M Helsdon

Well, good luck! It just needs one stopover oasis to fail, for an expedition to be lost. I have the impression that large portions of the Wastes are not unlike the Taklamakan Desert - the name of which is often given the popular translation: Once you go in, you'll never come out....

Each horse and mule will eat approximately 20-25 lbs. of food (though some horse breeds require another 5 lbs. depending on size) and require between 8-20 gallons of water a day (a gallon of water weighs 8.36 lbs). Each mule can carry approximately 160-300 lbs. (Using old style units). In the Wastes, you'd probably do better using sables instead of mules as they can sometimes graze there, when mules probably cannot. The logistics of the expedition look a mite... tight, though of course you can treat pack-animals as meat-on-the-hoof. Even so...

All minor deities. A mortal who has assumed semi-divine status. May or may not have died in the process The offspring of a god and a human (the Red Goddess had a human component). Either a minor deity or a mortal who has become one (apparently reborn several times). It works.

Demigod seems the preferred modern term (even in Classical mythology, the term can refer to a minor deity, a mortal who is the offspring of a god and a human, or a hero who has attained divine status after death).

Whilst it may no longer be canonical, the Dragon Pass - A Gazetteer of Kerofinela mentions Saruvan's Hills, quarried to build many royal projects, including the walls of Wilmskirk, Boldhome, and many royal roads. Some guy called Joerg was involved in the book. From another source, paraphrased: Clearwine lies within ancient walls built by a God Time demigod, so like many settlements in Dragon Pass it is ancient with many eras of construction, destruction, and rebuilding.

My take on Whitewall...

Perhaps you see what you want to see... Personally, I can quite clearly see the resemblance to Bronze Age fortified citadels/cities. From Osprey and Peter Connolly, including the building of Mycenae... ;-)

Something I've been working on for the past 18 months or so. Non-canonical, non-official, just using publically available sources, augmented by my knowledge of Bronze/Early Iron Age warfare.

Hmm, quite Mycenaean/Near East Bronze Age. It's good to see some defensive gateways at last, with dedicated kill boxes.

The Guide states: The Basmoli [of Pamaltela]... are nomadic hunters who travel with lion prides and can themselves transform into lions.

As others have noted, Glorantha is ancient, but its age can't be measured in ordinary temporal time, because before the first Dawn, chronology has no absolute measurement. Instead before Time, Glorantha had existed through many Ages, mostly defined by major events, but with a duration that cannot be accurately described. Those people who claim to have chronological records extending make far into the past cannot really compare them with the sequential linear time since the Dawn. The Dara Happan chronology is no doubt a construct, derived from their Sacred Number, which is 'ten'. In reality, Glorantha might be millions of years old, as there is mention of coal and oil in places, but the concept of years is utterly flawed. So there have been Ages, and the rise and fall of entire intelligent species, cultures, civilizations, some remembered, some forgotten save for obscure ruins and artifacts, and modern Gloranthan humans live in a post apocalyptic world, with only a limited knowledge and understanding of the cosmos before Time. At the Dawn, the number of human survivors was small and scattered as remnants of earlier cultures. Since then, human populations have exploded across the world, despite the cataclysms that end each Age in Time.

Possibly Mistress Race trolls, Uzuz.

The horse archers performing the action were very lightly armored. In our ancient world, riders on the steppes tended to wear trews to prevent chafing; riders of other cultures wore high boots: some of the Macedonians wore high knee- or calf-length thick-soled laced boot, fastened in front, which left the toes exposed, to provide an extra grip on the mount’s flanks. There was also a custom (possibly Greek?) to shave the flanks of a horse to make it more comfortable to ride.

Turns out the Provincial University is at Furthest. ;-)

Fortunately, we have canonical illustrations that show that some Praxians use toe loops/stirrups.

Yes, that's where they came from (had to type them up)...

Depends on the period. We don't know much about the saddle prior to the Roman four pronged saddle, but they probably inherited it from elsewhere, and the Sassanid saddle had a cantle at the back and two clamps curving over the top of the rider's thighs, fastened to the saddle. The first cataphracts the Roman's encountered were those of the Seleucids and unfortunately we don't have any information as to the sort of saddle they used - though it must have been sufficient to keep the rider securely mounted. Armor was of iron or bronze scale, often covering not only the rider but the mount as well. These were very heavy cavalry. The late Peter Connolly did a great deal of work recreating Roman saddles, based upon preserved leather remains from Vindolanda and other sites, and the bronze plates from another location; the wooden tree was not preserved, but using the leather he was able to reconstruct what it was like. It is very probable that other ancient saddles were similar.

The heavy cavalry saddle predated the introduction of stirrups by at least four or five centuries, as did the appearance of cataphracts. Lighter armored, but still armored, Assyrian lancers are even earlier, predating the introduction of stirrups by perhaps a thousand years (the earliest depiction of armored cavalry dates to around seven or eight centuries at least). Their horses, were, of course, smaller than later cavalry horses. These reliefs at Naqsh-e Rustam predate the introduction of the stirrup by a few centuries, and depict combat between heavily armored cavalrymen using two-handed lances. Bahram II was the fifth Sasanian King of Persia in AD 274–293.

Some authorities consider the piece to have been made, or copied from, the work of a Greek artisan, and the Greeks were certainly in contact with the nomads at that time. It was a very high value item: originally made as a vessel to mix wine, and then used as a burial urn. In some myths the Amazons originated in North Africa, though the Eurasian steppes is more likely, and supported by archaeology, where a large proportion of burials of around the same time of this figurine were of women buried with weapons. The costume and bow appear to be authentic.

A horse archer performing the 'Parthian shot' won't be loosing an arrow directly backwards at 180 degrees to the direction their mount is travelling, and they won't be holding the pose for very long. There's a 6th century BC Etruscan figurine of an Amazon... Some claim this shows a Cimmerian horse archer, but that's impossible to prove.

An average infantry regiment numbers approximately a thousand (on paper), cavalry around five hundred (on paper). Magical regiments consist of a core magical group of between 30 and 60 specialist magicians - priests, devotees, and cultists initiated into the regiment’s secrets - and their bodyguards, with a total around three to five hundred (on paper). Sun Dome Templars (at least those in Prax) are organized into sixteen man ‘files’ consisting of fourteen soldiers, a File-Leader and a Half-file Leader; two files are a double-file, and two double-files are a Square. My personal suspicion is that eight Squares form a Company, and two Companies form a regiment, as that's roughly a thousand soldiers (1024). Each of the Praxian 'Barbarian Horde' units in WBRM is cavalry; I believe David Scott has said in the past that each is led by a Tribal Khan, and in addition to their bodyguard, often consists of four or five Waha Khans leading one hundred and twenty warriors each. The two Amber units are a little different, the 1st being all High Llama riders, and the 2nd a mixture of tribes.

I believe it's from the Glorantha Sourcebook.

The use of a flamethrower from horseback is not recommended.

That reminds me: I should have included a conical shield, like those used by the Assyrians. Will have to modify one of the designs.