Mark Mohrfield

How is work on the physical Glorantha Sourcebook going?

Repeating my earlier request for info on the Nochet sourcebook. Jajagappa recently posted a sample question for Esrolian House generation in another thread, so you can blame him for my curiosity.

Is there any news on the Nochet source book?

I think the story goes that Greg Stafford meant "not yet", but pronounced it something like "notch yet", thus the player's confusion.

This may have been true for the Dawn Age, but i think that it is more likely that modern Orlanthi identify the sun as whatever deity plays that role in the particular myth rather than always identifying it with one particular god. Mythology is often contradictory.

And yet I still don't know how to pronounce "Tekumel".

But it is possible that Gloranthan brass occurs naturally as does Gloranthan bronze. Even if it is a Mostali only product, it's probably cheaper than iron.

For whatever it's worth, a quick google search turns up several examples of brass-bound barrels. Personally, I'm an amphora fan, at least for Esrolia. It reinforces the Earth connection.

I prefer the lower roll to win as presented in HQ 2 to the higher roll wins method of HQ:G as the former favors the underdog. I liked the fact that HQ 2 presented optional rules, such as stake points and the death spiral, even if I don't use them myself.

There seems to be consensus that the cargo would be unloaded/unloaded manually. Any idea how long that would take?

Some more questions: How was cargo loaded and unloaded on ancient ships? Were cranes used, or was it all simply moved by people lifting it? How long would it take to load and unload? How many common river boats would it take to carry the cargo of one these ships?

Would a Kyrenia-style ship be able to navigate up rivers, or would it be necessary to transfer the cargo to river boats at Corflu?

Maybe it should be named "Littler Vanntar":)

That passage doesn't seem to be in my copy. Was it revised at some date?

What is the source for this?

I notice from the map that there is a Yelmalio temple in Nochet. I presume that his cult is far less patriarchal than it is in Sartar or Prax, and wondered just how that worked.

Could anyone give me the size, speed, crew numbers and cargo capacity and other relevant specifications of these ships? I've found a website for a replica of a phoenician ship: http://www.phoenicia.org.uk/ It doesn't appear to be flat-bottomed, but I figure that the Esrolians may have some for deep-sea trading, perhaps either purchased from or copied from foreign sources.

Do these resemble any historical ships?

I am finally about to start my Glorantha: HeroQuest campaign which in which the PCs will be the entourage of a young Esrolian noblewoman sent to Pavis to oversee her House's trading interests there as a test of her leadership abilities. They'll get to Corflu by ship, and I want to know what sort of merchant ships the Esrolians use.

The Rune section on pages 191-193 does not list the law rune, though it does appear in the following illustrations.

There's where I started to go wrong; I assumed that the percentage would refer to the tribe as a whole, as the percentage for Storm Bull cultists above did. Yeah, that's too few worshipers of the Orlanthi horse god among Orlanthi horse riders for my taste, so my Glorantha will vary on that. I'll increase the percentage of those with the Fire rune at the expense of the other elemental runes on the theory that those with it would be drawn to a horse-riding tribe more than those without it. Let's see, reduce the Storm rune to 70%, and the other four by half to 2.5% for a total of 20% with the Fire Rune, for a total of 500. Of those, make 40% Elmal worshipers, 30% Yelmalio worshipers and divide 30% among the other cults. That gives 200 Elmal worshipers, plus a few female worshipers. That should work for my purposes while still not altering them too far from the official version.

Your statement has me completely confused, as Appendix C states that 6% of the Pol Joni follow Yelmalio. Doesn't that come out to 300 total? And wouldn't the original Pol Joni simply have brought the cult of the Orlanthi horse god with them from Sartar?

Of course Appendix C can't tell us about cults that aren't in Cults of Prax, other than placing them under the "other" category. Which leads to my quetion: what percentage of the Pol-Joni follow Elmal?

It's in the RQ3 Glorantha Book (Book 5) under "Rune Metals" on page 16. As far as I know, it's never been either explicitly confirmed or denied in any post-RQ3 source.

A bit of ancient history: RQ1 and 2 both claimed that the Sartarites called silver pieces Sovereigns. Clearly that was dropped, but does anyone know why it was there in the first place?