JonL

Circling back to this, it depends on the situation. A character's gender is central to some story roles and concepts, while to others it's incidental to the character's role in the story. In the latter cases though, it can contextualize other story/character elements in meaningful ways; e.g. Ripley in Alien could carry much the same plot as a man or a woman, but her being the latter adds a "Smart woman's ideas and opinions being unfairly discounted my men in the workplace." dimension, making the unfolding horror even more tragic. A helpful concept to keep in mind as a newcomer to Glorantha, is that in Theyalan cultures "All" implicitly means "mostly" or "roughly six-out-of-seven" when generalizing about groups of people. The understood context is that exceptions to the general case are not only to be expected, but are an accepted part of social norms.

Yeah, even Chaosium's Glorantha Will Vary, frustrating though that can be. (Elmal forever. )

It's in the Dragon Pass section of the Guide to Glorantha. From the accompanying sidebar: "Kallyr Starbrow: This heroic Orlanthi is a king in her own right, not by marriage. She is dressed similarly to Hofstaring, but wears a decorated bronze cuirass. Kallyr does not wear a helmet, but shows off her long red hair. On her brow is tattooed a large golden eight-pointed star, giving off its own light. The tattoo holds the magic of a star and is clearly the source of her power (and name)."

Here's the picture of the end of Starbrow's Rebellion again: From left to right, we have Kallyr Starbrow, Hoftstaring Tree-Leaper, the Feathered Horse Queen, and Fazzur Wideread.

Yes.

I very much believe that if the FHQ at the time of the rebellion had been more into Kallyr than Fazzur, Starbrow would have become King of Dragon Pass. Look at where e everyone's eyes are directed in this illustration:

Everyone looking for an actively protagonistic Ernaldan should take a gander at Samastina, the Esrolian noblewoman who leads the party of signature characters in HQG.

My people understand that fire has an important place in our world. We cook our meals and hear our homes with it. We burn fuel by the gallon to get around town. We make candles & smoke part of our religious observances, and launch fireworks for fun. Nobody thinks it's evil or wrong. For all that, we nonetheless maintain a professional corps of dedicated firefighters ready to go at a moments notice. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

The Solar perspective also does not see a Moon as a different category of celestial object than a Sun. The Glorious Reascent of Yelm records Sedenya the Changer as the Sun of Mernitia, though an inferior and inconstant one compared to righteous Antirius. As recorded in the Fortunate Succession, when the Red Goddess is reborn in the Third Age, she acknowledges Yelmgatha as Imperial Sun and sovereign over the lands she had liberated from the Carmanians, and as Emperor he in turn confirms her name and proper place in the cosmos as Sedenya, granddaughter of Dayzatar. The Lunar Period isn't that different from the Kargzant, Antirius, Nysalor, or Sun Dragon periods, in that respect, or the foretold Monster Empire to come. Being the Imperial Sun is as much a ritual status as it is an identity. From my own perspective, I don't see Kargzant and Yu-Kargzant as different beings. Those who acknowledge a deity other than the Sun Horse God as the Great Reigning Sun call the Sun Horse God "Kargzant" (or perhaps "Galanin," but let's not confuse things further) Those who know the Sun Horse God is the current Great Reigning Sun who returned light to the world after previous one was slain add the "Y'-" prefix. In completing the Ten Tests, Jenarong proved "Y'Kargzant" to be "Y'Elm"'s successor.

Death itself is kind of Chaos adjacent. Things aren't supposed to go back and forth between the Middle World and the Underworld. Eurmal found the Sword that is Death in the deepest hells, not coincidentally where the Chaosium itself lies. Eurmal should not have gone to the Underworld. Eurmal should not have brought Death back. Killing Grandfather Mortal broke all the Man Rune beings. Killing Yelm not only wrongly sent his Fire & Light to the place that should be Dark & Cold, it deprived the Middle World of his sustaining Stasis as well, making things even less stable. Bjiff's arrival below drove the Uz to the Middle World and unleashed their hunger upon the living things rather than keeping things in balance by eating bad things that emerge from the Chaosium like the good and proper cosmic immune system they were (though when the Unholy Trio unleashed Chaos upon the Middle World the Uz were sorely needed there as well). With every killing the world cracked a bit more. Part of the Compromise is keeping the is keeping the dead and the living mostly distinct from one another (seen more in Waha's part of the tale than Orlanth's), to the extent possible in the broken world. Combining Death with Truth and Fate, Humakt & Ty Kora Tek sometimes oppose Chaos in order to maintain the Compromised separation of the worlds, and oppose Chaotic obliteration that destroys victims utterly rather than merely separating them from Life. They're indifferent to it otherwise though. Zorak Zoran OTOH, combines Death with Disorder, and thus forsakes high-minded principles in favor slaughtering those he HATES! by any means necessary. As good Uz though, he particularly HATES! Chaos and Sky beings - thus his appeal to Arkat. Imperial Lunar Handbook II (which is oddly coming up left & right this week) has several Lunar cults that (attempt to) engage with Chaos in more constructive fashion than worshipping the Lords of Terror (with varying degrees of success, of course). Not being naive, they also have an order of Law + Eternal Battle wielding inquisitors who protect the people from outbreaks of nastiness, root out non-lluminated Chaos, keep watch over the Risklands, monitor Chaos-wielding cults for excesses, etc.

They will totally bend over backwards to save eachother's lives too.

They have both sworn to slay the other once they have finished killing every last follower of Yanafal Tarnils.

I would expect Aniti-Lunar Dara Happans to frame themselves as Yelm cult reformers/restorationists, just as those who overthrew Dara Happa on Horse or the Sun Dragon did. Such are not in power within the state or cult at present, obviously, but their number is also unlikely to be zero.

The version in ILH-2 shows a strong emphasis on officer magics, with Mastery alongside Death..

Thanks for inspiring me to look through ILH2 again.There are all these references in other works to the various Lunar Immortals & New Gods, institutionalized encouragement of Illumination and apotheosis, etc, but to date ILH2 is the only place it's ever been detailed - in all its HQ1 excessive-sub-cults glory. While I'm glad the upcoming GaGoG book for RQ will give at least some of these cults some love, ILH2's deep dive on the Lunar Way is likely to remain unparallelled for a long time to come.

"Jenny," short for "Jenarong." You're riding Dara Happa on Horse. Even better, call it "Sheng."

The Brown Book of Zzabur site has several HQG-style write-ups for solar cults a homelands Red Goddess one. The HW-era ILH vol 2 still has the most resources for deep cut Lunar cults though (and has Hwarin!).

Hsubchen shapechanging as rune magic strikes me as cramming a square peg into a round hole.

I don't know that Biturian's bias is Orlanthi as much as it is, "These assholes kidnapped me to make me fight to the death in a ritual out of spite because one of them was angry about having to leave his wife." That does make something of a bad impression. (Also, Elmal forever.)

I started work on an Arkati Secret Society questionnaire for Safelster back on Google+. I think I should have that post in a zip file or something...

Mr. Bombastic, aka Lover Lover? More appropriate for Tolat on Trowjang. Uh, no. I just tried to think of an as non-intimidating nickname for Shargas as possible So, it wasn't Shaggy then.

The forthcoming open-licensed successor to HQ2. The SRD is finished, with release pending final licensing details. Ron Edwards has already been using it as the foundation for his upcoming trippy-space-supers game, Cosmic Zap, and. "HeroQuest" will continue to be the trade name for Glorantha-focussed material, but farther afield "QuestWorlds" will not be forever confused with the old Milton Bradley boardgame.

I've certainly never heard of anyone doing rune magic with/as her. I'm just of a mind that these entities (mostly) respond in reflection to however they are approached. Most have one practice or another that is dominant within a given culture, but I think Storm Bull is unusual only in that his heterodox followers realize they're all on the same team and hang out sometimes. For as much as I'm often a voice for more distinct entities and less outright Interpatio Jrustela around here, West King Wind is clearly how Orlanth responded to Pentans shamanic entreaties.

I don't think I'd conclusively call any deity "shamans only" besides Horned Man, but in Prax Oakfed's the main partner of the Burners society, and Inora is the main partner of the Shadow People society. The latter is The White Princess in Nomad Gods.

Oakfed comes to mind. Some approach Inora this way.