came from roughly where I live. Angles and Saxons among them, right? Or Danes and Northmen, possibly by the detour through coastal France? Hedeby is almost within sight from where I sit right now. The peninsula here is named after the Cimbri, who were those first Germanic migrators to make the Romans wet their tunics when they had just overcome their Celtic trauma, until Marius came up with countermeasures. And the Langobards, Vandals and Goths started from not too far away, too... Fun fact: while the 19th century Germans were all too willing to claim Hermann (as they like to call Arminius) for themselves, with dozens of local historians' wishful thinking placing the battle at their doorstep, it isn't exactly clear whether the Cheruscans were indeed speaking a Germanic language or perhaps one of the continental Celtic dialects. Or at least some intermediate dialect. Most of the Roman conquests in Germany were taken from Celtic speaking natives with only the lower Rhine and Frisia having resident Germanic speaking peoples. Arminius managed to unite clans from 200 miles around for his ambush warfare. The Glauberg, about 200 km south of the Kalkriese, was a powerful Celtic Fürstensitz about 300-400 years before that battle, and Germanic tribes preferred to migrate all the way into Roman territory rather than from one damp forest to another. (Although Ariovist led a bunch of Germanic people into pre-Roman Gaul whose ancestors gave the Baltic Sea its Roman name, Mare Suebicum. Other people with that Suebi origin served as Caesar's auxilary cavalry when he faced Ariovist as well as in his earlier campaigns.)

There is a reason why the God Learners stopped trying to invade Brithos and instead cooperate with the Zzaburi when Umaliath, the biggest of the firebergs that resulted from the Battle of Tanian's Victory, re-surfaced on the western seas and threatened to collide with the western islands. Those fires will consume any stuff with even a slight water association. The neighoring Lismelder had better be prepared to flee all the way to the Dead Place to escape such a fire, and Nochet and other places along the river would be doomed. Styx Grotto might explode in flame, as well as the Marzeel River, while the Skyfall lights up as Tanian's fire attempts to return into the sky.

The way I play shades or lunes is that they remain around a victim if there are hostiles with melee or missile weapons engaged with them. Any physical damage the shade takes is also inflicted on the victim inside. Minimaxing attackers might either have the victim take one for the team, or they might limit their attacks to low damage ones that may be largely absorbed by the armor of the victim inside.

There is the Chaosium discord https://discord.gg/QM78wn3 and there is an English-language RuneQuest and Glorantha discord https://discord.gg/HNvBFq34

There are a couple of moderated threads (the RQG Q&A for instance) which get cleared up after a question is resolved.

Good thing the younglings still accept us from the old fart generations and allow us to write these obituaries.

I am unaware of any prominent half-elf NPCs in the Third Age lore, but I wonder whether “half-elf” only applies to offspring of a green elf, brown elf or yellow elf parent, or whether children of dryads and humans (usually males) would be regarded as half-elf, too. Dryads are a special kind of nymphs, able to produce offspring from matings with just about anything they can form a compatible temporary physical body for. For a male to get seduced by a dryad in the forest, and to be saddled with a weird child a year or more later, would not be that exotic. Elder Secrets has the experience of a Pamaltelan elf-friend who got really friendly with a female (most likely brown) elf, and who received blossoms sprouting out of his body in Sea and/or Fire Season. No idea whether the female received offspring from pollination after he acquired these sexual organs - possibly at the expense of useless human genitalia? No idea whether satyrs lust after dryads – they do lust after other types of nymphs (mainly terrain ones like limoniads or oreads, meadows and hills, but probably would take a bath for the affections of a naiad, too). Maybe their beast rune and the dryad’s plant rune are repelling one another?

I have yet to see in a RQG context. In the Guide, it is shown alongside Trade and Light (rather than Fire), neither of which are used in RQG (neither personal/divine runes nor as sorcerous runic mastery). It appears that the rune originated with Daruda. It may have been manifest in Kralorela prior to the formation or expansion of the Suam Chow, but after the Dragon's Awakening Shudder in 1051 (or 1054?) Godunya felt the urge or necessity to (re-) establish the rune as a landmark, funnily connecting only to one of the three major dragonewt colonies on Vaska Long and Hum Chang. (Is there any significance in the absence of Kralori dragonewt colonies on the mainland?) Unless this has been retracted, the Jonstown sage Tosti Runefriend ought to be the leading expert in Kralori draconism west of the Wastes. No idea whether he got an insight into the real deal the Exarchs are handling or just the Immanent Mastery drivel that already the EWF had as one of their "short cut" methods to become Great (but not True) Dragons. We find the rune in the Prince of Sartar webcomic on Argrath's necklace holding the dragonteeth that supposedly can release the Dragontooth Runner warbands. In the Dragon Pass boardgame, Argrath can control up to two of these demigod warbands. They are entirely man-rune shaped, without any distinctive racial features mentioned in their descriptions, although the counter illustration seems to give them antlers, or at least antlered helmets. Where do you get the mitochondria - Plant Rune connection from? Intestinal flora because of yeasts and other anaerobic funghi? In the real world, plant life is defined by chloroplasts as endo-cellular symbionts (excluding stand-alone cyanobacteria, purple bacteria, dinoflagellates etc. and being murky on lichen or corals), and only if we are talking about eucariotic plants, with mitochondria, too. In Glorantha, the inclusion of Mee Vorala even takes autotrophy (or should one say photophagy) out of the definition. Intestinal flora is more or less Darkness, perhaps with Fertility instead of a form rune. Microbial life is pretty much form-less by Gloranthan definition. Fungal life really feeds on biofilms and Darkness life, as well as dead organic matter yet untouched by other Darkness organisms, except for the mycorhizes which receive their chemical energy in trade for water and minerals collected outside of the reach of the roots of their host plants. Real world funghi are polytrophic eucaryotes that usually don't have any chloroplasts, with most (if not all) of them able to use mitochondrial processes reliant on oxygen, whether from the air or from inorganic compounds (such as nitrates, sulphates, or hydrated iron or manganese ions). Gloranthan funghi might actually consume Darkness or at least take magical power out of Darkness, much like plants generate life from Fire or Light. Light does get consumed, at least as per real-world thermodynamics. In Gloranthan terms, Life is a form of energy, in RQ generating MP through the POW characteristic. Or possibly through a form of autotrophy leeching off the magical energies flowing from the Source into the deepest Underworld, funneled through runes/runic entities and accumulated by denizens of the Inner World (including portions of the Underworld, e.g. the original Uz caverns now polluted by fiery Death). Undeath is a similar form of energy, some latently autotrophic in nature (zombies), others mainly polytrophic feeding on the life energy of other entities. True Dragons access the source, often with some runic flavor shared with the runic origins or owners, such as Krisa Yar the Red True Dragon partaking in Fire and the Brown Dragon of the Dragonrise partaking in Storm, shared by Yelm and Orlanth, respectively. To come back to the subject of the thread, the EWF started as elemental-agnostic, outside of the Theyalan framework of deities. It appears that the disciples of Vistikos Left-eye and subsequent early draconic "teachers" slacked on their Theyalan sacrifices, or gave up on them entirely, and it wasn't until Obduran the Flyer's revelation that Orlanth sacrifice and draconic worship were combined without one blotting out the other. Obduran, and orthodox dragonspeakers like Ingolf after him, were fully initiated (and more) into the cult of Orlanth, and acted as priests or wind lords or godtalkers at least at times. Maintaining the community passions without losing draconic detachment was hard, however - Ingolf had to restart his draconic development from scratch, and could not complete it by the time of the 1042 mass utuma. Most EWF people were content to worship Orlanth in only somewhat draconized form, or in other cases would not rebel violently against such an amount of draconic symbolism and magic intruding into their deity time. This form of worship funneled energies towards the leaders of the Third Council, fueling several short cut methods deviating from draconic orthodoxy, leading to easier use of dragon powers in the world. (We never learned how it affected the spiritual development of Isgangdrang.) The funneling of energies into a Proximate Holy Realm through draconic elements is not the route Argrath is pursuing, but neither does he pursue the path to dragonhood that Ingolf did. He seeks draconic enlightenment as a counter to Lunar illumination and cyclical power, and seems to have inherited the Sartarite take on using and expanding Belintar's Proximate Holy Realm questing, whether through (social) architecture or through questing. Argrath's main path seems to be the acknowledgement as the superior magical ruler of his realm, starting with the recognition as King of Dragon Pass, and later expanding that to include Kethaela and Saird. His Questing/Adventuring takes him to Ralios and Dorastor, taking up Arkat's inheritance (at least one fifth of that), and deep into and beyond the Lunar Empire against the Kalikos Quest. The EWF at its furthest extent is a useful descriptor for his territorial desire, and calling up the draconic ghosts of that past certainly will aid his claims against his many rivals and foes.

Overt Chaos may not have been that popular with the orthodox Malkioni, and unless I get my dates extremely wrong, Treack Markhor re-united the headless god and the horned head only half a century before the Closing.

The stuff I am writing about is set in the Mirrorsea Bay but has ties to Melib and Dosakayo. Spending a few seasons in the east is a possibility, one I might explore in-depth should I ever get the stuff I have now in good enough shape to hand it to GMs other than myself.

Bronze can be hardened by hammering, but the hardness also makes it more brittle. If I recall that material science course on swords correctly, edges of bronze swords would be hammer-hardened in some cases. (The course is mainly about steel swords, however.)

Send in a fire elemental to attack the shade before it engulfs a victim. The shade has nothing to counterattack but will take fire damage.

;Many of the peaks of the Quivin and Storm Mountains are children of Veskarthen/Lodril, which allows for volcanic origin alongside one of the few cases of plate tectonics in Glorantha from the Footprint event. My Glorantha has lesser children of the Vent deity showing their heads throughout the Choralintor bay, as well as thermal springs. Some rise up to a few hundred meter, like Sober Rock (the smaller of the two islands at Sober Isle south of Karse). If only to be able to reuse an old RQ3 scenario of mine. There is little in the way of lava as volcanic activity, but there may be secondary volcanic manifestations, similar to the vapors of the Delphi oracle, or hot mineral springs. Quite a few of these (or tar piits) below the Mirrorsea, too.

The exact origin of the dagger is of little importance - it was a prop of Stevalis's great prank. IMO the "sole survivor of the troll attack" was another trickster in disguise, delivering the dagger to the Archduke, then using invisibilty and possibly Guided Teleport to the "mobile temple" dagger to assassinate the culprit behind the invasion. Making it a mobile temple to Orlanth could allow the Guided Teleport ploy for an avenger. Such an item would of course be highly magical, and require study by the wizards back home. The assassin would have escaped the same way he arrived, probably taking the dagger back. It would subsequently have been used in the wars ending the Second Age, and it it still was around, in the Adjustment Wars that followed. It may have ended up anywhere in those conflicts, or it might have become some clan or tribal regalia in Sartar when many Hendreiki clans left Heortland, from where it may have returned to the Lunar Empire as booty by the Imperial College of Magic. It could be on the Red Moon.

That's from the Durengard scroll, about 700 years ago. There has been an increase in total population of Hendrikiland since, including a huge number of refugees from the Pass region after 1042 up to 1120. I expect the town to be majority standard Orlanthi(coastal fisherfolk with only a minority Esvularings. I don't have any yet, my focus is on the isles. Yes - the Admiral is from the Rightarm Isles, probably operates from Seapolis. The Count is (or used to be) a vassal of the governor king of Heortland. The admiral being based in Seapolis is fairly logical, although in 1600 the City of Wonders is as possible. According to Martin Helsdon's Periplus, there are three major naval bases around the Choralinthor Bay, with the City of Wonders the magical and possibly administrative center but not really the navy base. Leskos and the Heortland coastal guard is more or less my interpretation. Heortland doesn't really play a big role in the Choralinthor Bay, with most of the population perched atop those cliffs,. but the inlets and the coastal strip has fisherfolk amd needs some protection from pirate raids. Whether the remaining vessels and crews available to Malkonwal can provide such protection is a different question. In 1600, the Isles are the backyard of the City of Wonders, a place used by inhabitants of the capital to have a few manorial steads providing them with fresh fruit and wine, plus local fishing hamlets. There is one village big enough to show up on the detail map of the region, on the inner of the two islands off the Minthos estuary, which is the only "port" with some overseas trade other than ships taking in fresh water and possibly fish or fruit from coastal hamlets. In my version the islands are somewhat different in their populations and land use, and in elevation. Two islands may jut a bit above that 300 m / 1000 foot line, but not enough to show on the AAA scale maps. I don't think that Leskos becomes a pirate lair. Bur that doesn't mean that there are no vessels sailing for the wolf pirates in town, carrying ransom or trading plunder for necessities. Mainly civilian vessels, though. The island becomes home to two pirate crews (a penteconter and an armed merchantman) and occasional hiding place for a few more based off Threestep, for water supply and food. The count has gone into hiding. Leskos will be the home port for a few mercantile vessels, and get visited by overseas vessels and local merchantmen despite the piracy risk even after 1616. IMO most of the piracy consists of coastal raids, on beached vessels and coastal settlements. Catching vessels at sea may be a greater risk for solo vessels, and a fleet of pirates requires quite a bit of support which may exceed the level that coastal foraging or friendly contact with certain places can provide.. I don't think that Leskos is separated from the mainland at al (except maybe for exceptional floods swamping the entire coastal regionl - the rocky base of the fortress rises from the coastal flats and the dune belt. Iphara will claim the coastal flats and the tidal flats some of the time, especially during the colder seasons, as the water remains rather warm from the Rozgali/Solkathi currents entering the bay with the rising tide. Iphara may have reigned for much of the WIndstop when the air was close to freezing while the water remained moderately warm. Under normal calm conditions, the mornings would see wind from the mainland pushing any nascent clouds out into the bay if these diurnal cycles of the land cooling more than the sea and the resuling air movements apply. But then, calm conditions are rather rare in the Storm Sixth, and more or less steady winds may drive nascent clouds towards and across the cliffs, providing ample precipitation for Heortland, including rich helpings of dew. The architecture of the fortifications may be Malkioni, if the stone structure was indeed started by the Slontans who stayed here for a few years. The locals will have re-built the interior using native architecture resembling that of Sartar - after all the majority of the Sartarite ancestors immigrated from Heorltand, as did many of the skilled craftspeople folliwing the recruitment of WIlms. Available buiilding material includes the bigger pieces broken off the limestone cliffs due to erosion forces (clearig pasture in the aftermath of quarrying), and possibly fired bricks. Adobe with a good chalking may withstand a humid climate, too, but will probably have a significant amount of plant fiber inside, such as reed cuttings or cuttings from ship maintenance. Lumber can be rafted in down the Bullflood, with meager local sources on the coastal flats. The Slontan occupation during the Middle Sea Empire would have retreated to more defensible places, like Lylket on the Creekstream River estuary and Ironfort overlooking the Troll Strait. Without any real power over the plateau, Leskos would have been another liability with limited strategic importance. The black galleys of the Shadow Plateau may have preyed on the supply line for Lylket, but much of that may have been shipped in from Nochet rather than overseas via Ironfort. The Machine Wars saw significant military action along the Heortland coast, with raids by Slontan marines and fireships reported in the Durengard Scroll. There were also poisonous vapors and other sorcerous plagues emanating from Zistorite God Forgot. The Closing left the Choralinthor Bay navigable, and local trade across the bay would have kept the ports somewhat alive. Seaworthiness would have deteriorated during the centuries of sailing only the calm surface of the Mirrorsea. With first Seshnela and then Slontos cut off from the sea, Ironfort would have become untenable, although there may have been a number of vessels closed out from their homelands taking refuge there, or in Eest (Teshnos and bexyond). The Devastation of the Vent caused significant damage all over the Mirrorsea coast, but did not depopulate the coast entirely. Compare the Burchardi floods for the effects on the population - coastal settlements may have been lost, but not necessarily with all inhabitants. Veslarthen has only so much shallow water in the Mirrorsea that he can animate.. The Opening brought about a massive ship-building boom, both for military galleys and for merchant vessels. The Handra and Quinpolic trade allowed for solid profits, and the Dosakayan trade allowed vessels to be paid off after a single trip or two, which will have led to shipping families even in minor costal villages, initially financed with crew profits. The arrival of the Wolf Pirates in 1605 (probably including Gold Gotti) put a damper on those profitable times with coastal attrition, leading to more military navy. The Leskos flotilla would have been upgraded only after that initial shock.

I tried to visualize the eastern half of the Mirrorsea Bay in Sketchup, and this is what came out for the Bullflood (Uxeler) estuary: Leskos is that settlement on the inlet of the side arm, fed by a minor creek falling down from the plateau above, at the end of the coastal road towards Durengard. We know about dunes along the coast, but at least IMG the fortress sits on a rocky outcrop. I haven't quite decided yet whether it is a basalt plume peeking slightly above the surrounding lowland or whether it is a remnant of the limestone bedrock broken off by Worcha or some other such event.There were no more such assaults under Faralinthor, or after he died, although the Breaking of the World brought a huge rush of water into the region, which together with the SKy River waters awakened Choralinthor and improved the Greater Darkness for the boat people for a while. Darshaval's report tells about an abandoned fortress filled with decomposed corpses - doubtlessly one of the tricks of Stevalis the Trickster, using an existing settlement that was evacuated. Since most Hendriki live on top of the Plateau, these were most likely poeple subject to the Foreigner Laws - fisherfolk, Esvulari or Esrolians who had settled here after the Gbaji Wars. No idea where Stevalis got the corpses. Anyway, the founding of Leskos by the Slontans sounds like a previous major village being turned into a garrison for a while, then abandoned as the Esrolians struck back. The position on the estuary may have been settled since the Second Council.

Danshavalas is mentioned in tne Durengard Scroll: (history of the Heortling Peoples p.62) Svagad ruled from 789 to 805 and confirmed the Archduchy of Slontos. The Slontans then invaded the Choralinthor Bay from the sea. HotHP p.74 mentions Danshavalas and the Hendriki king Oranvil and his Trickster, putting that document above into perspective.

In my notes for the region, the flotilla was under the command of the Count of the Isles, whose domain is also where the fleet used to operate before the County became a pirate lair. The Count was a vessel of Belintar's governor king, a city rex without a proper city.

Few Gloranthans have a nearly seamless armor coverage, although critters with natural armor have such. But damage can be transferred through armor, too, as SCA experiences with broken bones under hardly dented armor indicate. I would treat an interaction between a knapped stone weapon and hard targets like a successful parry that doesn't diminish damage but harms the weapon. Possibly using a resistance roll between weapon hit points and armor hit points, with softer armor possibly having a reduced chance to break the stone if I want to make an issue out of the imbalance.

Gloranthan rune magic - at least the one-use model for initiates in RQ3 - is "fire and forget" with regards to the POW points, which need another sacrifice for that spell. The D&D wizard has a contingent of casting slots per time between major rests requiring re-connecting that energy with the spell formula. In a way, a magic currency needs to be allocated (sacrificed) for the spell, keeping the spell in a state where an incantation and possibly some material can activate it. Sounds like how Mythras (or at least RQ6) handles divine magic.

try https://wellofdaliath.chaosium.com/home/gloranthan-documents/greg-sez/praxian-spirit-tradition/ or use the search function with those words (which is how I found it).

In my experience of Heortland, Leskos is the navy base protecting the Bullflood inlet, with a small flotilla of locally crewed biremes and maybe a trireme or two. It serves as a trans-shipping harbor for vessels too deep to navigate the Bullflood up to Durengard (outside of the highest tide), and acts as an off-loading point for fishing communities on the coast. With Durengard being the "royal seat" of the governor king instituted by Belintar, and later the king of Malkonwal or the Lunar administration taking over in Rikard's wake, the relationship between Leskos and Durengard may be something akin to Ostia and Rome or Piraeus and Athens, on a smaller scale. The mayor of Leskos will be of much lower rank than the mayor of Durengard (who may be a subject of the king, or may be held in personal union).