Joerg

The God Learner Podcast has released its inaugural episode of the Gloranthan Initiation series, where we talk to people who came into contact with Glorantha and/or RuneQuest rather recently, and ask them about their experience and previous experience. For our first episode, Ludo volunteered as guinea-pig: https://godlearners.com/glorantha-initiation-episode-1-ludovic/ There will be a new interview published every month (some of which are with people that are on this discord server!) between the "regular" God Learners Podcast episodes. We hope you find those interesting! We think they are good case studies of the different ways people approach a big old complicated game setting, so it's more broadly interesting than for just Glorantha nerds IMHO. (The image shows a map out of the Dark Eye book "City of Havena", quite possibly the best out of the early publications for that German reaction to D&D.)

According to the History of Heortling Peoples p.88, Andrin the Mover, a Larnsting king who reigned 923-950, instituted the Dragonbreaker Cult. It would be weird if he had not adopted the Rex kingship at the same time. Then there are the City Reges. Heortland has plenty of cities which will have a plenipotentiary mayor or city king or sheriff who acts as the local big man. A companion of the governor-king by virtue of the office, and usually replaced by such after a while, although the citizens (including the local clan heads) elect the office-holder. Going against the benevolent suggestion of the governor-king - possibly in his presence - may have taken some effort. Much of the Sartarite city constitution was inherited from the Hendriki kingdom cities, as they were organized at the time Sartar left - about 150 years into Belintar's reign over the Holy Country. All those western ideas about government may have been around for longer, and Palangio had made sure that Dara Happan civilized city management had been spread into Kethaela and Maniria during the Bright Empire, all the way to Slontos (from which the westernized concepts returned to Heortland).

Some form of lance riding contest would remain for any force fighting with a lance charge. Late medieval style steel plate armor obviously is not the answer, though. But then, jousts appear to have been the pastime of war-less knights already during the Crusader era, with chainmail being the height of protective gear technology. All you need seems to be a saddle (and possibly stirrups) and a shield. And the talar caste Aeolians as noble cavalry when going to war. Ending up with the heavier armed mounted warrior who may fight on foot again. They would be in a situation similar to the Carmanians in the Lunar Empire. Nomadic neighbors on one side whose idea of mounted combat may be quite different, a large entity with occasional need for veteran cavalry on its far ends - whether against the Volsaxi or against Ditali and Solanthi. There's always mercenary work, too. Various Dragon Pass kings would have employed mercenaries in their battles, like Yarandros, possibly Palashee, certainly Tarkalor and Terasarin.

They are an underworld species of roughly humanoid stature, but they are fairly certainly not descended from Kyger Litor (which is the mark of a troll in Glorantha). The Underworld allows physical species to have bodies made up (mostly) of shadow. When roaming the Surface World, quite a few underworld species are able to switch between such stages. Vampires, for instance, like the former guardian of Death could. That makes Andin both the name of a specific species and the broader term for entities from the Antigod underworld. Much like the term Aldryami includes trees, dryads, elves, runners, and sprites. A conundrum similar to dealing with fully initiated Kitori.

At those values, I wouldn't bother to introduce something as strong as hate. "Annoyed by" or "loathe" would be my in-betweens. I would rather change the verb in the passion when at higher percentages, as the target still invokes feelings, but those can be mixed. Hate would only result from (perceived) betrayal, more likely there would be "annoyed by" or other such secondary flavors which may creep in for the same object of a passion. Does this need another passion to track?

They just had a violent encounter - whether with the Krarshtkid is another question. From the look of the shield behind Vasana, probably some time later. Harmast is mourning a favourite tunic of his, I think, and the padding inside his cuirass is stained with blood, too.

The conflict between the houses Norinel (and its allies) and Sartar following the trapping and murder of Sarotar unleashed the fury of Saronil and his surviving sons and nephews, and quite likely also Onelisin's fury. In the following decades, House Norinel learned the very hard way that the House of Sartar was more than capable of retribution inside what they considered their safe homes. https://wellofdaliath.chaosium.com/esrolian-queens-list/ The House of Sartar showed extraordinary skill in the counter-assassination game. While Arkilia herself appears to have escaped the ire of Sarotar's kinsfolk, her sister (Norina, Queen of Nochet) and ultimately also her mother Brengala saw a violent demise. The houses of the suitors may have had to replace their Grandmothers and the suitors, too. The assassin units in the WBRM / Dragon Pass board game are maybe the earliest expression of this kind of warfare. I can only speculate on the sources of these kill teams. House Sartar had plenty such sources. Saronil himself had ties to the Shaker's Temple, through his fostering and his wives, and Sorana Tor is a good patron goddess (matron doesn't sound quite right) for assuring death. As good as her Pelorian counterpart Natha. All the martially or magically inclined sons of Saronil and Eonistaran would have been to the Big Rubble. That opens up a possible connection to the Black Fang already for this period. Dorasar may have helped get the alchemists supplied when he established the Lhankor Mhy temple in New Pavis. Tarkalor had run with the Night Jumpers, and would have recruited them and their magics, turning a strength of the Esrolians - their troll bodyguards - into a weakness. And Onelisin was a prominent figure in the Yinkin cult, and had special ties to the Telmori beyond even her grandfather's work. All of these connections would make it rather easy to assemble and train specialist insertion and strike teams. However the House of Sartar built its chapter of assassins, they surely weren't virgins in the game of houses. Still, the Lunar application of Dart Competitors against them after the frontal assault of 1590 had failed must have caught them unaware. The tale of Saraskos dying in the attempt to avenge his children shows that this must have been an ongoing campaign, much like the previous counter-assassinations in Esrolia, but this time the assassins were targeting the House of Sartar, and even with Telmori and Humakti bodyguards the House of Sartar was systematically culled. I wonder who pulled the strings here. Was this some kind of competition the Red Emperor had given the rivaling Lunar families - whoever manages to kill the most of these pesky Sartarite royals with their private assassins would gain favors? Or was this a more localized effort, coordinated from Furthest? The biggest strike of this conflict appears to have been the magical assassination of Terasarin by Moirades himself aided by Fazzur's magician brother. Though not the final strike - it appears that the steadburning by Lunar attackers that sent Argrath into exile may have been part of this ongoing campaign.

Not applicable, as you can use only a single augment for anything. There might be choice paralysis, unless your player is a roll player who goes strictly by the numbers. Yes, interactions of the character with the world is bound to be complex, and hard to track. As is the character's history building up a reputation. Lots of little things can hurt or at least irritate you. Look at the lengths people go to prove that someone is wrong on the internet... There are quite a few things I have measurable amounts of bad feelings about - loathe, dislike, hate... But then those could be summed up in a single stat "irritable" with a list of things I am irritable about, to a similar effect. And on the other end, there are things I enjoy quite a bit, but which rarely will aid me in brutally inhuming whoever goes against my enjoyment. Basically, for negative feelings, think about what makes you (want to) curse aloud.

"Brass" doesn't really denote an alloy of copper-zinc phases as in our Roundworld, it is another name for a range of copper alloys including with tin. The Mostali brass caste covers all manner of alloys. There is no Bronze Caste. IMO brass was created when the molten bones of Lodril mixed with those of the earth inside which he was "wrestling" or sloshing about, giving all the volcano and mountain deities like Quivin brass skeletons. Plenty of dead mountain gods available...

There is another way - you can transmute a passion once you have a reason to change the verb. Hate can become Fear, and vice versa, or could even swing to Respect. Love can turn into Hate or Loathe, and given a strong enough in game-moment, possibly vice versa, too. Or you could broaden or pinpoint the object of the passion. Esrolians could become Esrolian Grandmothers, or a specific House or Alliance.

In a Glorantha without bending light and a conventional horizon: Also towering Doom Currents rising out of the sea surface before winding their way into the walls of the Maelstrom. Lack of visual acuity needs to take Farsee into account, which can ramp up quite the magnification.

To me it sounds like the services of the other shifts are no longer required, while those of the Red Shift Servants are still ongoing. These services could include rewinding prayer mills, refilling the reservoirs of water clocks driving such thaumic engines, or similar. Remember that Belintar had a couple of incarnations to visit and explore the Machine Ruins and their sorcery. It isn't clear whether these servants are ordinary humans or lesser deities or magical constructs. And even "ordinary humans" can become something else if you look at the Constant Guard or other such pacts. Phyllis Ann Karr's novelette "When the Wolf Pirates Came to the City of Wonders" has a rather normal human population persist in the city, possibly shielded from the outer reality that visitors observe. That population then transcends in 1624, as I read it into the magical realm of the Holy Country where the Tournaments of the Masters of Luck and Death happen.

We had this kind of discussion way back in the times of the RuneQuest Daily (this one has a reaction by Nick Brooke and by myself, the quote is from the latter and made its way to the back cover of Codex #2).

The region is called Dragon Pass, and before it was a pass, it was a dragon's nest. Larnste the Mover came here and sat down to communicate with the dragons, pausing in his seeding the Rockwood Mountains, pushing one such seed very deep into the earth - out of which grew Kero Fin. Obviously, dragons were here very early - before Kero Fin, way before Quivin. But then, Larnste's Table was in all likelihood present. Are dragons or their spawn an ancient evil, though? Or did they encounter an evil when establishing their nest? Another story about the orogeny of the Rockwood Mountains tells that there were two peoples living in the area, wishing a barrier between them, but instead Larnste sowed the mountains so that both people found the division going through their midst, with both separate areas experiencing the same intermingling as the unified area had before. It is possible that one of these peoples were the aldryami, and the other the mostali, or possibly early humans - Tada-shi maybe. Or the story is even more ancient, and the two peoples were dragons and elder giants. Most of the magical landmarks in Colymar lands seem to stem from Vingkotling times, although the first settlement of the region by storm worshippers is the last station of the Downland Migration. And before that, the Thunder Brothers exploring the region may have encountered and neutralized or at least accommodated older problems. Such as the rock goddess of the Quickstart adventure. The Durevings met and married a local earth population - subjects of Tada, and probably of Ezel. (The Downland Migration is a pre-Death, post-disintegration of Umath myth cycle of the late Golden Age, and Durev and Orane are fore-shadowing the Wooing of Ernalda.) And when Vingkot made tribes for the nine of his children still around, these tribes took in people from that Downland Migration, and/or their descendants. Some of the local evils could be the bad graces of the Earth. We know Gouger, the doomsday boar. There may well be older ones,

Sandy's recent Sandy of Cthulhu video about "satyrs" in Lovecraft mythos goes into a similar direction. But then we are always told that committing a certain crime will turn people into broos. Regardless where in Glorantha, without the need of Ragnaglar as a physical ancestor. The form social chaos exploding into an infestation takes might be influenced by the normal treatment of such chaos. Trolls, Orlanthi and Praxians externalize it, summon it to slay it in manageable portions, or hunt it down when it comes by. In Pamaltela, Chaos is externalized into the putrid mass that is Filth Which Walks. Externalized Chaos may be attracted by a greater concentration, and merge with that. As a result, a Pamaltelan chaos entity that grows from social wrongdoing may very well feature twisted remains of perps it attracted as its skin. I have seen artwork doing this in a non-Gloranthan context, probably Warhammer. Doraddi probably won't call such an entity a broo, but a Vovisibor. It could still inject victims with parasites from tentacles or dispatched organs (like facehuggers).

Vithelan (rather than Kralori, who are a mix of many different phenotypes, too) covers quite a few different human appearances. There seems to be a pigment creating skin coloration in shades of amber, a predominance of black hair, and possibly some features of physiognomy. Some people of Vithelan descent have epicanthic folds. If you need to take North- and East-Asian appearance into this, you had better add the entire spectrum of native American appearance. Or perhaps restrict comparison of Vithelan appearance to that of the Americans. Then there are the melting pot effects. Teshnos in particular has seen immigration from the Tada-shi (classed as Wareran), the Zaranistangi (classed as Veldang), possibly Thinobutan "Agimori" via Teleos, and Celestial and Hsunchen resembling the Vithelan type. Wareran covers the appearances of people from India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, and the Mediterranean in appearance, with rare outliers resembling aspects of northern Europeans (either pale skin or pale hair, usually not in combination) and pigmentations other than different amounts of eu-melanin and pheo-melanin, and hemoglobin shining through little pigmented skin. It is a bit weird. There should be four or five major Golden Age races (or "flavors of the Man Rune") - one for each camp of the Mountain People shown in the God Learner maps, but for some weird reason the people descended from the Northern Camp (Dara Happans), the Western Camp (Vadeli, Luatha, Brithini) and the slopes of the Spike (Dureving Downland Migration, Storm Bull's sons descending into Genert's Garden, other Storm pastoralists descending from the mountains in the late Golden Age) are clumped together as Wareran. The Eastern Camp produced the Vithelan phenotype, the southern camp the Agimori phenotype. We have three phenotypes that have corresponding Hsunchen (Vithelan) / Hykimi (Wareran) / Fiwan (Agimori). Unless the Dinosaur Hsunchen of Slon correspond to a Western Camp phenotype not observed anywhere else, making the Hykimi of the Great Forest a Northern Camp phenotype. The Thinobutan peoples who we are told that they are Agimori have a phenotype of their own, coming in a number of medium dark to dark shades according to their creation myth with Soli as their maker, using four different types of clay to create the eight ancestors (one male and female pair each who then procreate undergoing all permutations). They don't appear to imitate the Southern Camp people, and might be closer to a southern/eastern Spike phenotype. The Teleos people (once you look past their bright pigmentations) are described as Agimori just as the Thinobutans are, and I suspect they are Thinobutan Agimori. Then we come to the Storm Age human races, which introduce a number of Sea-descended humans. (Strictly speaking, "Wareran" indicates a descent from Triolina, and hence Daliath and Framanthe, too...) The Veldang peoples trace their ancestry to Lorian (a Manthi Sea God) and Veldara, the moon child of Entekos/Dendara and Yelm-in-Hell, or to female Mastakos aka Emilla in case of the Zaranistangi and possibly Tolat as the male twin of Veldara. Mastakos' place in the Sea Tribe ancestry is a bit unclear, but probably comes in the Manthi ancestry (Daliath and Sramak), too. The Helerites / Helerings are descended from female Heler, a child of Daliath of Framanthe, but not necessarily from her sister Triolina, as they came into the world after Heler being forcefully separated from the Seas (whether by the Keets or Umath remains unknown). They don't appear to have keet ancestry, which suggests a Umathi (slopes of Spike phenotype) ancestry. The Banthites appear in the Neliomi Sea, apparently unrelated to the Triolini (Heler=Triolina) descendants of the Wartain tribe, which makes me speculate that they may have been humans descended from Framanthe and Sramak. They don't last long, and they don't appear to have left descendants behind. The Warerans of Triolini and Storm ancestry are a topic upon themselves.

Only if the planet has a sun orbiting it across the pole, or if it has a firmament whose rotation axis remains in place relative to the surface while the planet rotates towards and away from the sun. A planet inside a mega-structure carrying that firmament and possibly a huge rotating reflector for an outside sun might do the trick, but an ordinary planet does not. The firmament of Glorantha is polar, the sunpath is equatorial, day/night cycle lengths are for about 50° latitude on our planet. And there are ga-stationary celestial objects in the firmament - Storm Gate, Zenith, and for an astronomically very short time, the Red Moon. It is impossible to place Glorantha as is on one of those Ringworld planetary maps, too, without adding a megastructure above it simulating the celestial mechanisms. And a huge pump to simulate the whirlpool. Building the Skyfall is an interesting design challenge, too.

Obviously - like when she made Teelo Estara swap out the Sky Bear for the Crimson Bat (possibly stealing the teddy). Or when she showed Yanafal to bypass the Humakti broken sword problem by weilding curved blades. Or when he persuaded Teelo Estara that the copper ledgers showing Yuthubars to the northwest of Raibanth that that's where she would have to pull out her celestial orb, rather than overhead of Raibanth. Or when she helped bring Doktalos back as Takenegi after the Battle of Castle Blue.

There are ways to lose rune points, which then can be re-sacrificed for, e.g. through one-use spells or through Divine Intervention. As a result, there is no theoretical upper limit for the number of a deity's special rune spells, subcult and allied rune spells a character knows. A character who has her full CHA in rune points might still sacrifice a point of POW to acquire a new rune spell from that cult. Or she might open a second account with an allied cult or two and learn the allied spells in that account.

Anything bad or moderately irritating in the past: it's Eurmal's fault. (And there was in all likelihood a Eurmali in place when the thing happened.) The first dusk? Guess who... Nysalor eating and clawing himself out of the Black Eater's innards? Eurmal tricked the trolls into summoning the Black Eater, and tipped off Gbaji. Lokamayadon's High Storm suppressing all worship of Orlanth? Eurmal showed him how. Arkat retrieved from Hell by Harmast? There was a Eurmali in Harmast's party.

From the description of the conflict in Seshnela 1622-1623 in the Guide, it looks like their return to the Surface Seas was one of the requirements to get the Boat Planet afloat again. Outside of Dragon Pass and possibly the Lunar Empire, there isn't really a point to starting in 1625 when so much juicy action is triggered by the 1621 events. Not participating in these events, or only as character background story, feels about as bad as leaving all the cool stuff to Argrath. But then my current sandbox description project does start when the City of Wonders gets plundered, and one rather "disappointed" Wolf Pirate leader needs to keep distance from Harrek, ending up at the County of the isles.

Not without ditching all of the celestial mechanics of Glorantha.

What Eurmal found in Subere's vault was the "De-Weaponized Path" - writ on a long piece of paper. Too long to bring back undamaged, so Eurmal folded it a couple of times, hiding away "-Weaponized P".

The RQ3 Viking Box has an encounter in the Russian river valleys with quite a few stats. It also has Frankish knights, which may serve as a different kind of barbarians, too. That encounter booklet has helped me through several years of GMing RQ3.

Episode 5 of the God Learners Podcast is out, returning to the travels of Biturian Varosh: https://godlearners.com/episode-5-the-travels-of-biturian-varosh-part-3/ Together with our guest Drew Baker of Jonstown Compendium fame - QAD Quick And Dirty series (e.g. the Pimper's Block omnibus), the Rubble Redux books Insula of the Waning Moon and Insula of the Rising Sun, and Alogo's Caravan - Riding Beasts of Dragon Pass - we read possibly too deeply into the sidebar text of Cults of Prax, exchanging observations, misunderstandings and weird theories about these three stations of Biturian's quest for profits and into bankruptcy. (Links to Drew's publications available in the show notes.) Before we get into Prax, we catch up with some of the news. We also announce a new series of interviews that we plan to put out alternatingly with the regular podcast episodes. Keep tuned for more announcements.