metcalph

9 hours ago, dumuzid said:

My campaign is now in contact with the Uncoling reindeer hsunchen of Fronela.  The Guide to Glorantha describes the shamans of the Uncolings as some of the most powerful magicians in all of Glorantha, able to hold their ground before zzaburi of Loskalm and Sogalotha Mambrola. 

Actually it just says the wizards of Loskalm (Guide p233).  I think the Wizards of Sog City are in another league.

9 hours ago, dumuzid said:

 

My challenge, from the position of running of running the game, is: how do I portray this functionally.  From seeing and using it in play, sorcery packs an enormous punch when it goes off successfully, and unless there's ways for multiple shamans to pool their power I have a hard time seeing how they hold out against the Malkioni outside of ambush and surprise conditions where the Malkioni zzaburi don't have the time or ready implements to fully 'power up' their magic.

Well, in the RQ rules the Shamans are already capable of out-performing any sorcerer.  I think the already mentioned Soul Winds are confined to Prax and the Wastelands.  

On a more serious note, the Uncolings have contact with the Third Eye Blue.  They can make lightning bolts and shooting stars medicine bundles for the shamans to use.  Causal use of a medicine bundle yields rune magic while elaborate r itual usage of a medicine bundle yields dramatic magics at the cost of the medicine bundle. 

2 hours ago, Godlearner said:

Most likely a Danfive Xaron penal regiment.

Nope.  Riverfork Horse, which suggests a cavalry regiment from Holay or Aggar.

50 minutes ago, Russ Massey said:

I was just wondering how the cremation cerrmony for male worshippers of Yelmalio is carried out in Sun County. Given the lack of wood and no access to fire magic, how is the process managed? Do they sacrifice one of the valuable date palms? I would inagine that animal dung and leaves are not going to cut it temperature-wise.

I think they burn the corpse on top of a hollow pile of stones, which has been packed with dried skullbushes and other shrubbery. 

24 minutes ago, Ryan Kent said:

What did the Lunar Empire offer Delecti to gain his assistance in the assault on Runegate?

The Empire sacrificed one of its own regiments (Wyrms Footnotes #15). 

16 minutes ago, Shiningbrow said:

Actually, apparently so! Very cosmopolitan!! Allowed those here conquered to have their own religion. Had administrators appointed from different groups. Education and effective administration was important.

Civilized is its basic sense means city-dweller, which Genghis was not (as he is a classic definition of a nomad).

2 minutes ago, Shiningbrow said:

Chingis Khan had his (Mongolian) shamans with him when he had his hordes invade everywhere, such as taking over much of China.

Yeah but was he... civilized?

6 hours ago, Orlanthatemyhamster said:

Can you have such a thing? 

Why not?  It's the bronze age after all.

RW Civilizations with shamans in them include:

• The Maya
• The Manchus (they concealed their shamanic practices to avoid the Han Confuians sneering at them)
• South Korea.

Gloranthan civilizations with shamans in them might be:

• The Seshnegi (to help the Nobles with their worship of the Ancestors much to the digust of the Wizards)
• The Kralori (some draconic paths, like Daruda, may be shamanic in origin) plus there's also the worship of the Hungry Ghosts to keep them quiet.
• The Lunar Empire (Jakaleel the Witch)
• The Eastern Isles (possibly Dream Magicians)
• Flanch and Elamle (who are on record as having an active worship of ancestor worship and hero cults Guide p600)

1 hour ago, davecake said:

Tl;Dr - most Agimori are just normal humans with features resembling African ancestry.

Word from Jeff is that these people are Agi, not Agimori (which properly refers to the Men-and-a-half, the Zuama Valley dwellers and extinct peoples of Teshnos, Teleos and the Maslo according to Wyrms Footnotes #12 p30).  The God Learners IMO believed the Agimori were the original Agi but the Agi do not.  

I don't have much time for the classification of Warerans as Warera bears as much importance to the gloranthans of west-central Genertela as the Caucasus mountains do for the Europeans.   Linguistic relationships and identities are much more palatable to speculate about.  

6 hours ago, Jape_Vicho said:

On a similar note, which is the position of Humakt in the Heartlands? Is he recognized as Death like the Orlanthi recognize Yelm as the Sun but don't worship him? Or do they have their own way of looking at Death?

Humakt would have been displaced by Yanafal Tarnils.  The Pelorians would know who Humakt was but don't consider losers to be worthy of worship (*especially* if they are the god of battles!).

6 hours ago, Jape_Vicho said:

Which are the runic affinities of Surenslib?

IMO Life/Fertility, Disorder and maybe Beast (A star map in the Glorious ReAscent suggests although the Dara Happans would deny the identification.  The Imperial Lunar Handbook portrayed the Darjiinians as shamanic based on the weak reed of a single group of Darjiinian shamans (kinda like inferring Orlanthi are shamanic from Kolat if you ask me).

2 hours ago, Brian Duguid said:

I don't remember which version of HW/HQ Ian's Pavis books were written for, but I'd think that making them tie in with HQ:G would be the quickest option.

I really don't think so.  Ian's adventures are far more suited to RQ than than HQ:G or Questworlds.  

I think the Starseers have a number of different roles.

OMENS:  They announce regularly which runes are ascendant in the city and which runes are descendent.  They will usually give the planetary names but locals should be able to work it out.  The omens will differ from city to city because the cities were founded at different times (so to stop people trying to game the system with lattitudes etc)

RECITRIFICATION:  The Starseers know that the humans worship many hundreds of gods but that there are really only ten great gods (planets) and thirty lesser ones (constellations).  By identifying the gods according to their supposed planetary origins, the starseers can confer upon the worshippers of friendly deities (ie those worshipped by their city) access to magic from foreign deities or curse worshippers of enemy deities with weaker magic within signt of their city.

MANIFESTING COSMIC ENERGIES:  If suffering a prolonged run of bad luck or a foreign curse, the starseers can attemtpt o summon magic from the heavens to counteract it.  For example, to halt a drought, they might try to spill water from the celestial river or to halt a fleed they might perform rituals to bind the self-same river.

14 minutes ago, Cassius said:

I don't understand this last sentence.

If anybody was to write something for the Jonstown Compendium about using Thieves World materials for Refuge, then Chaosium will withhold the necessary approval for it to be distributed in the Jonstown Compendium.

Starseers are the Dara Happans equivalent of wizards.  They don't do much for the yokels but are extremely useful for the rulers. 

Entekos, Molanni,  Brastralos, Veldru, Kahar, Keraun, Mistress Calm, Kolat

1 minute ago, Orlanthatemyhamster said:

During the Greater Darkness, what forms does chaos take in DH and the surrounding area? 

Kazkurtum? 

I really have no idea on this one. 

Most of the established Chaos gods seem Sartar specific, though I don't want to get too hung up on that, I'm more interested in any DH gods that aren't expanded on. 

Thanks for your thoughts. 

Chaos takes place at the fringes (ie Tork, Marching Scourge, the Bleak Land) and what seems to dominate in Dara Happa and elsewhere is Darkness who do a brilliant job in keeping chaos away at the expense of making mortal lives so miserable that they are unable to appreciate this.  Kazkurtum is, I understand, a cockroach deity while other powerful gods of that time were general dark gods like Derdromus and Monster Man or generally hellish places like Demonland and Alkoth.

So Dara Happa really doesn't have a good mythology of chaos.  

Except Scorpionfolk (who were around in the Golden Age).  

30 minutes ago, Orlanthatemyhamster said:

Is there a reference for him invading the Sky, please? 

Book of Heortling Mythology p64

4 hours ago, Ironwall said:

Do the grazrlanders men only worship yelm as the primary cult. is yelmalio present? what about other solar cults?

The Grazer equivalent of Yelmalio is apparently Kargzant (as opposed to Yelm/Yu Kargzant).  Riding horses and kuschile archery is important to this version.  

1 hour ago, Erol of Backford said:

Surely an Aeolian craftsman would go kill scorpionman as a way to move into adulthood?

Why would they do that?  The idea is to become an adult, not to die horribly!  They would be initiated into whatever commoner's god they worship which would be enough for them.

Illusions that are real only to the caster are still real even if only the caster can make use of them. 

A hole in the wall. 

Where I'm coming from.  A partial Q&A from a Seshnegi noble.

Aren’t you Godless?

I worship the First God who is the Ancestor of All.  I worship my ancestors for they are worthy of worship just as the First God is.  Orlanth is my greatest ancestor.  [Allied Spirit Name] is closest to me.

You worship Orlanth?  Our Orlanth?

When Orlanth was King in Seshnela, he called himself Aerlit and that the name in which I worship him.  But the Wizards have taught me the his names in different places and how they are all One Orlanth.  So I worship your Orlanth but do so in the Right Manner to avoid the Great Error.

The Great Error?  What is that?

The Great Error is the error that destroyed the Old World.  By being worshipped for themselves, men empowered the Gods to forget the First God.  In worshipping my ancestors and reciting my lineages, I and other nobles remind them of the First God and those that came before them.  By doing so, we avoid the Great Error.

Nobles?  What about the others of your land?

The Wizards do not worship Gods as we do but share the thoughts of the First God directly.

The soldiers and farmers worship the Gods as you do.  They cannot avoid the Great Error because they have no lineage to remind the Gods of their origins.   Only though accepting noble leadership can the damage they create be averted.

6 hours ago, davecake said:

Well, would for a Malkioni. Becoming an initiate of Orlanth would not be compatible with retaining membership of the talar caste ,and so would mean giving up leadership, including the command and support of other castes, including any caste magic.

I'm not really seeing this.  Other Malkioni societies (the Carmanians and the Aeolians) permit the Talars to worship Gods.  

6 hours ago, davecake said:

Most major deities also forbid sorcery for higher levels. 

The Talars don't learn sorcery as a general rule (I mean they could but it's too much hard work) so this doesn't strike me as an incompatibility between the duties of being a Talar and the duties of worshipping a prominent Ancestor.   Likewise I don't see Caste Magic as being incompatible with ancestor worship as the particular form of the ancestor worshipped may be just fine with it.

6 hours ago, davecake said:

\A talar who rejected Malkion to worship a pagan deity would find it difficult to keep living in the same castle. 

But worshipping one's ancestor does not require the rejection of Malkion or adoption of a pagan deity.  AIl a Talar worships Aerlit then he is worshipping an ancestor who has been part of Seshnela since the Storm Age.  If's not as if he's going to Heortland to worship Orlanth.

6 minutes ago, Richard S. said:

Kyger Litor is a much older and more "pure" entity than pretty much any human ancestor, with a more established place in the godtime. And the throwaway line about Seshneg in CoP explicitly says that it was a thing from the Dawn Ages, not necessarily something that's lasted up until the Third Age.

And what stops the Seshnegi from worshipping God-time ancestors like Aerlit, Seshneg, Ehilm etc?  The RuneQuest Companion p7 mentions the Seshnegi adding temples to Orlanth and Magasta at Hrelar Amali.  What stops those gods from being worshipped as ancestors?

4 hours ago, davecake said:

I would have said all three of those are caste deities of Men Of All or talars, not horals. And Arkat not accepted among the Seshnegi at all. 

Arkat was born a Horal.  The Seshnegi do not accept Men-of-All as a valid Caste.  Regardless of current attitudes towards Arkat, he and his worshippers still have a great influence in Tanisor (Mularik Ironeye claims descent from him).  Yes, Arkat is disfavoured but again then so is Hrestol.

The point was that worshippers of these gods among the Seshnegi are not trusted by the Talars or the Zzaburi.