Joerg

I think that there is a dose of the Vogmaradan myth from Entekosiad in this (or vice versa). The Bad Man appears to be the Other, separated from the One/Union. But gender fluidity is part of quite a few shamanic concepts.

@radmongerspeculated on the "Spells for Odayla" thread about the role of Yinkin. Here's my impression, not so much oriented on RuneQuest rules. The Yinkin cult is mainly about having a great affinity to the Shadowcat half-sibling of Orlanth in his multiple sidekick roles and occasional useful aspects. Yinkin is the Iolaus to Orlanth's youthful Heracles. He shares the mischief and adolescent missteps of young Orlanth, sometimes as the butt of the joke, sometimes as the damsel in distress, more often as willing accomplice or even instigator of whatever comes up. Yinkin worshippers are the specialists for taking care of shadowcats and aiding and occasionally directing them in useful pursuits for their neighbors. A feline as a herding assistant takes some suspensio of disbelieve among the cat owned population. The justiification for herding alynxes probably goes: young Orlanth got the task of herding the sheep Much of this task involves lazing about while keeping an eye on the sheep grazing or ruminating, an activity felines excel at. The two half-siblings being shown as nigh-inseparable in their adventuring probably spent time lazing about, too. Because of their good rapport, Yinkin might actually have learned to play-hunt only those sheep that annoyed his brother with their indifference to administration. Felines have a better sensory package than humans, and keep alert even when mostly asleep, which makes them excellent for warning against threats. Herding alynxes might be less of an aid keeping the herd together and a lot more of a deterrent or oountermeasure against predators or raiders targeting their herd. Hunting and pest extermination or deterrance is a thing that comes more naturally to felines, and yes, Yinkin cultists might be tasked with directing the efforts of the resident feline overlords against such pests. Most felines are solitary hunters, but a few are known to cooperate with one another in their hunts. Judgjing from the bond between Orlanth and his brother, it looks like alynxes may hunt in small teams, maybe not quite like lions, but somewhat cooperative. A prey not quite in the range for a direct pounce might be scared up and tricked into running into the partner's ambush. Yinkin cultists make good night guards. Their companions can see with minimal light, and the worshippers have magic to gain that ability, too. Yinkin cultists are promiscuous, like their deity and their detty's companion. They don't really respect or understand marriage vows of exclusivity. They enjoy skinship and sex, don't mind the reproductive side-effects, but they also require to be left alone much of the time. They can be good and caring parents, but can be distracted by new opportunities to hunt or to have sex. Human worshippers expect treatment similar to the treatment of the alynx companions of their neighbors. A place by the fire, people stepping around them rather than expecting them to give way, people providing them with food after some light clues. There seems to be a tradition for Yinkin worshippers to inhabit solitary cabins at least part of the time. Onelisin, Saronil's daughter and second child, appears to have raised her three daughters in such a cabin in some woodland where she found and treated the wounded Ostling Four-Wolf, her grandfather's companion and replacement king of the Telmori werewolf tribe, rather than anywhere near the royal palace in Boldhome. I would expect these solitary Yinkin hunters to be after furs rather than after venison. Bird-catching might be another speciality of theirs. Sure, they could catch deer or fish for winter reserves, and probably do to some extent, but they are as likely to return to the settlements in winter, sharing the warmth of the hearthfires with the resident alynxes and humans. Do I see Yinkin as a cult for professional hunters? Yes, in the sense that they provide furs, feathers and tasty birds, and possibly middle sized rodents and martens as side dish or cat-food. The cult may be equally suitable for fresh water fishing in small rivers or ponds. Do they have ambitions for winning the Great Hunt? IMO a Master Hunter worshipping Yinkin as their main deity would be rather rare. Bringing in canine monsters might be an acceptable challenge, though. They might also go after big cat predators for the Big Hun due to their old family feud, but I doubt that they would take on such prey outside of those rites (except as preparation). Yinkin is not an inspiring leader, but he can work with followers that recognize his needs without being told to do so (at least not every time). As a follower, they prefer roles where they can take the initiative. They should make good scouts. As fighters, they aren't really pre-destined for frontal battle. Their strength lies in ambushes or surprise attacks. They have good instincts for raids, too. Other than Orlanth, Yinkin is also a half-sibling of Inora and Quivin, While these deities may have even smaller cults than Yinkin, there might be some magic or skill derived from those relationships. The cult might also receive some propriatory worship from lesser prey spirits. I don't know whether Yinkin shrines get to count alynxes as worshippers. (By that logic Eiritha would be one of the biggest cults in Sartar, too, as there are nearly as many cattle as humans in the typical Orlanthi clan.) Yinkin temples with huge human congregations seem unlikely to me. There may be seasonal temples as annexes to Orlanth ones - which suggests natural sites outside, especially hill-tops, like all children of the Mountain Goddess. Possibly shared between all the maternal siblings. The mountain mother itself is a natural Great Temple.

A cage won't be moved by a solitary hunter (ok, with their companion beast if applicable), and the Great Hunt demands that you bring the beast on your own, so no brigade of carriers and askari to carry the caged beast to the rite... You might of course prepare a pit or something like that at the site where the rite of the Great Hunt is to be held, but will you actually come across the beast that cannot escape that prepared trap? Once you have found the beast, it is hard to do the work on the cage/trap, and you cannot risk that another hunter will claim the beast while you haven't clearly subdued it as your own. How much does the hunting "community" of anti-social loners at the Great Hunt play by the Marqess of Queensbury rules equivalent? IMO the successful Master Hunter will have magic from half a dozen or more spirit cults to aid with the impossible task.

Still leaves the beast uncaptured.

Rune spells aren't the end of everything. There are no spells that enable a hunter to bring back a dangerous prey alive for the Great Hunt, it is a call to ingenuity and personal achievements that neither Yinkin, Odayla or Votank further. Maybe, just maybe, Foundchild might in her myths. Odayla accepts all spirit magic, and might allow its followers to roam the spirit world in bear shape. Yinkin draws on companionship with his sibling's allies. But overall, the Great Hunt is a challenge or training ground for explorative heroquesting, for making personal Otherworld connections to help with the great achievements.

Pavis will remain the recruitment point for wave after wave of Praxian braves seeking glory and plunder under Argrath's leadership, but the only challenge to hit this place after Argrath went on to Sartar seems to be the weird people with a single eye painted on their forehead that will feature in Robin Laws' Pavis and Big Rubble books, queued for editing, art direction and layout behind the Gods books and the (first parts?) of the Sartar/Argrath campaign. Whether Wakboth rises again, whether Genert or Tada get re-assembled, those possibilities of the Hero Wars are left to YGWV. I expect these concepts to get some treatment on the Jonstown Compendium, but quite likely only after the official material mentioned above has been published.

The Praxians worship Yelmalio the Sun Daughter, nowadays the bearded Sun Daughter. In a recent game I had my mixed group of wannabe Pavis Royal Guard player characters visit the Paps after they had an unscheduled trip into the Eiritha Hills and the veins of the Goddess, and afterwards getting a VIP tour of the Paps where the staunch Yelmalio impala rider saw ancient depictions of his deity in a clearly female form. "Yes, that's your deity, never mind such minor details. Just don't tell the Sun Domers..." The deities were merged in the Dawn Age, when Palangio the Iron Vrok (not that he had that name before his conquest of Slontos) ruled as governor over the Orlanthi culture south of the lowlands and Lokamayadon's home territory. Despite the Covenant the Praxian pastoralists were not that different from the other storm worshippers west of them. The Theyalans had started this "your god may have a different name than mine, but if you look at these shared parts of their experience, we can say that you know a side of him we didn't know before, and we know a side of her you didn't know before. When we bundle our worship, the full glory of our deity will be easier to reach." That happened in the Dawn Age, before the very idea of the God Learners even was born. The Theyalan syncretism was quite fruitful, although it reduced numerous separate identities to "accents" of Orlanthi culture - especially in Ralios and Fronela where Hykimi groups joined the pastoralist and farming ways of the Second Council, weakening the Serpent Brotherhood and its successor efforts to unify the Hykimi. If there were any world-shattering mistakes made by the Second Council other than awakening the Pseudo-Cosmic Egg to hatch Nysalor, those problems lingered unresolved until the God Learners started to tamper with these. On the whole, the Theyalan period was seen as spreading civilization where none or only a limited form had been taken up again since the Darkness. Even groups that emerged from the Darkness with a semblance of civilization like the Enerali, the Enjoreli or the re-settled eastern Seshnelan Pendali of the Upper Tanier Valley joined the Council even before it broke and adopted their ways, creating the "Barbarian" Belt. That said, it isn't clear to me when exactly the ostrich riders came into contact with the Paps (again). I vaguely remember to have seen maps of the Greater Darkness or Gray Age Wastes which had the Ostrich riders living just outside of Teshnos, north of the Deri peninsula. Most of the Wastes were unexplored territory, unvisited by the Animal nomads since before Earthfall (which they - or at least the ancestors of the extant tribes - did not participate in). The Ostrich folk may have had knowledge of Eiritha being buried before the visit of Nontraya, considerably delayed after the slaying of Yelm Emperor but before the arrival of Wakboth's horde in the Garden after being rebutted by the Unity Battle. There seems to be a general agreement that Sun Daughter is a different spirit/deity from Yamsur, who did participate in the Battle of Earthfall and has been dead to Godtime since then, much like Seolinthur, but both evaded total oblivion and being forgotten and their existence excised from (what remains of) Godtime.

Dragonewts have one of the oldest cultures in Glorantha, and may have domesticated these birds as soon as the first dragonewts evolved into the warrior stage, or possibly as soon as the first warrior dragonewts strayed from the draconic path and degenerated into dinosaurs. There are, or at least there were feathered dinosaurs in Glorantha (after our real world science learned that our own picture of scaled dinos may have been overdone by Industrial Light and Magic). At least when it was suggested to Greg that the Dara Happan gazzam may have been feathered he wasn't against the idea, and the Maran Gor Earth Shakers include both reptilian and furred species, so why not feathered ones. I don't see the dragonewt-related saurians as feathered, though - dragonewt wings are the typical chiroptera (bat)-like hands with skin in between rather than just the fourth fingers of pterodactyls. The wings are an extra pair of limbs anyway. Thus I don't think that the demibirds are closely related to dragonewts. They may be children of Earth and Sky (to inherit the feathers), and of the ancestral beast dragons Hykim and Mikyh. There probably are myths about how the demibirds came about, but those belong to the dragonewts and happened in a distant early Godtime that normal human visitors of Godtime cannot access. Dragonewts may remember everything, but communication with dragonewt has been haphazard even during the EWF. Demibirds were named alongside the extinct (however permanent, given Rinliddi experimentation) augners and the Praxian ostriches, as ratites. The Ratite Empire was an early Solar empire that covered the (then temperate) northeast of Genertela, starting in Rinliddi and covering all of North Pent and those parts of Pent not part of Genert's Garden. The Rinliddi people say that they are the heirs of the Ratite Empire, and children of bird gods, but I see a fair chance that the original ratite riders were humanoid birds rather than ordinary humans, and that there were more than just augners and demibirds in the range of the runners who crossed the savannahs of the Green and early Golden Age.

Metal toxicity hasn't been explored in Glorantha, other than iron for elder races and silver for otherwise invulnerable shapeshifters (werewolves, vampires). The aldryami use of copper still clashes with my professional background as a chemist. (Not that the metal is toxic to microorganisms and plants, but the salts resulting from its corrosion are.) Speaking for our world, metallic lead isn't poisonous to humans on touch, and possibly mildly noxious if ingested (e.g. as lead shot in venison). Lead vapors are, as are "lead salts" - corroded lead dissolved in water, or lead pigments which can be absorbed through the skin when dissolved by sweat. Unfortunately, corrosion is hard to avoid. There is acute lead poisoning, e.g. lead acetate, aka "mother in law's sugar" for its sweet taste, interrupting the chemistry of oxygen uptake, and there is chronic lead poisoning due to prolonged exposure with all manner of symptoms, often irreversible.

According to one extremely cryptic source, Argrath allowed his trickster to sacrifice the participants of the ritual of the Net to Kajabor by sabotaging the rite. Quite obviously this did not happen on his LBQ that brought back Sheng Seleris, as there still were Old Gods involved when he sabotaged the Kalikos quest about a dozen years later. And it might be argued that Argrath departed from the normal path of the LBQ at the Court of the Dead, and did not undergo either the ritual of the net or the Dawn Gate ascension on that run. Argrath is one of five Arkats. Which one is the superhero? All combined, maybe. Argrath alone? Not a chance, IMO. Easier for him to achieve dragonhood, or failed mysticism.

One great event makes you a recognized heroquester, such as Hofstaring, Kallyr, Gringle, Minaryth Purple, possibly Leika. A Hero candidate. The Red Sword of Tolat is a case of a non-unique artifact The Columbus effect? You need to bring back something other than a major defeat to make it a great event. One typical great event might be to stake out a domain in the Otherworld, to create a place of their own in Godtime, and then to have it maintained through a community of worshippers, without just apotheosizing. There are descriptions of God Learner otherworld expeditions that used a massive brute force approach. Such expeditions may have been designed and overseen by sorcerers who would reap the benefits. That implies a willingness to sacrifice questers on the way to the goal, preferredly hired work given a superficial introduction. Too successful heroquesters might be sent on suicidal quests to avoid rogue powers, or may have been removed clandestinely when they became too powerful. Think Siegfried, useful for a while, then a threat to Gunther's sovereignty. Other heroes simply followed the paths of Godtime raiders - there are enough candidates, most of the Storm and Sea pantheons, quite a few fire entities, plenty Darkness folk, and if you count avengers as well, Earth has its share of Godtime quests to retrieve items. And then there is Chaos... Some sorcerers did become bona fide heroes - Halwal certainly would count.

No. At least not as a defining feature - think "conspiration to tear the Red Moon apart". Why take that unnecessary detour? He could have become a true dragon instead. Other than the Volcano twin high priests who founded the cult of Caladra and Aurelion, I find it very hard to point at godlearners achieving apotheosis.

By that reckoning, you should be against using RuneQuest features because they are only on some people's table, too. That's an "interesting" argument. References are available, even "in print". These numbers have (sensibly) been used and explained in Martin Helsdon's Armies and Enemies of Dragon Pass, which (other than WBRM/Dragon Pass) gives the context of the setting. WBRM is one of the foundational documents for Gloranthan canon, not just the rules but also the expanding material Greg wrote on the features of that game which Martin used for many of the unit descriptions. If you have read the Composite History of Dragon Pass, you have read something like game reports from WBRM - the concept of center and the two flanks is inherent in the rule that only the top three full units of any stack get to attack on the front line. RuneQuest is to WBRM what Chainmail -> OD&D was to tabletop warfare games. It is the rpg to go adventuring on the gameboard. Ask nicely, and you'll be answered. The four corners of a counter may have numbers or other symbols in them. Top left is the combat factor. Foot militia typically has 3, horse militia has 4, heavy cavalry has 5 or 6, phalanxes usually have 5. Lunar magicians and many skirmishers have 1 or 2. Some units have their combat factor in brackets. These aren't full units but small bands of heroic fighters, like the Praxian khans or the capital H heroes and the three superheroes in the game. Their presence doesn't occupy an entire flank of the battle formation, and thus their combat factors are added to the combat total of the "stack" (the forces inside a hex). The exclamation mark is the leadership bonus, the boost a regular unit gets from being stacked with (fighting alongside) the hero or superhero. Each exclamation mark is worth one combat strength. With standard militia having a 3 in combat and magical resistance, a single exclamation mark already is a significant boost. Normal capital H heroes and Praxian tribal khans have a single exclamation mark in their combat factor, superheroes and Ethilrist have two. Normally only the highest number of leadership factors is used, but superheroes accompanied by their Best Friend hero unit add up to three bonus factors per unit. Skirmishing units have one or more asterisks in their combat factor. Effects of skirmishers are resolved before the melee and may cause both attacker and defender to make last minute reorganisations, or rarely even eliminate stacks. Some units have a h in their combat factor. These are herds, not combat units. Herds don't usually attack, but may stampede if attacked and disrupted. Some units have a t in their combat factor. These are treasures. Some treasures affect the combat factor of their stacks, others don't. Some units (usually spirits) don't have anything in their combat factor - they cannot engage or be engaged in melee combat. Top right is the magic factor, the cohesiveness of the unit when attacked by spirits. Units with a range factor (bottom right) other than empty may even strike back. There are a number of qualifiers for the magic factor, but not really relevant in this context. Bottom left is the movement factor, the number of hexes the unit may move in a turn. Various qualifiers are possible, including an underline which ignores all terrain effects (possessed by hero units). Treasures usually don't have a movement factor, or a negative one (slowing down the associated unit). Bottom right is the range factor possessed by magical units. These units can strike back against attacking spirits, or use spirit magic against other hexes. Capital H heroes in WBRM have numeric combat factors of 4, with two slightly weaker exceptions and a stronger Inhuman King (IIRC). Khans in Nomad Gods have a combat factor of 1. Superheroes have a numeric combat factor of 20. Enough context? AFAICT there won't be any lawyer-proof full definition, but there are a couple of usable criteria, among others on the Well of Daliath from Jeff's Facebook shares, and quite a few older ideas which sort of work in Arcane Lore. While heroquest rules for RQG are under development, I sincerely doubt that we are going to see a book on superhero questing.

You can argue against using the WBRM features, but they still are on the table. And that "50% to personal power" might be part of the reply. Can deities become superheroes? If we are to trust the information on Androgeus in Sandy's Gods War board game, yes, they can, if they underwent a descension (anti-ascension). Androgeus was a lot worse in the Gods War than he is now, she lost or dispersed a lot of his power, but she retained his free will despite the Compromise. She is rather unique in that. (And that was using the correct gender pronouns - alive in Gloranthan publications since 1975...) Capital H heroes receive worship, which may be gamed out as magical support they can draw on in heroquests, turning that into heroic powers, some of which may be shared with their worshippers - whether as a special rune spell like Trea Leaping or Tree Chopping for minor heroes, or whether as a power used to protect or otherwise further their supporters. As for Argrath, I think that a certain part of his efforts went into upholding the Proximate Holy Realm and using it for his ultimate goals. Argrath does not become the next Belintar, or does he? Harrek is building a kingdom of his own, taking over the Pujaleg Empire in Laskal and Banamba. But he gets tired of the tedium there and drops it when his best frenemy calls him to bash the Lunar Empire once again. The empire in Laskal is just another temporary boon. Jar-eel doesn't become empress. She might raise the next moon.

Those are qualifications for a demigod or full deity, and that's the path that Argrath ends up on. Maybe a similar weight class, but different from the superhero qualifications, hence not a superhero.

Anaxial's Roster gave a couple of deities different from your God Learner pantheon for the beasts of Peloria. The Gods Wall lion god is Durbaddath, and the Gods Wall explanatory text gives Votank as a son of the lion god and the goat goddess. The Basmoli lion has been described as an immigrant to western and southern Genertela, originating in Pamaltela (or near the Spike).

Lore proliferation (or indeed skill proliferation) should be avoided unless you are a GM who enjoys character impotence or you allow some cross-skill starting bonus or situative bonus. 20% bonus from a successful augment don't really give you any feeling of competence if your skill lingers in the teens. Navigation as a knowledge skill with a check box might be the better solution.

The damage bonus should be part of the adjusted bow damage, really. People have bows made for their specifications and the use they want it for. You wouldn't hunt geese or snipes with a war bow or bodkin arrows. Nobody in their right mind would draw to their cheek and hold the arrow in the target for long with any ancient bow, however. Olympic archery uses rather lightweight bows with even lighter weight arrows to achieve that kind of accuracy, or you can have the force reduction cheat of a modern compound bow with a-centric rolls. The heavier the bow, the less time you want to spend at full draw. (Again excepting modern compound bows with their different force curve - forget most of what you have seen or experienced with those "bicycle" bows for ancient archery.) Most archers using ancient equipment will shoot instinctively, a single movement to draw and release without long aiming on the target. It is still possible to aim with such a technique, much like it is possible to aim a strike with a blade or an axe. In those cases you don't hold the blade in position endlessly, either... With a lighter bow and high requirements for accuracy, you can align your bow with the target. Rarely the arrow tip, though - while string-walking is a common technique in barebow field archery, you need a fairly long bow string for that, and the further down your grip walks the less clean you will release the string, creating unnecessary extra vibrations that may hinder your accuracy. Face-walking is another barebow technique to allow aiming over the arrow tip. In that case, you move your anchor point up and down on your cheek. Doing so may de-stabilize your ideal force line from bow hand to shoulder, and draw length may vary for soft anchors (other than bony parts of your face). Arrows fly in a visibly parabolic curve. If you aim along the shaft (anchoring above the cheek bone) and align the arrow tip with the target, the arrow will drop below that targeted spot. Effective draw length may vary depending on whether you shoot uphill or down from a platfom, and what contortions you subject your body while drawing/releasing. Exhaustion may shorten your draw length after a while if you have been shooting slightly above your weight class. With some experience, you can compensate for that, but accuracy and maximum range will suffer. Other factors may influence draw weight - temperature and humidity will influence both the bow and the string.

Yes, that's the problem with such way larger than life forces of destruction in an RPG context. Harrek and Jar-eel may not quite be on par with Great Cthulhu, but they are able to go head to head with the manifestation of a True Dragon even without ritual preparation, and have a good chance to return quickly from that ordeal. An open confrontation should be doomed to fail. It takes Argrath successive bouts of heroic escape to abandon his desire to rob the Cradle for sheer tedium, and something of an interest in that madman that allows himself to be cut down, mangled, maimed, etc. all over again and again, coming back fresher than that Black Knight in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. There is no report that Argrath actually managed to hurt Harrek or the bear on this occasion. (That insane amount of Heal Body should give us an estimate of the number of his Ernaldan supporters, whether on board or via spell trading...) Jar-eel has rather few duels. The three I can name all have her losing her heart - once physically to Harrek, twice metaphorically to Beatpot Aelwrin and to Annstad of Dunstop. One win (Beatpot), one loss (Harrek), one draw (Annstad). The very write-ups of Androgeus say that wherever she appears he is disruptive, in other words: unbalancing. I the board game the diplomacy point cost invested can be disruptive, too...

Given the option to ally Androgeus as your second superhero, game balance doesn't seem to have been on the forefront there. He may have done so through apotheosis by utuma, which is rather different from "normal" superheroes. Going back to the WBRM/Dragon Pass definition of a superhero, there is the immunity to most kinds of magic (theoretically, the Cannon Cult combined with the Alchemical Transformer and either the Crater Makers or the Wind Children have a 1 in 6 chance to win against a superhero with their physical magic), and their ability to extend their protection to up to three units stacked with them - how that looks in narrative you can see at the Battle of Pennel Ford where the massed Sunspear fails to eliminate Harrek. A superhero can singlehandedly win against the flank of a set-up battle. A hero like Argrath may be the equivalent of a full military unit with his closest retainers, but that's one order of magnitude less than a superhero. Did Arkat start out as a superhero? Probably not, but neither did Harrek or Jar-eel. At which point did Arkat become a superhero? And does Argrath being one of the five Arkats for Ralios mean he had a chance to get there (provided he united with the other four)?

While we are at silly stereotypes, add peg leg martial arts and hook mastery.

In WBRM, the game that introduced the concept of superheroes, Cragspider clearly is "just a hero", although with an extreme exotic magic ability and a pet dragon.

Pikat is not a pure uz. Given his dehori father, he might be a very special case of a Great Troll. Given his uzko mother, he probably gets classified as uzko hero, or possibly demigod. Arkat's successful rebirth as a troll, and even as an uzuz, was the result of Garazaf Hyloring heroquesting mightily, and convergently with Arkat and his companions, ending up in that troll adoption rite. Arkat and his companions might very well have been the first individuals adopted that way. Trollkin had been around only for 70 years, and multiple births of those started possibly a decade or so after that. All multiple births being classified as trollkin may have happened somewhat later - IIRC Arkat's troll wives had multiple births of superior trolls who later made up the nobility of Guhan. Trollkin as expendable spearfodder were around in 564 or so when the Mirin's Cross Yelmalians triumphed. The stronger in Darkness the adoptee, the less limited the body shape will be, as Darkness has some intrinsic body fluidity. There is a possibility that the uz discern between uzko and uzuz not by the physical body shapes but by their Darkness shape.

Anybody with an allied spirit will have a noble's ransom, I suppose, even if they are just of Godtalker status. At that price, the allied spirit should be included. The captor of the allied spirit might ba a different individual (and from a different clan or even tribe) than the captor of the rune level, though. Praxian rune levels with their allied spirits in their steeds might be the victims of such circumstances more often than rune levels with smaller animals or inanimate objects as allied spirits. Biurian's captivity in Sun County prior to his role in the Thee Blows of Anger did not result in a separation from Wind Whisperer.

There definitely are male uzuz, and they are highly sought after as studs for the remaining uzuz planing motherhood. An uzuz matriarch mating with a dark troll would come across as highly desperate, unless the individual is an exceptional hero (like Gerak Kag, the conqueror of the Pavis Rubble). Male uzuz are ageless, and remain fertile. They may be loaned to matriaachs of lesser llineages as a reward for those matriarchs (and as penalty for siring sub-par uzko offspring, like males). Due to the herouueting against the Curse of Kin, there may be more male uzuz than females, as I doubt that failed heroquesting uzuz questers remaiined among the living for long, if at all. Arkat Kingtroll was an uzuz, a unique feat of Garazaf Hyloring, which probably shortened her life significantly. She may have lived to see the triumph over Gbaji, but she might have passed away when Arkat returned from that battle in human form.