Joerg

The Syndics Ban definitely was a cabal that included Fronelans from the entire run of the DJanube. Hostility to the White Bear Empire may have been one factor in participation, but Snodal's map of a future submerged Fronela may have convinced other parties seeing their homes in the inundated regions to participate regardless of their stance towards the White Bear Empire. The Syndics did target the God of Silver Feet, however, targeting the communication and the unity of the land. The weird fracturing that followed appears to be a more extreme result than any of the Syndics would have expected. The Arrolian city states were targeted by the White Bear Empire, but at the same time they were living off the trade aspect of the God of the Silver Feet. For them, the map threat would be the better motivation, but that would have to connect the Silver Feet with Zzabur and Brithos. What's that connection? The Kachisti.

The sequence of the weeks is interesting compared to Eff's scheme. There are always opposed pairs, so what remains are the transitions between pairs. Harmony -> Death inferior to superior neighbor Fertility -> Stasis neutral Movement -> Illusion augmentation Truth -> Disorder neutral But then the sequences in seasons and weekdays aren't pretty well based in Godtime precedent, either. The sequence of seasons does reflect the weather pattern for coastal Genertela, and the sequence of the weekday elements is that of vertical order. (In Dara Happa and Prax, Fire Season is the rainy season?)

right, fertility, not harmony. Silly me. Still ended up as tatters of herself, only difference to Tylenea was that the Boggles were mollified somehow. Strong harmony might work as a deterrent, or might inspire their lust for destruction.

You need someone strong in embodying the Harmony Rune to allow themselves to be (almost) taken apart by the Boggles. Sending in someone strong in Illusion (Eurmal) has at the very best only an illusionary effect.

That's similar to my non-calculated idea how to isolate one piece spacetime inside from the spacetime outside for enabling a warp tunnel. I would attempt to create the singularity by slowing down light speed in a Bose-Einstein-condensate medium inside carbon nanotubes down to walking speed while whirling the Bose-Einstein-condensate around at those speeds. The relativistic rotating mass should accumulate rather fast. Rather than achieving a full ring-shaped singularity, this concept of counter-rotating things moving near light speed could be enough to achieve a separation between inside and outside.

Making the shrine and everything about it boring and stuffy without that being a trick to those who suffer from it is hard. But then I suppose there are Eurmal shrines teaching spells like "sobriety" or "compulsive truth speaking" just to inflict that on others. Even a "what's so funny about that" spell to sour the audience of a fellow trickster. Tricking the Orlanth cultist supervisor into doing something chaotic is a hoot.

You were saying?

I had such a SQL-based tool on chaosium.com about a dozen years ago. Basically, you link the participants and the locations to an entry describing the event. Unfortunately, it didn't migrate well, and then not at all. The index also gave page numbers in the publications mentioning these. And it would have been possible to link the database to interactive maps Can be done in a wiki, too, if you just use the hyperlinks as tags and don't complicate it introducing hierarchical categories.

How exactly do you go about defiling a Eurmal shrine, though?

As soon as you start applying reverse psychology more than once, your bonded Eurmali might meeky obey your spoken word just to thwart your intent.

And how do they know the poles they see haven't been put up inside the perimeter by another Trickster?

Does a broo larva count?

IMO time in Hell manifests as growing hunger.

Fire burning backwards, a state of heat leaving behind fuel and cold. Where does that leave us with the third sibling, Erohed?

What they aimed for would have been the connections between their cities, undoing the infinite borders created by the Ban. If you combine that with the land insert, what they did summon are the new lands, from the raw Creation entrapped in the folds beneath Arachne Solara's Web.

Meanwhile, in the Wastes, the feud between the Oasis siblings Blurs...

The Syndic's Ban is generally blamed for bringing in the Kingdom of War, with Loskalm's utopian kingdom under Siglat externalizing their dark side, providing the kernel and driving force of the Kingdom of War. The Queen of the Kiss and Lord Death on a Horse are loosely tied to the overarching Chaos plot that also includes the Black Sun conspiracy, the Chaos Horde Swap, and a new antigod Chaos overlord rising from the East Isles. The Lunars have agents of the Black Sun inside their Imperial College, and then there is the prophecy of Ralzakark as future Lunar Emperor. The weirdest theory I have seen in this context is that Fronela received an insert of land, pushing North Loskalm to the west by about 15 degrees. Compare the maps of First or Second Age Trollpak (or the mythical God Learner maps in the Guide) with that of Third Age Trollpak or the Argan Argar Atlas.

Right. A heroquester takes on an identity compatible with the entry rites into the heroquest or hero plane. Most heroquesters will attempt to maintain their identification and the myth for as much of their heroquest as possible, keeping it predictable to an extent, and avoiding identification crises. More advanced heroquesters might enter the myth as a side character or item added in the Arming rite to the protagonist who acts as the entry shuttle into the world of myths, then at some point assert the hidden real identity of that companion or item as the deity they intend to identify with, and at a suitable crossroads establish a different route for themselves and at least some of their companions. (It might be desirable to let the original quester continue with his quest within normal parameters to avoid the community sponsoring that entry having to bear negative backlash from not completing that rite/minor quest). No. The Compromise seeks to prevent the gods acting on their free will (rather than established precedent) in the mundane world. A hero enacting mortal desires and free will in Godtime will add to the body of myths for and around the deity she embodies. She will become a cult hero adding a new feat (and rune spell) to the deity, at least at the temple the quest started from, and receive her own sub-shrine at the shrine of that deity. Asserting Free Will on a heroquest creates an Otherworld presence of the heroquester enacting that will. This amount of Free Will is now set in Godtime, and binds the heroquester to that feat. The heroquester establishes a new facet of the deity through this insertion of self into the mythic body. Definitely. This new outgrowth of the divine entity can become a one-off major effect in the world, such as Tanian's Victory or Hon-eel's contribution to the Night of Horrors (or was it Nights of Horror?). It could become a repeatable feat for the heroquester, like Hofstaring's Tree Leaping. Or it could become a cult spell - usually a rune spell, although spirit spells are a possible outcome, too. In all of these cases, a magic is enacted on the Mortal World.

There is also "Hell Roar", the child of the seduction of Deloradella (Kyger Litor) in the prequel of the Aroka myth in the King of Dragon Pass version of that myth, who has been identified with Zolan Zubar. The Odaylan mystery might also apply to the hate-hate relationship between Shadzor Shargash and Zorak Zoran.

The descriptions in the God Learners Map appendix in the Guide are obviously wrong with regard to the calendars and the cyclical myths e.g. for brown elves. The Antirius period must have had annual cycles, otherwise how would the Brown Elves and their forests have become deciduous? Surely not after the Glacier covered all the lands nearby. The Yelmic Court must have had a way to measure days, if only by exchanging the shifts of servitors and dancers. It must be possible to visit a portion of Godtime that had day and night, and seasons, rather than total illumination by the all-seeing eye. There are enough domestic myths that allow for such a more mundane mythic reality to exist. The Vingkotlings and their contemporaries experienced something like annual cycles, and fairly normal (if possibly longer lasting) mortal experience. Offhand references to days, seasons or years must exist, and will have a mythical reality. There may even have been a Sunpath before Brightface finally descended to the Hell he had earned.

Yes. Your average Heortling hick of INT 9 or more will know as much about Heortling Mythology as our contemporaries who grew up with TV and radio know advertising jingles or school hymns. Local or Homeland Lore at 30% makes you fluent in your normal environment. You don't have to roll to know how to guard a hearth or camp fire, what weeds are toxic or have household healing properties, or are just edible, for yourself or for your mount. You'll be able to tell the time by birdsong or to get your bearings from comparing your position to the Red Moon, Kero Fin, Quivin, Skyfall, before the Rockwoods, the Block or Tada's Tumulus. You'll know which stars or constellations will have been due east at Sunrise, as that is how you know which week it is.

My heretical idea: Elmal became or claimed Lightfore in 109 ST, when he bridled Kargzant. The Barbarian Warrior in the sky doesn't have to be Orlanth. It could just as well be Elmal.

As far as I am concerned, lay membership in Orlanth, Ernalda, the Lightbringers and other locally important cults is the norm, with the option to initiate into one of these or possibly an even rarer cult. And yes, Orlanthi are pretty initiation-crazed, so probably at least half of the adults will be initiated to Orlanth or Ernalda in rural areas, and some into other cults. Daka Fal will have a significant following, whether as initiate or just lay practitioner. There will be spirit cults or local cults that people will be initiated to outside of the tribal norm. Any of these adults could be steadholders. Ancestor worship is enough, and hardly any Orlanthi is not at least an active lay member of Daka Fal. Which is where those who aren't initiates may go to learn their personal magic (spirit magic), and without the restrictions of the cults. An agricultural hide can be managed by a tenant farmer. A fairly wealthy tenant, even if the oxen and plow may be provided by the rent-taker. There may be managing tenants and subservient ones. A managing tenant will probably inhabit a main building of a poorer farmstead, shared with the assigned livestock, whereas subservient tenants may have their own cottage or small annexes to a main building. IMG a hide of arable land (agriculture and fallows only) will feed one freeman household and one to two tenant households, with the tenants managing the smaller part of the land under the plow, and all three households having cattle and sheep in the transhumant pastures. Perhaps half again the area of arable land will be nearby pasture, alongside the fallow land and already harvested plots. The rest will be more distant summer pasture, too far away to make hay. The necessity for making hay and for stabling is why I think that Mycenaeans and the Levante are bad examples for the rural economy of the Orlanthi. This kind of temperate climate farming was developed in the lower Danubian basin when (hotter climate) Anatolian methods that worked there or around the Mediterranean failed to work. That delay and the much smaller community size resulting from this adaptation in the long run explains some of the delays and no-shows in central European Neolithicum and Bronze Age. Central European "clans" are usually in the size of a hundred (adults), or even half as many. Only a few places with divine rulers managed to hold together what amounts to an Orlanthi tribe. One or two major steads (=hamlets), probably around seven households, and maybe as many tenant "households" living in those households (on those farmsteads). Enough cattle to maintain 4 or 5 ox teams for plowing, extras for wealthy groups. A lot of tenant families tend to be almost nuclear, given the rather bleak chances for ongoing survival of children in poor households. Transhumance doesn't have to be driven by cold winters. Overgrazing, especially in dryer climate, can be avoided by the practice, too. The practice of making hay as winter fodder might apply in areas prone to overgrazing, too. In order to make and collect hay, you want the herds away from those pastures close enough to the farmstead that the hay may be brought there. The holder of a farmstead may cooperate with his immediate neighbors (some of whom will be tenants, others freemen) to organize local plowing and herding and dairy, and transhumant herding (and dairy). The leader of a hamlet or a smattering of farms (steadholder in the Thunder Rebels definition of Stead rather than Household) is a lot more likely to be also an initiate, and may actually serve as the local godtalker without qualifying for the RuneQuest rune level benefits of being a Godtalker but some of the duties and enablements allowing the maintenance of a shrine. All IMG. You are a free(wo)man if "your" household (that of your parent, or your parent-in-law) fulfills the carl requirements. It will be quite likely the household of your father or uncle, or his designated successor, leaving you in a position to leech off that status if you aren't that successor, pursue some productive scheme of your own (local peddler, local manager for the dairy from the distant pastures, leading the herders on the distant pastures, hunting/patrolling, doing some cottage industry) to contribute to the maintenance of your standard of living. You can vote as a free(wo)man if you can turn up in your war gear or with proof of your contribution to the kitchen (as a non-combatant). Or you could bring proof of your guild membership if you're a crafter or merchant without that much agricultural or domestic achievement.

That sounds like a description of modern (well, Renaissance) rapiers rather than Bronze Age ones.

There is a bit of previous history. When Arkat became a troll and attacked Dorastor, the Heortlings would instead conquer and plunder Dara Happa, bringing back great profit while avoiding the worst chaos the Bright Empire could throw at the attackers. Where the Heortlings had acquired a source of regular tribute, the uz bled and died without any such material compensation. To lessen future disputes, Arkat commanded that some of that tribute was to be shared with the uz. The Heortlings lost control over Dara Happa rather quickly, but the uz still had not received adequate compensation for their sacrifice, so the Shadowlords insisted on the command being fulfilled. Heortlings: "That's not fair!" Uz; "It isn't our problem that you failed to hold on to your prize!"