Jeff

1 minute ago, Nick Brooke said:

Yes, I know. That’s the point I was making. Argrath attacks Pavis for Argrath’s reasons, not Waha’s or Storm Bull’s or anybody else’s.

Well let's be fair - he attacks Pavis because it is the Lunar command center in Prax. And it is very easy to get Orlanth, Waha, and Storm Bull on board to do that.

8 hours ago, Nick Brooke said:

That’s on fanatical cult leader Argrath White Bull, who leads an apocalyptic fraction of the Storm Bull cult. He’s not a Praxian himself, and doesn’t really mind screwing up their lives, or anyone else’s, if it helps him get his revenge.

Argrath didn't have any beef with Pavis - he led a confederation of Praxians against the main Lunar imperial stronghold in Prax. Argrath smashed the gate of New Pavis to take the city from his LUNAR enemies. He then established himself as king of the city and used it as his headquarters for invading Dragon Pass. In fact that same account has Argrath fighting his way to the Temple of Pavis - and then "the ancient god rose from his grave and greeted Argrath, and so the surviving Lunar soldiers lost heart and surrendered." 

Now Waha is Hostile towards the Seven Mothers and the Red Goddess, as is Orlanth (he's actually an Enemy of the Red Goddess as well). And Storm Bull is Enemy to both the Red Goddess and the Seven Mothers (Storm Bull is Hostile towards Pavis, where Waha is only Neutral - Orlanth is Friendly).  

13 minutes ago, Jeff said:

The cult of Waha is Neutral towards Pavis and vice versa. That's canon. The cults are perfectly able to work together when it is in their interest to do so, and certainly willing to work against each other when it is in their interest to do so. 

The Praxians certainly tell stories about how Jaldon Goldentooth plundered Pavis, but that is told out of pride in Jaldon and not hatred for Pavis. Praxians were involved in the founding of New Pavis, and only got kicked out of the city when some tried to stage a coup to take over the city.

Hating Pavis in 1625 îs kind of like a Sassanid Persian around the time of Justinian hating the city of Seleucia. Sure once upon a time the Greek dynasty were foreign rulers here, but that was a LONG time ago and besides they were humbled many hundreds of years ago. 

The cult of Waha is Neutral towards Pavis and vice versa. That's canon. The cults are perfectly able to work together when it is in their interest to do so, and certainly willing to work against each other when it is in their interest to do so. 

The Praxians certainly tell stories about how Jaldon Goldentooth plundered Pavis, but that is told out of pride in Jaldon and not hatred for Pavis. Praxians were involved in the founding of New Pavis, and only got kicked out of the city when some tried to stage a coup to take over the city.

Irogta and Saruman are from Greg's unpublished Lunar cults notes. I believe they appeared in Enclosure 1.

On 8/23/2020 at 4:46 AM, Beorne said:

I'm newbie to Glorantha, having only about one and a half year of occasional study of this wonderful world. I have a question arised since the start of Runequest Glorantha reading.

In RQG you can play a Sartarite, a Tarshite, a Lunar, a Praxian etc, different cultures in and around Dragon Pass and Prax. But players from Hendrikland / Heortland have been left out.

They are culturally very similar to Sartarite, and are dwelling between Sartar and Prax. In what they differ from Sartarite culture? And why they have been left out?

Thanks

Partially for length - the RQG book is too long as it is.

Partially for duplication - the Hendriki are pretty much the same as Sartarites. Each of the core homelands are very different cultures.

And finally because the Hendriki are actually there in the core book but as part of Sartar.

3 minutes ago, brionl said:

So when are us folks who weren't at GenCon going to be able to get our hands on these?

 

August 17th. Which is tomorrow.

On 1/7/2023 at 1:58 PM, Joerg said:

Pamaltelans like to use base 17, Lunars like base 7, Dara Happans use base 8 or base 10 (especially Plentonius).

In our world, Germanic counting systems know the small hundred (10x10),. the large hundred (12x10) and the gros (12x12). The French and the Danes count and number in twenties rather than tens all the way to 100. And we all use base 12/24/60 for time (except people using SI units, which have decimal seconds and multiples thereof).

Given the history of British coinage (which had the guinea, worth a pound plus a shilling, or 21 shilling, or 252 pence), the Gloranthan system for 1:20:200:2000 is pretty easy to remember.

None of that is correct.

The Theyalans have a base 14 alphanumeric system, the Pelorians use a base 10, which I suspect those Lhankor Mhy sages have adapted for their use. New Pelorian did not impose a base 7 system - think of it more like Simplified Chinese.

29 minutes ago, dumuzid said:

The text from the Guide and Revealed Mythologies that the Pamaltela-related Prosopaedia entries seem to draw from does shift subtly from pro-Pamalt to pro-Garangordos/Ompalam in-universe perspectives as it touches on relevant subject matter.  Some of that voice seems to have survived the editorial journey into the Prosopaedia, but without the context of the surrounding material of its sources the, uh, motivation behind those rhetorical flourishes is missing.

The motivation is simple. It is pro-Pamalt when it is describing the gods and myths of the Doraddi, and pro-Garangordos when describing the myths and gods of Fonrit. Just as it is pro-Orlanth when describing the Orlanthi, pro-Lunar when describing the Lunars, etc.

10 hours ago, Brian Duguid said:

Here's another Prosopaedia trivia question.

Who's missing?

Jeff will have made his choices, and it all looks reasonable enough to me. But ... who is lacking an entry who you would like to have seen with their own entry, for whatever reason?

Here are a handful that occurred to me (and I haven't finished reading yet):

The Larnstings; the Luathans; Snodal; Srvuali; Varzor Kitor.

I'm thinking mainly of entities that still have some canonical existence within RQG or other canon product. I'm not really interested in the Destors, Finovans etc.

Who else is missing and why should they be there?

I was surprised to see Damal in there. I'd really have liked to see Uncol, or whoever the Uncoling deity is.

The Larnstings aren't really a thing, it is a title used something but it is not a real group or organisation. Snodal didn't make it but his son Siglat did - he's much more significant to the Loskalmi. The Luathans didn't make it but Rausa did. Srvulai are there, correctly spelled. And poor old Varzor Kitor just wasn't important enough.

3 hours ago, davecake said:

I regard deities like Finovan or Helamakt etc somewhere between Jeff and Darius. Like Jeff, I do not think these any of the huge number of Thunder Brothers are worshipped as independent deities. They are at most sub-cults of Orlanth. As are the very many sub-cults or Orlanth described in the same sources. And like Jef, I agree the major cults described in the book - Thunderous, Adventurous, Rex and Vinga - are the only ones that regularly rise to have dedicated temples or worship ceremonies, and you can play RQG perfectly fine without knowing about any of the others, and for new players it is better to just not have to deal with a range of names that just complicate a setting that already has a reputation as being somewhat overwhelming for new players. 
But like Darius, I think they are worthwhile, part of the richness of Glorantha that makes it such a great setting. And many of us are very far from new players, and are happy to complicate our games a bit more. And they have game uses. They can help distinguish one clan or one character from another, in a society in which the great majority all worship the one deity, and emphasis the richness of Orlanth society. They give us handy hooks to hang stories and myths on, which in turn makes them feel more Gloranthan and more like something from a living culture. There is a bit of a ‘Glorantha non est hoc’ tendency in some RQG material that has sensible goals (to push back against a tendency to overwritten material that over complicates and reduces verisimilitude to anyone familiar with the historical inspirations), but sometimes goes a bit too far, because it removes material that can be inspirational and add to the richness of the setting. 

So I think that it’s fine to keep such material in the game and source material. I’d like to have seen a few more of these minor deities in the Prosopedia (though I’m sure that a few will show up in the Sartar book or the Mythologies book here and there). 
and I think they are great for JC material. But I think cult writeups is going too far, and most don’t even require a sub-cult writeup. Some might be full minor sub-cults, with a spell gained through membership - the several hero cults of Humakt are a great example of how this enriches the game (and yes, I know the Orlanth cult has some of these written up - I’m just saying I don’t think a few more would hurt). But many of the Hero Wars era ones are less than that. Some might just be noted as ‘the source of the X spell’. Some are ‘the source of Orlanth’s friendship with X associated cult’ (and some might add an associated cult just for members of that sub-cult and nothing more). Some might just change the list skills counted as cult skills where they are strong, or cult spirit spells available. Some don’t even represent that - they are just figures that represent the model of Orlanthi behaviour for a subset of Orlanthi society (this is what Orlanthi behaviour for a weaponthane is, this is the name for Orlanth acting as a chief) - and maybe if they grant useful abilities, it is the ones intrinsic to being an Orlanthi in that role or doing that thing, and we don’t need to represent that any more in the game. 
And for detailing myths and heroquests? Honestly, they help a lot. It lets you disguise roles when you have more than one Orlanthi in your group. It lets you write myths about internal division within Orlanthi society. 
So my opinion on these minor figures is more or less let a thousand flowers bloom - but let’s be clear that not every flower should be treated like a potential tree. 

And Heortling Mythology shouldn’t be treated as canon. There is a bunch of stuff in there that is clearly written for specific reasons or with specific elements that aren’t useful any more. I particularly discard anything that is heavily based on the Three Worlds Model, which I find positively unhelpful. But it’s a marvellous source of inspiration, with a lot of Gloranthan gold. If you are looking for ideas for an Orlanthi game, a flick through should give you some excellent mythic ideas. Judge them on their usefulness and current relevance absolutely. But there are quite a few babies in that bath water. Maybe the forthcoming Sartar and Mythology books will have picked out all the good stuff - but I doubt it. And having your own attempt at fitting such ideas into your own context is part of the creative fun of Gloranthan writing, be it for the JC or your own game.
And if some such efforts are ‘doing Glorantha wrong’, well they won’t end up very compatible with Chaosium publications but they might be great in their own way (the ‘Stormspearia’-Glorantha is practically a variant game and variant Glorantha that significantly diverges from the official, and it’s not to my taste for the game I run, but I keep buying it because it’s so damn entertaining, and has lots of useful ideas therein). 

I am going to be blunt. Finovan and Helemakt are not RQ cults. The names don't appear in the Prosopaedia, the Cults books, or even the Sartar book. Finovan might once have been the name of a wind or an ancestor in the Hendrikilands, but now just the name of some hills east of Whitewall. Maybe a shaman can find him and you can set up a little spirit cult for him. 

On 7/16/2023 at 9:16 AM, g33k said:

Storm Bull gets "Sense Chaos" & Humakt gets "Sense Assassin"

I suspect it will come down to "YGWV," but has anyone seen (or created) any other magical "Sense <X>" abilities?

"Sense Truth" maybe for Yelm, or Lankhor Mhy?

"Sense Iron" for Trolls, or Elves?

Maybe a regular Cult feature in Your Glorantha?
Maybe a special reward, that can be won on a Heroquest?

Nope. Storm Bull and Humakt are among the very few with specialised sense abilities. 

15 hours ago, Soccercalle said:

I want long forms of all the different Thunder Bros and weird HQ/HW subcults 😉

Actually I’m glad that canon is cleansed. But I missed Rigsdal in the Prosopaedia. (But I really love the book. It is amazing).

Rigsdal is there on page 100. He's known as Polaris.

19 hours ago, David Scott said:

It doesn't contain everything. We know from the Guide that Doburdun is the pale and timorous god of storm from the Darsen Hills, who is associated with Entekos. Other Darsenite gods are also not included such as Derdromus and Poralistor.

Incorrect David. Doburdan is simply a local name for Orlanth Thunderous, associated with the Entekos cult. Derdromus is an old Darsenite name for Deshkorgos, who shows up on page 29.

And for sanity sake I did not include the name of every river god, or every alternate name of a god known in one language or another.

3 hours ago, Akhôrahil said:

Two parts to this.

First:

"They have no land or herd assigned to them or their families but must work for some other household, or are itinerate labourers (stickpickers)"

But tenants do have land assigned to them (it's just that they have a very high rent to pay). They don't work for others as laborers (they're assigned 80 acres which is a lot and won't leave much spare time, so this is unlike say Roman tenants that were assigned perhaps 10-20 acres and hence had a lot of extra time to do agricultural work with)

Tenants work land assigned to someone else. 

Beyond this, there is tremendous variety. A household might have worked a stretch of land for two centuries (which is time immemorial), clearing woods, building improvements, and have been successful enough that adults have armor, good weapons, and mounts, and their voice is greatly heeded in the assemblies - and are still considered the same social rank as most everyone else. Another household might have been assigned land a generation or so ago, lost members in the wars, has great trouble making ends meet and are considering just becoming the dependents of someone else (or flat out leave the land and move to the city). 

One thing in general - become a Rune master and not only does your social class go up, but typically your resources go up. Temples own a lot of land, herds, get stuff from sacrifices, etc., and the Rune masters of the temple treat that as their own. So impress those Examiners!

As for social mobility, the Orlanthi have a few well-recognised social classes. The default is Free. That means you are a full member of your clan and tribe, control your own livelihood, and are recognised as such by your community. You have the full right to participate in assemblies of the clan and tribe. Let's say that is about two-thirds of the community. Within this group, you can be Wealthy or Common. 

Above the Free are the Nobles. These are people who belong to families that hold some sacred leadership position - the chiefs, the priests, tribal leaders, etc. Less than one in ten people fall into this category. You achieve this status by some member of your immediate family becoming a Rune master, a chief, an initiate of Orlanth Rex, etc.

Below the Free are the Semifree. These are people who are not full members of the community and do not have the right to participate in assemblies of the clan and tribe (but may get asked to by the leaders). They have no land or herd assigned to them or their families but must work for some other household, or are itinerate labourers (stickpickers). Maybe one in six people fall into this community.

Finally you have the Unfree. Captives, slaves, prisoners, etc. You aren't considered a member of the clan at all. Maybe one in ten people fall into this category - many only temporarily (until they are ransomed by their kin). 

Let's start with a clarification. Around half of the rural Sartarites live in villages not isolated steads. Let's take the Hiording Clan, a pretty average clan. Their main settlement is the village of Swan with about 100 adult residents divided into 5 households, including the households of the chief and chief priestess. 

Apple Lane is a market hamlet shared with the Varmandi clan. It has a Uleria Temple (actually a shrine), an inn, a scribe, a horsemaster, and a weaponsmaster guild hall. Apple Lane has about 20 adult inhabitants and is surrounded by apple orchards. About 5 households live in and around Apple Lane.  

Asborn’s Stead is fortified farmstead at the base of the Big Starfire Ridge. Another 3 households live in or around Asborn's Stead.

Seven more households are scattered around the Swanvale.

The ultimate "owner" of the land is the Earth Goddess, and the clan is a "tenant" with most of the bundle of rights.  Individual families, members, temples, etc., are given rights by the clan - but they cannot alienate the land without the approval of the clan. The system seems complicated, but it becomes simpler if you remember that for the individual clan members we are looking at a relatively small network of tenants, while for outsiders the clan is the tenant. 

When we talk about cultures in Glorantha, we are always really talking about cults. All of the Elder Races (lets ignore the Triolini for a moment) have maintained a direct lineal connection to their ancestral founding deity who defines what it means to be a person - Kyger Litor, Aldrya, Mostal. All dark trolls are initiates of Kyger Litor as that is part of what it means to be a dark troll, but some are initiates of another deity as well. Same deal with with Aldrya and the elves. We get differences between troll and elf groups from these secondary cults (so for example the Shadow Plateau trolls love Argan Argar, which has an impact on their society), but all Elder Race societies have those core cults driving things.

Humans don't have that connection. We could all worship Daka Fal - we all have ancestors after all - but we have no single ancestral founding deity (most of our stories say we were created by a bunch of deities - who might not even include our main deities!). Orlanth is not the ancestral founding deity of the Orlanthi - the Vingkotling are long dead and even among the Orlanthi, only about a third are initiates of Orlanth. Same thing with Yelm or Yelmalio. The human cults of Dragon Pass allied with the Elder Races at the Dawn, only to discover other humans that were unaware of their cults. Some Malkioni view this is a sign of human superiority; others view this as a sign that humans are the most broken of the sentients. 

5 hours ago, Nick Brooke said:

Darius wants “Detect Evil” spells in his Glorantha, and that’s fine: HGWV. The rest of us know that the Storm Bull’s PTSD is the only semi-reliable way to detect Chaos. If a common-or-garden Spirit Magic spell could do the same, why would anyone tolerate those louts?

There is no Detect Evil spell, as "evil" is a mighty hard thing to define. Detect Enemies detects hostile intent or a specific individual. Detect Honor (a Rune spell) detects whether an individual possesses the Honor passion at 60%, has broken an oath, etc. 

The only Detect (Rune) rune or spirit magic spell is Detect Truth, which really detects whether someone is lying. 

Given that Storm Bull does not have a Detect Chaos spell, only a magical skill, I certainly don't think anyone else would provide that.

Now it might be possible to deduce a Detect Chaos sorcery spell as a variant of Identify Rune, but that might be a Boristi cult secret.

Just now, Jeff said:

From the perspective of humans, all of the Elder Races are mysterious. They are all older than any extant human culture, and all have individual members that remember the Dawn. There are obvious differences between green, brown, and yellow elves, and the Lhankor Mhy cult records ancient conflicts between these groups. Two main troll queendoms are active in Dragon Pass - that of the Shadow Plateau has a long tradition of interaction with humans. However, the queendom of Dagori Inkarth is feared by all, and the trolls claim that the Great Troll Mother herself resides beneath the Castle of Lead. Meanwhile Cragspider the Firewitch has her own domain, and the terrible Zorak Zoran is mighty there. 

All of the Elder Races have much longer memories than us humans. The green and brown elves live 200 to 300 years, and dryads even longer. There are plenty of elderly elves who remember the Inhuman Occupation and when the Orlanthi settlers first returned to Dragon Pass. The political squabbles of human groups means little to them. Who can really distinguish between those humans that follow the Red Moon and those of Sartar Dwarffriend?

Although dark trolls only live a little longer than humans, Mistress Race Trolls are immortal. Most Mistress Race Trolls were born in Wonderhome, before the Dawn. The race was already diminishing in the First Age before the Curse of Kin. Arkat and his companions were the last MIstress Race Trolls born in Time, until recently. That means the Mistress Race make the Antediluvians from Vampire games look like spring chickens. Some are many thousands of years old. They barely recognize the dark trolls as their descendants - the trollkin are hated mockeries. The Mistress Race remember Osentalka! They remember the Broken Council! They remember the betrayal of the dwarves and elves, the fickleness of the dragonewts.

 

But the prize goes to the dwarfs. They are all immortal, unless they deviate from their function. But most dwarfs have no interest at all in human society and cannot tell one human from another. If the price is right, they will work for whoever, but that price is always very high. And all of the remaining True Mostali (like The Dwarf) are from the Godtime and predate the dwarves. And the Mistress Race.

Of course this has cultural influences. Dagori Inkarth is ruled by a council of Mistress Race Trolls born before the Dawn. There are Great Trees in Arstola as long lived as any redwood or sequoia. Their followers come to them and they are unchanged from the time of their great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandparents. 

From the perspective of humans, all of the Elder Races are mysterious. They are all older than any extant human culture, and all have individual members that remember the Dawn. There are obvious differences between green, brown, and yellow elves, and the Lhankor Mhy cult records ancient conflicts between these groups. Two main troll queendoms are active in Dragon Pass - that of the Shadow Plateau has a long tradition of interaction with humans. However, the queendom of Dagori Inkarth is feared by all, and the trolls claim that the Great Troll Mother herself resides beneath the Castle of Lead. Meanwhile Cragspider the Firewitch has her own domain, and the terrible Zorak Zoran is mighty there. 

All of the Elder Races have much longer memories than us humans. The green and brown elves live 200 to 300 years, and dryads even longer. There are plenty of elderly elves who remember the Inhuman Occupation and when the Orlanthi settlers first returned to Dragon Pass. The political squabbles of human groups means little to them. Who can really distinguish between those humans that follow the Red Moon and those of Sartar Dwarffriend?

2 hours ago, Joerg said:

So her riding the Crimson Bat is an acceptable part of the Compromise thanks to the outcome of the conflict at Castle Blue?

She did it (emphasise the past tense) and that is part of the fabric of Glorantha. But the Bat is not the Red Goddess. The Crimson Bat is no more accepted as a deity than Thed, Vivamort, or Krarsht.

11 hours ago, DrGoth said:

Happy for Jeff to clarify, but I don't I don't see a lot of ambiguity in those quotes.  It's pretty clear to me that Sedenya is part of the compromise after Castle Blue.  I don't remember seeing anything saying the Hero Wars is about the cosmos rejecting Sedenya.  it's a large series of magical conflicts.  Yes, there might be those unhappy with the outcome of Castle Blue, but that's very different to the cosmos rejecting it.  I have difficulty in seeing how the cosmos would reject it. 

The Red Goddess is a part of the cosmos thanks to the Battle of Castle Blue, but her rise to the Middle Air as the Red Moon is not part of that. Her intrusion into Orlanth's domain was after Castle Blue, and was her last deed while she still had mortal free will.

2 minutes ago, PhilHibbs said:

So Orlanth is usually depicted as having four arms nowadays, yet there's no game mechanical means of replicating this. How would a devoted Orlanthi do this? Is it not something that there's a well defined means of achieving in Glorantha, only available to heroes who have found a way through questing?

Orlanth's breadth of power is beyond the scope of any mortal - that's why four or five arms are usually given to him.