Joerg

Do the angels form an eternal contract like the adversary below does? Does this bind the characters to a specific afterlife? What shape do these archangels take? The Cherubs of the Arc of the Covenant aren't humanoid at all, and lammasu or sphinxes are hardly humanoid except for their faces. Effectively, these benefactor archangels could be terrible to behold and inhuman. possibly causing nightmares even without any rules-bending or -breaking by the characters. Perhaps there is some form of magical corruption - possibly a sheen of holiness threatening to draw the characters to their afterlives prematurely, something that needs to be returned to the realm of the angels to avoid effects outside of the control of the magicians. (Negative corruption might occur, too, requiring different forms of cleansing. At the same time, too.)

In my Glorantha I have places which are solidly on shards of Godtime real estate, and others that sit on the seams between such shards, formed from the web of Arachne Solara (which is regurgitated, somewhat digested Devil, as we know well). Spirit places may be on shards of Godtime with strong spirit association, but they may just as well sit directly on such seams, or possibly corners where three or more shards meet. You cannot really tell from the geography, so this is really a GM's cop-out to establish a magical fact for an established place. Once defined, it should remain, but the actual effect might be tied to some of the cycles of Time. See the Hidden Greens/Hidden Castles suggestions. Then there are dragon places, where reality changes according to what the dreams of the sleeping dragon turn towards. Dragonewt plinths tend to be spirit places or even vortices, but their magic is jealously guarded by the dragonewts, who may pop into the location any moment.

Must only speak Stormspeech on Winddays and/or in Storm Season sounds like an equivalent for the Yelmalio geases.

While knapped stone or glass is more inclined to snap or break, and while parts of the blade may splinter leaving nasty shards, from what I have read the sharpness of the blades doesn't deteriorate as it does for metal blades if used on soft tissue (all the way up to sinews). People have used discarded paleolithic blades for shaving, with good results. Arrow tips or spear blades interacting with hard obstacles (armor, major bones) are prone to breaking in the stone tip, possibly with the shaft surviving intact, but a leaf-shaped metal arrow tip may bend or break off upon similar contact. Retrieving arrows is a combination of two rolls - Search whether you find them, and then Luck (POWx5) whether (or how much) the arrow was damaged, be it after a glancing hit or miss, or after the target fell down or moved away with the arrow stuck in them or in their gear. There are no field repairs for arrows, but a trained fletcher could assemble new arrows from salvaged material and some new ingredients. The shafts need to be seasoned wood for reproducible results, as freshly cut wood tends to be too supple for the tensions arrows are subjected to. The ideal shaft will fly straight even without fletching after the tip has been attached if released correctly. The typical shaft won't, and neither will the typical release allow such straight flight for an unfletched arrow. That's where the fletching comes in. An experienced archer can use impromptu arrows from freshly cut branches at a penalty little different from the penalty for firing arrows made for a different draw strength and/or draw length. A sufficiently inexperienced archer might not notice the difference, and will be unable to perfectly reproduce draw length, release, and thereby draw strength. Breakage in shafts can be expected, and there is a school of fletchers using dove-tailed multiple part shafts to achieve optimal hardness and a planned breaking point in the portion attached to the tip that may have started in the mesolithic. Wet sinew beats scotch tape by orders of magnitude for such jobs.

Thinking about the etymologies of Gloranthan terms like Nochet or Godunya and possibly Gonn Orta, "this is gonna jar".

Theya and Rausa are the two red celestial goddesses of transition. The Dawn was all about transition, and so was the early part of the Dawn Age. Even the warlike descendants of the VIngkotlings were champions of peace and cooperation. But dawn gave way for day, and the Sun people proved to be inimical and murderous, necessitating a shift in policies from the World Council of Friends to the Second Council. While still optimistic and forward-looking, their conflict with the horse warlords gave prominence to cults like Zorak Zoran, echoing the Gods War. The tipping point may have been the Bridling of Kargzant and the Empty Year of the horse warlord emperors. A different tribe of charioteers came to dominance, and the Hyaloring horse riders suffered from their god's loss of freedom. Lightbringer missionaries were captured and murdered, without a chance to spread their creed of cooperation among mortals and with the now distant and bound deities. Or it may have been the pernicious post-mortem influence of the Feldichi, whose ruins became the seat of the Second Council, and whose inhabitants started numerous experiments beyond human ken and understanding. The missionaries became less trusting, and spread their message as much with arms as with harmony. All the way to the insidious ways of the Bright Empire missionaries in the West. Transition was a thing of the past, instead the focus was on ascension, and of testing the limits of the Compromise. It is a bit ironic that the entity born from the Sunstop embodying the unwavering light has become the guardian of the Lunar cycle.

Sartar performed a Westfaring (partial LBQ) in order to awaken the wyter for his new Kingdom. A party wyter usually gets bound into an artifact or rarely an animal. There is an Orlanthi custom for the Arming of Orlanth where followers or companions of the hero who don't have a protagonist role in the quest get included as "equipment". You can add a Humakti to a Lightbringer endeavor as representing the Sword of Orlanth. In a similar way, a quester could represent/carry the object (or handle the beast) of the prospective wyter.

The Malkioni concept of devolution makes a clear distinction about generational weakening of the original rune, though it doesn't account for extra effort put in by one of the younger Srvuali to take back some of their siblings' powers.

Original BRP settings can take the license, but that may need more work than re-appearing might be worth.

A fascinating synergy with the OGL1.1 panic...

So no cookies for newtlings, timinits? Centaurs and merfolk obviously get a pass for being at least partially humanoid. Broos and Scorpionfolk might, too, if they weren't that chaotic. Herd men don't get Gramps Mortal, but the mostly quadruped, decidedly non-humanoid Morokanth get it for them. What do the magisaurs get after losing their dragonewt rune? Spirit? The giant ones may be stupid but still are borderline sentient, much like failed dragonewt dinosaurs repenting and transforming into pteranodons. Beast alone doesn't work. The Bestiary's "Beast and Water" at 60% each doesn't address this. Wyrms might actually have an ancestral claim to the man rune. No runners, but pixies possibly. No unicorns?

I believe that was the original idea (at the same time that Refuge was positioned as a place to drop in Sanctuary), but long superseded. That's what happened in the Chaosium House Campaign, much like the VIkings Box was playtested in Ygg's Isles, and I put quite a bit of writing and effort to align the offering with how my Glorantha works. MGWV, of course. Having read the Stafford Campaign notes, Greg's Campaign Glorantha Was Variant. Still, there are quite a few memorable character concepts and neighborhood inter-relations that can survive transplantation from the map of Caernarfon to the new layout, with little effort if it is for your own campaign. For the Jonstown Compendium, you'd be ending up imitating the dregs or cups of Clearwine creating original characters with some inspiration by the Midkemia Press publications, and possibly their city population tool aka RuneQuest Cities. The results of using that tool are your own work once you attach some detail. The Midkemia product has a few rather non-Gloranthan institutions that will benefit from re-inventing.

There is a myth that states Orlanth enters the Underworld to bring back his missing wife. On the whole, "When did Ernalda die?" is a trick question. After all, "She is not dead, She is sleeping." When Nontraya (Vivamort before his encounter with Wakboth) led his hell horde to Ezel, he encountered a procession with Ernalda on a bier, carried by weeping attendants, possibly heading to Necropolis. (I strongly suspect that Nontraya/Vivamort is the Death who was tricked by Tada to protect Eiritha, too.) Now Necropolis/Koravaka may be one of those places which make you technically dead by entering. Orlanth and Ernalda return together, hand in hand, exiting alongside Yelm from the Gates of Dawn. And at Kero Fin, and at Ezel, and other such places.

I agree. What rune do the Magisaurs receive, though? They stop being dragonewts, after all.

Nature spirits often are meant to have the seductress aspect, and most outdoor professiosn who may run afoul of these are traditionally male roles. Among the beastmen, minotaurs and satyrs provide the lust for human (and divine) females while foxwomen, swan maiden etc. cater to herdboy or hunter fantasies. For some reasons, rivers and seas tend to have resident daughters - any male offspring is probably supposed to be carving out their own territory elsewhere. In my Glorantha, nymphs including dryads are rune- or place-flavored versions of the Tilntae, the daughters of Uleria. The ability to give parthenogenetic birth to whatever AND to reproduce with whomever.

Sounds a bit like a teaser for Androgeus with tentacles untrimmed.

t How fast would the inevitable camp followers be on such a trail? Not much slower, they need to be able to catch up with the soldiers and still serve in setting up camp and providing their after-march services. The Silver Shields might be rather professional, with one follower per two soldiers. The actual way length to cross area like Birne's Squeeze may be 15 km per 8 km-hex (appöying "mountainous terrrain speed" from the board game), with 10kn per 8km-hex on a secondary road in open terrain and close to the actual diameter on primary roads. That's a daily march of up to 48 km (six hexes) for infantry on primary roads, in about 10 hours of marching? That leaves up to sic hours of daylight for breaking and setting up camp in Fire Season. A single slinger up the slopes may stop the advance for a couple of minutes as the targets will go for cover and then return the compliment. Only desperate groups keep marching under fire. The board game models that with the Zone of Control rules. Comparisons with the last march of Varus' legions would be too harsh - the Lunars don't rely on a subverted recon under direct command of the opposing general. Foraging will have to scrounge up food for the man-days of the unit. I wonder whether warfare in Fire Season will severely limit the amount of available food. While there may be fresh vegetables and first fruits, grain reserves will be at their lowest. Dairy and this year's newborn livestock will be somewhat available, but much of that on the high pastures, with just enough dairy beasts near the villages to feed the locals. Caravanserais will be prepared to feed up to 200 extras (people and beasts of burden) a day, making them excellent targets for foraging as you can find a few weeks' worth of supplies for that number, or a full unit for a few days. The defenders rushing to Runegate will have used up much of the typical reserves on their way to the defense., but still a caravanserai should be able to feed three units of the WBRM game for a day. Major settlements might have a similar capacity with the Ernalda temple granaries and a weekly market. How will the non-combatant natives prepare for a huge hostile (or friendly) force foraging in the neighborhood? Business as usual until the hostiles appear on the crest? Moving supplies to secret caches away from predictable routes, then returning to making hay (the main harvesting activity in Fire Season)? Foragers will prefer to target rich households, as the poor and destitute won't have much if any provisions left this late before the harvest. They will scoop up whatever domestic fowl and other livestock is available from non-cooperative natives, and take whatever is prepared on the hearth (cooking a pre-modern meal takes about half a day if based on grains). How do friendly warbands on the march interact with hospitality? Can hostile or neutral forces enforce treatment as guests? As Sylilans, the Silver Shields recruit from both lowland and upland farmers, familiar with the farmers' reactions for such occasions as they will have experienced these things from the receiving end. Although Sylila is a Heartland satrapy, the natives are different enough that forces from other Heartland regions and even more allied forces won't be "friendly" in any meaningful way even when well-disciplined if logistics aren't perfect (are they ever?). What is the non-combatant element of the Silver Shields?

Indeed. Not just the Lunar authorities, that caper blew out of any proportion and took a life of its own. The spirit of Eurmal manifested, and Danfive already filled out membership forms...

That would make the Darkness trio something like the midwives or perhaps even mothers of the three brothers?

I think we can expect most of the Lunar Provincial Army. Some units from the Heartland Corps (e.g. Beryl and Marble Phalanxes, Silver Shields), some of the Cavalry Corps (e.g. Antelope Lancers). Since the Red Emperor is there, at least some of the Imperial Bodyguard is present (and is noted as being there in KoS). And of course the Crimson Bat. The Dragon Pass boardgame gives us the Lunar forces after the Dragonkill, with the provincial forces mostly limited to the Native Furthest militia. No idea whether there were Sairdite or Aggari forces at the dedication rite for the new Temple.

Pamaltelans like to use base 17, Lunars like base 7, Dara Happans use base 8 or base 10 (especially Plentonius). In our world, Germanic counting systems know the small hundred (10x10),. the large hundred (12x10) and the gros (12x12). The French and the Danes count and number in twenties rather than tens all the way to 100. And we all use base 12/24/60 for time (except people using SI units, which have decimal seconds and multiples thereof). Given the history of British coinage (which had the guinea, worth a pound plus a shilling, or 21 shilling, or 252 pence), the Gloranthan system for 1:20:200:2000 is pretty easy to remember.

One quite dramatic description is in The Smoking Ruins p.34 (TSR), or alternatively in Dragon Pass: Land of Doom, A Gazetteer of Kerofinela, p.61. TSR has lots of encounters for the place, too, so it is the better resource. The Guide only replicates the map of the place, but not the rite.

Well, for starters, Yelm overcame Jokbazi, a Predark opposition, as prerequisite to become Emperor of the World, as the third of such obstacles (Basko the Black Sun being the first, Molandro the Earth Walker being the second, more substantial one), according to the Black Sun write-up and a throwaway line in the RQ2 RuneQuest Companion Jonstown Compendium snippets. The Predark (a term coined by the Orlanthi, not the Solars) are a regrettable side effect of using Creation. No act of Creation is pure enough to avoid some Chaos creeping into the world, which may have been why the Solar Emperor opted for Stasis after overthrowing his predecessor.

Feel free to use them, and to send me a copy of the work in progress for error-hunting or similar assistance in order to earn the free copy.

rather specific ones are known, such as fire to purify Chaos, or his curse of VIvamort.