Byll

No doubt I'd admired that picture when I got my shiny reprint copy of the guide, but I hadn't realised from the text in PP 48-53 that there was any skin color variation between Western Genertelan Malkioni castes (though the art direction does say that the Seshnelan Zzaburi is dark skinned now that I look again). My first reading was just that the Westerners associated the roles and responsibilities of ruler, wizard, soldier and worker with the colours yellow blue red and brown, and that in Seshnela (unusually amongst the rest) this was extended to the colour of clothing that people were allowed to wear. I wonder if the War Societies also have functional specialisms as well as being basic-training competent troops. For example that the Horse society makes the best cavalry, that the Wolf and Lion societies are the best drilled infantry, the Deer make the best field-scouts the Mammoths are the best in defence or the Snakes are good at penetrating enemy positions.

I knew (know) next to noting about Westerners, so please bear with my ignorance. Overall I felt that their defining craracteristic of humanism still gave them an early-modern/late-medieval flavour despite rumours of them having been turned more Hellenistic. Things like the "Zzaburi of the Rokari school must remain celibate and seek to free themselves of all worldly concerns" P49 "the aristocracy is inordinately fond of martial games" P52 "Each community performs regular ceremonies where they provide magical energy to the Zzaburi wizard priests", "Temples to the Invisible God ...consist of an inner sanctum... a congregation hall and sometimes antechamber or porches ...the inner sanctum is crowned by a tower built to be the tallest structure in the city" P53 all sound very like Europe at the start of the Renaissance, but I suppose are also true of many other historical societies. I am interested in their attachment to colours, has this always been a theme? "Malkioni society is divided into castes (or 'colors') each with its own taboos, secrets clothing..." P48, "The noble caste is called Talars and is the 'Yellow Caste' P48, Wizards are called Zzaburi and constitute the 'Blue Caste'." P49, "Soldiers are called Horali and constitute the 'Red Caste'." P49, "The vast majority of Western society are workers called Dronars. They form the 'Brown Caste'." P49. "In Seshnela each caste and sub caste has its own distinctive clothing and attire which are strictly regulated by the Rokari wizards" P51 (those guys who must seek to free themselves of all worldly concerns are going to be checking your hem length, perhaps it's the celibacy thing) "Yellow is the preferred [Talar] color" P51, "The preferred [Zzaburi] textile is wool or silk dyed either a blue so dark it is almost black or dyed white to emphasise their purity" P51, "The precise [Horali] attire depends upon the War Society, although the color red is preferred." P51 "The [Dronar] textile colors and design depend upon the sub caste: farmers wear homespun linen, usually coarse and undyed grey and brown. Wealthier townsfolk ...prefer finer textiles and dye their cloth in those colors allowed for their sub caste (yellow blue and red being strictly forbidden." P51 How well defined are Malkioni color hues? When does brown become red? When does red become orange, or orange become yellow? is blue distinct from cyan? Are foriegners allowed to wear any Caste Color? Could there be any connection between the Malkioni caste colours and the skin colours of Brithini and Vadeli? Are the immortal blue Brithini in any way connected to the Spiral Path to immortality said to have been taught by 'the Great Princess' in the Entekosiad Ent:P32 "they changed color as they grew older first being white as children, red as adults and blue as elders... But they were hated for this by everyone else [who] poured a burning liquid on the Spiral Path... everyone was forced to swear away their belief and ancestry..." I like the idea of the Seshnelan War Societies with animal totems. Is this a regional thing or do Horali of other Western peoples have animal War Societies?

It works very well for illustrating that key bit of that scenario, with the backlighting it's not a big issue. I suppose I was just curious about it having the two-courtyard building (and the Suntown gate towers behind it) looking so familiar but also a bit different. I've also diverted the thread a bit away from Praxians, so to nudge it back in the right direction can anybody give us s scoop on what the art direction might be for the cover of the forthcoming Prax-sourcebook

Why did they decide to go with the left right mirror image? I guessed it would be something design-y like the direction of the celebrant, the bunting and the smoke being towards the spine instead of away from it. With most of the buildings in shadow it's not immediately obvious but when you look at it for a bit it gradually dawns on you.

Have them attract the interest of an influential Seventhed troubleshooter who smooths over all the ructions that they get embroiled in with paranoid patrols and indignant magistrates, but keeps following them to attempt to convince them that their westfaring will ultimately depend upon them making their peace with the Red Goddess rather than with the Emperor!

Why not, when we could have a 1914 Christmas truce?

P39 "Dara Happan cities have concentric streets joined by radiating main roads leading to the central temple complex" This is great detail. Are the concentric streets still following a square pattern (respecting Yelm's four directions)? Or do they become increasingly circular (8, 16, 32 etc straight line sections)? Are the city walls on a square alignment? "Pelorian Society is divided into Noble, Witnesses, Officers, Headmen, Workers and Slaves" This reflects what the Entekosiad says about refugees joining Hurfor/Kargzant's following as "Fiths or even as sixths - Servants or Slaves"

I had a quick look at Spol. It has 100k population in approx. 158 185 hexes (tough rounding those whole hexes, particularly in the forests). 540 people per hex about four times more densely populated than your frontier-standard. If you discount the urban 18,000 then is it 443 people per hex.

Is it supposed to be some sort of hybrid sword-spear? His mount is supposed to be too high to reach sable/Impala riders or morocanth - maybe he can slash with it as well as impale. Apaecameli browse from trees, maybe the three spikes are for sticking into a tree trunk to assist the rider clambering in and out to cut forage from higher branches. Could be difficult to extract again though, whereas you can get a fairly good contact with the axe blade, and still be able to lever it out afterwards.

"The women own their tribal animals ... They are responsible for tending the herds ...and for all healing. Men own their captured beasts and are responsible for herding the beasts killing and butchering animals, protecting them from raiders and monsters and for raiding others. Because beasts pass strictly from mothers to daughters, young men usually marry outside their own clan. They raid other clans to capture beasts to give to the young women they woo." P29/30 Women can only 'own' their tribal animals so this suggests that the only beasts that the young men can deliver to them are tribal animals raided from other clans of their tribe. Other beasts could be give to male relatives or converted into meat and given to the young women's families, but this seems a less personal gift. I don't understand the causal link between tribal animals only going to daughters and men marrying out of the clan, (unless possibly it is a risk reduction strategy that spreads the clans descendants over the widest number of herd beasts). Who gets a man's captured animals on his (perhaps untimely ) death? Perhaps the tribe just slaughters them all as a communal feast remembering the departed, or perhaps they pass to male members of his married out clan.

"The children of Orlanthi slaves are not slaves, and are adopted into the clan that owns the mother." P33 Do they take on the status of the household that owns the mother (i.e. noble / carl / cottar)?, does it depend on the status of the couple that the clan make the adoptive parents of the child? or is the child automatically a cottar? Does the child belong to the adopting bloodline for later marriage purposes? to its natal bloodline (where fully known) or to both? Does the same happen to a dependent child when their (surviving) parent becomes a slave or is it first assumed that some of its own relatives / clan members must adopt it?

The Ostrich Tribe seems to be omitted from the Independent Tribes of Prax on P27 and P28

Is there a typo on the Chaosium front dust jacket where its says "Unlike most fantasy settings Glorantha draws its inspiration for the ancient world" To my (British-english) ear, it sounds as though it ought to have been "...draws its inspiration from the ancient world"

Very late to the party, but I'm going to try to keep on the road with it (I only have the Chaosium hard copy version to date On the cover, the Rebellus Terminus Ouranekki piece seems to be the only one in Silver (the other Night pieces are gold like Yelm and the Day pieces. These seem to be different Night pieces from the web-site previously linked to in the thread (Dragon and the blue circle are not in the web-site set in that form, though Uleria is and could well be the blue circle piece). One of the lines that made me think was Page 7 "Most people live only in the mundane world content to let priests, shamans and wizards protect them. But the influence of the magical world is always there" I'd always felt that most people in Glorantha had more contact with the supra mundane worlds than that e.g. at Sacred Time / Holy days / Disease treatment (albeit guided and guarded by the magical specialists) I ws also surprised by P17 "Manifestations of advanced cultures such as cities roads and planted fields are far less common than in our modern world." 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) . I liked Page 16 "As a matter of note the word for "Adventurer" does not exist in most Gloranthan languages. The word means many things but usually indicates someone taking risks, often illicit or at least without too many scruples for selfish personal gain" So if you give your occupation as 'Adventurer' to the Watch, you are as good as admitting to 'Chancer', 'Wide-boy' or 'Fanatic'. Fair point. I also look forward to improving my understanding of the Blue Veldang, Green Waertagi, and the Teleono of one of six colours in later chapters.

Well quite. You can't make the wind blow through the sails of a windmill. If it wants to thumb its nose at your efforts and blow around and above the sails it will. I don't think that's any cause for a religious objection. Orlanth admits he has responsibilities, now and then that could include helping get the work done. On a practical level though I think the most likely answer is lots of animal driven querns out in the farming settlements in Pavis County, and maybe some hand querns in the larger more old fashioned households in NewPavis. Commercial bakers like Nan's Breadbox probably ship flour in rather than grinding their own.

Nice character sketches, maybe Roman and Chaosium could produce a Pimp-my-PC app for 'customising' your tattoos, bling and muscle development from a set of drop-down menus. Or we could continue to sketch our own :-) , unfortunately we don't all have the same talent and creativity.

Where does grain get ground into flour for the New Pavis population? Simple answers might be Out in Pavis County Most households grind their own The second seems unlikely, but the first might make sense If it is a more centralised system where are the mills? Is there is a mill attached to the granaries? I don't remember it being mentioned. Is it water powered and on the Zola Fel? (inside or outside the Giant Walls? )

That was never made entirely clear. The necrobanker was unable to talk about or even remember most of his colourful past, and eventually became convinced of his own innocence. It had a lot of HP - it was a sort of small feisty elephant that flew down from moonbeams on giant butterfly wings.

Well, whilst I was still a pro-bishop on the run, I did save the life of the necromantic banker who was in league with the apocalyptophile foreign gnostic bishops' cabal after my party had bashed him and his moon-fly to or beyond death's door. He was geased by the AFG bishops, unfortunately, so we never got any information out of him. I'd have to dig in the records to see if I got any XP for my efforts.

There's a definite grey area where Chalana Arroy worshipers can become enablers for their more violent cohorts within the family/tribe/adverturer-party if they keep patching them up and sending them off to do it again. Is it ethical to reinforce people's violent behaviour by relieving them from the consequences in this way? I once tried taking the Chalana Arroy ethic to a Pathfinder group where I was the cleric. I started off with non-lethal net and club skills and a lot of healing spells, but I was eventually turned into a typical D&D church militant crusader with the need to use things like thunderclap spells to 'protect' my own bruisers and supporters from detachments the 'bad' guys. I had a nice blog for a while as the swearyest bishop in the summer country.

The old Traveller Sulieman scout ship (which was shaped like a NASA Almond) had several compartments that were entirely outside the hull when you considered its 3D slope.

"Quack, quack"...

Scripted evolution in the game world, even a YGWV type world, is not everybody's cup of tea. I know time marches on in the real world, but I don't want to emulate all of the real world... Traveller did oodles of this but it was all water off a duck's back to me.

So how does the Orlanthi up hold his 'Just' Trait when he is being 'Reckless' and 'Violent' ? I know there is an inherent tension in Orlanthi kingship acknowledging earlier imprudent action and trying to correct it, but there must be cases where you only have to epitomise a part of a god's characteristics.