Jeff

They are probably 10 to 20 hides in size and had 50 or fewer slaves. These would have had a little villa made of adobe or stone, huts for the slaves, an overseer's house, and a few agricultural buildings. If I recall the Slave Farm in the Nymie Vale was an experiment to produce wine for sale back to the Heartlands, so there would be a wine press and likely a pottery workshop. The slaves were probably NOT local Sartarites, but Aggarites or Talastarings, or even Lodrilli from some peasants' rebellion.

1. Kallyr is participant in a magical rite to enter into the Consecration Rites of the New Temple of the Reaching Moon. Yes, this is a heroquest, but it is not based on anything other than the Broken Ring's movement through the heavens. The Broken Ring isn't supposed to be there, but thanks to an opening (possibly created by Orlaront), the Orlanthi are able to enter the Lunar ceremony and wreak havoc. That's all that was supposed to happen - the consecration ceremony was supposed to be disrupted, giving Kallyr the ability to increase the guerrilla campaign against the Lunar Occupation, and possibly gain the support of potential allies like Argrath White Bull or Samastina of Nochet. This was most definitely NOT the Lightbringers Quest. 2. The Dragonrise was a COMPLETE surprise to Kallyr. She exiled Orlaront for it, and it took her several days to figure out how completely the Dragonrise destroyed the Lunar military might in Dragon Pass. That's why she took a week before she dared attack Boldhome. 3. Kallyr never took credit for causing the Dragonrise and she made it clear she never trusted dragons or dragonkind. "Had I known that a True Dragon was beneath the temple, I would have let the Lunars waken it themselves." Many claim the White Bull - who was also known as Dragonlord or Dragonfriend - had some involvement. After all, Argrath never claimed to be responsible for the Dragonrise, but then he never claimed not to be responsible. He did welcome Orlaront to his side.

What I find really interesting about this is it suggests that in southern Pamaltela we get TWO hot seasons - one in Fire Season, another in Dark Season and Storm Season. Which might be why the Sikkanos Winds are so awful - instead of the rain-bringing Orlanth storms (which Umathela gets), the Pamaltelan plains get blasted by hot dry winds coming off the Nargan. It also means that the plains are dependent on the Keraun Winds bringing WARM rains in Earth, Dark, and Storm Season. These rains are warm as they are coming right off the Togaro. Wongarrasi has got to be just awful, making the Wastelands look nice.

Wulfsland: This territory in the former Maboder tribal lands was ruled by the Lunar noble Jomes Wulf, who waged a successful war in 1607 against the Telmori to make it his, after the lands were granted to him by Lunar administrators. After the liberation of Sartar, Jomes Wulf and his Lunar soldiers abandoned these lands, which are now claimed by the Cinsina, Telmori, and Torkani tribes, as well as by the surviving Maboder. A few retired Lunar veterans have held on, refusing to abandon the lands they won at sword-point.

One of the first things that the Sartarites looted and burned once it became clear that the Lunar military power was broken were the slave farms. So the one in the Nymie Vale was likely destroyed about the same time that Leika became queen, and same with the one near Runegate. I can't imagine the one in Lismelder lands lasted any longer. These things were not all that impressive of buildings and aren't significant enough to be noted on the Dragon Pass map.

This is really fantastic stuff!

The Red Goddess does not have Charisma.

Very cool!

Typically communities have established points or networks for handling that - the Issaries cult often handles this for many human societies.

Maniria is not an ignored backwater, any more than Dragon Pass is. For centuries it was a "Silk Road", carrying goods and people between Ralios and the Holy Country, and being influenced by both. A network of settlements, each ruled by a "Trader Prince," facilitated this trade (and imposed tolls), and the local Orlanthi tribes were drawn to the riches and opportunities of the civilisations connected by the routes, taking on the trades of mercenaries or marauders. This is very similar to what happened in Dragon Pass, although at a much lesser volume (and thus the Trader Princes were not unified and never had the sort of resources available to them that the House of Sartar had). The system declined after the Opening in 1580 and the tribes could no longer be easily bought off by getting a cut from the trade, so they turned to being marauders and invaded Esrolia.

Which is fine - but those rules were written in 1984, and the only official supplement that did any exploration of sorcery was in 1985. We also got rid of fatigue, certain types of armor, got rid of numerous cult restrictions, and changed shamanism and spirit combat substantially. If you want to keep playing your old RQ3 characters using the RQ3 rules, nobody is stopping you. But we will be exploring sorcery and Malkionism, and they work using the RQG rules. Greg and I spent countless hours discussing Malkionism and sorcery, and just as I am finally happy with how Runes function with RQG, I am finally happy with how sorcery works.

I am very glad to get rid of RQ3 sorcery. It did not function within the magical ecology of Glorantha. We have no intention of going back to RQ3. And as we continue to explore the Invisible God, we've had many interesting revelations.

The sorcerers of the West work the same as described in RQG. They just have a lot more social infrastructure and a wider range of spells.

I am not sure what you are even talking about. RuneQuest does not use RQ3 sorcery for Glorantha. You are totally welcome to use it in your Glorantha, but it sounds like your Glorantha is quite different from the official published material. Which is totally fine - but also makes this discussion kind of pointless.

Now from what is in the rules, it is pretty easy to come up with a few additional spells, including something that lets a sorcerer take some portion of all the magic points offered by the worshipers in a Worship Invisible God ceremony presided over by said sorcerer and store them somehow; some spells that let you summon specific very powerful entities; spells that let you command said specific very powerful entities; and some wards against specific elements, etc. Take that and you have the core of Malkioni magic. The various sects are on a continuum, from purely materialist Brithini and Vadeli who use NO magic except sorcery, to folk like the Black Horse Troop who receive Rune Magic (!) by worshiping various demigods and heroes almost in a form of ancestor worship. The latter was common among the God Learners who would would establish connections to entities - or even create conjectural entities that logically should work, create cults so those entities could be worshiped, and then siphon off some percentage of the magic and wield the power of that "artificial god" for themselves.

Which is why sorcery in the core rules is linked with Lhankor Mhy - the god of scribes and knowledge. Sorcery, regardless how slow, is a big boost up from Lhankor Mhy's spirit battle.

Well I can't really help you there. Greg has a few descriptions of sorcery in his stories and it is ceremonial or "demonology" (summon and commanding entities) or usually both - not fast stuff that gives you something to do every round. If you want an action every round, sorcery is probably not the right choice.

I really don't get why long casting times should be a hard pill to swallow. It just is what it is. Like complaining that Rune Points require sacrifices of points of POW.

Joerg- you are welcome to debate sorcery or the Malkioni all you want. But I don't think things have changed much since the Guide. Except now I am able to make things work using the RQ rules.

Yep. Other than Use Worship spell (or Worship Invisible God or whatever it gets called), all of this is stuff from the existing spell lists. Sorcery is really useful - what it is not good at is responding as quickly to an unexpected surprise as Rune magic or even spirit magic. It requires time and careful planning.

Actually, there are plenty of ways already for sorcerers to combine their casting efforts. Two groups: Group One: One sorcerer casts the biggest Enhance INT spell possible on the primary spell caster, several others release the magic points in Magic Point Enchantments (loaded up with magic points from the last Invisible God worship ceremony using the Use Worship spell) to be available to the primary spell caster, who has inscribed Summon Tanian (a Fire/Water elemental of enormous size). Group Two: Exactly the same, except the primary spell caster is casting a Dominate Tanian spell. Have them all start their ritual hours, or even days ahead of time, with the ritual being surrounded by a big Protective Circle created by other sorcerers, who also cast Neutralize Magic, Ward Against Weapons, etc, on the Circle. And watch the fun.

Sorcery is "combat powerful" IF you've prepared ahead of time. Give them enough time to prepare and enough of them working together and they can do absurd things like summon Fire in Water, or force a god to reveal its secrets, etc. It bears little or no resemblance to what was presented in RQ3 or in HW. Most sorcerers have relatively low skills in many spells (and take advantage of inscription and memory palaces to maximise their ability to manipulate spells) and rely on ceremonies and sympathetic magic to boost their chance of casting the spell. In Dragon Pass and the Holy Country, sorcery is mainly associated with the Lhankor Mhy or Irrippi Ontor cults, and is largely about knowledge acquisition. So spells like Geomancy or Reveal Rune, that sort of thing. I've found it is incredibly useful, especially when paired with spells like Analyze Magic or Clairvoyance. These magicians tend to be more or less dilettantes when it comes to sorcery, dabbling a little bit in it, but not able to set up really powerful spells. In the Far West, sorcerers have established a social system (in partnership with the nobility) that grants them access to hundreds of magic points, and lets them spend their time studying or performing ceremonies. The price for this is they have to cast a substantial part of their magic on long-term spells that aid the rulers in war and other pursuits. Elsewhere (such as Safelster), sorcerers are acknowledged as powerful but must compromise with other temples for protection and support.

The path which Ethilrist took was Hrestol's, at least in part, but the path his cult takes is not.

Correct, in Sartar, each tribe has a Major temple to Orlanth. The cities with Great Temples are Boldhome, Jonstown, Swenstown, Wilmskirk, Alone and Alda-Chur (currently suppressed). There are also several sacred hills with Great Temples - Hill of Orlanth Victorious and Orlanth's Hill - also serve as great temples. Sacred Top is part of the great temple associated with Boldhome and the Sartar dynasty.

They carry shrines, initiates of several ships flock to priest to perform rites. They have temples on Three Steps Islands as well. The rarely sack co-religionists temples, but that is easy enough to avoid doing.