M Helsdon

The one closest to the viewer has a single draught-pole, and the one 'behind' it has a double draught-pole, with the two poles joining towards the yoke. The latter design is far stronger and prevents a single point of failure rendering the chariot useless (the draught-pole and its join to the car sustain a great deal of 'shock' when the chariot is going at any speed, and is very liable to break - a double pole, with the lower pole extending under the car to attach to the non-rotating axle is significantly more robust). The other difference is that the latter has handrail wings useful in mounting or dismounting quickly - especially when the chariot is being used as a battle-taxi. The passengers in those chariots are armed with long-shafted sagaris, which is suggestive of how the chariots are used in combat. [I have a forthcoming article on Gloranthan chariots hopefully being published in the near future...]

Interestingly there are two distinct chariot designs there, one better suited to use on more difficult terrain than the other.

Not all of a hide is suitable for turning into armour - only the thickest hide, usually found on the back of the animal - which would be true for a rhino as for most other herd animals. To make rhino barding for a rhino, you'd probably need to use hide from two or four other rhino. This would be a good way of depleting your herd, unless you wait for old animals to die 'naturally'. As rhinos are in steady decline, hastening it won't be sensible. Instead, rhino barding might be made from the hide of other herd beasts, but again, you'd require many hides to armour one rhino. Whilst rhinos are strong and their charge is ferocious, they aren't long distance travelers, and the extra load will reduce their mobility. In this world, rhinos have a home range of between 12 (wet season) and 20 (dry season) square kilometres, so most don't travel more than a few kilometres a day. Things may be different in Glorantha, but the more weight you put on your 'battle tank', the slower it goes and the more fuel it needs.

SPOILER WARNING One of the adventures in the book.

Non-canonical suggestions. Rune Effects Darkness Sight: black shadows. Sensation: cold, apprehension and fear. Sound: echoing, unsettling subsonic effects. Smell: rot. Physical: shifting shadows, light fades to twilight, frost, ice. Water Sight: rippling blue light. Sensation: dampness. Sound: water dripping or running. Smell: wetness. Physical: fog; rain, water welling up from the earth, disturbances in bodies of water. Earth Sight: glowing green light. Sensation: vibration. Sound: rumbling in the earth. Smell: moist soil. Physical: plants grow, flowers bud and open, earth tremors. Dark Earth magic causes fissures and cracks to appear. Fire/Sky Sight: yellow or golden light. Sensation: warmth, heat, thirst. Sound: crackling of flames. Smell: burning, smoke. Physical: warmth, spontaneous combustion, sunlight brightens. Air Sight: blue or orange light. Sensation: breeze or wind. Sound: thunder. Smell: ozone. Physical: electrical discharges, clouds, thunder, lightning, haze. Moon Red Moon: Sight: roiling red light, sometimes silver at night; strobing red and black when the Red Moon is not Full; completely black when the moon is Dying or Black. Sensation: calm/unease; rarely psychosis. Sound: faint ringing. Smell: exotic perfume/repellant aroma. Physical: sunlight reddens. Blue Moon: Sight: shimmering faint blue light. Sensation: nausea, phantom presence, psychosis. Sound: faint whispering. Smell: unidentifiable scent. Physical: brief tidal tugging. Chaos Sight: eerie glowing lights, shifting in color and brightness. Sensation: dread, panic, mass insanity. Sound: uncanny sounds, howling, screaming, silence. Smell: peculiar sweet-sour stench. Physical: unnatural changes in the environment, crackling or wailing holes open leading to the Void. Magical Effects

Bump.

It depends on whether giant insects breathe through spiracles or not. If they do, then these have to be left open, otherwise the insect suffocates. These still leave large areas which could be armoured. I suspect trolls don't put barding on their mounts because they can be easily replaced, if not too far from home, and make a delicious meal.

You'd need them on the animals pulling it as well... Otherwise... 'Engines hit, I'm going down....'

Horn and hooves were historically used as armour. However, such barding would be used by a small contingent of shock heavy cavalry after the enemy have been successfully disrupted by the mass of horse archers. There's the problem that many nomads in Pent (and some in Prax) don't have access to riding animals sufficiently strong to carry an armoured rider and wear armour themselves. Barding and similar protection significantly reduces the mobility and range of heavy cavalry.

It would be inhumane to use ducks as armour plating for a chariot.

Just be warmed, that a common outcome was the chariot turning in the face of the enemy and racing back to disrupt their own ranks.

Until the animals pulling it are hit, die, and plunge to the ground taking the chariot car with them...

Not really: they are a bigger target than someone flying by themselves or on a mount... About the only advantage they'd have would be the capability to carry more quivers of javelins.

Based on material and illustrations in RQ:G war chariots are still a thing, though primarily as battle taxis and transport for religious regalia. The Lunars still use war chariots (based on material in the Glorantha Sourcebook) and have the few working Dara Happan artillery chariots. But then it is difficult for a high ranking officer (especially if Dara Happan) to ride a horse in their long tunic which reaches below the knee, and so riding in a chariot is much more dignified (until it breaks down - there's a dire need for spare wheels to be carried by the supply train). Massed chariot warfare is probably a thing of the past, as they need relatively flat terrain and a lack of cavalry. In our world, the battle chariot ceased to be militarily effective when cavalry and infantry skirmishers armed with barbed arrows and javelins appeared in great numbers, though continued to be present as a sort of prestige weapon platform for some time. The Persians and Successors armed them with scythes but they were rarely effective.

And checking the original art direction, you are correct....

Ah, but a live action series called the Prince of Sartar would be incredible (so long as it was done by a company like HBO). You liked the dragons in GoT? PoS has dragons miles long. You want plot, warfare, intrigue? You want nudity? Jar-eel...

Um, the published text is different from the art direction text. I know, because I rewrote many of them for Jeff. Unfortunately, for my rewrites, I didn't see the actual artwork. I don't recall if I saw the art direction text for this one. Sadly, it's my view that the composition of this piece is not up to Jan's usual standard: it has two 'problems': the horse and rider; the way in which the palanquin is being carried (or not being carried). I'm a fan of Jan's work, but that doesn't mean that I can't question one particular piece...

I'm not convinced.

That's the West (and sadly that horse is far too small to carry the armour, or that rider - one of Jan's rare misfires) and horse armour there was duly noted. My reply referred to central Genertela.

Barding for horses goes way back into the Bronze Age, when chariot horses were often provided with basic armour, often padded linen or scale (usually leather, sometimes bronze). If the animals pulling a chariot are incapacitated, your expensive weapon platform is rendered unserviceable; often barbed arrows and javelins were used against the horses, causing if not immediate death, then gradual blood loss, so even if only one of the team were injured, the capabilities of the chariot would rapidly degrade. In response to this, the animals were provided with their own armour, with the cost of increasing their load and reducing their mobility and range. In Glorantha, the chariots of the Sons of the Sun seem to have followed the same path, with a level of armour attempted never apparent in our history, until the chariots became slow cumbersome battle wagons and were no longer militarily useful. The chariots used by the Lunars lack that level of protection, but based on the reliefs from the palace in Boldhome, do have some protection (note also the protection about the necks of the lunar cavalry horses, which isn't just decorative or to keep the horse's head low to give the archer a better shot - this is probably based on the 'pompoms' used by the Assyrians for this purpose, and the peytral about the chest of a retreating horse in the upper panel, which may be barding). Similarly, an Esrolian relief that depicts Elmal as the Sun Stallion, shows him wearing head protection (horses are very vulnerable to blows to the top of the head). Horse armour is present in the West, and to a lesser degree in central Genertela, where at least one canonical illustration shows a horse with protection: The horse-zebra is protected on the chest with a woolen and felt peytral, decorated with a Man Rune signifying the cult of Pavis. Rows of woolen tassels offer some protection. [And yes, I have been very carefully studying canonical illustrations, because the details therein are rarely accidental.]

I believe it appeared in a Hittite or Neo Hittite law code, but was pretty much standard for the time. The past is often a very foreign country.

A mini scenario that sits between the second and third scenario of the GM's Pack, with a tie-in to another product... War in Winter.pdf

In the Near East, the problem of difficult slaves taken in war had a nasty solution: blinding. This reduced their value but rendered them more tractable; they could still be used to labor at grindstones or to lift water from wells. (Bronze Age and Iron Age life was often unpleasant - it wasn't just the Assyrians who did this.)

There's a bit about the enslaved Maboder in The Coming Storm/The Eleven Lights. The cult of Ernalda the Slave is popular amongst the thralls. This is Ernalda in her aspect as a prisoner of the Emperor’s Court, before Orlanth freed her. She teaches endurance and forbearance to her faithful.

There was a schism in Sartar and the Far Place. The Great Temple at Tarsh has been there for some time; Ever-New-Glory was founded after the Lunar conquest of Tarsh. Vanntar was originally an Elmal temple (and prior to the Dragonkill possibly a Yelmalio temple); given that temples usually have defenses in the form of guardian spirits, the building of the temple of Yelmalio there with no apparent magical backlash is suggestive (as is the earlier lodging of the Golden Spearman in the temple of Elmal at Alda-Chur, though in that case it might be argued to be an associated cult). Or attempted to mend the division by giving both Sun Gods a temple... Yelmalio and Elmal have been a cause of confusion in the gaming community for some time, but it translates into confusion in the setting, which is a good thing, if handled well, because cults and religions are never neat and tidy, and too many gaming systems treat gods as a handful of stats and interests, and rarely schisms within the ranks of their worshippers. I suspect that a temple to Yelmalio has been present in sketch maps of Boldhome for a long time. It's Change, and Sartar's founder embodied Change... I'll be very interested to see how this is presented in forthcoming material, as it would be an ideal source of dramatic tension.