scott-martin

Thank you! Agreed rounding those hexes is tricky . . . Spol may feel downright haunted compared to the Blue Moon Plateau, depending on whether we draw the line around the top elevation proper (which Guide 308 implies, 114 hexes) or assume that the troll territory includes the upland forest as well. (Sort of a dodgy proposition based on what we know about their appetites, but they probably don't have a lot of competition.) In the former scenario, the Plateau is almost as densely packed with uz (3300 per hex, averaging 1.5X the threshold for "urban center" on the maps) as modern Ireland or New Hampshire is with people, which is a nasty prospect.

Sure, a lot of them are going to be trollkin and mutants but even a wretched enlo is hungry and takes up D6+6 SIZ. What awful things are they all eating? 

Latter scenario gets them down to about 1260 trolls per de facto hex of territory, so either way they're a whole lot more successful up there than the gloomy Spolites. 

(The disappearance of Jarasan as anything but a word on the map is ominous. I hope it's an omission because I like bird people, but maybe those trolls got hungry.)
 

59 minutes ago, Joerg said:

Orlanthi tattoos – are these mundane or magical in origin (i.e. are there tattoo artists in Orlathi society (presumably in the cults) operating with sacred inks, or are these markings divine gifts without the need for human intercession? Do the initiation marks retrace the divine markings received on the Other Side, but need human artists to retrace them in ink?

Vingkot's ring assigned the tattoo needle to the god-talker but an archaic form of the practice (branding, no ink involved to reveal the patterns) is specifically attributed elsewhere to Issaries, who uses then "the tattooing of power" to set his people apart. My current thinking is that the "marking bone" evolved into both the stylus and the needle and that the first writing in skin used charcoal. What becomes of the competing burnt-mark system remains to be seen. I'm fond of the idea it becomes written Trade, speaking of Elasa, cat and dog scratch, etc.

On 6/30/2017 at 8:00 AM, Joerg said:

Where is Zzabur - the Sorcerer who wields Law - active against Chaos? He is fighting the Vadeli for different reasons, and instrumental in destroying the Spike, thereby enabling the Void to enter.

 

It's almost as though the blue man were blind to what we post-Arkat people would consider "chaos" despite all his fine talk of Law, even through his ambitions (malkion the sacrifice) greased the road through which it entered creation!

But back to Chalana, I'm fuzzy on the mythological nature of poison, which might be a useful tangent to explore here. Poison feels completely mundane in the RQ materials, generally best treated (and brewed) with secular skills instead of spells. On the other hand, poison will affect a lycanthrope while broo are specifically immune to poison along with disease. And of course iron "poisons" some people and not others. Is there a chaos god of poison? Does its use damage the world? Or is this a secret of Gloranthan "alchemy?"

1 hour ago, Joerg said:

uncharted outer World folk like Altinae or Hrimthurs in the western parts.

With six Dark Runes west of the Jankley Bore the troll population there may be drastically undercounted unless they were brought to the edge of extinction in one of those elder race wars, maybe payback over Lentasia . . . and as for eastern outer world folk, Dozaki-Koromondol inverts the human demographics with 4 out of 10 known uz on the lozenge packed into that strange corner of the world. Even the mountains feel crowded with hsun chen. Substantial herds of lo fak retreating to the Panj Mao in winter, flocks of wind children (a lot we have yet to discover about storm worship here), white tiger people, etc. 

We'll put those scaling theories to the test as we survey the edges. The territories at the limits of the inner world are an obvious place to look for wilderness since they tend to be (a) remote from conventional man rune fertility systems and (b) "open to expansion" along at least one border. For example, the mapped portion of North Pent (roughly defined as east of the Troll Marshes, west of Jankley Bore and north of the edge of the central Pentite plateau) might be about 3/4 of an AAA map or 130,000 square miles, so if we extend up another half-map (200 miles, 3-4 days' ride) north you get an overall density equivalent to the modern Yukon. Granted, most of the population will cluster as far south as they can (especially with the Hot Lake so close) and things are going to get very strange up there, but that's how adventuring sages earn their beards.

Even if human habitation in North Pent stops short at the AAA edge (unlikely given label placement), the place is more desolate than modern Alaska or Khabarovsk Krai in the Russian Far East where the movie Dersu Uzala was set. That makes sense. It's harsh up there and normal man rune fertility magic hasn't gotten much of a toehold there . . . probably for various reasons.

Likewise, while most of the population of Eol probably stay as close to the Thunder Delta as they can, including a lot of the territory on AAA Map 8 ("Northern Erigia") gives them a whole lot of almost empty space to roam. As long as we can find them about 1/3 of a map (54,000 square miles) they're as lightly settled as modern Lapland. Admittedly there are still a lot more of them crammed into a smaller zone than we see across the White Sea, so clearly those people are "blessed" by their pacts with the Empire -- starting to suspect this is true in a lot of areas, with advances in trade and other magical technologies feeding population pressures that would be unsustainable in previous ages of the world or if those advances hit a hard wall called "hero wars." 

20 minutes ago, Joerg said:

There might be an explanation for the lack of such nowhere places - nobody is there to maintain them for the Compromise, so they ended up being folded away by the Compromise, possibly as Hidden Greens. After all, Glorantha is real where there are people maintaining their Sacred Time rites.

Thanks! It's a complex challenge because many of the "blankest lands" are between maps and claimed territories . . . and so we'll only get a sense of how empty they are once all their neighbors are resolved. 

As for explanations, I have to admit wondering whether hexes actually get larger around the limits of the inner world, giving humans who wander to the edge more relativistic space. This may have something to do with why the most ancient Brithini are so small, but that's a crazy though so I prefer your view. The "inner world" may simply be where the Compromise has been knit most strongly by the weight of mortal lives.

Test case: Silver Shadow is an easy enough benchmark since it's a perfect ring around the Crater extending as far as north Raibanth roughly 3.5 hexes (17.5 miles) away. We know the Crater radius is 12.5 miles so the total this-world land area is roughly 2335 square miles. Between the cities, the rural population is about twice as dense as the modern Peloponnese -- not exactly a lonely land, but we should expect nothing less within walking distance of such a vast concentration of wealth. Not Lonely.

The Hungry Plateau, on the other hand, gives 36,000 sable riders 86-7 hexes (about 1,900 square miles) to rove so this is a much wilder territory than the imperial heartland without being truly desolate. Presumably the graze is harsh but uniquely suited to the sable way of life, supporting 4X as many per square mile as modern Mongolia supports Mongolians. No wonder they're pleased with themselves! Not Lonely.

For modern demographers, areas with population density below 6 per square mile are considered "frontiers," approximating wilderness. This is not a rare phenomenon on 21st Century Earth: Navajo territory and parts of Maine USA only push the upper limit, and we find even fewer humans stretched across relatively inhospitable or remote areas from Namibia to Greenland.

In your travels, as you identify territories in 17th Century Genertela in particular where the math works out especially lonely, please let me know here. As a rough rule of thumb, 6 residents per square mile translates into a per-hex population of 130, so a 100-hex "frontier" could support maybe 13,000 people and feel as empty as Namibia, Navajo country or the forest of inland Maine.

Again, I am not nitpicking or challenging the numbers. I am simply looking for the wildest corners the inner world has to offer. After all, depending on how the population is distributed, even high gross densities can feel extremely remote -- the modern Black Forest here on Earth manages to support nearly 1 million people across the equivalent of 73 Gloranthan hexes (570 per square mile, equivalent to modern Maryland) and you could trek a long time there without meeting anyone but ancestors and other spirit neighbors.
 

2 hours ago, Byll said:

Granted there may be few cities and those almost all tiny by modern standards, but I had thought bronze age culture would have established large tracts of planed fields and (rough) roads/droves/trails (except of course in barren or magically dangerous regions) .

It's an interesting point. My initial suspicion was that those fields are clustered around the towns, leaving vast sweeps of more-or-less howling wilderness across most of the lozenge. But even by modern definitions, a "frontier" community means a population density under 6 per square mile (~130 per Guide hex) so a backwater like Skanthiland (rural population 25,000) would need to sprawl across 200-210 hexes to be as desolate as, for example, Piscataquis County here in 21st Century Maine. Likewise for a place like Eol (with a relatively primitive nomadic population of 250,000) to achieve the same population density as my mom's home county (where they have gas stations, antibiotics and satellite TV), we'd need to find those people 2/3 of an AAA page (5,300 hexes!) to wander. 

This is not a nitpick because while these population numbers are clearly canonical, beautiful and complete from the original transparencies, I don't know if anyone ever said they had to count living embodied humans exclusively. In my Glorantha these territories get crowded with spirits loosely affiliated with the "community" or genius loci. A secular census may only manage to count 7,000-8,000 living Eolites and the place would still feel as empty as modern Lapland. But the bush sings with ghosts for those with ears to hear.

 

39 minutes ago, Tcneseleis said:

I suppose all Waertagi wars were naval wars against competitors

It might be worth refreshing what we know about these wars and these competitors to see how their mercantile monopoly evolved as well as how it was "maintained" (enforced) in the centuries before Tanian. Various far-flung cultures have "pirate" gods, for example. Others cultivated independent relationships with the oceanic powers. 

A bit of an edge case (is it published? is it fan speculation?) but Sandy spilled a few beans at the front of the '97 Lore Auction (Conpendium).

4 hours ago, Tcneseleis said:

never tapped a peasant in his life, not even called them bumpkins

This is an extraordinary line revealing deep logic around the Tap. Thank you.

54 minutes ago, M Helsdon said:

Bisos the Bull God of Pelanda and Carmania?

He'll do! The question was about survival, but it looks like the legacy of the Bull Shahs goes on strong in pockets like Tawenos and Hurvisos.

On the bull front, you might be onto deep insight with that primal scene. A brother may readily ally with foreigners, possibly sharing the secret in exchange for protection or revenge. What this entails for modern "storm" bull barbarians' relationship to their ox-making cousins is wide open but somehow I don't see the concept flying high on the chaparral.

Maybe Dromal, Dronar or some now-nameless caste-father of farmers contributed the secret in the north and the circumstances around this can easily fuel old grudges like the Tarjinian Bull. At last they had a beast who could really pull a furrow. The technology spreads. This may be the true weapon Syranthir wielded among the old bull people of proto-Carmania, so taboo that the locals would rather focus on the plow it makes possible. Either way, timing here is probably important if we need to restrict this agricultural capacity from warlords of Talor's era.

(As far as I am currently aware no bull god survives into Idovanic Carmania or the lunar era but I would be happy to be proven wrong. While applying "the rites of the bull" to younger brothers would be a good atrocity for the Carmangs to inflict on subject Pelorian nations and beyond, Third Age contexts have probably changed.)

Barntar could sometimes be a fosterling in the household of Orlanth, a more tractable bull-son from vanished Envorela who was separated from his own family and took the bull/ox decision with him -- as you say, kinsman of the ox.

But on the plow front, people have occasionally pondered that troublesome lod-plow from the Lodrilites whom the early children of Malkion subjugated and turned into "laddies." This is its own tricky field. 

Love it. This touches on the whole complex of castrating a sacred bull to create an ox but until I get a chance to really review "all the questions about Prax" that piece of it remains nebulous and probably taboo in berserker circles.

We know Dronar and/or Dromal comes to the table at the very start of the caste system with "the holy plow" already in hand but nothing about who or what originally drew it. Maybe it dug a shallower furrow in the yielding body of Britha and couldn't be easily transplanted until being modified Since Time -- explaining how Syranthir managed to cross Charg on his belly when Talor couldn't.

It kind of starts me wondering in earnest whether Malkion didn't start out with (or acquire) multiple peasant sons bearing multiple plow designs, with their stories conflated except for trace variations in the nomenclature. But that's a slippery slope. 

Either way, to me the success of the Western-style peasant in Carmania over Pelandan survivals probably hinges on the importation of higher-yield farming magic crowding out the old goddess religion.

I don't even know where the Barntar plow comes from. He's definitely a friend of the ox. Maybe the animals drawing the shaker priestess were his originally.

What prevented Akemite forces from simply following the Janube up to proto-Worian and then striking at Dorastor from the north? The Talsardians may have blocked an initial thrust in that direction but by 450 they were allies. Also it goes without saying that there is no Ban in force at this time. Nonetheless first Arkat and then Talor takes the long way around, finally forcing Kartolin despite all precedent. Did Talor's dealings with the Bull and/or blue people mandate what looks like an extensive detour? Was Rist simply a hairier prospect than the unvanquishable fort? I have theories but crowd wisdom is surer.

Bonus: does this shed additional light on Syranthir's unprecedented genius in daring to take his nation on a route his sainted predecessors refused to even consider?

2 hours ago, M Helsdon said:

the very erudite trickster Robert Graves who attempted to extract religion (and history) from the Greek Myths, eventually culminating in The White Goddess, which is a collection of speculation.

On the third hand, without the White Goddess and her sister books we would be unlikely to have the Red Moon Empire or be here to talk about it, so I'm inclined to be a little kinder to his enthusiastic overreach.

Likewise, on the viability of God Learner sources, in many if not most cases they are all we have, so even if that bathwater is filthy it's our best shot at recovering the baby.

The "firenewts" White Dwarf editor Albie Fiore inserted into the AD&D Fiend Folio always struck me as familiar for the way they ride around on large flightless birds like heavy ostriches. Looking back it's funny how their society also happens to be organized with elite warriors, priests and overlords. Surely a coincidence!

1. IMG it's a lot like the "Dragonkill" in that "Luck and Death" aren't forces you wield within the MOLAD environment but external challenges you subordinate through your relationship to the archetypal structures that drive and unify the Sixths: the "mini-monomyth" that makes the Holy Country "Holy." The Master is beyond luck and beyond death, thus eligible for embodying the cult founder who himself embodies all Six.

2. Study of the Book may grant insight into how to combine multiple elemental affiliations within your person as well as open heroquest paths that would otherwise be closed. There are indications that he left the Book deliberately as a trap door if the MOLAD was interfered with, but the way is likely to be extremely hard,"hailing the harshax" notwithstanding. Prince of Sartar doesn't exactly leave him sitting in a position of confidence.

3. Unless you live in the City of Wonders I think most people in the Holy Country participated through their particular Sixth and only in rare and inscrutable circumstances via MOLAD. Finding your way to the City of Wonders and a place within it may be congruent with "worshipping Belintar directly," although those people seem to be big weirdos so who knows. I imagine most of them have disappeared and the rest are somewhere between sad and lazy.

5 hours ago, Joerg said:

Queen of Dragon Pass.

I love it! While it's a shame history hasn't given us examples of the bride winning the contest yet, I wonder if Inkarne or some other future figure will qualify.

For us, the question might be which FHQs push back on that very specific restriction on their status in KOS -- "she must speak only on matters of magical interest" -- and how they do it to reach for broader Mastery. There are undoubtedly Esrolian models.

51 minutes ago, jajagappa said:

She is the representative of Kero Fin, the land goddess of Dragon Pass, hence holds sovereignty of Dragon Pass.  To become King of Dragon Pass, you must marry the Feathered Horse Queen - she is the only one who can grant this title.

I don't think we are disagreeing here. History probably presents FHQs who at least attempted to effectively "marry themselves" and wield their symbolic power in their own right. It would be interesting to identify them.

25 minutes ago, boztakang said:

on a more on-topic note - what are the runes of the Feathered Horse Queen? She seems a pretty clear example of "Earth Mastery" and is certainly worth a look in that respect. (I imagine the info is in the Guide or such, but don't have time to go searching just now)

In ancient times (WBRM "rune counter" edition) she had the same runes as Beat-Pot, Gunda and Argrath: "Man" like other relatively human individuals as well as Mastery along with an unhelpful range of other entities like the Dwarf, the Sylph and Ethilrist's Cloak. If we were doing it now I'd suggest Earth/Queen and Magic because while she rules the Grazers, it's by right of "thaumaturgy" -- "she must speak only on matters of magical interest" -- and not conventional sovereignty.


 

45 minutes ago, Darius West said:

*chuckle*  That's a bit of a gem of Gloranthan lore right there.  Where might I find reference to Godunya becoming a belt buckle salesman?  It amuses me that Godunya might have arrived in the EWF with fewer friends and resources than Pavis.

The humble belt buckle salesman is of course a reference to one of Greg's more itinerant early career choices. It comes up most recently in the description of the town of Hsin Yin in the Guide.

This thread feeds beautifully back to the Pavis Project, pod racers and all. I wouldn't be surprised if that kid with weird parentage took a lot of "original Adarites" with him "back" across northern Prax in order to (re)build a more perfect Adari by the river. Helps explain how old Pavis could get so weird on a much grander scale: consider the models he had to work with.

Love this thread . . . had a response over there that bracketed the Adari connections as veering away from The Man Who Was Pavis so it's great to see it collected here. Those fertility maps are really something.

One more crumb to throw into the pot is the linguistic note in RQ 2, posted over here to help recover my shame in initially missing the draconic connection:

So Adari preserves vestiges of some "ancient" religion behind the present stinking squalor. Who were they?

When I think of stinking people I think tusk riders.