Joerg

The problem with nobles is that they usually come with an entire household of people required to display the necessary status symbols. So if young Harmast Brandgorsson needs striped horses rather than ordinary ones, the clan will have to finance that extravaganza. You can't let the (slightly heroic) son of the chief ride on subpar steeds, even if he spends too much time gallivanting around. There may be clan members who are tribal thanes, rather than clan nobility. That's fine, you already paid the tribe for some ostentation, and it is good if some of that falls back onto the clan. The tribal king will take income not just from the profits the tribal herd makes, but also from the trade tolls in the confederation city. (Unless your tribe is Colymar or Lismelder... but then both these tribes take some profit from the secondary but more direct route from Duck Point to Runegate and onward to Tarsh.)

Never heard of him courting Uleria in particular, but some flings with Helera (the clouds). Bluish grey moon girl? Not even Annllla had begun a career as the moon yet (born to the dead sun and black Dendara in Hell). His daddy had a quicky with Verithurusa in the impact crater/Hell. But then i never heard about a fling with Triolina. Tholaina, sure ("an air god"). You forgot the scariest of the girls on the left, though - Spider Woman. The blue wizard in behind would be as appropriate for LM, but the golden one (really a Talar coloring) is holding scrolls and wearing a (fake?) beard, too. Flesh Man as Horali? I had no idea that the Westfaring was that Malkionized... The OOO would make sense, but that belly mouth is something else. And clashing with KL? The depths of the Obsidian Palace had a banquet, then the Lighbringers allowing themselves to be put into solitary confinement, stunned by Eurmal's deed and bound to vows. But then, the individual failures of the Lightbringers in Hell had to be accompanied by other conflict. On the whole, I see the events in Hell more as an internal journey than as fighting.

The Lopers probably come from the planet Emilla, also known as Uleria by the Dara Happans or Mastakos by the Orlanthi and God Learners, the teleporting planet with the eight hour cycle. They were the riding animals of the Veldang Loper People, aka Zaranistangi, who had conquered Melib and Teshnos. There seem to be no eye-lid organs in the region of the shoulder, which may make a loper-riding position look a bit like a dad carrying a kid on the shoulder, or a crouch on a knee rest or in stirrups just above/behind the front legs, like a racing horse jockey. A saddle could cover the area above and below these eye-lids leaving a valley, with a belt across that valley to keep the saddle parts in place in the back. At the top/on the front the saddle would be one piece. The saddle would probably also equalize the slope of the back. The ambulatory gait of these beasts, and whatever they do for gallop, may cause sea-sichness to the uninitiated...

To re-iterate my last post here - I speculate that the five Arkats that we are going to see in Ralios are not the Arkat who retired, but five aspects that he shed in order to become the Arkat that retired. Parts of himself that he left behind.

I find the Orlanth one a bit harder to parse - we had just a little quiz about these on the German Discord. Who's that girl with the grey banana on her head? Which of the Lightbringers is crossing blades with Kyger Litor? And is that the Black Eater the three-armed Orlanth is struggling with? Does Orlanth have Alta/Alah under his feet, or Yelm's blood, or does he wear Jesus sandals? Babeester shares his footwear.

That is all well and fine with Darkness, Earth, and Fire, but how would you treat the open line figures of Sea and Storm? Thunder Rebels turned the Storm Rune into Aedin's Wall, a spiral with a relatively open entrance. There is the third dimension of the Warding, too - flying or burrowing creatures (or swimmers if underwater) can easily reach the top or the bottom of the warded area, and intrude from there. Other cans of worms: Can two separate Wardings intersect, to cover the same area? Would their effects add up, or cancel out, or simply the stronger warding take effect? If you are a target of a warding's alarm and Disrupt, will you still benefit from being inside (the Countermagic effect)?

Channeling this POW through the Wyter for truly awesome uses of mass rune magic offers a different outlet, though. This seems to be the way Pelorian theists fuel much of their theist magic.

Aren't unicorns cloven-hoofed creatures? RQ2 Companion p.26 has a boxed article on them. That text also talks about a lion-like tail... None of that is present in Loic Muzy's image of the Yelornan, though. One of the reason the horse was not allowed in the Survival Covenant is that it was originally a carnivorous sky creature. (There is a reason why the Char-un have bred a carnivorous stallion...) Unicorns are obsessed with notions of purity, and that would translate into their myths. They have been presented as one of the male-only species of Glorantha, a parallel to the satyrs and the other horned near-humanoids. Unicorns only mate with virgin beasts - Praxian herd beasts as well as horses, from what I can see, and probably willing to take does and cattle as well if sufficiently pure and pretty. Their standards may vary, and I wouldn't be surprised if the growth of the Rhinoceros tribe has been hampered by predation of their heifers by unicorns. It has been speculated that the mother of a unicorn calf (or, if you insist, foal) won't have any other offspring. The majority of the Praxian unicorns are summoned from Godtime. It is possible that a herd beast giving birth to a baby unicorn does so on the Other Side, and remains there for the time it needs to provide milk. A cow of whichever species having given birth to a unicorn could still be a sacred beast, even though it is barren and dry. They would rarely be found in unicorn rider herds, as those beasts will be uncomfortable in their presence. But then, there is a possibility that such a beast won't return from the Other Side. But that would take away the disappointed faces of the rhino riders when another of their cows delivers a skinny unicorn.... There is a distinct lack of bison, sable, impala, tapir and high llama Hsunchen, too. One might see a pattern, there.

The Guide pretty much says so: WIll there be any evidence in the city plan? Not necessarily. Compare Furthest, where the old Tashite city had to make way for the planned Lunar (i.e. Pelorian) city. Would anybody have left that convenient lesser ridgetop unused? Only if it didn't offer any flat surface. From the Jrusteli assault with turtle galleys I would assume that the Second Age city was within fire-thrower range from the river. That would mean that the ridge would not have been part of the city. Or a similar magic called up by Belintar to thwart King Andrin. The subsequent destruction of Akez Loradak shows that the Swimmer wasn't a patient man when it came to sieges. There is another possible cataclysmic consequence of the Devastation of the Vent - significant portions of the cliffs could have collapsed, burying whatever was too close to the overhanging rock. A less dramatic but in the end as destructive scenario would be a shift in the river bed, with the river carving away the area of the former settlement over a longer time, or with the river shifting away from the previous site, silting up the previously navigable channel. There is the possible fate of the city slowly gliding into the sea as the silt of the estuary drifts out, see for instance Alexandria, or Rungholt (the port on the Treene estuary famously flooded away in the first Grote Mandrenke or Saint Marcellus flood, but hit so hard because of this gliding silt effect which had lowered the entire site of the city over the centuries). Another way to swallow a coastal settlement would be a dune crawling over the place. Also a possible magical attack in Belintar's arsenal. Leskos (described as an Esvulari settlementl, within the territory inhabited by the Choralinthor coastal fisherfolk) is clearly documented as occupied by a Slontan warlord, and that coastal city lies (more or less unharmed) further out on the Bullflood estuary where it widens enough that the floodplain .can accommodate a lagoon or at least a wide bay on the flank of the river. That lagoon may have softened the strength of the wave if the river side was protected by a dune similar to those along the North Sea and Biscay coasts (aöthough the dunes would likely have been mostly washed away by such an event). If the river mouth is wider there, a tsunami would be lower, too. Leskos is a lot less convenient as a trade port than Durengard, which has access to the plateau. It may offer a trans-shipping point for ships of greater draft, and it probably is the best port for the small coastal guard flotilla the governor of Heortland may have kept. Beaching a ship in tidal waters is an exercise of rinse and repeat as the tide keeps creeping upward over the course of several days, and then you need to stop adjusting before the waters rush out as the Blue Streak plummets down Magasta's Pool. That's why I think that piers or slipping sites with winches or rolls would be a common featue in Gloranthan ports - including Nochet, btw. The overlay of the Blue Streak movement with the seven day breathing cycle of the sea doesn't help estimating the high water line of the current tide, either. The farther you go up a river, or the stronger a river's influence gets over the tide, the less problematic tidal movement will become. The Lyksos with the added impact of the Creek-Stream River possibly negates any tidal influence upriver from Orlanth's Hill, but then getting across that extra rush there will be quite a feat unless aided by towlng crews on the shore or counter-currents (like the ones used by the Argo rebuild to sail through the Bosporus). The problem with river ports is that they often sand up when the river shifts its bed - many a river port fell into decline when that happened, like e.g. Pi-Ramesse in the Nile Delta or the Roman-founded Chester in Britain. The estuaries of Heortland don't usually have a tidal wave rushing up these funnels. There are such waves, allied to the Waertagi, the greatest of these being Sog. They might be a western seas effect, although Sshorg's invasions were of a similar nature. If you want to beach a vessel for the night, at comparatively low tide, you will have to allow for the water rising for the next eight to sixteen hours (depending on the season, the length of night varies greatly). Anytime near high tide, the sailors will want to be ready either to adjust their beaching position or to make use of the water rushing out. The alternative is to make beachfall at the highest tide, and to sit out the entire tidal cycle, hoping the next tide will hit as high again. (But then, smaller tidal pushes last only two or three days, and are easier to sit out.) This makes tidal sailing in Glorantha a rather slow and tedious undertaking. Durengard was at best a regional capital under the Hendriki kings, though. Whitewall was the traditional royal seat, the great temple to Orlanth there home to a Dragonbreaker shrine since about 950, and accordingly also a center of the Ralian Orlanth Rex cult away from southern Peloria. That Rex cult and an unprecedented increase in man-power as famine hit Dragon Pass in 1042 along with the Pelorian raid, and thousands of refugees washed into the Hendriki kingdom. That, and personal ambition, led into the Adjustment Wars in Esrolia, making the Hendriki kings the military hegemony in Kethaela. The advancing Invincible Golden Horde sent another wave of refugees south seventy years later. Belintar made it his administrative center only after he had raised the City of Wonders and extended one of the rainbow bridges here, following the power lines of the land. The temple hill must have been of some magical importance if it pre-existed - there is a chance that it broke off the cliffside in a big tumble and ended up leaving a 200 m gap to the new extent of the cliffside as the result of the Devastation of the Vent. Or that Belintar summoned the power of Vestkarthen to achieve that. But then, there would be no Jrusteli-built bridge between the hill and the plateau. Survival of such a viaduct pretty much precludes any major tectonic event. The Hurlant - a non-Hendriki tribe of Heortland, previously subject to the Foreigner Laws of Aventus - may have left it without much in terms of permanent buildings, though, in the usual Orlanth hilltop site manner. Making the hill the recipient of the rainbow bridge will have created major architecture summoned by Belintar, probably similar to the Pedastal south of Nochet. This could have altered the shape of the hill. Given the location of the governors palace on the far end, I would expect the hill ridge to dip in the middle, as an Orlanth hillside temple usually is situated at the highest local elevation. Possibly over-towered by the remains of the Rainbow Bridge architecture, though, or pushed to the side by it. The conquest of the Hendriki kingdom was a difficult one, and Belintar would have left clear architectural messages to manifest his sovereignty and that of his governors.

I guess that this new city replaces the older market town that bore the same name in the Second Age, or it supersedes History of the Heortling Peoples completely. For comparison, the travelogue bearing the name Durengard Scroll describes the place as follows (p.62): There are 400 years between this description and the construction of the modern walls of Durengard. From the description of the bridge, it would have been upriver of the modern city, possibly across the rapids. If it survived the Machine Wars, the likelihood is quite high that it or at least some of its pillars still exist. The bridge may have succumbed to floodings of the Bullflood, or may have been destroyed in the 1317 war against King Andrin. I wonder what the author expects from a city or town that was burned to the ground with semi-magical fire just 12 years earlier. Temporary buildings and maybe some efforts at more lasting stone buildings are well within expectations, I would suggest. The description of the city ring from a Malkioni perspective as a body of elected judges is a bit amusing, too. If the Aeolians have a permanent ring member, then that is quite a privilege. If the authors of the Durengard Scroll have reason to complain about the bridge toll, the old settlement may have been on the southern shore.

Most recent Holy Country stuff by Jeff on Facebook: Notes on Durengard.

Yes, but they are still limited to the species maximum (excluding gifts or heroquest boons).

Proposing a certain Chaos quantity for Umath, the Storm King, brings me back to another related bit of celestialogy - the path taken by Orlanth's Ring in the sky. Orlanth's Ring wanders up the visible side of the Sky Dome over a period of seven days. starting at Stormgate, and exiting at Pole Star's area of the sky where the tip of the Spike carrying the Celestial Court used to pierce the Sky Dome prior to Umath's birth. (If you visit the Storm Age, you might witness Orlanth and his companions traveling up to the Celestial Court in a weekly pilgrimage, for whatever values a week or seven days may have in Godtime). (Possibly while talking to or even dueling with Orlanth on the ground... deities aren't limited to one location in any given situation.) The Guide doesn't tell where the stars go upon leaving through Pole Star's place. Guide p.651 says Stormgate appears as a pulsing star with a 14 day cycle, shining every other Clayday night and the first part of Windsday night in a brightening orange until eclipsed by the Dragon's Head, the last of the stars of Orlanth's Ring to enter the sky. (Aside: Orlanth's Ring probably has to be understood as a spiral bracelet rather than a closed loop. At least until Argrath performs the Utuma on the Red Moon, at which occasion the Ring might change into the Ouroboros loop. No idea whether that occasion will mark the ascension of Orlanth, and the disappearance of the Ring, too.) The movement across the sky dome starts at Stormgate, a non-moving star situated in the northwest of the sky, below the angular elevation of the Red Moon, according to the celestial map on p.645 in the Guide. That same map shows Orlanth's Ring somewhere in the north-east, though, with a directional trail indicating a movement along the Sky Dome. It should be really momentous and spectacular if Orlanth's Ring whenever wanders behind the Red Moon. Does that happen, though? Can we assume that the map shows an actual sky on any given day in the Gloranthan year? Assuming that Orlanth is in the sky during the Spring equinox, the ring would reach Pole Star on the Wind Days of Disorder, Death, Stasis and Illusion weeks and the first week of Sacred Time, which coincides nicely with the time allotted to the Lightbringers' Quest during Sacred Time with Orlanth out of sight, and emerge from Stormgate correspondingly in Harmony, Fertility, Movement and Truth weeks. That takes care of half the year... The day of the year cannot be calculated from the position of the constellations alone. Youth sits directly north, which would be the case on midnight of the night marking the start of the spring Equinox, as the year starts with Lightfore rising in that constellation, at dusk. One wouldn't be able to see the sky dome in this orientation around the autumn equinox, as that position would take place at noon. This excludes much of Fire Season, all of Earth Season, and Disorder Week, possibly also Harmony and Death Week, of Dark Season. Winter nights are longer, so visibility of Youth in the north will be greater than in summer. However, we know that this situation shows the sky at or very near ,midnight, as Lightfore has (almost?) reached its zenith near Pole Star. With that information, and the considerations above, the date of this depiction has to be at or within a day or twp of the Spring Equinox. Spring Equinox falls on Waterday in Sacred Season, two days before Orlanth's Ring reappears (if my assumption for the visibility of Orlanth's Ring is correct). With the Ring having risen between one and two sevenths the vertical distance between Stormgate, this would have to be Fireday or Wildday of the second week of Sacred time. The Red Moon is shown in Empty Half phase, but then the phase of the moon depends on where in Glorantha you look at it. Empty half falls on Fireday in Dragon Pass and Kethaela, and most of Pamaltela, so Fireday is likely, and the map works out so far. But would Orlanth's Ring have moved that far into the eastern sky? Tracing Umath's path as shown in the Copper Tablets, especially Tablet No 6 on p.115 in the Guide, suggests a total of seven or so spirals around the sky dome before Umath would have met Yelm. There were no constellations in the Sky when Umath emerged from Stormgate - the stars emerged after Zator, the eastern of the Planetary Suns, went into the Pit (Stormgate). (Tablet 8 shows his path into the Pit, Tablet 9 the stars emerging.) If Orlanth's Ring is to trace Umath's path (at least the lower part of it) in relation to the Surface World, it would move about as fast around the Pole Star as does the Sky Dome, giving the Ring rather few encounters as it crawls up a path past those constellations which are between Stormgate and Pole Star at the moment the Dragon's Eye appears. That gives 21 straight lines up the Sky Dome map. This solution would require Orlanth to travel from Youth to Pole Star on the Sacred Time emergence. Orlanth is slightly out of synch with that axis, possibly enough for the last week of Storm Season rather than the second week of Sacred Time, if the Umath's Path model applies, or otherwise within parameters for this model if the number of Umath's hypothetical loops is not exactly seven. If Orlanth's Ring is to inscribe that spiral onto the constellations of the Sky Dome, it would have to move up in a rather straigh curve from Stormgate to Pole Star, allowing the rotating Sky Dome to pass beyond it seven times, one time for each day (not counting the slight precession the Sky Dome has, making its rotation cycle one day less or more than 294 days. Not sure which of the numbers 293 or 295 it is.) Using this model, the position of Orlanth's Ring as shown on p.645 would be impossible, though. Tablet 10 shows a different spiral path for Orlanth upon his lethal approach to Yelm, starting somewhere in the surface world, apparently north of Raibanth (if those towers correspond to the Dara Happan cities, which the course of the Oslir suggests) taking only two full rotations to reach the top of the Sky Dome. If Orlanth's Ring is to wander two spirals during his week of ascension, his path would carry the Ring past all of the constellations upward of Stormgate each time he ascends, although in a different order and varying proximity. In that model, a situation as depicted on p.645 might occur. On the eve of the Battle of Pennel Ford, three new stars emerged from "Stormgate and rapidly climbed one third of the way up the Sky Dome" (Sourcebook p.38), which would set the Lunar phase on the day of battle to at least half, if not full. Given the massive Sunspear, Fireday is as likely as Wildday. This would work with the two loops per week model and the straight up from Stormgate model, but not with the seven loops in the week of visibility model pulling Orlanth away from the direct (or slightly curved) line between Stormgate and Pole Star. On the date of the Dragonrise, Clayday of Harmony Week /Earth Season), Orlanth's Ring would normally be one day from disappearing at Pole Star. The date is 20 day before the Autumn equinox, placing Youth and the Dragon wandering through the south at midnight. The night would have about eleven hours of visibility for the stars (probably required for the dance, unless the rite started during the day when only Star Seers would be able to compare the motion of the Sky Dome to that of the dancers. But then, that circular dance may have been going on for a couple of days before the rite already, with assistants taking the preparatory rounds in the circular temple grounds. They might have been aided with strings held together at the Pole Star position, giving the dancers the exact radius they had to process. The intruders, directed by Minaryth Purple, went into the dance at an accelerated timetable, climbing from Stomgate (which is maybe one third the way up the Sky Dome) to the outskirts of the Celestial City which is about a quarter or even less down from Pole Star, which means they would have had to climb about five twelfths of the Sky Dome to meet the dancers of the Dragon constellation. They would have had to move at least about one third of the perimeter of the temple area to get that high using the straight line up variant, projected on the rotating sky. Using the marching along with the constellations route, they would have to make at least four revolutions, while the dancers would process in a much slower way. Using the two loops up variant, the intruders would have walked around a bit more than one revolution. The Dragon's Head as shown in the constellation on p.651 (superimposing Orlanth's Ring with the constellation) would have been more or less on a srraight line between Youth and Pole Star. Oh well, if nothing else, this exercise demonstates how a Gloranthan would be able to guesstimate the date of a clear night...

Some of the deeper Darkness deities (like e.g. Zorak Zoran) require a choir of Storm Bulls and Illuminates each to ascertain that they or their followers are not Chaos entities or hiding that with illumination. In case of Shargash, we know about the Shadzoring hell demons who ravaged the lands around the Green City during the worst part of the Greater Darkness, the Gray Age, and much of the reign of the horse warlord emperors in Dara Happa. There are no known links between the Shadzorings and the offspring of Kyger Litor, but then the uz are a special case of Underworld demons in that they were forced to emigrate to the surface. The Shadzorings appear to have more in common with the Andinni of the East Isles. Zorak Zoran has a reputation as a chaos fighter, but he appears to make exceptions for certain types of chaos contamination. Vamargic Eye-Necklace, a Great Troll born to cave troll parents (or at least a cave troll mother and a Dehori spirit taking over the father) who somehow succeeded in performing Cragspider's rites, would have had to inherit his mother's chaos taint, even if he did not inherit (the full extent of) her regeneration abilities. There is one disorderly god who was suplexed so hard by Shargash that both he and the planetary god went to Hell - Umatum aka Umath, the Storm King who invaded the Sky Dome. Was that invader chaotic? Did he still have raw Creation to wield?

The current thinking about enchantments - magical items created by investing personal POW into creating a permanently available magic - appears to restrict making these to the magic specialists, aka Rune Levels or their equivalent in shamanism or sorcery. Now all these rune levels already have plenty things to spend their POW on, be it rune points for theists, the fetch for shamans, or inscribed spells for sorcerers. Additionally, there is the requirement to have 18 points of POW to remain an active priest, which makes spending one of the possible three points of POW exceeding that number (for humans) quite a big deal. (It is possible to invite other people to invest the extra POW, but one POW for each process of enchanting an item needs to come from the enchanter). So, what would be the motivation of a rune level - somebody who generally has the responsibility to pay back her supporting community for the material and magical support they give her - to sit down and create something consuming her soul? One occasion might be retirement from the post. The old priestess may wish to leave a legacy to her temple, and create a powerful item associated with her name, leaving her below the requirements to remain a priest - something she didn't intend to do anyway. The item would be added to that temple's arsenal of magical items, possibly traded for political or economic support, or for some kind of item the cult couldn't produce themselves. I expect something like a slightly re-worked version of the RQ3 enchantment rules to be published in one of the future GM guides. One of those things may be user conditions - such as "must be a member of the ... temple". Anybody who would be lent this item would have to make a sacred obligation to that temple, though maybe not an initiation to the cult. Attend the worship (in case of doubt by proxy), provide protection, regularly send a votive figure and someone to offer magic in your stead, build a new temple wing... you know the ways. It gets thornier when player characters start pulling up community support to create very powerful items for themselves using the POW of community members. The RQG economics have no way to model the commitment such community members give to the character, and what the character has to give back in return. This will of course vary from GM to GM along with the general understanding of said economics and social implications.

I feel that the God-Talker is not exactly a rules-detemined position, but very much a position in the character's actual community regardless of the character's actual achievement in terms of rising to rune level. Even the rules say so: Although then they go on talking about fulfilling priest requirements or getting a rune prest's benefits (use of rune points and POW) when calling upon divine intervention. The benefit of the +20% on POW gain rolls probably would only apply if the god-talker actually fulfils the priestly requirement of 18 POW. The old deal-breaker for RQ3, reusable rune magic, that separates a God-Talker from the common initiate, has gone away in RQG, which relieves a lot of the need for the official Acolyte position. Rigidly clinging to broad rules statements will necessarily bring weird results. The Rune Masters providing one each of the rune levels mentioned in Cults of Prax is one example, the rigid absence of any such rune levels because RQ3 Gods of Glorantha provided a change in direction is another. There is enough nostalgia for personal RQ2 experiences or for reading about rune priests of Humakt in the Temple of the Wooden Sword snippets we have that tossing all of those out with the bath-water seems a little extreme. YGWV, and if that Glorantha requires a different interpretation or application of the RQG rules, then YRQGWV accordingly.

It's a weird world where pupils can name every bone but not a boner...

According to Plentonius, Shargash has never been anything but red - it's already in the name, "shar", which also is the color of the southern direction in the gradual darkening of the four Guardians of the Cardinals (white - yellow - red - black). That's a very convenient argument, but doesn't really explain the green city, or Alkor the Green. Plentonius loves convenient arguments, and may have adjusted the dates of reigns of previous emperors to fit his schematic, making the Ten Tests of Khordavu a convenient change of age. And the arrival of Teelo Estara adds another appropriate 1000 years - coincidence, or an opportunity to legitimize their coup discovered by Irrippi Ontor to lend them some extra sympathetic effect? Or perhaps they were pre-empting some "Yelm is really Idovanus" stunt some Carmanian cabal had prepared for 1221?

Bavarian beer, even, although probably not brewed in Germany. There are some "Helles" (light beer, Bavarian style) which have low content of original wort.

The celestial cults have sight-enhancing magics (already a strong Farsee will duplicate the feats of Galileo's telescope). Planetary bodies are perceived as circles, mostly. I think so. I can't find it at the moment without going through my old paper editions, but there was a passage in the 1994 body of published Glorantha which mentioned that the triple orbs of the Dara Happan tripolis shone again - presumably above their ziggurats, viewed from below as celestial bodies in their appropriate part of the Sky. Yes. IMO Lightfore was the sun before the sun, who was a guarantor for life and light during the Gray or Silver Age between the Greater Darkness singularity (Ritual of the Net, the Block crushing Wakboth, I Fought We Won, other such events) and the Dawn. His brightness is less than that of the Sun Disk, and he has 1/16th of luminous area. Hence my assumption that Lightfore would shed about as much light as a generous half-moon.

Yes, if you look at Aragorn, and the Fellowship of the Ring, then the youngest member would have been Boromir son of Denethor, Meriadoc Brandywine, or Peregrin Took, with Aragorn and Gimli somewhat tied for the third oldest after Gandalf and Legolas. (Makes me wonder why RPGs assume that you start playing at age 15 or so..) Halwal, the Merlin/Gandalf figure in the liberation of Fronela and Ralios, gets his first mention as rival of Argalis in the commentaries on the reign of Triosos or Trosos, who reigned from 870 to 887. The author might refer to the current year of 908 for this rivalry, though. Argalis disappeared during the reign of Hekaos, 946-958, after seventy years of service as High Sorcerer. There apparently is an Avalor's Saga in Greg's western cycle, but other than the title I haven't seen anything from it. If it is part of the foundations of Glorantha series that was sold in extremely limited numbers as fund raisers, Avalor would be found in the Book of Heroes in that 14 booklet series, I suppose. I don't see Av(a)lor playing as decisive a role in the Fronelan rebellion as Halwal, Tyrensaval or Sigur. we don't actually know what became of Avalor's wife. Correct, we don't, but if she was a Melibite native priestess (dancer?), with ties to the Blue Moon, then an abduction to Croesium for interrogation or experimental worship would make sense. The Red Sword in question is one of the better secondary incarnations of the Real Thing, but heroquesting may imbue another incarnation with sufficient identification to fulfill prophecies. King Sigur is mentioned for these events in Middle Sea Empire p.28. There are some clues in Middle Sea Empire p.26. Already in 946 "bishops" of Loskalm curse Emperor Celakos, causing his death. (Or possibly his own "bishops".) At least three years after the death of Celakos, after the disappearance of Argalis, Halwal is denied the post of High Sorcerer and departs from Seshnela. Halwal and the Makanists are blamed for the disappearance of Argalis, who was a leading Malkioneranist. Yomili also was a representative of the Makanists. It isn't quite clear whether Yomili ascended to the post of High Sorcerer upon the disappearance of Argalis, or whether a Malkioneranist sorcerer was chosen over Halwal. Yomili may have had older, more Hrestolist leanings than Halwal, although Halwal's alliance with the Irensavalists and the Arkati point to a strong Hrestolist leaning on the part of Halwal, too, though perhaps less of the Seshnegi orthodoxy. I wondered whether the cenobitic order of wizards transplanted by Jonat could have been the one advised by Halwal, but Middle Sea Empire speaks of a knightly order - in updated Western terminology that means men-of-all rather than zzaburi wizards. According to Middle Sea Empire, the God Learner Collective was formed in 845, just 25 years before Argalis became High Sorcerer of the Middle Sea Empire. Both Halwal and Argalis may have witnessed the rise of the Malkioneranist movement early in their careers, Argalis from the inside, Halwal from the outside.

There is an interaction between Shargash and Kargzant during Jenarong's reign, where Jenarong aids Kargzant, and Shargash loses accordingly.as per the War in Heaven during Gerruskoger's reign, aka Horse on Table, p.33. The event I am talking about is on p.34, and then on p.35 Plentonius has Antirius replacing Kargzant as the consequence of the Bridling. Common usage has six - three primary colors and their complementary colors, with indigo being a specific poetic addition in English language tradition, quite useless for understanding additive or substractive color admixture. Eleven - 8 planetary suns hovering above their respective towers, plus Ghelotralas and Zayteneras as representatives of the other two brothers, plus Entekos/Dendara. It isn't quite clear whether Raibamus gets an orb, too - the Copper Tablets show him having one. But then the Copper Tablets may postdate the God Wall, being a Yuthuppan star lore artifact. A child resulted, which suggests a little bit more than just the Carrie moment. I suppose there were more white planets than this one, but Verithurus is special in rising again. Is Kargzant white or golden (aka yellow)? I agree that the southern planet re-emerged from ground/Underworld wrestling as a red planet, possibly flayed by the experience, but healed by merging with Shadzor. A combination of black and green, resulting in red. (compare the blue-green filter you get from sending light through a gold foil. Tolat's red might be the complementary effect.) Purple is crimson, taken on by Verithurus(a). Or you could have an actinic white with a violet tint. Grey is silver, or a dimmer white. Much like brown is orange in a brightness context, grey is white in a brightness context. Given the golden Sun Dome backdrop, I doubt we will find a visible orange planet (as gold is reflective orange, both pure and 24 carat yellow gold). Unlike real world planets, the bodies in the Perfect Sky don't shine just by their backscatter, but they emit some light on their own - Reladivus/Kargzant/Lightfore for instance enough to rival our world's nearly full moon. If we have a color scheme in the Perfect Sky combo, I would expect the planetary suns to be weaker in luminosity than the Sun Disk, and mainly white, with just a slight tendency to one of the primary or complementary colors. Verithurus appears to have been black and white, or light and dark grey. The white phase may have rivaled the luminosity of the Sun Disk, but the dark phase might have been less than the background reflection from the Sun Dome. Let's speculate about RBG saturation: The Sun Disk emits golden light, which means a lack in blue frequencies, while red is at the max and RBG green (the yellow of technology) is fairly high, say 90-05%, and blue in the 80% range. In substractive print, that would mean hardly any cyan, a bit of magenta and slightly more yellow filter (aka ink). Pre-descent Verithurus would have all three channels at the same strength, but that strength oscillating. Possibly from a roving searchlight effect. Reladivus Kargzant appears to have been quite golden, too, so all Sun Disk brightness values multiplied by say 0.9. Alkor would have started at all 85% with some addition to green, so maybe a 90 for green. Later on, I would give red Shargash less luminosity than the other planetary suns, but a greater diameter later on, compensating by that. The other five planetary suns don't really have much of a story of their own, and my guess is a mostly balanced 90% saturation with slight variations lending them tints. Apparent size is another deal. Assuming the same angular size for Glorantha's sun as our own perspective on that open fusion reactor about 8 light minutes away. The Red Moon varies in apparent size depending on where in Gloantha you view it, with the maximum size near the Crater probably equaling that of the Sun Disk. Next in apparent size is Tolat. Maybe a third of the Sun Disk? Lightfore might be next in diameter, perhaps a quarter of the Sun Disk. This planet possibly grew from the Bridling of Kargzant and might be larger than the original planetary suns. That might put those at one fifth of the sun disk diameter. Artia the Bat was instrumental in blinding Yelm somewhat, using her wings - she might be trailed by a shaped shadow. The Twin Stars appear bigger than they are from sharing their (cyclical) luminosity..

Eurmal, Friend of Men, the Firebringer. Reviled and ridiculed, the Gloranthan Prometheus, instrumental in bringing Change. The original murderer. For linguistic shenanigans, I still won't look much further than Harald Smith's Yurmalio and Orlanthio. In the Gods War, Orlanth conquers the Sky World, then defends it with much success against the Sky Terror during the Greater Darkness before setting off on the LBQ. King of the World may be his title, but he really is lord over the upper worlds. Jagrekriand, his eternal rival, operates from his Underworld abode in Alkoth by the name of Shadzor(ak Zoran) rather than interfere with celestial matters. Tolat, Jagrekriand's celestial face, takes care of the Churanpur demigoddesses, instituting the Marazi of Trowjang. Probably thanks to his Blue Moon alliance, Tolat escapes the utter failure of Shargash against the Flood. Uma becomes part of Yu-elm through the application of Eurmal's Sword.

So the barbarian warrior identified as Oralanatus by the author(s) of The Fortunate Succession could have been Elmal? The feat described by Plentonius sounds very much like Hyalor's Horsebreaking, or an re-enactment thereof. Vuranoste was the first rider emperor of Dara Happa, and a Hyaloring. (So were his sons.) That sort of suggests that the Horsebreaking would have been in their past, but then Kargzant, the Sun Horse, might have been exempt from that indignity until then. As the chariot horse warlords slowly give way to cavalry as their main force, abandoning the chariots except for ritual use, this bridling may have been the turning point towards that trend. Meeting in a Hill of Gold quest would create heroquesting contact even without military contact. The Dara Happan Kargzant heroquesters apparently returned as losers (if they returned at all). Some fifty years later, horse warlords slay Lightbringer missionaries (rather than trolls, or Kitori, from the earlier secret warfare) on sight. A Kargzant version of the Hill of Gold is probably the Horsebreaking myth. We have a range of enemies, including Zorak Zoran. There is Storm Bull rather than Orlanth, Maran Gor rather than Inora, and Zorak Zoran as himself (see RQG Bestiary p.145).

The change from the peaceful Unity Council to the more warlike Second Council either was triggered by the Bridling of Kargzant, or caused this event around the end of the first century. What happened was that a deity clad and equipped like a barbarian warrior captured and bridled Kargzant the Sun Horse in the sky, forcing the planet Lightfore onto the Sunpath. Or at least that's the best guess I have. The notion of this event existed already before the notion of Orlanth existed - the Reign of Froalar gives this event as part of the reign of King Sonmalos: 109 Battle of the Heavens between Umath and Yelm Glorious ReAscent of Yelm describes this event on p.34, with the sons of Vuranostum participating in this event after the death of Vuranostum (in 72 ST, according to Plentonius). 109 would fall into the reign of Huradabba, aka Son of Evil, who reigned from 101 to 110 according to Plentonius (if only to adjust the Anarchy Year to 111 ST). According to Plentonius, Huradabba ambushed the grandsons of Vuranostum, and slew them all before succeeding undertaking the Ten Tests with seven of the required regalia. GRoY gives 101 for this event, The Fortunate Succession already 96ST. Plentonius then introduces Avivath, and his lineage, and his use of the Sunspear against that emperor. All true to his real purpose as chief propagandist for Khordavu. I don't really trust those dates of convenience for Huradabba. Neither does the establishment of night and day at this late date sound correct. We have another account for the same celestial event in the Fortunate Succession p.14: This sounds like a corroboration of the later date. Anyway, Plentonius suggests that Dara Happan heroquesters would have participated in that event, and logic suggests that the only Orlanthi culture sufficiently awakened to invoke Oralanatus would have been the Heortlings of the Council. The Guide gives 167 as the date of Horse Warlords slaughtering Lightbringer missionaries, and the election of the first warlord of the Council. Any good guesses how Orlanth (or the spectre of Umath) was summoned into the heavens in 109 or 111, and why this event remains glossed over in the Guide or the Sourcebook?