Tindalos

I admit I was assuming the slightly more civilized forms, the bands of broo that "What do you want? Shut up - What the Broo Shaman says" was written about, Ogres, and such -- and assuming that knowledge would drift from these groups to the more savage variety (along with a kind of instinctual knowledge of the bogs)

I agree, I've really been enjoying seeing the illustrations here, and it will be a shame to see them go. Unless of course this is signalling the completion of your magnum opus, which would be very good news indeed.

It probably helps paradoxically to keep Prax safer. After all, chaotics will know that the devil's marsh and krjalki bog have a lot of weapons just waiting for an owner - so they'll head there to grab some. Far easier than trying to make your own or looting them from someone else (especially as they're likely to have buddies.) So chaotics will drift towards the bogs away from oases, grazing lands, and settlements. (In a way this could be seen as propitiation. Leaving weapons helps keep the bad guys away. But it's probably not thought about.)

I dunno, I don't think the Teshnans are that advan- Oh wait, you're talking about the Mostali, aren't you. To quote a dwarf in Sartar: Kingdom of Heroes: "Our magic is the magic of Making. We take the materials of the earth and forge them into the parts we need. Others call this alchemy, and classify it as wizardry. These categories do not occur in the documentation left to us by Mostal. This magic allows us to make gunpowder, which makes our flintlocks and cannons go “bang!”" Don't think of it as technology, t''s a form of magic which just looks like technology when approached from a single direction.

I imagine that the Plundering of Aron forms a basis for initiation into Orlanth Adventurous. Vingkot, in his guise of the Clan Chief, summons the Thunder Brothers/young Orlanth initiates, and tells them of the missing animals. The initiates then have to plan and execute their own raid against the Enchanter/enemy clan. During the raid, many will feel the pull towards a particular Thunder Brother. When scouting, Tatouth and Ormadayla will call to their followers. When raiding, Desemborth will whisper to one to just grab the cattle and run. And Finovan will reward his chosen with the greatest skill during the raid.

Are you considering compiling all your works into an "Arms, Armour, and Architecture of Glorantha" book? Because I would certainly buy such a thing.

To quote the Xeotam Dialogues "This is a matter of semantics more than substance. Upon descent into the World of Darkness, a man’s physical form leaves him and returns to its basic elements just as if he had died on the surface. Descent to Nakala is death." Leaving the middle world is leaving material existence behind. Whether climbing down the Hellcrack, or performing a ritual to visit your God's home, or sending your spirit into the Spirit World. But when they return home, they can reform/reinhabit their body as an instinctive action because it is natural to them. In a HeroQuest, the effect of Sever Spirit would separate the quester's soul from its body -- permanently. When they tried to return home, they would not be able to return their body. At best, they might reform it, but not be able to inhabit it. If the body is returned, then a casting of Resurrection might work. If not, then Divine Intervention would be necessary.

Maybe "bolo" is a way of describing the lizard's strange ululations when hunting. A sort of "bololololo."

I must admit I wonder how Ernalda fits into this, given the myths where she is described as sleeping, not actually being dead. IMG leaving the Middle World is by its nature a transformative experience, you leave your material and mortal self behind, becoming a Spiritual Being. For many, this is an unfortunate experience, only happening after Death, and ending up in the lands of the Dead. Other beings view it differently. The Trolls view this as the natural state, where Korasting and Kyger Litor provide fertility, where there's many fungi and animals to eat, and Uz and Dehori are difficult to distinguish. The material and mortal existence is a curse, brought upon by the Burner who drove them from paradise. They can only return there after death in the mortal world... or depending on your method of thought, a purifying period in the Bright Hell of the Burner, before you can return to the True Darkness of Wonderhome. The Elves view as a period all life undergoes. The cold potential vs the bright action which is called Life. The Mreli come here every winter, to rest in the darkness until it comes time to grow once more. The Vronkali visit it at night, which other races mistake for sleep and dreams (if such a thing is a mistake.) To the Aldryami, this is just a different state of being, no worse or more evil than life, and just as inevitable. Is this Death? Well, yes and maybe.

If you're illuminated, it gets you exactly what you want.

My guess is the answer here is one of those annoying "Yes" ones. Waha's around during the Silver Age, the era where not-quite-pre-time blends with not-quite-time, To hypothesise wildly: After the battle with the Devil, Storm Bull uses the last of his strength to bear a son with the sleeping Eiritha, before he dies at/as the Storm Hills. Waha becomes the uniter, performing his great deeds, bringing together the lands and peoples of the wastes, becoming their culture hero. Then at the grand old age of... let's go with 100, (it's a nice mythically round figure,) Waha's on his deathbed, goes off with his bag of goods to die heroically fighting Chaos. This allows him to end up in the Underworld, with his father, all the other fallen gods, and the Devil, as Grandmother Spider's binding things together. He gets to hand her the bag which allows her to unite the Cosmos together (The Wastes, and the bits outside it which are good for raiding) while he gets to aid his father in fighting the Devil. This brings the Great Compromise, the end of the Silver Age, the beginning of Time, and a (relatively) united Prax. Maybe this is what Jaldon's been trying to do with Dragon Pass.

There's a bit of a difference here between the Earth as a whole, which is Ernalda or her sister Esrola, and the Land as in the location, which are their daughters, In Ralios, the land is Ralia, and she provides the bounty which supports the clan, but her mother is Esrola/Ernalda, and so their cults are entwined. In Peloria, the land is Pelora whose mother is still Ernalda/Esrola and their cults are shared. (The Dara Happans call her Pela, and her mother Oria.) In Esrolia, the land is Esrola or Esra (depending on who you ask). In all these lands (and others) Ernalda is the primary Earth goddess of the Orlanthi (although often under different names), and worship of her will allow you access to the goddess of the land, the goddess of other lands -- and thus their bounty, leading to them also being known as grain goddesses -- the animal mothers, and other goddess of earth and fertility. It also means that your Pelorian Orlanthi priestess of Pelora, journeying in far off Ralios (for some reason or other) can still reach her goddess in the temples of Ralia, through their shared mother.

Which is confusing in itself, since the Heortlings are more of a rural civilization, compared to many of their neighbours. What mention of his Gods Age activities I can find are these: "Lanbril: The Thief, stole from his kinsmen and so was outlawed by Orlanth." (BoHM, pg 168), "Orlanthi pantheon — king of thieves Lanbril was a near-human resident of the Spike during Godtime. He was scorned by more ancient and powerful gods who had vastly superior magic. In revenge Lanbril secretly robbed and inconvenienced the gods who had spurned him." (Prosopaedia - here) "Lanbril was a son of Grandfather Mortal." "Through his mastery, he stole Rune spells belonging to the other gods, but despised some powerful spells as no use to him. (It is speculated that the higher magics were too powerful for one who was practically a normal human.)" "Some devout cultists go so far as to state that [Lanbril's] influence inspired Eurmal to help Orlanth in stealing Death from Humakt." (Pavis, Threshold to Danger, pg 28) Given this, my guess is he's actually more centred around Esrolia and the Holy Country, rather than the rest of the Barbarian Belt. Certainly a "godlike mortal" rather than a demigod. If anything, given his cult's association with alchemy (which is often linked to sorcery) his "divinity" may have originally been more like a circle of mortals who sought to become like the gods by using soulless magic, and it's merely just one who is remembered by name.

I could see it as a "logical" if wrong assumption based on myths like the Social Order from Revealed Mythology, and assuming that Dronar was the first son of Malkion, Horal the second, Talar the third, and Zzabur the fourth. Given how few people have knowledge of Brithini customs, and how the Malestini/Early Malkioni stories are only known from later sources, if it's not in the Abiding Book, it's probably subject to rumour, speculation, and hearsay.

They do have similar worldviews, but how they differ can probably be traced back to this quote from Arcane Lore: "[The world comprises of] Matter and Energy. Philosophies disagree on which was first, with humans claiming devolution of energy organizing into matter, and Mostali claiming that mater disintegrated into energy." This is a minor difference, but an important one, for it determines the form of their magic. A Malkioni (such as a Brithini) would use more energetic means to effect a change. A Mostali would use more material means to do so. This is in party, why the dwarves have such a wealth of ingenious devices, to follow on, Arcane Lore mentions "... Alchemy is a general term which includes the application of no or weaker Will to generate a change, generally using more material means than energetic." A dwarf's thunderstick or disorder kegs are sorcerous ways of manipulating the world, much like a sorcerer's explosive spells. But they differ in philosophical methodology and appearance, if not the end result.

That quarry was flooded intentionally, due to them wanting to float parts of the Faceless Statue to the river. It's possible they could empty it if they needed to. (Of course a flooded quarry would also make a good place to dispose of unwanted items. Like enemies of the cult) Depends on how you view things. On page 33 of HQ:G, there's a sidebar about how you can run High Level Campaigns, without inflating the ratings. Likewise, if you want your PCs to be normal people, you can do that. Just make the difficulties more appropriate. An easy challenge to a legendary hero would be very difficult or almost impossible to your average warrior. If you think that using a warrior keyword to spot things is a stretch (which makes sense) then they get a penalty to that (-6 according to page 103, and major and complete victories count as minor victories.) If they think that it's still something they want, then maybe they could mention how their warrior acted as a scout for their clan's weaponthanes, or was a scavenger in the big rubble, giving more appropriate, and more specific abilities (Scout and Rubble Scavenging in these cases.) And sure, you could take Jack of All Trades or Polymath as an occupational keyword, they sound like good flavourful names for a generalist crafter or scholar. Of course, because they didn't specialise, they won't be as good as a specialist. (Yeah, you can say master, but as it says on page 46 "You can’t make your hero better than others by taking an ability like Best Swordfighter In Dragon Pass, Never Loses At Gambling, or Indestructible. You will lose sword fights, at gambling and be proven only to some extent indestructible, when you suffer defeats in contests of those abilities. Better to just take the abilities Swordfighter, Gambler, and Hard to Hurt, and not suffer the embarrassment when your actual capabilities fail to live up to the hype.")

I imagine that they don't harvest all that much, since the bogs aren't exactly friendly. One or two trees a village a year or so. Which of course isn't much, but then they'll have simple farming magic like repair, which will keep the timbers of buildings going much longer. I imagine they'd be using canes and skullbushes for most other purposes (tool hafts, etc) Yeah, I imagine most Dwarf mines have a sump chamber where they bind the water spirits to, imprisoning them until they're able to transport them somewhere else. Of course this is entirely due to Water's escape from the Great Sump itself (known to others as the Underworld.) When the World Machine is complete, the Pump is rebuilt (known to mortals as the Spike) and all that is wrong can be safely flushed back down there with the trolls and other useless things.

It's more that the bogs are unsuitable for widespread logging operations, being flooded completely 3 seasons out of five, full of bugs, and treacherous. Doesn't mean you can't get wood from there though, and as hardwoods, and with skullbushes plentiful in the bogs, it'd be worth the insect bites to get what trees you can. Of course, in Pavis itself, I'd be willing to bet the cult of Florian the Gardener helps out a lot, probably teaching Food Song from Pavis' connection to the elves, enabling for harvesting wood without necessarily angering the elves of the garden.

I imagine most of the wood in Prax comes from the river of cradles. The bogs there are filled with cypresses and canes which will be popular among many people. During Fire season, when the fields don't need as much attention and the bogs are drier, I imagine it'll be common to see parties going through the edges, harvesting canes and trees for wood to trade. Likewise, I imagine the animal nomads will pick up what canes they find on the edges for use as spear shafts.

Outside the temple, they wear whatever is usually appropriate. Inside the temple, they are generally dressed in just a loincloth, cloak, or similar things -- at most. For the inside of the temple is a piece of the Green Age, when things like clothing were not needed.

To quote Sartar: Kingdom of Heroes: "“Demon” is a generic label that is applied to any powerful otherworldly entity that is outside of one’s own pantheon." Usually they're from the Underworld, although this is not always the case. The servants of Shargash and Yelm are often called Fire Demons by the Orlanthi, such as those imprisoned in the Cinder Pits. The Pelorians would refer to them as angels, gods, or Shanassae. Trolls would technically be classifiable as demons, but generally aren't because of their mortal and physical nature, many of their summoned spirits and other entities of darkness are demons. Many servants of Valind, and other gods of cold and wind are known as Ice Demons. So yes. If you've got a peaceful Lodrilli village in Peloria assaulted by a storm bull worshipper, the survivors might describe him as a monstrous demon, surrounded by others, with breath straight from the demon hell, and fearsome horns upon his head.

I think we might get some ideas from the diagram on Pavis:GtA pg 366. This shows the Faceless King, and various runes. It's likely this is a key to the Grimoire. His left arm bears the rune of Law. This would indicate that the Armstones of the left would relate to sorcery (presumably they were used to build the old aerial defence towers, such as the one known as the Arm of Pavis.) From the relationship of this arm to sorcery, Pavis revealed a spell that married (combined) Harmony and Law: "Defence of the Left Arm," this spell would allow the user to protect themselves from hostile sorcery. His right arm bears the runes of Man and Stasis, but it is the latter which is most important here. The Armstones of the right were used in building the walls of Pavis, and Pavis' father-in-Law Flintnail taught him how the Armstones powers of Stasis would support the art of building in general. By commanding Stasis this spell, "Support of the Right Arm," (also known as Support in RQ) maintains a given wall in its current position (temporarily), even if parts are removed which would normally cause it to collapse. This allows repair to be performed, and was a useful defence of last resort during the Troll Occupation. The Statue's Thigh is marked with the runes of Earth, Harmony, and Life, calling to mind the goddess Ernalda. The Thighstones were rare organstones associated with the powers of fertility and bounty, and thus sacred to her. Pavis used this knowledge to craft the spell "Bounty of the Thigh". By marrying Harmony and Life, the spell preserves stored grain and other foods from blight and pests. This spell helped provide for the city during the lean years, and Pavis' old granaries are still said to lie -- unlooted -- where the thigh once fell. (This is said to be in Huntland, somewhere between the Central Bridge and the Salt Mines.)

Interestingly King of Sartar has them described as Deermen (page 86), as does Sartar: Kingdom of Heroes. My guess is that Satyrs, as embodied spirits of the masculine aspect of primeval nature, have a multitude of forms. Some resemble Deermen as in KoS and others, some are Goat-like (like the Roman fauns -- and rarely venture outside for fear of confusion), and some have a horse-like tail and ears like the original Satyrs of Greece were said to. Others could easily exist: The trottered and tusked Boar-Satyrs, who are sometimes confused for the Aramite Tusk Riders; the mighty-horned Bull-Satyrs who hang around the Minotaurs for companionship. To the Satyrs, these distinctions would be meaningless. What does it matter if one of your fellows has horns, or hooves, or tusks? All that matters is they have wine to drink, grapes to eat, and nymphs to woo.

The first five days of the week are connected to the elements. On those days the elemental power in question is more potent (on Freezeday, darkness magic is easier to perform, for example) Then comes Wildday, full of untamed magic. This day is dangerous, and often Chaos is more potent at this time (hence why the Telmori change on Wildday) On the last day, Godsday, the barrier between the Godswar and the material world are thinner, this allows for worship ceremonies to be more powerful, and for messages to easily reach the gods. Of course, this is merely the Theyalan calendar. The Dara Happans have a ten day week (My guess would be each day is associated with the Celestial Court, so you'd have Harmonyday, Loveday, Beautyday, Joyday, Truthday, Growthday, Entertainmentday, Athleticsday, Artday, and Aetherday.) Meanwhile the Pamaltelan calendar used by the Doraddi has 6 days, although I have no idea about their origins.

Asrelia's Armour Description: A scale hauberk, where the scales are made of copper clacks. Cults: Associated - Issaries, Lanbril, other Thief and Trade cults. Knowledge: Common. History: Despite the name, this armour has nothing to do with the Earth Goddess, but its power to find hidden caches of treasure led to the (somewhat ironic) name. Instead the armour owes its creation to a now forgotten thief from the First Age who sought to put his ill-gotten gains to work finding him even more wealth. Procedure: Apart from its unusual materials, the armour is enchanted in the same way as any other spell matrix. Powers: RQ - Acts as a Detect Coins Matrix (Like Detect Gems, but for coinage). HQ - Acts as a charm for a "Detect Coinage" spirit. In either case, it is also a perfectly serviceable copper hauberk. Value: 500L (The coins themselves can be removed and used in a pinch. Each armour contains roughly 200 clacks. Removing more than 20 will ruin the matrix. A GM can roll 1d20-1 to determine how many coins are missing when the suit is found.)