Jeff

As one should. At the table, the needs of MGF should always trump fidelity to lore.

OK, wearing my canon-consistency and editor hat - almost everything mechanical about Arlaten would have to change. RQG sorcery is very different in play from RQ3 sorcery. He'd require pretty much a complete rewrite, as would Mikos. I suspect the resulting character would be far less powerful and need far more support and assistance from the player characters, which would be a good thing. Azios would also require a heavy mechanical rewrite, if you even wanted to use her at all. My recommendation would be to drop her entirely, in favor of a major troll assault by one of the established clans, using Rune magic and spirits, where the players have to take a more pronounced role, assisted and supported by their sorcerer ally.

Again, I don't think the Yelmalio cultists are even "Yelm supremacists" - what they are consistently described as is "unnecessarily aloof" and "tends to regard outsiders as unclean." The Yelmalio cult manages to maintain its own separate identity in an overwhelmingly Orlanthi world through its practices, its different customs, and by stubbornly asserting its differences with other groups. That could easily track with attitudes towards Judaism in the Greco-Roman world, Mormonism in parts of the US, etc.

A few points on the "vendref" - the cultural material on the Grazelands in KoS is largely from the Pony Breeders perspective from before the Feathered Horse Queens became rulers. So although Lodril is mentioned as one of the "vendref deities," this is likely a reference to Pelorian lowlanders that fled to Dragon Pass during the wars of Sheng Seleris. For more than a hundred years, the fortunes of the Grazelanders were closely linked with the of Sartar - it is worth remembering that every Feathered Horse Queen since the first has been a descendant of Sartar. In fact, Inkarne is a generation closer to Sartar than Argrath is (and like Inkarne, Argrath's descent from Sartar is primarily matrilineal)! In the Hero Wars era, the farmers who support the Pure Horse People have a lot more freedom than KoS (and some of my previous material based directly on KoS) would suggest. To the extent Lodril is worshiped at all in the Hero Wars era, it is mainly in conjunction with the other Lowfires.

Yelm and Govmeranen were identified with each other by the God Learners. Govmeranen is called HeenMaroun by the Kralorslans, the Second Emperor. Like many people - including many Dawn Age people - most East Islanders do not believe the sun to be Govmeranen reborn. The God Learners considered this to be analogous to Ehilm, which is a far less personalised version of Yelm.

The allied spirit did not take over the body of animal. The animal or item is awakened by the god, or alternatively the spirit physically manifests as the animal or item. So for example, Jareena Alone becomes a Wind Lord of Orlanth Adventurous. During the ritual that creates that magical link with the god, the god sends to her an allied spirit, who manifests in this world as a shadow cat.

Along the theme of size, it is 43 kilometres from New Pavis to the Sun Dome Temple, so it is possible to ride there in a hard days travel (although normally it is a two day trip). In comparison, the distance between Hobbiton and Bree is almost 200 km.

As a followup thought, remember that Gloranthan dwarves are most emphatically not the Scottish-accented dwarves of the Peter Jackson movies or of most D&D campaigns. A small Gloranthan dwarf might only weigh 10 kg (22 pounds) and be 60 cm (23 inches) tall. That's about the same size as my cat (admittedly she is a Maine Coon)! Dwarfs often have grotesque (but not hideous or repulsive) facial features, disproportionate and gnarled limbs, hunchbacked and twisted. Larger dwarves exist, of course. A large dwarf might be 140 cm tall (55 inches) and weigh 75 kg (165 pounds). So there is a bewildering variety in sizes and shapes among dwarfdom. A dwarf like Ginkizzie or The Dwarf might be almost human sized, while other dwarfs in the community are no bigger than a large house cat.

Something that seems to constantly get lost in discussions about the Praxian Sun County - distance and size. Sun County in Prax has a population of about 19,000 people. It is next to Pavis County, another mutually intelligible agricultural community of about 25,500 people. These communities are not hermetically sealed from each other - we know that there are many ties between Sun County and Pavis County, including a minor Yelmalio temple and so on. The Yelmalio cult has a reputation for being "unnecessarily aloof" and often accused of treachery by their Orlanthi neighbours. So the roughly 5000 Yelmalio cultists in the River of Cradles tend to do their own thing, refuse to be part of councils with the Orlanthi, and generally demand the right to do things "their way". Their streets in New Pavis are oriented a different direction, etc. But the cult works with outsiders - they are just mercenaries who are willing to work for the Orlanthi AND/OR the Lunars, depending on who makes the better offer. But that's Yelmalio. Ernalda is the main Earth goddess in the River of Cradles, and her cult keeps Orlanth and Yelmalio in competition. Issaries is present at the Sun Dome Temple, and so on.

Some dwarves are definitely smaller than ducks! In fact the smallest dwarves are smaller than the smallest ducks!

Dwarfs have always been like they were in RQ2. The issue was the RQ3's hit point calculation would have severely punished dwarfs unless their CON's were raised to be absurdly high. RQG goes back to RQ2's approach, and so restores them to what they were. Humans had their SIZ increased to 2D6+6 in late revisions to RQ2, and then that was kept in RQ3. There really shouldn't be a statistically significance chance that a human being is smaller than a duck!

It is very unlikely that we do any sort of RQ3 "classics" treatment in the near future. Although RQ2 is backwards compatible with RQG, RQ3 requires a lot more work. As a result, it is more of a different product line than RQ2/3. So for the foreseeable future, you are going to have to look at discount shops and eBay for RQ3.

Dwarfs in RQ2 are the same as in RQG. The only change with humans is that their SIZ now averages 13 instead of 11. They have one hit point less than the average human despite being 6 SIZ points smaller. Again, this is not a problem in our eyes. Dwarves are not intended to be combat monsters, any more than ducks are. And their ranged weapons and explosives should be far more threatening than fighting them up close where humans longer reach and greater SIZ gives them an advantage. Part of this is how we look at the dwarfs. I view the dwarfs as being less like Gimli or Thorin Oakenshield and more like:

I view the White Bull more like this:

Oops looked at the wrong stat block! But still a dwarf has an average of 12, which is 1 point higher than the average human. RQ3 needed to massively hike their constitution to get to the same result. I am perfectly comfortable with the dwarf stats, as they reflect how we view the dwarfs.

Remember that hit points are not the average of SIZ and CON. The average dwarf has 18 hit points instead of the 11 hit points an average human has.

Correct.

Yes. For a cult to routinely have Rune Lords it needs to have an ongoing need for martial champions. Orlanth, Yelmalio, Humakt, Storm Bull, Babeester Gor, Waha, Yelm, Kyger Litor, Zorak Zoran, etc. These cults all have Rune Lords. Most of these cults have both magical specialists and martial champions, but In a few cults - Humakt, Storm Bull, Babeester Gor, Zorak Zoran, etc., - to lead the cult magically you NEED to be a martial champion. But most cults don't have such an ongoing need, or rely on other cults for that role.

There are certainly shake ups going on in the West Reaches. It (and its ambitions and threats) been locked behind the Ban for a long time and soon that is all going to be lifted. The Red Emperor has morphed from a Carmanian shah to a Dara Happan emperor in a little over a century. Treasures have been lost into pointless wars in Dragon Pass, while little is being done to defend the West Reaches for what happens when the Ban lifts. Invisible Orlanth factors into that (remember the satrap of Bindle is a big supporter, as are his warriors), as does the machinations of the Taloned Countess.

We know the major events of the Hero Wars, and have in fact known the contours of it since BEFORE RuneQuest ever came out. We have known since about 1976 that Argrath becomes Prince relatively early in the Hero Wars, regains the Far Point as part of Sartar, is allied with Harrek, Gunda, Jaldon, and the Praxians, and fights several campaigns against the Red Emperor over Dragon Pass, where he leads the Sartarites to go toe to toe against the best armies the Lunar Empire can muster. We also know that the Hero Wars involves periods where Argrath dominates Dragon Pass and periods where the Lunar Empire is able to sack Boldhome, etc. All of that was set in place long before RuneQuest was written. The game to look at here is Pendragon. We know the basic arc of Arthur's life - pulls out the sword, becomes the Boy King, creates his Round Table and era of tournaments and romances, and eventually it all falls apart and ends in a glorious battle where pretty much everyone dies. We that arc before we even open the rule book.

Issaries and Argan Argar do not. Or more precisely, the Goldentongue Priest is the closest Issaries gets.

In the end it is because a Rune Lord is a martial figure, a result of both the demands of the god and the cult's function in society. They are warrior-magicians in a way that priests are not. Gustbran has only priests, Humakt has only martial warrior-magicians.

You are welcome to add Rune Lords to your Glorantha. But at this time, the AA cult does not have Rune Lords.

AA is all about communication with the Night, rather than going about fighting the foes of Darkness. His priests are not particularly martial - they have mass of spear-using trollkin, but those are expendable masses - the dark trolls don't fight with the trollkin! Zorak Zoran and the Karrg Sons are the war gods for the trolls. As a result, AA has Rune priests, not Rune Lords.

The Iron dwarfs adopted the tools of crafting - hammers and picks - as tools of war, and the tools of their enemies - axes and swords. It really doesn't matter to the iron dwarfs if many Clay Dwarfs are too weak to properly use these weapons to their best effect - take that up with the Decamony! That sort of Experimentalist thought is very dangerous - the same sort of logical error that resulted in the disasters of the First Age.