Jeff

The Praxians are known to make use of broo mercenaries. Most recently the nomad host that met the Lunars near the Moonbroth Oasis in 1610 included a contingent of Broos, alongside Bison Riders, Impala Riders, Rhino Riders, Pavis Survivors, Agimori, Newtlings, Basmoli Berserkers, Bolo Lizards, some medicine bundles and even a shaman-controlled Oakfed. Broos are enemies, but the Praxians are - like most humans - capable of working with enemies against other enemies. This has happened again and again in Gloranthan history and our own.

It is not. And I played in David's game - but that is not the approach Greg and I took in RQG.

And to give you all another secret - one of Kostajor's daughters later became the love-wife of Prince Salinarg, and was mother to Harsaltar, Enothea, and Benera - the children leaders of the Household of Death.

All Telmori become wolves on Wild day. That is their Chaos taint. But this being Glorantha, there is an exception. Ostling Four-Wolf only became a wolf when he chose to. His son with Onelisin the Cat Witch, Kostajor Wolf Champion, also only became a wolf when he chose to. Both were kings of the Telmori, incredibly-long lived, and ruled the tribe from 1480 to 1620. Neither belonged to any clan of the Telmori (under Telmori customs, Kostajor belonged to the clan of Sartar) and yet both were undeniably Telmori and chiefs.

The "vendref" number about 20-22,000 people (depends on what you want to call the townspeople). They are farmers who worship Ernalda, Orlanth Thunderous-Barntar, Maran Gor, Humakt, and the Seven Mothers. They provide fodder and food for the Pure Horse People, make craft goods, and handle trade with outsiders, in exchange for protection, magical blessings, and trade goods from other lands.

I don't believe the Pure Horse People have such defined geographical boundaries. I am pretty sure the herds move around from year to year based on local conditions. The tribal king, aided by the Yelm Elders, allocate grazing lands to the various clans or bands, based on status, prestige, numbers, magical contests, dance competitions, whatever.

Not as far as Greg was concerned, and not as far as I am concerned. The whole Mongoose episode was a disaster.

I use them all the time.

Given that neither Greg nor I had anything to do with the Mongoose material - when we finally saw it, we were both shocked and horrified at how bad the art was in MRQ2 - I wouldn't consider the Mongoose material as indicative of anything about how we view Glorantha.

The Prosopaedia is damn handy!

I posted some thoughts on PHP clans in the Glorantha forum. That seems more appropriate for this discussion than the RuneQuest forum (which is more about specifically RQ rules and mechanics).

To start with, the Pure Horse People are not Orlanthi clans. Every Pure Horse person in Dragon Pass claims descent from the survivors of the Battle of Alavan Argay, and as Pure Horse People, they claim distant descent from Yelm. As we know there are about 18,000 Pure Horse People in Dragon Pass. They all belong to one tribal group - with Yelm Sun Lords as the tribal leaders, aided by Yelm Elders and Golden Bow shamans. The total number of these Yelm Rune Masters is probably somewhere around 100 - for convenience, let's say 60 Sun Lords, 25 Elders, and 15 shamans. The tribal king is the leader of the tribal Yelm cult. We've got a whole bunch of extended kinship groups here, led by Elders. All of the Pure Horse people consider themselves noble, but there are of course kinship groups that are more or less powerful than the others. I suspect we have a number of traditional bands or clans, most of which date back to their acceptance by Ironhoof (so say around 1250). So let's say there are 9 clans, each with two elders, and then 7 tribal elders that serve the tribal king. That gets us to 25 Elders. Some clans have more Sun Lords than others, and we have the Golden Bow as a cross-kin or tribal magical society. Now the women worship Ernalda and Hippoi and care for the horse herds. They marry into the patrilineal and patrilocal clans, perhaps bringing horses as a dowry. They raise children, care for the horses, prepare food, manage the households, etc. But as Ernalda cultists, the women also have the ear of the great Feathered Horse Queen, before who even the Elders must prostrate themselves. The Feathered Horse Queen is the indisputable ruler of the Grazelands. She is backed by the Humakt cult, the Lightbringer cults, her sisters at the Shakers Temple, and by the gods and spirits of Dragon Pass. So our clans might have around 2000 people on average, with some having more, and some having fewer. However these clans - or divisions (which is probably a better word) - are stable and Yelmic, with much greater stability than Orlanthi clans (but also far more ceremonial and far less dynamic). Now among the vendref farmer communities we have some 14-20 clans and village chieftains, and these follow the Orlanthi norms. They also accept the Feathered Horse Queen as their ruler, but are not part of the Pure Horse People tribe.

I used to assume as a short-hand that half the population of any given human Gloranthan community were adults, the other half uninitiated children. I've refined that somewhat, and now assume that about 60-66% of any given human Gloranthan community are adults, the rest uninitiated children. Now the reason for that comes down to lower children mortality, longer lifespan, and also that in most Gloranthan communities adulthood initiation takes place at around 14-17 years old. This ends up with the adult being initiated into a RuneQuest, although the full process might take several years.

Perhaps you should read what you linked to? Let me quote it again: "There are about 170k people in Sartar (including the Far Point but not the Pol-Joni). Let’s assume a little over half are initiated adults. That gets us 90k cultists." Now my updated figures have the number of initiated adults in Sartar at 115k, which is a little higher, but not much of a change. I have no idea where you are getting you 20% initiation rates from. What RuneQuest publication are you referring to? I am pretty sure the Guide and the Sourcebook are completely silent on such matters.

So you are complaining that I have further refined my notes from "about half" to about 60-66% is another retcon? Now in published materials I have deliberately kept that question open as long as possible so we could really look carefully at it, but now how dare I change my working assumptions to any extent? Or maybe the answer is I should not share any of my working materials (especially here)?

Rather than look at this in the abstract, I recommend just taking a few examples to see how this works in practice. Take our average peasant in Darjiin. He's an initiate of Lodril (which has Oria, Oslira, Yelm, etc. as associated cults). He is a lay member of the Red Emperor, and likely the Seven Mothers as well. Maybe he is a lay member of SurEnslib as well (keep on the good side of those Bird Women!). Or let's go to Esrolia, where our character is an initiate of Ernalda (which has a whole host of cults as associates). She's also a lay member of Dormal and Issaries (she sailed between Nochet and Handra Liv on several occasions).

A clan is an extended kinship group, not a political district. So imagine the average clan in Sartar with about 600 adults. About 40 adults belong to the clan aristocracy of priests and thanes (and their immediate family), about 400 are full free members of the clan, about 100 are semi-free tenants and other adult dependents, and about 60 are unfree. The chief is almost always going to come out of that group of 40, and most likely there are no more five or six potential candidates. Everyone in the clan likely knows who the potential candidates are. If there is more than one actual candidate, the 400 full free members decide who that is. But usually this is just decided by acclamation - everyone knew that Baranthos was going to become chief after his uncle died - his immediate family (who had led the tribe for nearly two decades) agreed that he was the family leader, the Clearwine Earth temple (led by members of his immediate family) supported him, and he even had ties to the Sartar Dynasty. There really was no other real candidate. Now among the Varmandi a few years back the choice was less clear-cut. After so much suffering from war and rebellion, the clan assembly was dominated by the women of the Ernalda cult and a wealthy (and peaceful) farmer was chosen instead of a Wind Lord (who had the backing of the Orlanth cult leaders). That happens, but it is relatively uncommon.

So the most powerful "organised military" as of 1625 is the Lunar Empire - there's no question that this is the most powerful organised military in Glorantha. After that it is the militaries of the various large states: Seshnela, Loskalm, Kralorelan Empire, the Vormaino Empire, Golden Kareeshtu, and Afadjann, plus the powerful nomad confederation of Voor-ash (the Voor-ash might actually be the most powerful military of that group). Argrath's alliance of Sartarites, Wolf Pirates, and Praxian nomads is going to rapidly climb the charts to where it can go toe to toe with the Lunar Empire for over two decades, but that is still a few years off. The Elder Races are not "organised militaries" in that sense, but I'd certainly not want to see them on the march if I were a human ruler (unless they were allied with me).

OK, if this is going to become a discussion about the Andins of the East Islands, pleaser make that a different thread or I need to lock this down.

I'm more a fan of Zeus, Taranis, Perkunos, Hadad, etc. But that's just me.

Given that prior to RQG there were only two RQ books set in Dragon Pass (Snakepipe Hollow and Apple Lane), I can certainly understand why neither featured chariots, since both involve combat in enclosed or underground locations. But RQG is explicit - chariots are commonly used for mobile platforms for spell-casting and missile attacks. Just check out pages 220-222. That's an official Chaosium publication, not some comment on some digest from the 1990s. You are of course welcome to have your Glorantha be whatever you want it to be, but if your Glorantha refuses to incorporate anything from the last decade, you should probably state that.

They are not broadly the same rites - a chief is not a mini-king and the Chief Tests are not the Crown Test. So the "Chief Test" are basically proof that the candidate meets the requirements of being a candidate - remember that the assembled members of the community ultimately choose who among the candidate will lead them. The "Crown Test" is a ritual duel, display of magic, or feat of adventure (like a raid or quest). The more impressive the Crown Test is, the more obvious it is that the gods support that person to be tribal leader.

Chariots of course are particularly useful in Glorantha because they can be used as mobile platforms for spell casting. One can cast active spells, augment with things like Meditate, and can use their melee or missile skills at full effect regardless of the charioteer's skill. This gives chariots a role they did not have in the real world - as mobile spell platforms for Rune levels. In fact chariots are so important to the Orlanthi in general that they have a charioteer cult! And not some toss-away subcult name, but one of the deities that have been a part of Glorantha since the 1970s.

I am treating those books flippantly because I was involved in creating them. I know what they are intended to be - notes, works in progress, etc. They are materials gathered together so we could have them handy as we worked on other materials. Heortling Mythology is not and was never intended to be canon. In fact, the process of putting together Heortling Mythology convinced Greg and I that a lot of the stuff written for Hero Wars was just plain wrong and needed to be discarded. What we put together in the Guide, RQG, and the Cults books are the product of over a decade of careful re-evaluation, deep dives, root revivals, and experiencing Glorantha anew. It is the basis of canon, not our research notes. And no it is not lore that the Volsaxi are the last Orlanthi to be chariot users. And in fact, chariots are still used in Sartar to this day. It might be useful to read RQG and other actual published materials rather than just rely on half-remembered "lore".

I don't consider either Afadjann or Kareeshtu as having well-organised military. They are collections of rival city-states, currently held together by Darleester's Noose (in the case of Afadjann) or through the might, fear, and paranoia of the undying Archidomides (in the case of Kareeshtu). Their main enemies are their own people.