Jeff

However, let me remind folk again that the old supplement Carse bears little or no resemblance to the Holy Country city of Karse. Karse is a very old city, dating back to the Dawn. Was occupied by Lunars from 1619 to 1624. Map Details: Karse has a fortifications all around, with two main gates - a Land Gate (the main gate) and a Sea Gate (that leads to the harbour). A. Fortress. This fortress guards the harbor. It fell to an assault of dragonewts in 1619. It is now the base of operations of whoever rules the city. B. Main City. Here are the temples, residences, markets, and warehouses. The enclosed area probably has several open areas, for tanning, and other crafts, or for storage of bulk goods or animals. I imagine there are a lot of inns - caravanserai - in the city. C. The Beach. This is where boats are beached. THere's a ship shed for repair, maintenance, etc., that probably can house 20 ships. There's a wall near the end of the harbor, past that small fishing boats are beached. Also on the Beach is the Sea Temple, with shrines to Magasta, Choralinthor, Diros, Dormal, and the gang. The Harbor is a natural inlet that has been worked on for the last 1500 years. Beyond the harbor are coastal pine woods and orchards, and a large fishing village.

Half Moon. That means all Lunar Rune spells are at full effectiveness and the Red Goddess' Lunar magic techniques is limited only by the magician's current Free INT. The only thing given up is the double duration of temporal spells and the ability to go completely nuts with the Lunar magical techniques. That's a pretty small price to pay to get rid of the downsides of the four days of Crescent and Dark phases. So remember, in Sartar and Prax, Lunar magicians are weaker than their counterparts four days out of seven. And are useless two days in seven. Outside of the Glowline, Lunar military units tend to be very tentative and easily routed except on Full Moon day. So the Glowline means that the Lunar magicians are at full strength seven days a week (just not extra full strength of the Full Moon) and have no day of weakness. Within the Glowline, the superior training and coordination of Lunar magicians means they can usually defeat comparable numbers of comparable opponents - of whom very few exist.

The Glowline was created by Yara Aranis to mark and hold the borders. Its effect is to maintain Lunar magical constancy within its limits, as if it were always the Half Moon Phase. The Glowline is held and maintained by the seven Temples of the Reaching Moon and numerous shrines to Yara Aranis. Together, they anchor the web that holds the Glowline. The Glowline is not perfectly regular and must struggle to contain the pulsating power of the Red Moon. Sometimes the Glowline expands, sometimes it contracts, and, occasionally, it even blinks out for short periods of time. Now this was done because Sheng Seleris quickly figured out that all he needed to do to beat Lunar armies was delay battle until the Dying/Black Moon phase and then use his superior mobility to force battle. Normally Lunar magic is only effective three days a week - Full Moon, Empty and Full Half Moons. Four days a week, Lunar magic is underpowered and two days a week it is effectively useless. The Glowline resolves a giant weakness in the Lunar magical system - which is powerful enough. It means that all of the time, all Lunar spells are available and freely stackable.

During the heyday of the Sartar Dynasty, I think many tribes acclaimed "friends of the Prince" as a matter of course. That meant access to the Prince and his largess, advantage over rivals, and other advantages. When a tribal leader quarrelled with the Prince is notable enough to be recorded (and as far as I know, was always a failure on the part of the tribal leader).

I've written over a dozen freeforms. None of them I consider particularly canonical - characters are lumped together, bawdlerized, lumped together, or combined with thinly veiled pop culture references.

I am not sure these families even exist, at least not in the way they were presented in Tales.

How charmingly naive those Dawn Age scholars were before the days of Issaries caravan, flying Orlanthi, and Moon Boats!

That's pretty close. The Fish Roads are areas where both Air and Water beings can breath and move. Don't try to describe it "scientifically" - these are magical places where Belintar got Air and Water to agree to cooperate for the benefit of the Holy Country.

Yep. Ernalda can hold a load of disparate cults together. Ernalda+Orlanth gets you a giant chain of associations. Another good unifier is Argrath, who is perfectly willing to band very diverse groups together.

Because your assumptions as to why are wrong.

That is correct. Daka Fal is the cult of Mortals, and his cult is hostile to the claims and pretensions of the gods. His worship is strictly delineated from that of the gods.

And as far as the Wind Children were concerned the EWF was not that much different from previous Dragon Pass human civilisations.

My comment is that I do not think the Princes made "investments" in anything. Sartar built things that helped him build a kingdom. He built roads, cities, inns, and libraries because those things helped him transform the independent petty tribes of eastern Dragon Pass into a mighty nation. Encouraging trade means the Prince has access to the wealth of trade - but it also means that the tribes have a stake in peaceful resolution of disputes, as they too gain wealth from trade. His successors did the same because that is what a Prince is supposed to do.

I find that comment very counterproductive Joerg. Basically there is a balance between do we only publish finalised material or do we publish material that might change as we look more carefully at it? If you say the first, then maybe we shouldn't have published anything at all between 1993 and 2015.

Not really. They were used in RQ3 Vikings basically because the stats already existed and it seemed a cool idea for Thule. Given that Gloranthan wind children are the descendants of God Time pairing of humans and Air spirits, there is absolutely no reason that they should resemble what was in the Vikings Book except for characteristics. The Wind Children are far more closely linked to a single element (Air) than any human culture and they retain kinship with various winds and air spirits. Because of their storm connection, they likely have a lot of similarities to mortal Orlanthi culture but in the same way that a Luxite might have similarities to mortal Dara Happan culture. But they live much closer to the Spirit World than any human culture can - which also means that their culture is quite simple at many regards.

There really isn't a lot to nitpick here. In general, Orlanth initiates carry arms freely. Why would you require they not display their status and rank?

At a Colymar feast, it would be perfectly acceptable for a Humakt initiate or any free member of the tribe to bring a sword. Guests typically are granted the same rights under the rules of hospitality.

I don't think there is much investment going on beyond facilitating trade. The wealth from taxing trade caravans between Peloria and the Holy Country dwarfs whatever you might get out of the local tribes.

Mount Passant has about 8 k inhabitants. It is smaller than Boldhome, but larger than Alda-Chur.

Yes. Even feral broo are sentient. Disgusting, with rarely a higher goal than survival and propagation, but still sentient. And they are capable of being more than they are.

Gang, I will lock this down if people continue to go off on this off-topic thread.

This thread has gone seriously off the rails. Consider this a warning.

Ecologically feral and wild broo are disasters. They impregnate as often as they can (think xenomorphs or parasitoid wasps) in order to propagate their species - domestic animals such as cattle or sheep are easiest, but humans or other beings also work. They have a hardy larval stage that matures rapidly, and few broo spend any resources socialising or educating the larvae (also it is rare for a broo to have any idea who its father is). Broo larvae are normally only permitted what they can take or steal. Surprisingly few die from this mistreatment but that is more due to their hardiness. The overwhelming majority of broo are unsocialised young adult males whose main goal is to survive and create a new generation of broo larvae. They are meat-eaters and are perfectly willing to eat their fellow broo. When there are too many broo in an area, they tend to kill and eat everything they can catch and need to move to a new region for food. Wild broo have cults and some social traditions (usually imposed by powerful and more long-lived broos), feral broo are little more than their life cycle. BUT broo are sentient and are capable of illumination and civilization. Ralzakark's civilised broo prove this, as does the Cleansed Broo of the Zola Fel. They don't have to be what their life cycle encourages.

Generally when honorable people fight broo they assume the rules of honourable combat don't apply. That's because most broo are feral or wild, and are treated like rabid animals. They give no quarter and ask for none. Nobody blinks an eye. But sometimes the broo offer to parley. They sometimes offer ransom. They sometimes don't molest their prisoners. Maybe that's because they are civilised, or illuminated, or cleansed. Or maybe they are under orders from something they fear greatly. That's when things get interesting, because the rules of honour require that they be followed. But at the same time, they are broos, and many cults treat them as Enemies.

I don't view any city in the Holy Country looking like medieval France. Pergamon is a good point of comparison because of the hill. Priene also works: