Jeff

Those granaries are helping the Tarshites deal with their own problems.

Not so much the lower classes - a poor slave or peasant in the Heartlands lives about the same as a poor slave or peasant anywhere, except for one thing - the Heartlands have been at peace since 1507. No civil war, no foreign invasion, etc. The Empire is reasonably well-ruled, when a satrap becomes tyrannical he or she can be replaced by the Red Emperor. Only the Lunar Heartlands and Kralorela can make any claim like that (although until 1605, the Holy Country had a comparable claim). But that run of luck has ended.

Your GM was not taking the rules literally. He was taking cult guidelines to an absurd extreme. There are Storm Khans at the Block - and the Devil has been beneath the Block since before Time. The Khans watch the Block, as it is prestigious to be there, but eventually they need food and plunder for them and their followers, and leave after reporting to another Storm Khan. They curse the Devil and then wander off to kill something more killable. The Bullmen follow their Khan - when the Khan says it is time to go, they go. But when you sense Chaos - which is effective only with about 15 meters from the source - then you confront the Chaos. Period. The Frenzy of the Bull is upon you. Whatever can be killed must be killed, whatever cannot be killed must be reported to a Storm Khan (or whoever) and lead the next party to it.

There are an awful lot of Air Elementals (including sentient, self-willed ones), as well as wind children, sky bulls, griffins, hippogriffs, giant hawks, giant eagles, giant wasps, wyrms, wyverns, dragons, and other fliers. The skies are pretty full of beings!

It is for the Orlanthi and Praxians. Less so for the lowland Pelorians.

If you are dealing with this sort of stuff, I suspect local tattooing customs are the least of your character's concerns.

There are dogs in Prax. They are used for hunting and guarding camps, but not for herding.

Do you actually have a player with an illuminated Storm Bull character who wants to join Thanatar?

Illumination is not intended to be some super cool power game thing. The number of Illuminated Storm Bulls are minuscule. The number of Illuminated Storm Bulls that somehow decide to become a Rune Lord of Thanatar probably approaches zero throughout all of history. An Illuminate CAN violate cult restrictions without repercussion, but it doesn't mean they can automatically cult. Illuminated or not, I can't imagine any Thanatar temple letting a Storm Bull cultist anywhere near their temple. The tattoos of cult and tribe are likely the least of the problems.

Ikadz is usually associated with Chaos. The Agony spell is associated with the runes of Death and Chaos,

Keep in mind that spell knowledge has largely had to rebuild several times. Much knowledge of Brithini lore was lost in the First Age (except among the immortal Brithini themselves), especially during the Gbaji Wars. Collections of God Learner spells were destroyed and their texts burnt following the catastrophes of the late Second Age. In the Third Age, the Malkioni had to rebuild from a few centers that survived the destruction of the Middle Sea Empire. A spell here, a collection of spells there - a post-apocalyptic scenario like A Canticle for Leibowitz. The Rokari School oversee much of this restoration, but also work to restrain the hubris of sorcerers and guide them to the general goodwill. This process would have been slow, with many setbacks. I suspect only a fraction of the spells known in the late Second Age are known now, although thanks to the Opening, knowledge is being shared again. Lhankor Mhy is collecting knowledge and others are making use of it. Just in time for the Hero Wars!

This is a very good point - and the reason that the Watergate dominated the seas for the First Ages. Now what the God Learners did was summon Tanian - the god of Celestial Water - and lit the waters on fire. The Waertagi and their mermen allies were defeated - the Waertagi forced to retreat to the furthest waters of the world, and the merfolk largely avoided the Middle Sea Empire. Until the Closing of course, when the merfolk had their vengeance. The Holy Country are allied with the ludoch, but have trouble with the malasps and related merfolk. The usual human approach has been to ally with friendly merfolk or to pay tribute to unfriendly merfolk. But no seagoing nation operates in total defiance of the merfolk.

That is an error I recently became aware of. Leika should have a total of 16 points in Orlanth. Rune points is with the CULT, and not with each subcult. Vinga is a subcult of Orlanth Adventurous (which is an aspect of Orlanth).

Chaos is nonexistence, the Howling Void. Since Creation, its place is outside the Cosmos - outside of Glorantha. Within the cosmos, Chaos perverts and corrupts the powers and forms of things - this corruption inverses the meaning of the power. Fertility is corrupted by rape. Death by the undead. Change becomes mutated corruption and stasis becomes mindless servitude. Opposites are conjoined in ways where both are undermined. Through this, the fabric of reality is weakened and the cosmos returns to nonexistence.

Also if I recall I put in quite a lot of material about the area around Wintertop into the Smoking Ruin.

It is however what Greg's Master Map says. Which was the fulcrum for everything Greg did - and was constantly worked on for 40 years.

Well Mesa Verde (one of my favourite places on earth) is pretty unique - you need a farming people who take shelter in cliff dwellings. One might consider the closest thing to Mesa Verde to be some of the human-constructed Pockets in Boldhome, like Geo's Pocket. If I recall there are a few cliff dwellings in the Guide though.

The road between Bagnot and Wintertop is significantly inferior to the Royal Roads of Sartar. It is a trade road. The roads between Wintertop and the Solthon Valley are poor trade roads.

Plenty of cultures make pit houses - and they were probably pretty common in the First Age. Weaving houses, with their sunken floors and shrines to the Earth deities, are an echo of the practice. Plenty of Earth temples are reminiscent of a Kiva - note that Ernalda temples have their shrines and sacred space underground, like a Kiva with a structure above ground.

More total random dumb luck. I was visiting the Pueblo with my wife and kids, and my kids were talking to an old lady, providing her with much entertainment. She asked if we were here for the Pow-Wow that was going on. I told I had no idea one was going and she said you need to take your kids there, and gave us directions down a little dirt road one the reservation. We headed out, and got to attend a week-long festival, with two dozen tribes, which Is one part dance competition, one part religious ceremony, and one part market - just like a Gloranthan Holy Day. Thousands of people, almost all tribes members and local ranchers and farmers, with a sprinkling of outsiders. Absolutely incredible event. The following year we were at Canyon de Chelly near Spider Rock, when some young Navajos asked me about my Chaosium t-shirt. Turns out they were big fans of Call of Cthulhu and offered to guide me down to the canyon floor (you need to have a Navajo guide if you want to go down to the bottom of the canyon). I wanted to take them up on their offer, but my wife is desperately afraid of heights. Alas - but that's the power of the Chaosium Dragon!

A few years back I was at Taos Pueblo for a 24 Nation Pow-Wow. There were some Sacred Time rituals going on, although I was a lay member at best.

Please return to the topic of the thread or I will lock it down.

The Sourcebook is a collection of Lhankor Mhy documents,

These are tribes, with lots of overlap. Fazzur's wife was from Bagnot and decided from the kings of Old Tarsh. Through his wife, Fazzur is linked with the Shaker's Temple. Fazzur is an open-minded, very educated, honourable, and fair man - "if only he wasn't a Lunar, he'd be our king!" Fazzur tries to hold things together despite his feud with his nephew; his sons, Onjur and Annstad have no such restraints.

Ikadz is the flip side of Gerra/Deezola. They suffer (and are not Chaotic) - but he inflicts suffering on others. That being said some cultures do not consider him Chaotic - and at least one God Learner identified with with Death and Spirit, rather than Chaos.