jajagappa

Since Pavis was founded in the 2nd Age, you cannot go to the Godtime Founding of Pavis - there was not one. What you could do is to figure out what rituals Pavis followed to build his city. Perhaps there was the Trading Blanket of Issaries in Genert's Garden where Issaries shows Genert and Seolinthor how to exchange items. That you could reach. But not the Founding of Pavis. As for Gbaji, when the gods intervened in the mundane plane at the Battle of Night and Day, the Compromise broke and the entire battle/event was in the Godtime at that point. But ritually it can be thought of as the Sun's invasion of the Underworld and the power of the sun to harm the Hell Mother, and that is where the trolls quest to.

You could say that you want to raid the Greydogs in order to steal the power of Minlister (the brewer) from them. This has mythic overtones, and you can set it up as a This World Heroquest where the goal is that you have the magic power that they currently have (maybe it is part of the Greydog clan wyter). But you need to put it into the context of an existing myth and some will work better than others. The mythic hero Vingkot went on many raids, including against Alkoth (which is part of the Underworld and Sky World), but using those as a basis won't do much good in this case - the foes and the stations of the quest will be 'wrong' and who knows what may happen to the raid. But Minlister uses a huge magical cauldron named Karni that was taken from the water gods by Orlanth and the Thunder Brothers. You need to follow this quest if you want to steal the Greydog's magical cauldron and its powers for yourself. Therefore, you have to cast the Greydogs as the 'Water Gods' in the quest in order to be successful (think of it as staging a big interactive 'play' where you are casting the parts but need to have the 'right' people in the 'right' roles). The easiest 'water god' to cast the Greydogs as is Heler before he joined the Storm Tribe. To do this, you likely need to be at some place (perhaps beside the Sword River or the Creek) and you 'summon' your 'enemy' (the Water Gods) in a specific ritual that brings both Heler's rain clouds and the Greydog warriors (they may feel a magical 'pull' in this case, or their wyter feels a threat and orders them to defend their land, etc.). If you defeat the Greydogs ('water gods'), then you can raid their camp and find their magical cauldron and take it for your own. So as Steve notes, this is not a 'random raid', but a very prescribed raid based on an ancient storyline that needs the 'right' acts, characters, and components to succeed well (otherwise you may just end up with someone's wineskin sack) or you are driven off (and now you have some vulnerability to the 'water gods').

I partially agree with this. There are places in Glorantha where the division between mundane and Otherworld/GodsTime is weak. If you attempt to climb Mount Kerofin, you push towards the mythic where you could encounter the Mountain Mother herself. Or if you sail down Magasta's Pool to the Underworld. Or climb the ladder to the Sky World. Or leap onto the Moon. Or travel to the distant Gates of Dawn or Dusk where the sun rises or sets each day. These exist, but only heroes can truly might and overcome the guardians there (and if you die doing so, you die and your soul heads off to the Underworld). But you cannot go to the Palace of Black Glass in this world as it no longer exists there. You must enter myth to reach it (since it was built in the God Time). But you could travel to the Tarpit where it once stood, and you may find it easier to enter the land of myth from there. Or you may use the Tarpit as a way to access the Underworld (which exists in both Godtime and real time and is one of those Otherworlds. Similarly you cannot go back to the Founding of Pavis before it became the Big Rubble - there is no time travel. But you could sail into the Puzzle Canal in the Big Rubble on the right day and find yourself sailing on the River Styx in the Underworld as there is some occasional connection or gateway to the realm of myth there.

So this Heroquest could occur in one of two ways: 1) A "This World" HQ. Though you are re-enacting a mythic event, your goal is to steal something from, for instance, the Sun Dome Temple such as their Orb of Authority. You prepare in much the same way, get your ritual artifacts, find a sacred hill on a stormy day to leave from, and follow the prescribed 'steps'. Maybe you need to get the Scarf of Mist from the river goddess, so you need to go to the Creek before Sunrise when the mists are rising and bargain for that; then you need Raven's Cloak so you go to the Silent Grove and hope to find the Raven spirit there and have a riddling contest to gain the cloak. And at last you come to the Sun Dome where you must sneak in using those tools, gain the item, and depart. If you fight temple guards on the way out, and kill them, they die. If they kill you, you die. If you gain the item, you have it in your possession, and likely the Sun Dome will try to get it back since it's an important ritual object for them 2) An Otherworld HQ. You are not just re-enacting the myth, you will be 'in' the myth. YOU are Orlanth and the Thunder Brothers. YOU are going into Yelm's actual palace. The steps are the same, but they take place in the Otherworld, outside of time. The ceremony and ritual to bring you there are magically charged, and you must prepare sacred objects in advance to hold whatever you intend to steal. At the conclusion of the ritual you find yourself In Orlanth's Hall or on Orlanth's Hill, etc. in the time of the early Gods War. In the Otherworld quest, you may have to sneak past Gold Gryphon, the doorkeeper; and then walk the golden corridors of the palace, perhaps encountering Ernalda the concubine of the Emperor; and then enter the golden sanctum guarded by the Keepers of the Four Directions. You fight the Keepers of the Four Directions. That these may be heroquesters as well may or may not be the case - it may be immaterial to your story. Let's say you steal the Orb of Authority and slay the Keeper of the North. Now what happens in This World? What you've returned with is the ritual object you brought into the quest (say it was a bronze orb) but it is now 'filled' with a magical blessing of some time (perhaps you can Command the Little Suns as a special divine magic). This relic might be used in subsequent rituals to gain the loyalty of Elmal or even Yelmalio. Or when Yelmalions come onto your lands, your Chief can invoke its power to command them to depart (and it has a high chance of success). That you mythically killed the Keeper of the North in the ritual does not mean that anyone in This World died. If a Yelmalion heroquester was 'pulled into' the ritual, he may have been 'knocked out' of his quest, and failed. He may be magically weakened, perhaps even losing an important ability/magic (perhaps his Watchful Eyes divine magic). But there may be other This World ramifications. That the Keeper of the North mythically died, may mean that the powers of Order are no longer guarding the northern border of your clan lands. Maybe chaos is now magically drawn to your clan, always attacking from the north. It's really up to you to determine what level of consequence a given myth has. The more powerful your heroes, though, the greater the consequence is likely to be as they increasingly 'impact' the mythic landscape. No. It's not another world like our real world concept of Faerie. It's a mythic landscape that requires ritual and ceremony to reach and does not directly correspond to the real world in that way. It's a ritual reenactment of the myths. And in 1602 if your heroes went heroquesting on an Orlanth Goes Raiding myth, likely what they encounter is not the Palace of the Emperor, but the Advance of the Devil with his horde of chaos. And encountering chaos anywhere, even in myth, is NOT GOOD. You may well not return to the real world in that case.

In my old Imther campaign, the one dwarf the PC's encountered might well have been considered broken. He had arrived at the city of Hortugarth and been hidden away (for political reasons) by the PC's main patron. But the dwarf was paranoid, convinced that the repairs being made to the World Machine were wrong and that instead of repairing the world, the 'fixes' were opening ways for chaos to reenter the world. He ended up leading the PC's to a cavern (the patron was expecting the PC's to return with magical dwarf goods), where he could 'demonstrate' his experiment to the PC's. The device was a small magical sphere emitting light, placed in a box with one small pinhole on one side to let out the light. Then the dwarf had a small wheel with many small metal plates attached to it. Each metal plate had a small cutout. When turned quickly in front of the box with the light sphere, the light would pass through the sequence of cutouts projecting a changing scene upon the wall. Unfortunately, the dwarf's hypothesis was correct - the changing figures of light turned into broos which attacked the PC's and the dwarf.

A brief excerpt regarding dwarfs from the survey of one Galacrustus, sage of the Irripi Ontor temple, in a letter to Iridascius, Aide to Quinscion, His Most Excellent General of Procurement and Disbursement, Mirin’s Cross. Dwarf Coins Due to the regular Dwarf Market, the coins of dwarfs can be found in circulation in Imther, particularly in Hilltown and amongst the mountain clans. The most common of these coins are called Circles (silver), Squares (copper), and Hexes (gold). Other coins seen include lead triangles, brass pentagons, the very rare seametal heptagons, and tin octagons. Each coin has a slight indentation along the outer rim to allow for easier stacking and a milled edge. The coins have no pictures, instead being entirely marked by runes said to be in the dwarf tongue. Supposedly one Circle that was translated read: “1.0000000 Prazcdat Silver .9999989 Purity 3rd Forge Arganum Master Berv 241,982 Work Cycle Preferred”. Dwarfs carry these coins in specially crafted tin containers with fitted slots for each different shape. Each slot has an upper and a lower section and a device that allows a dwarf to either transfer a coin from the upper to the lower section or out of the container altogether. Dwarfs have been seen using these devices both in trade and in measuring. The dwarfs also seem to use individual coins as weights, placing them on special balances during trade deals. Dwarfs trade these coins exclusively in Hilltown for silt, sand, and clay hauled up from the Aryael and Silverstone Rivers (and sometimes even brought from as far away as the Oslir River!). It is unknown why the dwarfs value these products so highly. Dwarfs coins are highly prized by Imtherian merchants since they are hard to clip and quite pure. All of them have a central hole and some clansmen string them onto necklaces or earrings as talismans against sorcerous magics. Their dwarfish nature, though, prevents their use in magical ceremonies and folk go to great length to ensure that all such coins are carefully put aside to avoid bad luck.

And don't forget Stone ships!

Cults Compendium included not only Cults of Prax and Cults of Terror, but also the cults from Trollpak, Pavis/Big Rubble and various magazines (e.g. Different Worlds), and the spirit cults from Borderlands. Either will work to get underway.

One likely candidate to handle the bodies, at least south of Alkoth and particularly in Saird, are the Jajalaring, the dog-servants of Jajagappa given Jajagappa's role as a psychopomp amidst the DH. Here's my culture writeup of these folk: The Jajalarings are the dog servants, an underclass of Saird and surrounding lands who follow Jajagappa, Catcher of Souls. The Jajalaring folk live amongst the other clans and are born to serve as cottars or thralls and guard the earth and tend to the dead. They are known for loyalty and piety and a dark fatalism about the world, though some of them go wild and become bandits. They are always ready when called upon by Jajagappa to join his Hunt. Jajagappa and the earth mothers provide the whole of life to the Jajalarings: purpose, kinship, provision, justice, a place in the ‘pack’, and proof of life after death. They know that Jajagappa will bring vengeance to all who are evil and those who harm the dog servants. They fight with simple weapons such as daggers, javelins, or spears as well as fists and may serve with or aid the fyrd or militia. The Jajalarings help farm, herd, hunt, and scout; raise dogs; gather herbs, timber, and thatch; prepare and tend the dead; and know rituals to drive off or capture hostile demons and spirits. They are known to scour battlefields, collecting Jajagappa’s Due and the shades of the dead.

Nice design! Do you have a rough scale for what's likely supportable for roofing (given some slope and likely terracotta tiles in Nochet)? As I noted on the G+ thread: Many of the halls of Nochet are likely complexes of these townhouses built over differing periods as the particular House grew, added additional buildings for junior branches of the family, interior gardens, pig sties or other domestic animals, specialized craft buildings, etc. The Enfranchised Houses are effectively small palaces but likely retain similar features in certain wings. I think these variations will account for not only rectangular, but other somewhat irregular forms across the city, but I'm going to play around a bit with this model and see how it works for my players' House's hall complex.

For Boldhome, the Storm Season picture in GtG is probably the best starting point. It's an odd layout with its varied 'Pockets' set into the mountainside. That picture combined with the map in Sartar Kingdom of Heroes should provide a decent visualization. For Jonstown and other Sartarite cities, I'd start with the maps in Sartar Companion and then overlay with Joerg's suggestions on building styles.

Then hopefully you left Daughters of Darkness behind there. ;-)

A few of the deaths are described in Fortunate Succession. I think you are remembering Yelmgatha. When Yelmgatha was cremated no torch was put to the wood, but his body burst into flame when the priests sang the mortuary refrain. No smoke rose from the fire. As he burned the statues within the fire burst into song, praising his honor and Justice. A bright beam of light rose from the fire and a pure white phoenix ascended to the Sun. Another good example is this one: Radaidavu died in bed after a fall from his horse. He made his appointments and died without pain, under the tender ministrations of his wife and doctors. He was burnt upon a bier of aromatic wood, and even after the wood was burnt to grey ash the flames continued for a week, and there was not a wisp of smoke or cloud in the sky for the whole time. These are clearly Yelmic ideals, what all good Dara Happans aspire to. The less pure the person, the more likely to get smoky fires, or leave charcoal soot upon something nearby, or Yelm forbid, the fire stinks or the wood doesn't even burn.

Seven Mothers (per Cults of Prax; probably representative of some common Lunar practice): For persons beyond resurrection, local preference always is given to burial functions. Rune Priests and Lords will have their bodies preserved until the full moon, but others will be taken care of right away. Both will have songs of creation sung during the rites, and have their souls commanded to the “Circles of the Moon, of Time, and of Being.” Yelmalio (covering at least the Sun Dome practices, based on Cults of Prax): The dead of this cult are burned at dusk with smokeless fires if they have not risen after seven days. Services begin with a great mourning and the burning, then wine or beer follow, as do victory paeans and the call for the soul to join with the Sun. At dawn the sunrise is read for omens, and the ceremony concludes. Yelm (version included in Cults Compendium and representative of Dara Happan and Pentan practices): Worshipers of Yelm are cremated on great funeral pyres, along with appropriate death goods. The barbarians of Pent sometimes show grief for a great chieftain by sacrificing servants or concubines with him. As with Yelmalio, I'd expect Yelm's pyres to be purifyingly hot and smokeless. There will be many other varied practices in Peloria based on ancient Rinliddi, Naveria, Darjiini, Kostadi, and other areas.

And one more old bit from NLG #2 The Start of the Great Cheese War (1) It all started after Ilsandor was cast out of the Ronon clan for one year for failure to uphold his guestright (2). After a series of disastrous encounters and his luck nearly gone, Ilsandor stepped into the kettle and was taken hostage by the dwarfs. But Ilsandor was not yet cooked and he somehow won the Eversharpening Blade. The dwarfs were most upset, but Ilsandor demanded his release and they had to assent. On his way out of the dwarf fortress, though, a wily dwarf offered Ilsandor a deal. In return for the Eversharpening Blade, the dwarfs would give Ilsandor the Silver Key to a cave of great magical treasures. Ilsandor was torn, but greed won out and Ilsandor took the bargain. (3) With the Silver Key, Ilsandor went to the cave and opened the door. Only after the dwarfs closed the door behind him, did he realize that the key only worked one way. He was stuck with the treasure of the cave--a marble statue of a laughing man covered with green mold. He searched all through the cave, but all he found were bags producing the most hideous stench. The smell was so strong that Ilsandor had to plug his nose. Realizing that he had been duped, he did the only thing he could--he took the statue, hoping that it would prove of some use. In its place he left the cattle goad that he had stolen from the Valusi clan. Ilsandor eventually returned to his clan, the Ronon, after his year was done. He still had the statue and he presented it as his token of goodwill, though he knew not its use. The Keepers and Seekers knew otherwise. For this was Renurdas the Green Veined Spirit and from him the clan gained the secret of cheesemaking. The Polan clan had honored this spirit and held the cave as sacred. When they found their spirit gone, their cheeses gone bad and a cattle goad where the statue should be, they blamed the Valusi for their woes. Thus began the Great Cheese War. (4)

Hence the Cheese secrets of the Imtherian clans. Here's a bit from my old Imther material. Selections of Imtherian Cheeses, from A Guide for the Temple Cook This small, slim document was found at the Temple of Hwarin Victorious in Hortugarth. It was supposedly penned by one Bibishar, formerly a temple cook. The cheeses of the Zarkon clan were particularly well noted and praised. The following are excerpts from this small guide: Blackwall Amber: A soft amber cheese encased in black rind from the vicinity of Blackwall. Though called bland by villagers of the Southlands, this cheese keeps well and rarely varies in flavor. It is popular with innkeepers as a result. Blackwall amber is not a cooking cheese being best used as an accompaniment to a meal. Mountain Marble: Another notable cheese from the Zarkoni ridges, this soft white cheese is mixed with the crumbled flowers of the fireweed. As it ages, the cheese develops a fiery red marbling and sharpens in taste. It stands up well with ground meats and stews, adding a richness to the flavor and a thickness to stews, though it can certainly be served alone. Salt-crust Cream: “The Zarkoni herders only use the top cream from their goat’s milk in making this cheese. Once the creamy cheese is sufficiently thickened into long rolls, it is cut into segments the length of a hand and rolled in quarried Serpent Salt, the last remains of a water god slain by Daga. It stays wonderfully fresh with a rich salt tang even after long journeys.” Zarkoni Ice Rind: “A fermented goat's milk cheese infused with silverblossom flowers, wrapped in cloth and aged on the high slopes of Giant Top Mountain in the icy crusts favored by Inora, it is usually considered one of the Three Finest Cheeses of Imther.” Northern Flower: Made from the milk of cows fed on wild onion and wild blackfire, this very soft and fresh cheese has an extremely tart taste. Serve it with a hearty black bread and an aged cider, but never cook with it or serve it with sweets. Rhynon's Gold: A golden, buttery-flavored cheese from the Northern Plains around Rhynopolis. This rich cheese is preferred as a marriage gift in the north, ostensibly to show the richness of the giver, though it is commonly served in local inns on a daily basis with bread and ale. And a little bit on food in Hortugarth from New Lolon Gospel #2 Delicacies of Hortugarth These foods can be purchased at many of the local inns and taverns of the city of Hortugarth. Many can also be purchased from street vendors in the Central Market. (L= lunar; c = clack) Apples: 1/2 c in season; 1c otherwise Applesauce Bread: 1c Blackbird Pie: 5c Cider Paste: 1L 5c per wheelweight Crow Wings: 1c for 4; 1c for 3 if spiced Fire Grapes: 2c per bunch Fish Tails (roasted): 1c for 5 Honeyed Apple: 2c Panbread: 1c Pork Rind: 1L for bag of 10 Sausage Bun: 5c Spiced Oat Cakes: 2c Squirrel Legs: 5c for 2

Aside from noting the Shrine of Calyz, fire of men, and the Shrine of the Many (i.e. a common shrine for the Teshnans), I have merely noted that "Harkelemos the Seeker, a Goldentongue voyager helped bring Calyz to Nochet." So, no, you won't find anything else at this point in Nochet re: Teshnans. There is also a Homeland writeup in the HQ1 book. Overall, I'd say work through the Guide and create!

Larger steads like Old Man Village of the Orlmarth or Apple Lane are effectively villages. The former is laid out in Sartar: Kingdom of Heroes, and the latter in either Apple Lane or Sartar Companion. For a smaller stead, as others note, there's likely one or two longhouses with several small cottages, barns, or animal pens. The layout shown in this image would be an example I might use: http://koso.ucsd.edu/~martin/CelticVillageAltburgSmall.jpg

Neither are required to get a game going. Most likely you'll have someone task your heroes with something. If it's the clan chieftain or chief priestess or similar, then give that person a name and say they are on the Ring. And that's more than sufficient to start.

Yes, there's a tremendous range of content built up over the years. But at the same time, you use what you want to play the game you want to play. Your Glorantha Will Vary. When I first started playing in Glorantha (RQ2/3 days), there was already a wealth of material. At its core, though, I worked with three concepts: it's a Bronze Age world (i.e. a world of heroes like Achilles, Odysseus, etc.); religion, in the form of cults, is pervasive; and magic is pervasive. I took this small fragment from the Griffin Mountain book: "Kingdom of Imther. Imther is another client state. It fell to the Conquering Daughter in 1347. Its barbarian population is mixed herders and farmers; the state controls the Imther Mountain mines." I built my campaign around this concept of a small Lunarized kingdom on the Edge of Empire. The Lunars were there. The Conquering Daughter was a glorious goddess. The sun worshippers of Yelmalio were there (convenient since there was a cult writeup for them, though I modified to produce the Imther cult of Khelmal). And it grew from there (and it was easy to pull in or go to Balazar/Elder Wilds). For my HQG game, I just started with Sartar: Kingdom of Heroes, HQG itself, and an old scenario borrowed from Sun County that fit my needs. I'd always wanted to run a campaign in one of the 'classic' settings. But we started with the basic premise that all the heroes were in the Orlmarth clan, struggling to survive against the might of the evil Lunar Empire. And once underway, then it's easier to pull in more as you need. HQG lends itself to narrative rather than remembering lots of charts.

No problem, and I hope you convince her to try out Glorantha! It's a wonderfully rich world to game in. And if you have questions on either HQG (or my game), just post here and I'll do my best to answer.

It's on RPGGeek. It's a Colymar/Orlmarth campaign as described in Sartar: Kingdom of Heroes. The campaign has been going 1.5 years now so there's a lot to read! When we started, we were all new to HQG so in part 1 we were still getting a feel for how it worked (including me as GM). The current active In-character thread is at: [IC] HeroQuest Glorantha - The Colymar Campaign 2 - Orlmarth Clan - part 4 In brief, part 1 covers much of the Harvest Games (based loosely on the old Sun County scenario transposed to Colymar lands); part 2 moves to a quest into the Spirit World (my interpretation thereof); part 3 is the marriage of the Harvest Queen as part of the Earthseason Ernalda rituals (warning: spoilers re: HQG scenario); part 4 starts with the Clan Moot and now moves to a quest to Jonstown. Campaign background material is here: HQG Orlmarth Campaign Background Leaders and significant NPC's are described here: Leaders, factions, and other NPC's of the HQG Orlmarth Campaign

I loved the sandbox nature of Griffin Mountain - it's why I ended up developing Imther and Saird content as it was very convenient to drift into Griffin Mountain for major quests. Never went to Griffin Mountain itself over 10 years of active games, but had a wonderful quest to Gonn Orta's Castle via Trilus and Dykene, and a very active Imtherian village established along the western shore of the Elf Sea with plenty of Votanki visitors.

If you're doing a RQ style game with random treasure, I could see a need for that. But personally I find it far more interesting to explore the implications of using a crystal derived from a different rune (e.g. acquiring personality traits/flaws of that rune, acquiring unexpected foes, attracting the wrong type of attention on a heroquest, etc.).

HQG p.48: "...the petrified blood of dead and wounded gods provide magic crystals. These crystals provide magic from a Rune that might differ from the hero’s own Runes. The players or GM should give the crystal a colorful, but enigmatic name, like Arroin’s Tears, Esrolian Ruby, Smoke Rock, Snake Crystal, Barnablood, Ernalda Tears, Gata Save, Grandpa’s Aid, Second Wind, Star Tip, etc., and assign it a Rune." It's already in HQG. And it explicitly allows you to gain magic for something that you do not necessarily have directly via yourself or your god/spirits. Personally, I'd probably add some level of bonus/penalty in trying to use a crystal of an opposing rune, but the basics are there.