Joerg

I think there might be an alternative explanation, derived from the "Collision of Worlds" concept. It is possible that the Hsunchen would occupy an X-shaped zone separating the Four Worlds, except maybe for the southern world which would have been their home world. If that observation is true, then there would be no Hsunchen in Peloria. But then Yelm probably would have been annoyed by shape-shifting entities, and command them to stop irritating his sensibilities. Comparatively few Hsunchen are riders, but then few totemic beasts are of a size that would carry humans easily. The Storm pastoralists and the horsebreakers generally were from different traditions, and their beasts probably too. (There are some problems with air-rune related beasts - mammals - in early Dara Happa and Wendaria, before the recorded birth of Umath.) Unless you bring on six-limbed birds, I refuse to group griffins, hippogriffs and horses as birds. Sky creatures, yes, but not birds. There might be a chimerical cult, but IMO the six-limbed biology is a different class of creature, possibly a different class of divinity. A bat is just a four-limbed creature, and lacking a tail, making it less than a wyvern, and different from a wyrm, too. A tail-less dragon would be a weird creature, as far as I am concerned. The tail is an integral part of dragonhood to me. Let's talk about the limbs involved in leathery (or furred) wings on a skeleton. There are three models found in our world's nature - the index finger-born wing of pterodactyls, the full hand wings of bats - both continuing the wing to the hind limbs - and the weird flexible ribs for some gliding lizard. Dragon (and demon) wings are different in that they don't usually connect to the hind limbs but at best go to the root of the arm, usually they are similar to bats' wings (chiroptera). But to call standard demon or dragon wings "bat wings" is wrong because of the lack of the flight skin connecting to the hind legs. (One exception to this may be the dragons in Avatar.) Wyrns are an interesting enigma, apparently created in the Dawn Age by the Second Council. So presumably in Dorastor, prior to the God Project, and possibly opposed to the Osentalka project alongside the dragonewts.

RQ3 Dorastor, Land of Doom p.25:

Also, Greg Stafford once said that his RuneQuest products had been playtested in Glorantha. Apparently including Sanctuary.

The Bat Hsunchen live in places far from Peloria - Teshnos and northern Pamaltela. Knowledge of the Crimson Bat arrived there only with the Opening, if at all. Peloria has lions, but no Basmol. It has deer, but no Pralor. It has bears, with Arakang or Odayla as the deities, but no Rathor. The only significant Hsunchen presence in Peloria appear to be the Telmori were-wolves. (Unless you want to make Harrek's presence in 1607 significant for his role in enforcing a new mask for Takenegi.) The western Hykimi don't seem to have included Bat folk at any time, but then the three major Hsunchen habitats don't usually share the same beasts.

Possibly the extent of Telmori huntlands. They are the denizens of northern Dorastor that could range into those forests. The Anadikki aren't really populous, and their scattered places may have been dominated by the wolf people. We know that there were Telmori migrations in the 1400s, with Hon-eel and Sartar ending conflicts, so the current Telmori population may be just the remnant of a larger population that lost their dominance when the Anadikki got their things together. Your second map shows Talastar as part of the EWF, after the Old Day Traditionalists had been subdued by Isgangdrang. The Telmori would not have been problematic for the new overlords. Another possibility would be an upsurge of elf forest from the Poisonthorn Forest during the Reforestation, but then Rist is marked in forest green.

Word of Jeff, in a recent thread: And I need to reconsider a plot hook for a scenario I already published in German. Their presence was helping explain a maguffin for the final encounter. YGWV. There doesn't have to be an Ergeshi population all over Sun Dome County, you could have one variant village.

Given that Euglyptus was providing the troops, I would expect phalanxes and horse skirmishers. The Tarshites had experience entering Prax on horse-back, too - they were allies of Derik under Yarandros. The main Praxian force the Lunars had encountered previously were the Pol Joni. Weird cavalry beasts are abundant throughout Dragon Pass, but avoiding horses may have been the last thing Euglyptus may have wanted. IMO the Lunar Army was sent to make a statement, claiming Prax for the empire, without any such reservations or respect for local sentiment.

While not explicitly Gloranthan, there is a scenario involving wind children in the RQ3 Vikings box which offers a view how Greg Stafford would use them in play.

The city of Pavis used to be a city of fabled riches, and quite a few items in the Royal Palace of Boldhome had been taken from the Big Rubble in the seventy years prior to Sor-eel's first expedition, but his force did not push towards Pavis but towards the Paps. Probably assuming that a successful conquest of the place would have given them control over all the Beast Rider nomads in Prax and the Wastes, and with sufficiently powerful Lunar sorcery applied there, that may have been possible. There is a passage in Argrath Saga (p.16 King of Sartar) suggesting such coercion: Now Argrath Saga is not the most accurate possible source, but the notion that Lunar magic would be able to do that is there. From what I can see, they would have followed Biturian's path to the Paps (excluding the side trip to the Block), marching along Caravan Alley. It sounds like Sor-eel's force barely made it into Sacred Ground, accepting the peace taboo for the place and negotiating a safe (if hungry) return to Moonbroth. Definitely not. Fazzur was sent home after almost succeeding when Euglyptus failed in 1605, and being outspoken about that fact. Sor-eel may have reactivated him as a personal companion, but I think that happened only for the second, successful attempt in 1610. Presumably yes, at least as head of an expeditionary force like the one Fazzur led deep into the Marzeel Valley in 1605. Targeting the most important Earth temple in the region sounds like a proven Eel-Ariash strategy, and may have been underwritten by Moirades of Tarsh. Whoever organized the force and assigned troops and resources was a failure. There is a high likelihood that Euglyptus may have been involved in staging that expedition. There is no such published scenario, but the Composite History of Dragon Pass suggests at several passages that the board games may have been used to simulate (if not play out) the major campaigns of the region. Checking the digest archives with a simple use of the search engine (sor-eel paps), I suggested that this could be played as a combo scenario when I presented my ASCII maps for extending the board slightly, and Nick Brooke suggested that Fazzur would be riding as second-in-command for the 1610 campaign. No battalia were discussed, or what kind of herd the Lunars would bring. (Dinosaur herds?) https://glorantha.steff.in/digests/GloranthaBoard/

It still needs to be successfully applied, and can be fooled as it only alerts to the presence of Chaos, not its source. Is that person chaotic, or do they carry a Flawed Crystal? Or both? Or something else? You won't be able to use Sense Chaos - even at 95+% - to screen infected from healthy folk either, even though people maintain that Disease Spirits are chaotic. (And well, IMG some are, many aren't. Same with undead.)

Yes. So please rate (cursed) Telmori, Cave Trolls and Sea Trolls on this criterion. What does it take to make a Lunar cultist chaotic? Accepting a Chaos Gift, voluntarily or not, sure. But below that?

A delightfully heterodox text (sez who, asks the High Watcher of the Rokari school at Leplain) grounded in what we thought we knew about the Malkioni in 1994. But who cares about the text, just look at the illumination! Not (quite) in the Gloranthan sense, although you'll have to roll this Sacred Time unless you already have that mystical insight. Even without that mystical insight, don't get worked up about details you disagree with in the text. This works just fine as an informed in-world document, avoiding many of the pitfalls that would make it incompatible with either the vision of the Malkioni carried by the RuneQuest 3rd edition material and the early material by Jamie Revell written for the first edition of the Questworlds precursor HeroQuest (the rpg, not the boardgame) or the move to the current concepts as discussed (again) in a few paragraphs in the rules material, at some length in the Guide to Glorantha, and gloriously in Martin Helsdon's "Men of the West" also here on the Jonstown Compendium.

Chaotic may be in the eye of the beholder. But (at least IMG) a Chalana Arroy cultist will have no qualms a) eradicating disease spirits b) hurting chaos abominations c) destroying undead. That same CA will heal Telmori six out of seven days a week (and won't need to on Wilddays)

The Crimson Bat is from Rinliddi, the land of the bird people there. Do any Rinliddi have magic to shape-change themselves into birds, or to take on bird characteristics other than superior sight (a general fire rune trait)? Plentonius claims that the Bat was a new deity, one that Murharzarm had never seen before, nor would he ever (except for the wings blocking his sight). Glorious ReAscent of Yelm p.15. (Plentonius also mentions bats at the Death and Disintegration of Antirius. (GRoY p.30) Apart from the spit-take about a Lightfore deity dying like the proper sun, there are bats commanding the air. Freedom of shape is a Darkness trait, though, and at least the insectivore and vampiric bats definitely are nocturnal.(But then, so are nightingale, owls, kiwis and kakapos, and there are no myths about humans changing into these, are there?.Other thtn the owl hsunchen.)

Let's think about what would happen if a female Telmori in the in-between form and rage drops a human child. Would she savage it? In that case, Telmori would have a 14% child mortality just by weekday, or their shamans know to accelerate birth so this doesn't happen. And a child that somehow survives despite being born on a Wildday would be sufficiently rare to have hero pressed on to it THere is a scenario in this - a highly pregnant Telmori woman was caught or otherwise separated from her pack, and now begs the PC to help her deliver the cub safely. Or you can sneak that into the characters' back-story on character creation, or their parents'. How exactly do the Telmori feel about their day of invulnerable raging madness? And do they remember their actions?

Best guess - she would have been taken in a nomad raid (or a raid on nomads), handed over to the Morokanth who then hailed a ship near Sog's Ruins. No Wolf Pirates in the region, yet - the first wave of Yggites to flee the Loskalmi settled at Ginorth, off Old Seshnela. Possibly Vadeli following the Holy Country ships east. Possibly Hoom Jhis on one of his three circumnavigations might come into play. A dare, an initiation quest going wrong, or see above. If you can tie her in with the Maslo sailors, she could have been at Oenriko Rocks. Founded shortly after the Lunar conquest of Pavis. The Wolf Pirates start out in alliance with the Vadeli, who have them harrass their old Malkioni foes. 1605 marks the settlement on Threestep Isles and continuing harassment of the Kethaelan and Manrian coasts.

How do you know how many buyers of the pdf purchased the printed edition as a chaser to their pdf?

There have been some statements about the Laskali Pujaleg (the Teshnans are also called that) that the rulers of their empire are the Vampire Bat Pujaleg, and that their leaders might become regular vampires. The Wikia references that, even. No, there is no such source that I can recall. There was some speculation on bats and their Darkness goddess Mahaqata in Book of Drastic Resolution: Volume Darkness, mainly tied to the Blue Moon Plateau and its trolls, riffing off ideas by Greg about bat-winged uz under the plateau (which I had a chance to play out in an experimental Hero Wars or HQ1 game at a Tentacles convention ages ago). The Bat features in a big way in Pelorian mythology. It doesn't really fit any God Learner systematic - a Darkness creature, but mammalian. A flyer, but without Fire or Storm associations. Bats are highly social creatures. Could a single specimen be the primal one? There are a number other Bat goddesses. Artia, the Southpath planetary goddess, for one, in all likelihood the fourth conspirator/contributor to the demise of Yelm, alongside Shargash, Verithurusa and young Umathson. As a Southpath entity, she has an Underworld origin. For what it is worth, the Crimson Bat was manifest during the Gbaji Wars in a darker hue and still wearing its own pelt, when it was slain and skinned by Arkat, and then banished to one of the worst parts of Hell - one even the Bat Out Of Hell wasn't able to escape on its own. It was an avatar of the Death deity of Rinliddi before, but it looks like Arkat did his usual charming thing and released some of the accumulated Chaos not just on the great land of Dorastor but also on the sorry carcass of the Bat. Extra eyes, tentacles and a supernatural hunger resulted, I suppose.

From the context, I suppose you mean the 1607 Lunar attempt to conquer Prax. The composite History of Dragon Pass has details, e.g. in the King of Sartar hardcover edition (or pdf) p.118 (bottom paragraph) and 119. The Sourcebook gives significantly less detail.

P.31 of "Middle Sea Empire" has a short paragraph (or rather, half of a longer one) on that. Bolding mine. So basically, the beastfolk of Seshnela used to be the proud humanists who had been fighting lesser beast-related people for centuries. Ironic, isn't it?

The left leg would be the forward leg in most right-handers' battle stance. It is a bit unfortunate that the RQ hit location system doesn't take such battle stances into account when rolling the affected zone. There are a few weak attempts at modelling this when hitting mounted opponents (like hits to the leg on the far side of the steed will hit the steed instead) or hitting folk from above (using D10+10 for hit location), but it probably takes a computer referee to alter hit location tables on the fly for such maneuvers.

The Ergeshi - enslaved Kitori - in Sun Dome County / Vanntar from Wyrm's Footnotes 15 have been retconned, it seems.

Getting the front row view of the heroine's bottoms in the bargain...

Or the obstacle... In this case, I was pointing to the location in this forum where we're allowed to be as off-topic as we want as long as we remain civilized. So I guess, abstractly in the alcoholic sense.

Provided anyone is selling... that is worth clearing and has not already been cleared. The princes have invested heavily in infrastructure - Tarkalor built the harbor in Karse, Terasarin built an entire city, a royal road, etc., and only Salinarg's reign was cut short. Temertain never really took the reigns, and Kallyr built a planet's path in the sky. Argrath has seen most of the markets in the south, and brought back sample goods and artifacts. Without a sea port, there is nothing he can do about that, yet. (Corflu doesn't really count.) It looks like Argrath is into beef futures. White Bull, bringing back an aurochs, or so... A war leader may invest in an industry providing his troops and mercenaries with equipment and food, and possibly mounts. And infrastructure. But hey, that's how Sartar started, at Wilmskirk. It also may be Fazzur's business model - it looks like he sits where the Tarshites breed the horses for their cavalry, and to sell to the Lunar forces stationed there or supplied through there. Unless Sartar gains access to unminted precious metal, all the mints can do is use existing coinage and re-mint those. Selling monopolies and offices is how the Red Emperor creates wealth for himself and his orgies. And he pays his debts by granting land that he has at best tenuous authority to give away. As to infrastructure, Pelorians invest in and maintain waterways and waterworks. And temples. Roads are built by and for Orlanthi. Including the Daughter's Road. The house of Sartar has been building temples, too. E.g. to Uleria.