Jeff

THE TRIBAL KING Among the Sartarites, the king of a tribe is the Orlanth Rex of that tribe and functions as the high priest of the tribal Orlanth cult. There is no sex or gender requirement for becoming king, but even if the tribe is matrilineal and the ruler is a woman, the position is still called King (or more precisely Rex) and is referred to in the masculine (for example, the Orlanthi would refer to Kallyr as King of the Kheldon and Leika as King of the Colymar). A candidate for tribal king must be initiated into the secrets of an aspect of Orlanth, and into the secrets of another aspect of Orlanth or another deity. To be acclaimed king, he must succeed at a “crown test.” This is a re‑enactment of “How Orlanth Became King.” The expectations of the tribesmen vary according to the tenor of the times. In peaceful times, a dramatic re‑enactment and symbolic combat with the local Yelmalio representative or a quest into dark earth rituals to return with spells of fertility or magical seeds is sufficient. In war times, ambitious kings usually lead a raid against the enemy and let the destiny of their reign rest on the results. Once this test was used aggressively. Among the Colymar the candidate was named Leika Ballista, and she reached far during desperate times. She undertook an old‑fashioned journey to destroy Chaos in its own lair. She succeeded a harrowing invasion of a mad poet’s test, and was acclaimed King by her joyous people, without any preliminary legal preparation, despite the other rivals. THE CLAN CHIEFTAIN According to traditional legal codes, a chieftain must meet certain requirements. These requirements vary slightly from clan to clan but are typically along the following lines: “He must be initiated into the clan secrets of Orlanth, and have participated in the Four Yearly Rites, and the Lightbringers’ Quest in Sacred Time. He must be healthy and spontaneous, just and hospitable. He must have two good horses, a metal helmet and armor, two good swords, and six spears. He must know the name of his ally, and know men’s magic, and have a magical item of his own. Furthermore, three clan folk vouch for him, and relate deeds of honor, judgment, and courage which they have seen. Finally, he must prove his skills against all other candidates for the office in the Chief Tests.” As long as someone meets those requirements he (or less often, she) may vie for the position when it is available. It may be available when the chieftain retires, dies, is killed, or is removed by either the council or the assembly.

Another reason the Brithini and Vadeli are far more cautious is because of their immortality and lack of an afterlife.

Testify Brother Brooke!

There are perhaps 2500 First Brothers in all of Loskalm, so 1/10th of 1%. If we assume there are about 35,000 Men-of-All (about 1% of the total population), then there are probably another 5000 Wizards. Of course that is back of the envelope calculation and subject to change.

I think you are thinking of the First Brothers, an elite order of warrior-wizards. Most wizards are removed from most worldly distractions and allowed to dedicate themselves fully to spiritual and arcane concerns.

Gerlant actually has Rune Magic.

Ummm, given that the sorcery mechanics in RQG are quite different from RQ3, and that the Guide does not speak of Grand Knights (Meriatan is the First Scholar of the Brotherhood of the Sparrow) or other medieval titles or anachronisms, I think it is fair to say that speculations about the Glorantha West based purely on RQ3 are likely going to be wildly off.

The problem is that you are clearing basing everything off the very small amount of information about the West in RQ3. There's a lot more information and lot more to come.

There are plenty of very very skilled soldiers who lack the INT and POW to be zzaburi. This is of course a weakness in the New Hrestoli system. If only those capable of becoming soldiers are brought out of the worker caste, you've eliminated many potential zzaburi (all of those too weak and frail to be good soldiers).

But this means that before battle, there is several hours of ceremony. Ancient battles being what they were, that is very possible.

This is all pretty much spot on. The Loskalmi army is one of the most powerful in Glorantha because ALL Loskalmi zzaburi are integrated into it. The irony is that in general, the New Hrestoli zzaburi are less skilled and less powerful than their Rokari counterparts (probably much more so), but they are much better at coordinating with the other castes - precisely because they had to have experienced being soldiers in order to become zzaburi. It also means that their magic is primary focused on martial enhancements. So when the Loskalmi army goes to war, it brings a lot of zzaburi with it. These zzaburi are responsible for maintaining sorcerous blessings on some number of soldiers. So maybe every two weeks the zzaburi casts Dampen Damage 4 on each soldier in his unit. Then before the battle, each zzaburi casts Boon of Kargan Tor 8 and Neutralise Magic 6 on one elite soldier (giving him an extra +2D6 damage), with an all day duration (let's assume that between crystals, bound spirits, etc. the zzaburi has about 40 magic points to play around with(. After casting these spells there is a big a Worship Invisible God ceremony to replenish those magic points. Then CHARGE!

In retrospect, I clearly gave people too many tools with sorcery in the core rules. With the next edition, I'll strip out every spell except those likely to be found at a Lhankor Mhy temple (Enhance INT, Identify Otherworld Entity, Geomancy, Logical Clarity, Logician, Reveal Rune, Solace of the Logical Mind, Speak to Mind, and Total Recall). As the rules say on page 389, the Lhankor Mhy cult teaches a LIMITED number of sorcery spells and not every temple possesses all of those spells. Also it seems it is clearly too much to assume that people can figure out that a sorcery spell that kills people through asphyxiation is going to be viewed as evil by most people.

Yep. In short, a sorcerer who runs around casting Tap spells willy-nilly is exactly the sort of "evil sorcerer" that everyone is willing to gang up on and get rid of. Now casting that every once in a blue moon might be different......

Very very bad.

Nearly all Malkioni accept the Law of Malkion as the keystone to the faith. Sadly, the ease with which this law can be misinterpreted has led to many different sects of Malkionism. The law is summarized below: 1. The Invisible God is the God beyond the gods. 2. Follow the righteous path of your caste. (This is usually defined as imposing different rules for each caste.) 3. Love that which the Invisible God has created. 4. Do not ruin that which you love. (This is usually defined as including a proscription against use of the Tap Technique.)

OK so first, I'm assuming he's using Tap against humans, so that going to mark him as an outlaw by pretty much all other Malkioni. That means no allies, no cult support, nothing. If he is a Lhankor Mhy cultist, his temple is going to get plagued by angry wind spirits and maybe even get a visit from the local Orlanth Rex. The kin of his victims may complain - even if they are nonhumans like dark trolls, that is the sort of "evil magic" that might get you outlawed from your tribe or city. It is the sort of spell that identifies you to everyone as an Evil Sorcerer - the sort of bad guy that adventurers get hired to kill.

I find the Argrath "hatred" I see on forums to be quite boring. But here's an interesting one - why did Arkat have a desperate urge to do absolutely anything to destroy Nysalor? Why did the Red Goddess have a desperate urge to destroy the Carmanian Empire? Why did Alakoring have a desperate urge to destroy the Empire of the Wyrms Friends? The Destroyer is a theme that runs through Glorantha, and is usually closely tied to the Liberator. Both Argrath AND Jar-eel embrace both sides of the Destroyer/Liberator dualism during their dance to end the Third Age. This is a repetition of Arkat and Nysalor that ended the First Age, and the dance between Alakoring and Drang in the Second Age. This dualist conflict is hard-wired into the setting and its mythos.

There is one Argrath in the same sense that there was one Arkat.

There is great fear in the winter of 1626 and 1627. Sartar is falling apart, and Kallyr's Lightbringer Quest was a disaster. There is nothing to stop the seemingly inevitable reconquest of Sartar - the Red Emperor must merely reach out and it shall collapse. To hope that this outsider and adventurer might withstand the might of the Empire was beyond imagination. And thus it was not with hopeful optimism that Argrath marched into Boldhome with his companions and allies, but with fear and anxiety. If I recall I included something to this effect in the Appendix to the Guide.

He's also a proclaimed heir to the House of Sartar with about as good (or slender) a lineage as Kallyr. In 1625, he's probably pretty exciting. So is Kallyr. In early 1627, there is a lot more trepidation, in large part because Kallyr's reign ended so badly.

Argrath manages to unify a Sartar that was on the brink of civil war, defeat the Lunar Empire, turn enemies into allies, protect merchants - including Lunar merchants - and restore trade, marries the Feathered Horse Queen, and unifies Earth and Air. He develops new ways for the cults to cooperate that puts them on an even footing with the Lunar Empire, and is the most effective foe the Lunar Empire has ever had (including Sheng Seleris, and definitely more than Jannisor or Yarandros). He's viewed even by his enemies as honourable and learned in a wide range of subjects. All of that is in King of Sartar and the Sourcebook, as well as WBRM. Heck even Sir Ethilrist is impressed with him. He's also got lots of unsettling aspects - frex, his draconic allies, his friendship with Harrek the Berserk and Gunda the Guilty, Jaldon Goldentooth, and not to mention his Arkati-style heroquesting, but he's an Alexander figure. He is going to be breaking a lot of eggs.

I think that says more about you than the fictional character.

I don't think that was the case at all. As is usual in Glorantha, there were multiple people doing different things for different reasons.

He's already dead by then.

The prototype for what became King of Dragon Pass was our Taming of Dragon Pass game back in the mid-1990s. We used Pendragon Pass - basically a precursor to RQG which used a mash-up of RQ with Pendragon. If I did it again, I'd bring in more elements from RQG (Runes instead of Traits, etc), and who knows, maybe I will do it again or get David Larkins to work on it.