Joerg

My vision of Jansholm had boat mills under the lesser bridge arches - paddle wheels turned by the current, powering a quern possibly by lifting the grinding stone up a slope and letting it roll down again. A simple belt contraption could achieve that without much in the way of force translation. These mills probably are operated by Esvulari or Ingareens. If your village happens to have a brook or creek with some height difference, a top-loading water wheel might be possible. Force translation remains the problem there. I doubt that. The population density in Malkonwal and parts of Volsaxiland is higher than average Sartar. Remember: Jeff's rediscovered maps show Tarsh and Sartar in one map each, and both Esrolia and Heortland fit into one of those maps, too, with about the same amount of area given over to other places in all of those maps.

Those factions are dividing individual clans just as much as the dominant factions in a clan may cause inter-clan troubles. The division into "rebel tribes" and "appeaser tribes" that was pushed in the Sartar RIsing series always struck me as rather un-Orlanthi. Several thousand tribesfolk following a single policy? The Solar Wind folk would be restricted to some of the new Enstalos clans who escaped being sent into the Zola Fel Valley Grantlands. Not even Wulfsland has that many folk from the Heartlands. A faction like this sounds more likely for lowland Tarsh, really, although Tarsh has a reputation as Lunar zealots, probably thanks to Moirades attracting such folk with his incarnation of the Provincial University (countering that of Mirin's Cross). Upper Heartlands nobility would mostly be Lunar. "Duke" Raus with his non-Lunar ancestor worship seems to have been elevated to that title for his previous work in Lunar Tarsh. I wonder what are his ties to the various Eel-Ariash clients.

The Wild Healer of the Rockwood Mountains is a contemporary hero of CA. Unfortunately, he is a broo Rune Masters had RQ2-style rune lord and rune-lord priest characters for CA. Not that canonical any more, though. The Orlanthi have produced plenty of CA heroquesters for their interpretations of the Lightbringer myths, but few names are recorded. There is a White Lady in the short piece "The Missionaries" If I had to make up a heroic CA ancestor, I probably would go about and invent Sartar's Chalana Arroy companion on his Westfaring quest (to get a wyter for his new kingdom). Ties to the royal house, etc. Maybe have her involved in a disease in connection to King Brangbane.

Seeing @AndreJarosch pipe up, I wonder why nobody has mentioned Penelope Love's "The Widow's Tale" yet...

Gold-Gotti is weirdly absent from the (Avalon Hill edition) battalia listing of the Dragon Pass game, although his counter (superior infantry) is in the game. The history section of the board game names him as a merchant prince (p.31 of the AH edition of the rules). My IMG-YGWV solution is to have two such characters, with similar names, or rather three if you include the Sartarite bandit Golgotti Guildersnatcher, Issaries initiate, from Borderlands. That is semi-correct. The Wolf Pirates arrived in the Holy Country in 1605, with massive raids on the islands and less massive but still devastating raids on coastal regions, capturing serfs for their new colony on the Three Step Isles, roughly doubling their population after the migration from Ygg's Isles. (Two other such colonies were founded, on Ginorth off Kanthor's Forest in Seshnela, and on Gothalos (near Aurelion's Breakwater) in northern Jrustela.) The defeat of Belintar's navy in 1616 gave the Wolf Pirates enough space for some crews/captains to dominate hamlets and to establish coves in the County of the Isles, and possibly elsewhere. The question remains when Gold Gotti the Wolf Pirate arrived on the Threestep Isles. (Until I find a better solution, I write the pirate without the hyphen, and the trader prince with the hyphen.) Give his birth date of 1575, he may well have been among the first wave of wolf pirates arriving at the Threestep Isles, rather than among the second or third wave of Yggites Harrek brought in 1617 after his raid of Sog City and receiving his "Ormen Lange" equivalent from the Yggites. The Armies and Enemies document would then have contradicted the description in WBRM. Now those descriptions had some flaws, but aren't exactly off canon. Baron Sanuel is another such name with multiple published interpretations. We have maps showing Baron Sanuel's Land near Smithstone.

Given their name, the Esvulari seem to stem from the Vulari peninsula, an arm of rather low-lying land between two stretches of (apparently tidal) marshland. Rather than irrigation (which is sort of redundant in places with regular rains), I would expect them to have waterworks that keep the water away from their f1ields and pasture, much like the Frisians did already in Roman times. There is no separate survival site for the Esvulari in the maps in History of the Heortling People (which is the draft version) or the Guide (which is the technicolor version, although with a few weird artifacts). The assumption is that the Aeolians are a branch or splinter group of the Ingareens, choosing to trust in the Storm Gods of their Heortling neighbors when they spread onto the southern plateau of what is now Malkonwal, meeting and interacting with the theist Orlanthi who started to populate all the easily arable lands by the time of the Bright Empire. Word of Jeff is that the Aeolians have three endogamous castes, much like the Jesidic Kurds, which may or may not have allowed for adoption of outsiders but leaves little potentia for caste mobility. Thus, in theory there still is an option for political marriages, provided that the marriage partner gets adopted into the talar caste. There is the failure or dissolution of the Garanvuli tribe (apparently even before the Sunstop) and the formation of the Hendriki as a tribe rather than just a bandit group, but the Foreigner Laws of Aventus seem to apply to a patchwork of Heortlings, Pelaskites and Esvulari populating much of the Heortland plateau. There is little in the way of localizing the inhabitants of the Heortland plateau before the travelogue in the Durengard scrolls which gives a Slontan perspective to both the actual travel experience and the history of Slontan invasions and occupation of the region. History of the Heortling Peoples provides a list of kings' names and some notable deeds, and notable opponents, but most of that in a theatre of the mind style rather than by maps. The historical maps exist, in steps of half a century, but those don't show settlement patterns on the plateau or the coastal area. Jeff has shared a few on Facebook, now archived on the Well of Daliath. We know that there are no rural Esvulari outside of southern Malkonwal, but that there are several cities with Aeolians outside of their territory. It isn't clear whether these were transplanted or possibly upscaled as servants and bureaucrats of Belintar, if not by Belintar then by the Esvulari governors installed by the Godking.

While I don't think that there was much in the way of sea traffic past Fethlon during the Closing, I would regard the Sofali Isles and Trowjang as navigable coastal waters during the Closimg. The Teshnans did practice coastal sailing during the Closing, to the extent that they sent a sizeable contingent of settlers along the Rozgali swamp coast around 1250 ST, establishing a colony on the Zola Fel estuary (what would become the Grantlands). The Praxians were busy fighting the remnants of the Pure Horse Folk then, and might even have employed the settlers as solar allies against the solar powers of the Pure Horse people. The colony disappears on subsequent historical maps in the Guide, but there has been speculation that the Sun Dome Temple had been faced with the somewhat different solar mores of the Teshnans. There is apossibility that Sun County received a influx of the farmers of Selenteen's expedition after the Pure Horse Folk had been pushed out of Prax. With this much coastal sailing almost 300 years into the Closing, I find it hard to assume that the Marazi of Trowjang had been isolated on their island, without any bridging by the Sofali turtle folk. Sheng Seleris launched a naval raid on Vormain a little over a century later, across the Sea of Fog (which may never have been affected by the Closing). Sheng ruled over both Teshnos and much of Kralorela. His assault on Vormain may have used up all the people still involved in naval activities in the east.

I will need to check The Coming Storm. Other than that, any material since King of Sartar would have been published by Issaries Inc. or Moon Design. If there is RQG material stating this, I would be suprised, as RQG doesn't mention Orlanthi (or Praxian, or Grazelander, or Esrolian) adulthood initiation in the rules. Player characters are supposed to be young veterans in those rules. See https://wellofdaliath.chaosium.com/home/catalogue/websites/pos/prince-of-sartar/chapter-1-initiation/002-the-uncles/

Few of those outside of Caladraland. But there are Temples to All Deities that such visitors may use for their own Sanctify routines - that's theolution offered by the RQG publications. The Sun Domers of Vanntar have their ancestors in Heortland, far away from any Shargash influence. Their hero Monrogh brought them the Sunspear by acknowledging Yelm as big daddy, but that happened less than eighty years ago, and they don't show any evidence of having imported say Buserian (another planetary son of Yelm, as per Gods Wall) to deal with their bureaucracy, or Lodril for their plowing. The Sun Domers in Prax seem to have absorbed some of the Teshnan settlers that occupied the Zola Fel estuary around the time of Alavan Argay, and may have adopted a little of the Teshnan fire cult associations. These settlers came in search of the Red Sword, so they might have brought some Tolat to the Zola Fel valley Sun Dome temple. Whether that still persists and resulted in a shrine at the Sun Dome there I don't know. There is no indication that Selenteen (the leader of that expedition and colony) made it into Kethaela, let alone through Dragon Pass (where the Inhuman Occupation just had ended by the adoption of the survivors of the Pure Horse Folk of Prax as the Grazelanders) on his attempt to pick up the trail of Avalor, the last known holder of the Red Sword of Melib. The whereabouts of this hero are unknown. Where Yelmalio is identified with Reladivus Kargzant, the southern planetary god might even be considered a full sibling, but the Cold Light resulting from the dismemberment of Yelm doesn't really have siblings. Tolat is pretty much unknown to Lunars or Dara Happans, who are used to deal with Shargash (and Jagrekriand). The Westerners know Tolat as an enemy deity, too, associated with the Loper People, a foe very much demonized in the re-telling, but then they used his cult to conquer (or claim tribute) all of Teshnos as the Duchy of Eest. Their domain over the Amazons might simply have been one of presenting the fact that their temple on Melib held the Red Sword, which wouldn't budge (until Avalor made it budge), proof that their presence was the wish of Tolat, and the Marazi may have acknowledged that and sent tribute. There might have been God Learner expeditions into Trowjang, with the male leaders wearing fake slave collars while female students of heroquesting (if those were all that common) would provide the face of that expedition (and possibly lose their male superiors by accident, or going native). IMG Trowjang is that shard of the sky which fell down during the fight against the Sky Terror, with the daughters of the Sun who were abandoned by their brothers/husbands, or at least a part of that shard. The one that caused the big tsunami in Godtime. Thus their Tolat may be different from the Tolat brought by the Zaranistangi, possibly closer to Jagrekriand of Orlanthi myth.

She is unlikely to find a shrine to Jagrekriand, the enemy of Umath and Orlanth, but there are a couple of places where this enemy's magic is strong. There are the archer pillars at the Aurochs Hills where supernatural entities got involved in the battle of Iceland, and there is Arrowmound, a place where Orlanth and Jagrekriand battled. Nochet may have enough Melibians for a shrine to Tolat in their corner of the city. The question is whether they would accept one of the terror women into their place of worship. How welcome would Wolf Pirates be at a Dormal temple? The Marazi are best known in the region for their piracy. Yelmite temples that have a Shargash shrine are few and far apart in the region, too. One of her best bets might be a Praxian spirit society including "Bronze Treasure" as one of their sprits. A Marazi may have no problem to be lumped in with Lunar spirits. The Men-and-a-Half might claim that the Red Planet belongs to their ancestral Lodril. No idea whether that would be helpful for your amazon.

After the conquest of the Sky Dome, Pole Star became the keeper of the exit of Orlanth's Ring, and possibly the loyal thane holding the stead while the Ring was elsewhere. That Elmal role... why should Yelmalio get all the fun and credit? Not much of a cult on its own, but possible as a subcult or rune spell of Elmal/Yelmalio or Vinga or some other entity. Why not Inora? Kallyr did investigate sky lore, followed Orlanth's Ring and got involved with the gatekeeper. Certain parallels with Hon-eel's quest to mother her twins Daylight (or Twilight, the Fifth Wane history uses both) and Nightlight can be made. Do we know Kallyr's year of birth? How much dynastic tutoring could she have experienced? Could she have grown up with a Telmori bodyguard looking out for her?

I found this to un-confuse a lot of things - like making anybody who would choose a deity not regular to their clan during their military or otherwise mercenary career, say in Pavis, potentially an apostate to their clan temple. Bur let me also voice my disagreement over King of Sartar being part of the HQ era. King of Sartar made a huge splash in 1992, during the inception of the RuneQuest third edition renaissance that brought us brilliant products reprinting parts of the RQ2 era classics and new material, such as Sun County and River of Cradles, Shadows on the Borderlands and Strangers in Prax (and two more taking the Cults of Terror Dorastor seeds and expanding those). However, as you can see all of this was still in the ghetto of the Zola Fel valley, hardly even striking into the Plains of Prax, and almost timidly shying away from setting anything in the land of the White Bear and Red Moon boardgame. (Avalon Hill had licensed and reprinted Chaosium's second edition of White Bear and Red Moon, Dragon Pass, which was kept available alongside the other Avalon Hill board games which were given a much longer shelf time than hardly any roleplaying system has ever experienced). No problem there at all - those specialists are associated to temples outside of the clan oversight, possibly even outside of the tribe's city confederation. This is only a problem if you insist that all the specialists have to be locally grown from the Clan Temple. Which is where your subsequent proposal breaks down for me. I do respect your "IMG" though. If the method below works for you and sets things "right", use that. It just makes discussing these a bit more of an extracorporeal experience as it requires me to give up 30 years of coping in a different way. Disclaimer: My interpretation of what is going on in the Colymar tribe and its neighbors is my personal interpretation of the source material published to date, trying to follow canon but in no way the yet unpublished RQG canon defined by Jeff. I expect to be contradicted by future publications, but I cannot predict where. This might even work IMG for isolated, somewhat xenophobic and ultra-traditionalist clans, because such clans don't really have any alternative but to rely on what is locally available. Going away from this clan without the protection cult initiation offers may seem unthinkable. And unfortunately the "example" of the Varmandi clan provided in Genertela Box exaggerates this stereotype. The possibly most backward clan in the easily most backward tribe in all of Old Sartar, not part of any of the city confederations that organize the Kingdom of Sartar through the Kings' deputies, the City Rexes (also called mayors in earlier publications, with somewhat less glorious competences, too - especially one Brygga Scissortongue of New Pavis, who admittedly has to report to a Lunar governor who has usurped all the Rex responsibilities). So far from basic Sartarite civilization that a chimney (a common item used for any Gustbran fire) is described as dangerous and possibly soul-draining sorcery. As long as nobody like Lokamayadon, the God Learners, the EWF or the Lunar occupators mess with it or the ambient magic of the land. And as long as you tolerate a certain number of failures and tragical deaths as part of the initiation. Yes, that's slander. Any Humakti is by definition an adult, and by cult choice an adult close to death, even if they are five or six year old half-Telmori princesses wielding death magic in one hand and a plushy wolf toy endowed with terrible magics in the other hand (Salinarg's daughters, leaders of the Household of Death in 1602). The dropouts will be broken not-quite adults - possibly choosing outlawry over a shameful return to their clan, easily scooped up by Gagarthi bandits needing new cannon-fodder. Gagarth's is a very inclusive cult that will initiate just about anybody willing to swear to follow their leader. There is a limit to how many Eurmali - even extraordinarily well behaved ones - a rural community can support. Ultimately a different form of outlawry. This would creat "Humakt-as-a-subcult", something I doubt we are going to see (again) in RQG. (Thunder Rebels had lots of that - you couldn't initiate to Orlanth without ending up in a subcult of one of the aspects, including the then newly introduced and since forgotten aspect of Allfather, and reciprocally for Ernalda Allmother. These aspects survived into HQ1, but did not make it into the HQ2 era products or HQG.) Getting assigned a divine role in the "passion plays" (that make up the significant portions of religious festivals) that has nothing to do with your actual cult affiliation is rather normal. Take for instance the Evil Uncles - none of them is an associate deity in any "normal" traditional clan. Yet these masks will be donned by members of the clan, either actual uncles of an initiand, or by folk traditionally taking this kind of Krampus role. Having a Humakti or Eurmali taking on the role of a Deathwielder in the story makes the story more real, and summons up a very real risk of participants dying, but also solidifies the magic beyond what less aligned dancers could contribute. A Humakti could be the assigned owner of a stead, and possibly the person double-checking the administrator, but will be well advised not to dabble in the fertility-bringing or growth-related ritual and mundane activities. That's what a wife or an assigned manager will take care of. That presumes that this kind of mercenary cult is supported by the clan. (Looking at the Varmandi clan I badmouthed above, such shrines are quite likely, as the most successful economic export of the Varmandi seem to be mercenaries since the peace brought by Sartar hampered their traditional economic model of taking tribute from their less warlike neighbors.) Those mercenaries have a hard time re-integrating into their clan after having spent time in civilization, accompanying traders, taking coin from Lunar superiors (whether Etyries traders, local magnates like Raus of Rone, or serving as auxiliary in a Lunar campaign or in tax collection elsewhere), and spending time in cities. At a guess, some might be based in Jonstown (closest royal city, but outside of tribal lands) sending some economic support to Oakton, while others are serving far away. Where do you make the cut for city-based Orlanthi, though? The Cinsina tribe for instance has quite a few rural clan center villages, like Red Cow or Dangerford (both rather far from their confederated city Jonstown), but everybody will have close kin in that city, and look toward that city for this kind of specialist ititiation. Lismelder and Colymar are the odd tribes outside of any city confederation, making do with their own resources. The Colymar have two tribal "cities" of their own, Runegate as a trading center and at least economic power base for most of the recent tribal kings from the Taraling clan, and Clearwine, home to a great Earth Temple and thereby the magical center of the tribe. The Lismelder with their dangerous neighbor to the west are likely to have an ordeal-based initiation as they are faced with the expansion of the Upland Marsh. (So are the remaining original clans of the Runegate Triaty in the Colymar tribe, but the Taralings as successors of the third, perished clan, reformed around descendants of Old Man Colymar as the new nobility, have no direct problems). City-based doesn't end at the city gates. If your clan regularly sells on the city market, your clan life will extend to those of your clan members pursuing an urban occupation in the city, whether as actual citizens or just as residents from one of the constituent tribes. Yes, cult distribution among the city residents has a lot less Orlanth and Ernalda cultists than in the villages surrounding the city, and those villages will have more non-standard cultists than that isolated high valley community that has a well-established delegation dealing with the outside world (aka the neighboring clans and the occasional tribal moot, never mind the world farther away), people of sufficient moral integrity not to give up the community values (or so one hopes). However, the rural outliers have an option of a secondary temple, too. There are people who don't worship the gods through cult membership but instead join a spirit society led by a charismatic spiritual leader well connected with the hierarchies of the genii locorum in the wild lands surrounding the "civilized" parts of the rural tula. These are people who may go by without any rune magic but a greater wealth in spirit magic, possibly gaining familiars (bound spirits, friendly spirits housed in charms) without being rune levels. According to word from Greg a decade or two ago up to 30% of "Heortlings" follow this model of magic. Now spirit cults and spirit societies do offer rune spells, but more on a quid-pro-quo basis rather than initiating into the deeper secrets of these entities. Shamans and their apprentices may still explore those, but less specialized users will be happy with whatever the shaman as an intercessor will grant them as access to magic. Watch out for the 14th episode of the God Learners podcast where we discuss this kind of access to magic from the Praxian perspective. The rules aren't much different in backwater Sartar, and spirit societies have their place even in urban Sartar. If you ride with the Wild Hunt, you are a Gagarthi, no matter what cults you may have joined. If you followed a Storm Khan and his psychopaths to deal with a Chaos incursion and live to tell about it (with scars or acid burns to show off), you probably are a Storm Bull gang member, even if you retired from that life for the time being. As soon as Chaos raises its ugly head again in your small part of the world, you are likely to step forth and join the bullies again. That has tradition - Orlanth himself spent parts of his youth fllying with the Vadrudi, beating up just about everybody that dared to complain. Wearing the mask in a ritual may be unrelated, although the wearer of the bull mask may find his body fighting all manner of Chaos beasts summoned and propitiated by the Orlanthi rites, and possibly gain some scars, too. Many of these effigies become the ritual enemies of other deities represented by the clan's mask wearers. The Orlanth champion will get to exchange blows, although often the Chaos effigy is not supposed to be vanquished by the Orlanth protagonist facing it alone. Orlanth's myths have a strong focus on finding the right allies and instruments to deal with an opponent that would not be overcome in the first or first two attempts (this includes his confrontation with the Evil Emperor as well as the Aroka Quest, and the Lightbringers' Quest has required failures, too). Other masks may include a star captain who helped with survival in the Greater Darkness when Orlanth was busy elsewhere, maybe his staunch thane Yelmalio the Homeguard, maybe a foreign deity that once received aid from Orlanth and now has come to pay back the favor (Sofala of the West is one case of a deity paying back such a favor, although of less use in normal clan ceremonies). But in the end, this leads into the (for some people terrible, and hard to deal with) concept of dual initiation, an initiate of Orlanth also initiating into the Cult of Humakt for a better understanding of the secrets of that cult, and improved performance, be it in the rites or holding back the undead of the Upland Marsh. That supermajority cult tends to be the representative of the ancestor collective (the clan ancestors or clan small h heroes of the clan identity legends, probably rarely available through Daka Fal's Axis Mundi but available as traditional masks in the clan rites) and Orlanth and Ernalda. Maybe joined by one or two other cults that have enough permanent worshippers (not necessarily initiates) to maintain a minor temple. Argan Argar in the Torkani tribe, for instance, or Yelmalio the Rider of the Hyalorings of Runegate whose name may be spelled and pronounced with three letters less. Would a failure in (adulthood, Clan temple) initiation force a Eurmali identity? Would it result in a "candidate" status? One of my models for the adulthood initiation is a rather real initiation to the clan wyter, the clan ancestors and minor heroes, possibly even gifting a point of youthful POW to that entity for a blessing for the community. Some form of childhood innocent luck transferred to the spirit of the community now that innocence has been replaced by insight into the hardships of the magical world. I guess this kind of "Sim-Glorantha" would be regarded as superfluous gamist mechanic by the designers who struggle with presenting RQG as lean as possible to new GMs and players. IMO there will be simulationist-trained GMs who would appreciate such meta-gaming for building their clan, and my experiences playing resource-management games with Greg using rather freeform HeroQuest rules make me suspect that for all of his great style as narrativist GM Greg puzzled over such minutia, too. Arcane Lore states it out plainly that in some respect, community heroquesting can be an exercise in resource management. Not for the players immersing themselves in Godtime, and not so much for the GM struggling with providing the technicolor surrealistic scenery for those actions, but in determining boons and cost of such heroquesting endeavors. Unless of course you think that RuneQuest should be mainly a player-oriented system, rather than the system where monsters or rather antagonists have the same stats as the player heroes, and develop in similar ways. RQG explicitely does not want to support such an approach in its official publications. Who do the bond with? Orlanth's pit of strangers is extremely tricky in this regard. With the rules of the magical world being as upset as the upcoming Hero Wars have made it, kids accepting the leadership of some strange god or another, to the point of initiating to a traditional opponent of the clan, would be a believable outcome. Welcome your left-handed dragon followers, your black-and-red devotees to Natha the Avenger or Tolat the Rebel or Artia the Rebel, children lstening to the watery breathing of Magasta's Pool as it constricts the Chaos Void inside after Wildday and is pushed away again around Clayday, or the cycles of the Blue Streak. With a Proximate Holy Realm no longer under Belintar's administration but his old hangers-on still on short call, you could have Interesting Times with a bunch of misfit children. Possibly collected from the entire tribe, or even city confederation, to form some "Lost Hope" recruits for the Warlocks of Argrath. A temporary tutelage by a Clown society might be a start, but some draconic or otherwise mystical training that may appear as nonsensical as Eurmali clownery may be the truth behind such a group.

Adulthood initiation does not automatically come with cult initiation (not to any other cult than Orlanth, unless something goes wrong). You can undergo Orlanth's adulthood initiation and then join a Spirit Society, Daka Fal, or remain without any personal deity, or even go to the Seven Mothers and step on the Lunar path. You might apprentice to a philosopher with no more tha lay membershipp (literacy) of Lhankor Mhy. No idea whether Monrogh imported a Yelmalian initiation rite different from The Initiation of Orlanth. The original Sun Dome Templarts of Palangio would have been ignorant of I Fought We Won, but may have used (non-equitarian) Yelmite rites. But the Sartar Sun Domers were Locaem and other Quivini, not some fancy Pelorians. Their better farmers would follow Barntar, thus they probably practice the Initiation of Orlanth. But if you undergo the Initiation of Orlanth rite as a future Templar, which pit do you think would be yours? The Sex Pit, and some of the visitors get celibacy geases? The fighting pit? Or the Strangers, allowing for a more cosmopolitan and less xenophobic outlook? Those perish, or emerge as traumatized non-adults. Happened to Harmast Barefoot's generation.

If Araslithos is an important figure in Marazi culture, she has to be female. Tolat is one of those controversial cults. He is the god of the Red Planet, as is Shargash, and they share the same runes. They are going to share the entry in the upcoming cults collection. There was a previous attempt at writing the cult of Shargash, in Enclosure #1. Tolat's mythology is found to some extent in the Teshnos chapter of the Guide. The Marazi and the (descendants of the) Zaranistangi worship the Red Planet under this name, and so did the Artmali. Gebel and the Fonritian rebels are searchig for the Red Sword of Tolat.

Dismanteling a deity into its constituent parts is a very Orlanthi thing to do - see the dismemberment of Yelm, producing a number of interesting older versions. What you get back may very well have been altered a lot, but may still contain some of the entity you are after. Which may make the alteration hurt a little more.

Looks just about right for blocks of rank and file. If you want to individualize randomly (using a spreadsheet or simple script language), you could randomize the range above cultural minimum and stat-based bonuses. Combat should be for primary weapon, mainly. Having especially high-powered opponents at a surprise and with subpar weapons and weapon-skills as a reward for good preparation by player characters. Note that spells - especially weapon trance, bladesharp, berserk and fanaticism - may increase percentages well above 100. The GM might be appreciative of a set of stats "powered up to the rim" for major opponents. Number of spells may be less important than "spells typically on by melee round 3" or similar description of tactics.

My best source is the description in Revealed Mythologies that makes the connection (p.32): The earlier text in Revealed Mythologies makes this look as two separate events. p.13 presents these events out of order, starting with "Save Sog City" followed by "The Floodings" where the (previous) origin of the seas is described as "Zzabur did it." The Neliomi is described as the second flood after the first invasion of the Solkathi that was boiled away. Zzabur's Water Magic would have been the Waertagi magic. There aren't that many volcanoes in that region to choose from. and while each volcanic peak in a region will be contacted as a different face or son of Lodril, they all draw on the same Deep Fire. Compare the distance between the Vent and the Obsidian Palace (a very similar feat of construction, wrought by Lodril Veskarthan himself rather than his powers being directed by Brithini sorcery). You are right, the God Learner maps place Mt. Lodril, or Ladaral's Mountain, somwhere in the middle of the Neliomi Sea. Very likely because the information the map-makers had was "below the Neliomi Sea", and putting it into the middle would make any mistake smaller. In the maps in Revealed Mythology and the Guide, Mt. Lodril is located on a line through Top of the World and Mt. Nida, somewhere to the west of ;Magnetic Mountain (Curustus on Jrustela). But there is of course also Aurelion's Breakwater on the northern shore of Jrustela, and a referal to Lodril's New Mountains in the Godtime maps of the Sourcebook p.93 or 99 (there no longer New mountains, and shown to be north and somewhat west of Mostal's Mountain), although pretty far south. The map on p.110 shows the label "Neliomi Sea" roughly where Lodril's Mountains were, and suggests that that was south of the Tanier River. But then the same map shows nothing of Brithos or Zerendel/Danmalastan than some nebulous "The Islands of Dusk" just before the Black Gate (presumably the Gate of Dusk on or behind Luathela). There are two invasions of the waters, first the Neliomi intrusion creating what the Malkioni would call "Our Sea", and then the Janube creation by joint Brithini and Waertagi magic. The Waertagi created a riverine branch of their people inhabiting the Janube and the Sweet Sea, and later continued eastwards from the Sweet Sea with the Poral River, which then continued towards Thunder Delta as the Listor (creating the Poralistor as a whole) and branching off at the Oronin River for a repeat performance against Mount Turos, creating the caldera lake Oronin.

You could also play it that they start with a higher number, and come out of the initiation with a numb feeling of total loss of one of theirs, but even the parents and siblings have lost all memory of that child. There may be some irritating left-overs... There is always a possibility that that is a Eurmali trick. Or there may be an entire household taken out of existence, maybe as result of the initiation, maybe causing that individual's initiation to go wrong. Or maybe introducing a new rather isolated stead in a branch valley that nobody noticed before? The entire Haraborn clan might be going to suffer such a disappearance. And are there other places experiencing this? What about the valley with Urvantan's tower? This kind of paranoia is nothing you'd spring on a group of newcomers.

Plunder, the Ball of Tails. Herd men spirits are included in this evil item using the left hand rather than any dorsal or frontal appendage.

Even if you assume that Rigsdal steps in as the Star Captain protector of a select group surviving the Great Winter, that doesn't change the fact that during the Long Winter, Orlanth is Dead, and Rigsdal is "alive" and available. Thus the dead one cannot be the alive one, Rigsdal does not become Orlanth. The wind stops, and is not replaced. Orlanth is dead. Completely out of Breath. Pining for the Fjords. This deity is a dead deity. And yes, there being no replacement is what makes the Long Winter so bad. Where in the "Sartar Rising" campaign does it say that Rigsdal replaces Orlanth? While Jeff may not bother to look that up, I am curious whether this has been explicitely stated. Much of the detail. Just as you cannot trust any mention of something in a scenario to be as canonical as the Guide. I don't know many cases of hostile pantheons in the myths of our world. Devas vs. Demons is about the closest I see in the split beween Iranian and Indian Aryans, and those are basically two factions of deities in the same myths. The Romans never had any problem to syncretize hostile deities with the ones they knew and understood. I wonder whether they had a notion of hostile pantheons, or whether their world view had one pantheon - one overarching group of all deities, no matter how benevolent or malicious they might be. So, what's your proof that syncretizing hostile deities, or deities with "family associations that bring a feud" cannot be syncretized, if not by the folk directly involved in that feud then by third party folk having yet another local approach to that (kind of) deity? Would Egyptians have been able to tell Titans and Olympians apart when explaining them through their own catalogue of deities? Yes. Orlanth Adventurous has a different mythology from Orlanth Rex, too. Destor is a different name from Ohorlanth, too, even if very rarely remembered nowadays. Deities come with whole phone books of names. Take for instance the list of names and titles for the Messiah in Jesaja 9.5. And yes, the Evil Emperor and Yelm Brightface and Yu-Kargzant have different mythology in the details. Which is good for a heroquester to know (or even better, to have experienced) and to force the opponent's identity to adopt. I still need to see your evidence for that. To me, it looks like you took up the method of syncretism and misapplied it here. Now misapplied syncretism can be a powerful tool in a sufficiently versed experimental heroquester's toolkit, and twist a myth beyond recognition for exploitation. But there is no evidence that I can see in your argumentation that masks of a deity distributed across hostile divine tribes cannot be re-united. It should be possible to prove the identity of Shargash and Zorak Zoran for certain applications of myth, like their role vs. Yelmalio Antirius at the Hill of Gold. It isn't just a hand, its the entire interface through which the deity behind the mask that is Rigsdal and the mask that is Polaris is expressed. Polaris is the special case with the choreographed movements. That's the Dara Happan/Solar piece of chrome attached to the deity. I have seen no Dara Happan/Solar myth suggesting that Polaris keeps one eye open even when the other eye is sleeping, that's the special chrome attached to the deity by the storm worshippers. Pole Star is the chief of the Star Captains, friendly celestial deities that came down from the firmament to lead their people through the Greater Darkness. That is what the Dara Happans and the Theyalans easily agree upon, those are the common aspects of the masks named "Rigsdal" and "Polaris". That he shares his star with the old Malkioni identification for Eurmal Friend of Men doesn't make Eurmal a Star Captain (or at least I hope this isn't the case). But with enough commonalities, mutual recognition of followers of the different masks will happen.

The Glorious Cities of the Dragons, from Middle Sea Empire p.49. The author of the travelogue starts with the strange effect the draconic Proximate Holy Realm had on his logical thinking and memory, the way that reality itself was shifting as inside a dream. He then describes the countryside: Now compare this with Jeff's history of the Proximate Holy Realm from January 2022 on the Well of Daliath: https://wellofdaliath.chaosium.com/heroquesting-the-proximate-holy-realm/ The reason why the author's velt and kreet declined so terribly was that they were taken out of the "field" of the Dragon's Dream. The beasts have mythical qualities, and one mythical quality of rams and sheep is superior size (e.g. allowing people to ride them). Why should Jaldon ride a weird beast? Possibly because his mother came with it to the bisons, and left it for her son. Naming the steed "Home" might be an orphan's main anchor to their identity.

That's Androgeus' character sheet for Last Faction Hero, which was available on itch.io for a while. A game of maneuvering a vertical map of Glorantha. Androgeus features in Sandy Petersen's Gods War boardgane as one of the Cosmic Monsters, striding across a devastation in a menacing pose. So, the one in the middle, if you need the pointer:

There is a maybe two page travelogue about the EWF at the height of its power where these draconized versions of typical Heortling husbandry were mentioned. These beasts as well as the new improved crops raised by the EWF were highly dependent on the Dragon's Dream, though, the Proximate Holy Realm summoned by the EWF leaders through calling in worship from all the lands under their authority. After the "mass utuma" of 1042, causing the death of all Dragonspeakers, that Dragon's Dream dissipated quickly, leaving the crops to rot (whether on the the fields or in the granaries) and the beasts to grow sickly and die off, IMG. That fate wasn't shared by the creatures made in Remakerely, though, and those mad geniuses might have transformed such a draconized sheep into a steed for Prax at a whim, or as a custom job. Is that the case IMG? I don't know. Jaldon has yet to confront my gaming outside of the hex-based board games.

Part of the ancestral ceremonies, or part of the entities tamed by the sorcerers, or addressed through minor captured entities that are part of the greater gods or their offspring (compare how Tanian was contacted by the Free Men of the Seas).

Much like Lightning Boy or Mastakos, I suppose - a conquered feat, or an allied spell. Not the whole of the deity. Orlanth did conquer the sky realm after defeating the Emperor, against the opposition of the Stars, overwhelming them with his own followers, some of whom became star captains, like the Vingkotling Star Tribe founders Liorn, Forosil and Garan. I guess after some honorable resistance, Polestar yielded and accepted Orlanth as king of the Heavens and protector - a task he fulfilled admirably against the Sky Terror. The Dawn Age Seshnegi identified the pole star with Eurmal Firebringer/Lightbringer, keeping guard where the Spike used to pierce the Sky Dome. Is Eurmal Orlanth? What part? Rigsdal is at best a subdivision of Orlanth, and in all likelihood separate from Orlanth Lightbringer, the (greater part of) Orlanth who atoned for having applied Death to the Emperor. It was Vingkot (another subdivision or son of Orlanth) who attacked the Dara Happans, and his sons after his retirement. Do you think Vingkot (son of Orlanth and Janerra Alone) = Rigsdal? If so, what are your clues? Sedenya of the White Goddess had already been deposed (possibly sent into the Pit of Strangers) by Yelm at the start of his reign. She re-surfaced as one of the Planetary Sons, almost collided with Umath and descended into the / an Underworld, met him again there and got impregnated, then re-appeared as guardian orb above Mernita (possibly following Orlanth and the other Strange Gods out of that initiatory pit). That orb was crashed into that city, whether by Lukarius' arrow (as per the Dara Happans) or by the Sky Bull (Storm Bull) stomping and shattering her. (Old bully was a bit on a rampage, hurt Hippogriff, too.) According to Jar-eel, there were four rebel gods slaying the Emperor - Orlanth Terminus, Sedenya, Shargash Tolat, and Artia Mahaqata the Bat. So if you say Sedenya is Yelm, that dismemberment is pretty much an act of Utuma by her, wielding Orlanth. Rigsdal remains on top of Kero Fin (in the Sky) when Orlanth is on the Lightbringers' Quest. He is not present when Orlanth apologizes to Yelm or atones. He doesn't have to. Rigsdal is (a portion of) (Y)Elmal(io) the cold sun disk / the last remaining Light, propped up by the mountain mother. Yelm's bodyguard and warleader in Hell is King Griffon.