metcalph

Perhaps they are related to Pteranodons; Dinosaurs that have realized their own fallen nature and have reborn themselves to return to the Draconic Way.

Since Balazar has a population of 130,000, each clan would have to have something like 6,500 people which seems like a lot. There's really two options: Assume the clans are really tribes grown large through pig-herding, or Assume the clans are really the clans in and around the citadels, who have declared a tribal relationship) and that there are many more clans than those listed. If the later, then the Citadels would have twenty clans between them (Balazar has 5000 urban so the twenty clans might have 50,000 total). The hearths might then be small towns of pig farmers (the map's not inaccurate - they were clan hearths the last time any outsider looked), being the center for 8,000 balazarings each (pig farmers and more traditional hunter-gatherers), being loosely organized into groups of 20 clans (average clan size ~400 GM p15)

The Clay Pot and Spoon Shrines (Esrolia: Land of 10K Goddess p56)

Developing a sorcerous order is significantly more involved than having one sorcerer turn to a life of crime. It's like learning how to read and building a university. This is a bit too rules-talky IMO to be plausible as a motivation for gloranthans (even Malkioni ones). Lanbril, for example, isn't known for having arbitrary appetites, spirits of retribution and rules. I doubt it. Shamans would be ready suited to being counter-culture magicians in Malkioni society. We already have an example of a shamanic criminal group in a civilized lands: Black Fang. They would be more like hedge magicians

The subject was a thief group who makes money. A religious order of assassins may well be criminal but they are hardly thieves, are they? Demanding people pay up in return for nothing bad happening to them *is* a maximum return for minimum effort as the amount of you get far exceeds any work put in to frightening people in paying up. In any case, the sociological justification for crime is irrelevant to the question of whether such a society can legitimately be sorcerous. All anybody's ever come up with are Moriatys and Goodmans who are thief-adjacent individuals.

I think that particular exchange was a bit of crossed wires. One person was asking why all superheroes were aggressive and Sandy responded with the example of Elamle-Ata as the example of a pacifist hero.

What you are describing here is a single person rather than a criminal group. The group aims to get large sums of money from other people with as little as work as possible (violence may or may not be counted as work depending on the members). That's contrary to the mentality of a sorcerous society which would be full of people spending large amounts of work for something of little value. Why mess around with sympathetic bonuses when you can easily get spirit and rune magic success rates above 50% for far less effort? A thief wants good magic right now, not something he has to spend five years to have a middling chance of success.

Sorcery is heavily limited by the requirement for literacy. Thus a thief would find it easier to know and cast heal 2 or heal wound than to take reading lessons so he can cast mend flesh with a chance greater than 5%. And if the thief was prepared to endure long periods of study to become a half-decent sorceror, he won't have the mindset of being a thief, would he?

The rare happening is that he was a general flying a combat aircraft at the time. Combat pilots promoted above a certain rank get grounded in administration and never again fly combat ops. But this particular major-general had been fired from the air force several years before for <checks notes> getting drunk on vodka, taking a Su-27 for a joyride, performing aerobatics in it and crashing the said plane. After being fired, he joined the infamous Wagner group as a mercenary pilot where he flew an SU-25 (reportedly specially painted for him) in Ukraine and was shot down. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanamat_Botashev Which reinforces the point I made about a good story needed to explain something normally impossible (to wit, a sorcerer working for or with a gang of thieves). Although to be blunt, this particular story was frankly unbelievable when I first heard it.

While Atyar may use sorcery and may be in Nochet (a lot depends on what changes if any are in the forthcoming works), they are not a cult of thieves.

To have specialist sorcery requires a full-time sorcerer and not some full-time thieves dabbling in sorcery. I won't say it can't ever happen (the bizarre tale of the Russian Major-General shot down in combat over Ukraine springs to mind) but it does require a good story.

I don't think there would be any such thing as a sorcerous thief cult. There might be thieves working for a sorcerer but even in Malkioni lands, thieves would worship a thief god (like Lanbril) or demon.

References for the figures were given in the other thread.

Lanbril (2000 people) split into several familes. Krarsht. Seseine (~500 at the most) Vadeli (500) Opium dealers from Teshnos and Kralorela. Wolf Pirates.

Well your gratituous insinuation that people were happy with slut-shaming gave a rather clear idea of your feelings on the matter. And if your source was little more than something third hand, then perhaps avoid name-dropping Greg in future arguments, no?

Well, to support your argument that things have changed for the worse, perhaps you could actually give a reference for Greg's words?

Not really. She was called the Virgin Mistress of Heaven in AH's Gods of Glorantha.

Commoners and barbarians have clans - Dara Happans have families. They are part of the household, yes. But they aren't related by blood. Both in the city and out in the country. Only poor people have single residences. He is the High Priest for his family. It matters not that he has done nothing important for Dara Happan society, what matters is that they are able to do important stuff for him. If he leads a small family, then I doubt he would be an Imperator. As for being the son of his father, that's not necessary. Yelm requires direct descent within four generations. Ran off to the join the army, did he? How vulgar. He can worship whatever strange gods he likes but don't expect further advancement in Yelm's graces.

Based on another system as well as the Battle of Night and Day - rune magic is more powerful. But using it too much runs the risk of empowering your enemies as well or being sucked into the Gods World never to return. So there will be a code (which "is more what you’d call ‘guidelines’ than actual rules") of how to behave without triggering these consequences.

The Mistress Race Trolls there are practically her incarnations and if you suggest there's any daylight between them and Kyger Litor then you get eaten.

I think it's more like Spirit Cults - in one place you have a coven dedicated to the Morning Star and in another to the Evening Star. They have common practices and magics but there is no Star Witch or coven thereof that worships all the magics of the Stars.

Meteor Swarm spell, Red Moon of Magic p117

Not described as a cult secret in Cults of Prax and there are several non-Yelmalion regiments that use pike and shields.

As written, it's not a skill for PCs. If you think that it should be, that's fine and future rules might even support you. But as Cults of Prax memorably said "Humakt builds warriors – the Sun Dome trains soldiers" so I can see the point in its pointlessness.