Jeff

The point is that name repetition is common. Probably far more common than we make out.

Vargast is a very common Varmandi name. And name duplication is common. Chaosium has less than 20 employees, and yet two are named Michael and another two are named David.

My vision of Clearwine in the Sartar Companion was not really thought through - and I did not have access to Greg's old sketches of Clearwine from his game. The version presented in RuneQuest is correct.

Sometimes they are. But I am thrilled with the approach he has taken to Gods War 2 which has to balance Gloranthan grognards, with being an appealing boardgames for the broader audience.

Conflict loyalties are part and parcel in every society, including the Orlanthi.

The full ring of the Colymar are presented in the RQ Campaign.

I'm very confident with those sizes. Cities like Boldhome have huge area because the city has a lot of open space. Furthest is smaller, but much more densely populated. Nochet is much more densely populated than Glamour (of which half the city is essentially a Forbidden City for the Red Emperor).

Yeah, Sandy's vision is Sandy's. There are several gods that Sandy is taking a different vision of than in Chaosium - but as we say, surely someone in Glorantha views her that way.

The Ian Thomson books are Ian's own version of Glorantha, not ours. Pavis and the Big Rubble are staying the same size as presented in the original books, which is the same size as in P:GtA. As it is, Old Pavis is one of the largest (in physical area) cities in Glorantha (if not the largest). As an interesting point in comparison, here's the size of several ancient world cities: Alexandria: 236 hectares (residential districts, not including palace or Pharos) Antioch: 375 hectares Athens: 120 hectares Autun: 200 hectares Babylon: 500 hectares Jeusalem: 110 hectares (including the Temple and Herod's Palace) Londinium:135 hectares Miletus: 100 hectares Ninevah: 720 hectares Palmyra: 130 hectares Pompeii: 65 hectares Rhodes: 388 hectares Rome: 360 hectares (area within the Servian Wall). For comparison with Glorantha: Boldhome: 350 hectares Furthest: 130 hectares Nochet: 600 hectares Glamour: 850 hectares Old Pavis: 1905 hectares!

There used to be dragonewts in Pamaltela. Now degenerate dinosaurs, slarges, and lacerdons are all that survived.

Both are true. Dinosaurs developed from degenerate dragonewts. And Maran Gor loves them and they are her animals (her sister prefers snakes).

The Dragon Sun was imposed upon Dara Happa by the EWF. Its weaknesses should be obvious with hindsight - despite being backed by a very powerful empire, the Dragon Sun was overthrown by a pauper. The Lunars definitely know this story.

Moonson is always the Son of the Red Goddess. He is a masculine counterpoint to the feminine Goddess. This is an important part of Lunar theology. Jar-eel is powerful enough and popular enough to otherwise be a candidate, but isn't. Having a female Moonson would be extremely magically dangerous (the Emperor would be very susceptible to losing identification battles which would be disastrous). I can't imagine a situation where Great Sister or Jar-eel would tolerate that.

THere's a huge list of ways to spend money in RQG. Did that not work?

That is the big question - the process whereby a new Mask is selected is very opaque. There clearly are requirements, and it is known that there have been terrible Dart Wars around the process. And I'd say the Red Emperor has incredible magical powers. Never underestimate him. The current Mask is handsome, witty, and a seeker of power for its own sake. He is initially popular with the urban masses and with the rural peasantry, while maintaining a glittering and hedonistic court - cheery, heartless, and amoral. It is a court of poets, artists, pleasure-seekers dominated by the Seven Daughters - his consorts. It is a high point of Lunar civilization. For most of his reign, he enjoys the support of his "daughter" Jar-eel the Razoress (actually the daughter of a previous Mask) and his "Great Sister" Deneskerva. His reign is initially peaceful, with only the slave rebellion of 1613 to trouble the heartland for the first 15 years of his reign (and it is short-lived and decisively suppressed by Jar-eel). A series of disasters from 1623 to 1625 has shaken the Red Emperor's' regime to its foundations. The suppression of the White Moon Movement results in a peasant uprising throughout much of Peloria (. Before the uprising can be fulling put down, the Pentan hero called the King of Wings creates a confederation of many Pentan tribes and invades the eastern satrapies in force. Finally comes the Dragonrise, which overnight destroys the Provincial Army and much of the Lunar College of Magic, and quickly loses the Lunar Provinces. the Red Emperor used much personal magic to ward the True Dragon away from Glamour (and even then, the Glowline has sporadic failures). The years 1625 and 1626 are the lowest point in the Lunar Empire since the Night of Horrors.

Like many things suffered with the light of Illumination, it is true and dangerously misleading at the same time. The current Mask in 1625 is Argenteus, but there will be others.

My point is those aren't really names. They are Mask names adopted after the new Mask is recognised. Masks names are essentially "nicknames" - and not used officially or ritually. Some claim that each Mask had another name before being recognised as the Mask, but the Irrippi Ontor cult (which reports to the Red Emperor) does not track such things. The Red Emperor always is the Red Emperor, regardless of the mask he wears.

Those are the Mask names of the various incarnations.

Here's the official description: The Red Emperor is a living god, the son of the Red Goddess. He has no personal name, only titles. He is Moonson, Lord of the Four Quarters, Staff and Pillar of God, Leader of the Egi, Shah of Shahs, and the Bright and Illustrious Emperor of Dara Happa. As a living god, the Red Emperor presides over the rituals that maintain and revive the cosmos and is in charge of maintaining the magical connections of the empire. The Red Emperor first appeared at the Battle of Castle Blue. Although he can be slain, no death can claim him for long. The Red Emperor has been reborn many times. Whenever the emperor is killed, the priests in Glamour begin the rituals that will allow them to aid the Red Emperor in regaining himself and the parts of his soul that may have been damaged by his death. The Red Emperor is worshiped throughout the Lunar Empire as a separate divine entity apart from his mother. He is the Highest Priest for the cults of the Red Goddess and Yelm, as well as the subject of his own cult. Lunar Empire maintains that there has only been one single Red Emperor since 1250. However, it is the custom and cheer for the Red Emperor to change his form to suit the needs of the time and place. The custom began after the Nights of Horror, where the Emperor and most of his household and staff, were killed. The Red Emperor has been reborn at least fourteen times. Each new incarnation takes on a Mask Name.

Issaries runes are Harmony and Mobility. Together they are often expressed as "Issaries" or "Communication," a rune unknown or unused except in trade functions. Other than Issaries, few spirit have it, save those who took it or otherwise obtained it from him. All his Rune magic can be denoted as Harmony or Mobility.

Joerg often pronounces things as "established fact" when they are naught but his supposition. There's lots of variety in tribal make-up, and stability is not always the main goal. The scale on my recent map is correct. It is part of the project of directly working off Greg's Master Map, at exactly the same scale and which is the fulcrum of all Gloranthan maps. Things often got moved around a few kilometres here and there to fit on the Guide maps. Just like if you look at many atlases, they place the dot for cities not "exactly" in the right place, depending on the scale of the map. And Alone is not next to the Solfint. There are, of course, numerous marginal streams and creeks not on the map. Alone was placed where it was because of divinations, agreements with dragonewts, and other factors,

Humakt doesn't know any peaceful use for iron. For that matter, nor does Mostal.

I'd trust the practical knowledge of Gustbran or Humakt over the theoretical knowledge of LM if my life depended on it. LM might be able to recite lots of stuff about the history of iron-making, who stole iron from the dwarves, etc. But Humakt knows how to make a sword.

The Humakti know the secret of working iron - but not as an intellectual thing - as a craft, a process, a tangible metaphor. LM knows it like they know anything - something written down in a book. The number of LM smiths is vanishingly small (Craft is not a Sage Skill, nor something they get from their associates) - the number of LM ironsmiths in all of Glorantha is a tiny fraction of that.

Martin - your approach is right. Iron is rare in Glorantha, and uses different techniques for each stage of construction from Glorantha. In Dragon Pass, it is worked mainly by the dwarfs (and to a lesser extent, the Humakt cult). Some smiths (especially player characters) might have learned Craft Iron from someone who stole the secrets from the dwarfs, which can be a good story hook.