M Helsdon

Oh, you want pictures? These were drawn to illustrate a section on horse armor, but you can see some saddles. [This was drawn about three months ago, and I'd like to redraw it, but there's no time.]

Orlanthi - his armour indicates he's a wealthy Urox worshiper. Of course, Orlanthi is as 'useful' a cultural template as, say, 'Keltic' as it also covers a wide region (and time). Latest - redrawn.

Not much free time today... New/Old /Source of the helm.

This deserves to be written up as an article in Wyrms Footnotes, illustrated, of course, with examples of the art of each period/culture. It might be argued as being overly esoteric, but it would certainly add depth to descriptions of ruins and tombs PCs are 'exploring', and any artifacts they find.... and require certain Lhankor Mhy skills.

Three more redrawn or redone. The Snakepipe guard and Lasadag Lion originals were modified. Fifteen or so to go, though several were damaged by a bad cat with wet feet so will have to be redrawn. These three were the first to be drawn six months ago.

Unfortunately, the closest sword in the real world would be a medieval greatsword/war sword and the varieties of these have a very distinctive shape: long and tapering, with considerable shearing power and also, depending upon the design, capable of being used as an effective thrusting weapon. However, the ones capable of this were highly advanced examples of sword smithing (the best dating to the 15th century); others had relatively blunt points and whilst a blunt knife can be used to thrust, it has less penetrating power. So in order to determine the capabilities of a Gloranthan greatsword, you need to define the blade shape and cross-section, because a tapering blade has different characteristics to a leaf-shape blade in terms of weight distribution. So far as I am aware, the late medieval relatively hi-tech form is not present in Third Age Glorantha, but I could be wrong.

There is indeed material about swords and other weapons in The Armies and Enemies of Dragon Pass, but whilst it is based as closely as possible upon canon, it is neither definitive nor canon. The entry on greatswords is very short (because whilst they are probably a thing in Glorantha, I don't know what the thing resembles): Greatsword: a rare long and heavy two-handed sword. If I were forced to speculate, I'd suggest that an Orlanthi greatsword would be a scaled-up long-leafed sword (the blade resembles a long curved leaf), probably intended as a cutting and slashing weapon, with a point, so you could thrust, but its primary usage would be in open combat with plenty of room to swing it. If used to thrust it would effectively be not unlike a clumsy spear, as the hold has to be way back from the tip, with all of the weight of the blade overbalancing the hilt and would be quite difficult to use (unless you grasp the blade with one hand to guide it - ouch) and would lose all the benefits of its size and weight. If your foe is prone on the ground then you could more easily stab them, lifting the sword up with both hands and then thrusting downwards, but not if they are standing. YGMV.

Rework not complete - digital changes and corrections to be made (hands and feet need work - in a rush copied the original too closely) - but the very first sketch redrawn. Sword is too small - can fix. The eight-pointed star is a symbol of Polaris. Whether the eye is apotropaic or an 'I'm watching you' threat, or symbolises the eye of Polaris, I don't know.

That was in a preliminary sketch - will hopefully be redrawing one of the Stonewall regiments this week and may make use of the design. Very few regiments, as I understand it, have uniform shield decoration.

I am starting to redraw some of the illustrations, working through the chapters. First reworked one from chapter two - left, new; right old.

The problem is, that in Glorantha if you do that, you really do turn to the 'dark side', much as using Chaotic magic leaves you with a Chaotic taint. Illumination is inherently dangerous, because it can lead to temptations without apparent consequences, but there always are consequences...

My perspective is that Glorantha can be described as Bronze Age because its human inhabitants view and relate to their world in much the way terrestrial Bronze and early Iron Agers probably did. Technologically, Glorantha seems to probably be a mixture of Bronze Age and Iron Age, down to about the third century BC, so there is little to no Republican/Imperial Roman influence; the Lunar Empire seems more Assyrian/Achaemenid/Diadochi. Even so, most technologies and traditions seem to date to before Time, so Glorantha is truly ancient compared with our antiquity, but technological improvement isn't a meme of the setting (unless you are a dwarf, given that dwarven firearms do seem to have improved, but given that the dwarves can fabricate living constructs, trying to draw parallels for them with any terrestrial culture is meaningless).

The presence of Jonstown as an economic center would have an impact upon lesser settlements. Among the Cinsina, the tribal queen lacks a capital and instead performs a progress around her territory. Dangerford is a more significant and wealthier settlement (it even appears in the Argan Argar Atlas, when Red Cow Fort does not, being too small) but due to political complications, it isn't the political center during the rule of Queen Ivartha (the Dolutha clan are cursed, and won't survive the Hero Wars). Dangerford has more defenses and is larger than Red Cow Fort.

The Cinsina tribe is part of the Jonstown Confederation, and that city lies within their territory. Probably punitive campaigns intended to keep the barbarians in order, not to conquer them. A standard imperial technique to prevent those outside the borders getting strong enough to attack; when empires become too weak to do that, there's the risk of the barbarians invading.

Major roads, on major trade routes, impressive cities, a 'High-King' of multiple tribes, set in a highly magical region... Sartar is rich, which is one reason the Lunar Empire would find it cost effective to conquer. A poor region can't support multiple cities, or, as displayed in the Red Moon White Bear, armies capable of going toe-to-toe with a major empire. In contrast, the Roman Empire found that conquering the barbarous Germania wasn't cost effective. Having one go, and then giving up wasn't the Roman way - the region had nothing to offer except slaves, and then not particularly useful ones. A better model would be various cultures of Anatolia - for example the Hittites (who worshiped the Storm God) or Urartu. Both built roads, cities, fortifications, were up in the mountains. And the Urartuans had major wars with the lowlanders.

Probably not - Red Cow Fort is a clan rather than a tribal center, and is built upon the remnants of a Giant fort. The 'Nordic' Bronze Age was significantly poorer than that in the Near East, due to a lack of trade routes and interaction between different cultures - it was on the far periphery of more sophisticated cultures in terms of goods and social organization and so is probably a model for poorer Orlanthi cultures than those in Dragon Pass.

Sassanian cataphracts from the relief at Naqsh-e Rustam.

I have no desire to unleash SaddleWars(tm) but the (non-canonical) page copied below is based on assessing Gloranthan and terrestrial sources. Iron Age cataphracts, using a two-handed kontos certainly were effective prior to the introduction of the stirrup; Gloranthan cataphracts probably use the same sort of saddle. Unfortunately, we lack detailed evidence of the exact sort of saddle they used, but we know the 'Roman' four horned saddle almost certainly came from the steppes, and what art we have of cataphracts suggests they used something similar, probably with a more solid seat to hold the rider firmly. Canonical artwork is suggestive of the types of saddle in use.

Understood. However, I cannot publish via a Kickstarter or any other means, without a license, and a Kickstarter would not be practical because I don't have any of the necessary infrastructure: basically it's a large document in Word, with a PDF generated by Word, with lots of art, but much of the material utilizes Chaosium intellectual properties. It is also extremely niche - with content ranging from organization, how weapons and armor are manufactured, logistics, fortifications, magic in warfare, and the nature of warfare (it pulls no punches - there's material on the nature of wounds, and just how nasty a Bronze or Iron Age battlefield was) etc. However, whilst no scenarios are included in the book, the information could be used to kick off scenarios, or provide information about potential foes. Whilst there's an attempt to be as canonical as possible, it isn't defining canon - so it is written as though by someone who has access to (potentially contradictory) Hero Wars texts and archaeological material. So it's not unlike reading a modern book about Classical Greek and Successor warfare... but with details that are more likely to be... accurate... and written in the present tense to 'immerse the reader into the period'. Boxed text is colored by content: red for Lunar, yellow for Solar, orange for Orlanthi, green primarily for logistics, blue for water related, grey for general, and white on black for (the very few) real-world asides. A screenshot of the Contents page, and a screenshot of some of the interior pages below. This is not a professional-standard 'book'. At present, discussions are ongoing.

Rework 'done' to make armor look more like Moon-Iron (silver). Now I need to do a few format changes, generate the index, generate the PDF and dump it in DropBox. There are now only three chapters where there may be some growth (unless interesting material comes to light about arms, armor, regional warfare): Gods of War, Armies, Army Lists. If I do any more new sketches, they might fit in the index as the index/sources end on an almost empty page. Additional: v5.8 sent to Chaosium and licensees. Only half a page free at the back of the book (ignoring three 'incomplete' chapters).

The 'book' covers the use of stone, bone and metal weapons, as well as a few other materials. It doesn't tackle non-human arms & armor in any depth, because I didn't feel competent to do so. Praxians use bone and stone weapons, and have magics to aid their manufacture, because 'hot metal' is taboo, but happily use metal weapons when they can get their hands (or paws, as the case may be) on them. Orlanthi who can't afford metal will use stone or bone - for that matter, well into our Bronze Age, stone tools and arrowheads remained in use for a long time.

Sadly, six months ago, my sketches were more than a bit rough. There's an important distinction between fan and professional artists. A professional artist can draw almost anything, from any angle, and these days probably has access to digital drawing tools to make the process faster; a fan artist cannot do these things, unless they are very very good, and usually lacks the digital tools, and takes longer to draw things than a professional. For example, the latest sketch is shown below - took about five hours, and has been digitally altered... using Paint. A professional would probably draw something similar in less than an hour. [I'll probably make more digital changes tomorrow.] The reason I started drawing these is because a reviewer wanted annotated pictures of people in armour - I couldn't afford professional artists' rates, so decided to try my hand. There are now about sixty sketches in the book - and another twenty that were abandoned/redone.

I appreciate the intent, but please delete this thread.

There was a smiley face indicating the post was tongue-in-cheek. However, it also served to illustrate that virtually all European societies prior to modern times tended to very roughly the same social levels and distinctions. This is also true to a degree on a wider level, and can probably be projected onto most Indo-European cultures reliant on farming. Astonishingly, there's still considerable debate regarding the causes of the Bronze Age Collapse, and there are compelling arguments that some Mycenaeans were among the Sea Peoples. The reality is: we will never know.

If you want to go really Bronze Age... 8-) Mycenaean Saxon Wanax King Lawagetas Thane Heqetai Housecarl Quasileus Sheriff Doeros, doera Cottars/serfs