Darius West

It is from Glorantha: The Second Age: Pavis Rises. Pavis, for reasons best known to himself uses the connection of the Puzzle Canal to temporarily hide a cradle, ostensibly to protect it from the Malkioni with the connivance of Labygyron, who also hides the EWF banner within the cradle in the hidden construction of the canals. On the other hand it does say on page 7 of Pavis Common Knowledge that Pavis devised traps for cradles. There are other inconsistencies with Pavis Rises, so I consider Pavis Common Knowledge to be a more reliable source. Remember Arlaten's Tower from Strangers in Prax ? According to Glorantha: The Second Age Pavis Rises, the Malkioni had various settlements within Pavis, including a presence on what is now Ogre Island where the Great Basher was erected for cradle snatching. The notion being that cosmopolitainism was a feature of ancient Pavis too, with various denominations of Malkioni having a place there, with even an area devoted to the new Carmanian Empire. He even allows Jrusteli refugees, including an handful of Zistorites. I don't hate the idea. Old Pavis back in the day was supposed to be an amazing place, and diversity can easily account for a large part of that amazingness under a harmony rune.

That was a very good summary. Thank you for that David. As I am running a Pavis based campaign atm this is all very valuable to me. I do have a couple of questions coming out of what you have written, and a couple a bit more out of left field. 1) I know Pavis hides a cradle in the Puzzle Canal to stop the Malkioni from grabbing it. Did the giants see this as a theft? Were they not aware of what had happened? Is this whole sequence of events part of what you mean by the cradle snatching still being a problem? 2) Did the Arrowsmiths raising the Zebra Tribe damage their alliance with the PHP? I would have thought that the PHP/Pavic alliance would have been effective in resisting the Praxians, given the apparent inability of Praxians to raid Dragon Pass due to the PHP. Or were the PHP still effectively keeping their treaty with Waha, and deserted their alliance with Pavis? I suppose what I am asking, is, given what a nuisance the PHP were, how come Jaldon didn't drive them off BEFORE going after Pavis? The Battle of Alvan Argay happens hundreds of years later, after all. I suspect that the PHP tried to intervene with the EWF armies that came to relieve Jaldon's siege, but I can find no mention of this. 3) What did the Praxians perceive was the Pavisite breach of the Peace of Paragua exactly ? I mean, from what I am aware, there were tribes who did graze within the walls of Pavis, and not just the Zebras. Did something change? 4) Are you aware of the "Eye of Wakboth" conspiracy theory by Michael Raaterova published in Questlines 2 ? The notion that the Waggoth power in the Devil's Playground is the real cause for the city, and its downfall (with lots of evil machinations from the EWF, God Learners, and Flintnail cult implied) ? Do you give any weight to the notion that the Stormbulls were mighty offended by the alleged use of chaotic waggoth mercenaries coming out of Pavis, and that is what allowed Jaldon to unite the tribes? 5) To what do you attribute Jaldon's tooth magic? It has been suggested that it is actually boggle magic, as boggles can eat anything, (and hence can be said to be trickster related). As for there being charismatic Raider Khans... err... isn't it just the same guy who keeps coming back?

I laughed quite a lot at the notion of the Thanatari intervening. The notion of a Lunar opportunist watching in horror as a Thanatari goes all "Red Dragon" on his precious ancient tome is some fine black comedy. Thanks for the mental image Evilroddy

I get the feeling that the Giants use some pretty major magic to get the cradles going. Also, I doubt there are many God Learners around who are prepared to perform the same Hero Quest every week to maintain the city of New Pavis' timber industry when it is more feasible to haul the timber along the Pavis Road by wagon at a fraction of the cost and none of the magical investiture.

A question has been preying on my mind of late. What motivated Jaldon (Many tooth related sword names)'s fanatical devotion to the destruction of Pavis? I mean Pavis was a hard and well defended target, and the city had done a lot to foster peace in the region. I would have thought that Pavis' intentions regarding a re-creation of the Green Age of peace, harmony and prosperity would have appealed to pretty much everyone in Prax. Praxians definitely benefited from the trade that the city provided too. Was it entirely to do with revenge for Pavis' alliance with the Pure Horse folk? Because it would seem that the Pure Horse folk were an easier target than Pavis, but Pavis gets destroyed in 940 while the Pure Horse are not driven from Prax until 1250 at the Battle of Alvan Argay. Jaldon is an interesting character. In life he traveled as far as Kralorela according to the Pavis Common Knowledge handout.

A fine point, and the fact is that it is plausible. The upper reaches of the Zola Fel are definitely forested, and we know Barran the Monster Killer goes there for giant boot timber. So what are the drawbacks? Well firstly you are going into an Elf forest that exists inside Troll lands. Now the elves are apparently defending the stump of their Shanasse tree and worship the Torch that makes the Shadows Dance. The light in the hills? A trophy torch left by the trolls to attract chaos? It all sounds pretty Yelmalion. It also says that the Aldryami are green elves and not numerous. So the defenders of the Redwoods are beleaguered Yelmalion green elves. Do they want you stealing their trees? I doubt it, regardless. But lets say that there is some second age compact between Pavis Elf-Blood and the Redwood Elves regarding timber. I daresay that the timber will be from trees that die or are damaged by trolls, which will limit the harvest. To which we have the reply Well... a 500 foot drop isn't going to do your logs much good, especially as waterfalls tend to scour the landscape beneath them to bare rock. Now when a log hits rocks from such a height the impact generally shatters your log "to shivers". As for the playful undines that slow the traverse of said logs, they had better be drawn from the souls of dead lovers who wanted to commit suicide, because redwood logs weigh many tons and are coming down that waterfall at terminal velocity with more force than a great troll's maul. Undines will be splashed into a million puddles. The other thing is, and I cannot emphasize this enough, the Leaping Place falls are a site of pilgrimage for the Zola Fel Cult. Imagine their joy when, as they bathe in the sacred rushing water of their God's holiest place, that their deity (or some *%#$!) delivers them the unexpected blessing of tons of lethal plummeting log. Roll dodge then the furious survivors can seek violent retribution for this blasphemous atrocity, possibly to be joined by a murderous band of Green Elves, eyes glazed, all hopped up on arrow trance out to avenge the plunder of their stand of ancestors. You may have the agreement of the Yelmalion elves, but they forgot to clear it with the Aldrayan fundamentalists. Needless to say that the trolls in the background just bide their time and "say grace" just as the fight ends, giving thanks to the Spider of Fate for the bounty that has been delivered to them this fine evening. So, anyone bringing timber down from the Redwoods will need to portage the logs around the Leaping Place Falls. Now are the Zola Fel Cult going to think that building a crane operation to lower the logs by rope is acceptable? No, it's an eyesore, plus 500+ foot is a damn long hawser, and it is definitely going to snap, and when it does, it will unleash plenty of force. It is simply not physically possible without a substantial Mostali technical presence and at least 2 kilometers worth of armor enchanted rope. And we are back to the wagons, but this time the wagons aren't on the Pavis Road. So, remembering their little ISIS fatwah(a) against wagons, an ululating warcry breaks out and the Praxians descend upon the hapless and vulnerable portagers, who have their load on a dangerous slope. Don't the Taliban Society nomads laugh when the driver of the laden wagon on a slope is shot between the eyes with an arrow and slumps, releasing the brake, sending the wagon careening down the slope squashing everyone in front of it, oops! Then there is another one... and another. It's raining battering rams! Now of course this is not to say that the Praxians will not attack a party in a vulnerable position who are using mules to haul a log, but your profit margin depends on the quantity of wood delivered, and mules are just not a cost effective or physically practical form of transport for logs. I am not saying it can't be done. Clearly Baran the Monster Killer does it. In fact the most likely people to manage the process are the Zola Fel cult. Portaging the logs around the leaping place will require digging a sluiceway for the logs, possibly housing undines to control the loads around the corners. It is also possible that there is an agreement to ship logs from the Redwoods, as the god Pavis was kin to those elves and the elves of the Garden are proof of that continued link. Given the ecologically conscious nature of the cults involved however, I just don't see how it can ever be a major source of timber without damaging the forest and the river, and altering the geography. Back to Lokarnos wagons across Prax. I am enjoying this btw.

Yeah, the whole HQ magic system is too easy and lacks the grittiness I want in a game. I cut my teeth on RQ2 and grew up on RQ3, and I found HQ Glorantha a substantial disappointment, and I was not alone. Season to taste of course, you obviously like your Glorantha more the HQ way. YGWV. You say that people often overlook that magic is everywhere in Glorantha. But look again. Ordinary people really don't have much access to that magic. Most people will probably be a member of one pretty mundane cult, because it is all they can afford, and they aren't heroes of legend, they are everyday heroes struggling to survive a difficult bronze age existence. Are there heroquests for growing cabbages and stickpicking? Indubitably, but that is all done at Sacred Time. For the rest of the year for most Gloranthans life can be pretty mundane (assuming it isn't under threat). For me the appeal of Glorantha was not that it was a high magic environment, but in the realization of pantheonic and tribal mythic visions and relationships as the magic, while essentially keeping the magic sort of low key and the environment low fantasy. The fact is, (to use King of Sartar the computer game as an example), you can have no sacred time magic for herds, and fail your Uralda heroquest badly, but still make your herds grow through good management, raiding and trade. So did your heroquest really fail? Did your rituals really fail? Or maybe it is possible to succeed despite all the magic (there's an irony)? The mundane world matters. Grounding Glorantha in real world examples makes it better imo, because it makes the world more textured and the magic more "magical" when it is there. Of course my argument on this point is purely aesthetic. Opili masons etc. Yes they probably do have the building malarky down pat by now, in fact they would have had it down pat before Pavis fell, but sourcing timber is a part of that process. Did you ever wonder why the Big Rubble hasn't been rebuilt? I can guarantee it isn't just because of all the trolls. Yes, shortage of building materials. Too expensive. As to importing bamboo, probably not for Pavis in 1620, because bamboo makes a natural mold for terracotta tiles, hence the distinctive shape of the tiles of traditional roofs in China and Japan etc. Pavic architecture is more middle eastern, and no hemispherical tiles are in evidence. But yes, I am sure that it is possible to introduce fast growing bamboo varieties to the Zola Fel valley and then watch in horror as it takes off after the local plant species like a broo in a barnyard. And you thought the God Learners were bad with their goddess switch Timber is seldom a viable trade commodity, because it is normally heavy and low value. Not in Pavis however, nor in Ancient Egypt. Egypt benefited from having overseas timber sources, and ports to draw upon. Using ships to transport heavy cargoes is not so bad. Corflu isn't really up to it yet though, and what was New Pavis doing before Corflu? I also recognize that the Oasis people grow trees, but there are very few Oasis timbers that are any good for weapons IRL. In fact fig and date and other oasis woods are crappy for building too; fine for fruit though. Ancient Egypt had a similar economy to the Zola Fel river, and timber was a huge import for them. I take what people are saying about supplies of cypress from the lower Zola Fel and the Bog seriously. I am sure that there are solutions for shipping wood to New Pavis, but the city's requirements, not to mention all the outlying settlements, would rapidly denude the wild cypress trees along the Zola Fel. If there is a Red Elf caravan coming down from the Rockwoods with timber, fine, but how are they transporting it? Elves aren't known for having great transportation methods, or for trading in timber for that matter. Isn't selling timber sort of like desecrating the bones of their ancestors? I think human and even mostali and troll timber "raids" would be more likely, especially after Barran the Monster Slayer gets his giant boot timber. Of course transporting the material will be difficult... and thus we are back to wagons... Simply put, you can put timber on a mule or on some other beast of burden, but you are grossly limited in how much and what lengths of material they can carry before being overburdened, then you have to feed and water the poor beasts every day, not to mention loading and unloading them again as well, which means paying mule skinners who can properly balance loads and unload without accidentally crippling the animals. It is a huge problem over long distances. Floating logs down a stream is a good answer, if you happen to have a stream handy. Floating logs up a stream is less handy but possible with the right sort of boat and know-how if there aren't too many rapids. But wagons are so much better at this task it is breathtaking. I loved this. Thanks M Helsdon. This is the New Pavis I remember. "Cast a detect magic on the damn things before you disassemble them, you don't want to strip down the wrong one and have some "Block Anus" merchant bitching to the Governor about how you buggered his matrices. Next thing you know Sor Eel will figure out our angle, he will come swooping in for his cut and the game is up for us little players." To which his buddy laughs "Haw! Sor-Eel swooping! I can't think of a less majestic figure of a man." The point is that the Lunar Military has some of the deepest pockets in Glorantha in 1620 and big plans to make Corflu into a major trading port, and potentially a large shipyard to boot. Some might say that was one of their major reasons for invading Prax; they wanted a port on the Homeward Ocean. That means the wagons will keep the timber rolling and if there is a bit of corruption along the way, well, just so long as the job gets done... The fact that it is an inevitable economic bubble, because Corflu is all but uninhabitable due to the disease and giant mosquitoes, it needs constant dredging, and has little access to ship building supplies. It is merely an upcoming central planning comedy that will embarrass the Empire.

Yes, that is utterly correct, but the current Sable ascendancy is still Praxians owning Prax. There is no Lunar settler push into the Oases or the chaparral, nor is there a poisoning of wells or a building of fences, and there is no great slaughter of the bison like there was in North America that made the Native American Plains tribes' way of life untenable. It is also worth remembering that the White Bull Society is largely composed of Sable riders. The true irony of the situation is that there is good reason to suppose that the Lunar sorcerers were hauling the herd beasts to Pavis on invisible red ropes in order to bring peace to the region (under Lunar dominion of course). Then Argrath hijacks the process and uses it to bring peace to the tribes and bring the Jaldon prophecy to fruition (KoS22-23). On the other hand, I can't imagine that the citizens of New Pavis were at all happy to see Jaldon Toothmaker back again. I'm sure they all thought Argrath had betrayed them initially.

I am not referring to Pavis the God, but Pavis the City as a civilization, to clarify. Of course it was Joraz Kyrem who introduced Zebras. More importantly, did bringing in Zebras help Pavis the city? Not a bit. Did having a seat at the Paps ultimately achieve much diplomatically? No. They were still the invader enemy. All that effort was wasted. They would have been wiser to build up a stronger cheaper cavalry presence and preparing better defenses for the walls, and just face the fact that there is no meaningful peace with Praxians, only temporary alliances at best, and not too many of them. So you would agree then that Lokarnos merchants on the Pavis road could be bringing in a steady supply of timber and selling it at a healthy profit. Because the Lunars will get their comeuppance in 1625, but the timber trade to Pavis will still continue well after Sartar wins its freedom back. This does of course underline the unusual achievement of Argrath in uniting the Praxians against the Lunars and keeping them all on side. Now THAT is the achievement of a superhero, no doubt helped a little by the Lunar sorcerers trying to drag the leading herd beasts into Pavis with invisible red ropes (KoS22).

Except that Praxians aren't in any danger of being pushed out of Prax. If anything being the neighbors of the Praxians is a bit like being the neighbors of the Mongol Horde. Really the Lunars are only interested in the Zola Fel river valley region. They aren't setting up fortified water taxing stations at every oasis or mass killing all the Prax beasts the way the bison hunters slaughtered the Bison in the old west. I wrote the piece as a means of putting forwards the position of any Lokarnos merchant travelling through Prax. Ultimately the Praxians could choose to buy the timber they will use at a market in Pavis and they could trade a few beasts to do so, but they inevitably prefer murder, slaving and thieving because braves need blooding, and if you win, the merchants will be buying their own goods back from you. Outsiders probably start by thinking, "Oh, okay, lets be nice to the locals and follow the traditions so they know we are friendly. No horses. No wagons. Mules and Zebras only. Hey... Wait a minute, they're still attacking us. What did we do wrong? Oh, wait, they raid other tribes all the time, and it isn't like they have horses or wagons either, and they don't even know us. Or worse, maybe they are attacking because they think we know their customs and so will understand that raiding us and selling us into slavery isn't anything personal? So maybe we basically won't care about their customs from here on out? I mean FFS they use magic to give prisoners animal minds then eat them saying they are 'herd men', and somehow that isn't cannibalism and they aren't a pack of ogres. Makes you wonder about the chaos sense of the Storm Bulls, doesn't it ?"

This is better than "Bored of the Rings" Pentallion, link included for comparison. Please keep going. I want to hear about how they don't deal with the Aldryami. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bored_of_the_Rings

And yet there is a Lokarnos Temple in Pavis in the main market area (Public Neighborhood P-4), and another one in the Sun Dome. Frankly, the Praxians attack other Praxian and foreigners without provocation if they see a credible opportunity, so I don't think outsiders pay much attention to their silly taboos. Are there horse riders living in Prax? Yes. Do the Praxians do much about this? No, try as they may. They haven't dislodged the Lunars, the Sun Domers, or the Pol Joni. Did Pavis go to all the trouble of domesticating Zebras to make peace with the Praxians? Yes. Did they sack Pavis anyhow? Yes. So can Praxians be reasoned with? No. So do we care about their taboos? No. So merchants just factor the risk of Praxian attack in to the pricing of the final item when they take it to market. What do Lokarnos worshippers do when Praxians show up and "complain" about the wagons? They circle the wagons and prepare for attacks. I suspect that their wagons also have a few spikes on them so that a rhino or bison can't simply headbutt one over without dying horribly. Praxian taboos are merely a pretext for an attack, the real reason is grubby profit from banditry. Based on their history, Praxians aren't "noble savages", for the most part they are religiously intolerant scumbags, thieves, slavers and murderers, and their level of morality is MUCH WORSE than that of a contemporary outlaw motorcycle gang while bearing some superficial similarities. Lokarnos worshipers would stick mainly to the Pavis road like everyone else, and will do so with the protection of the Lunars and Sun County. If the nomads come, (and they always do, regardless of what sort of animal you ride or cart you do or do not haul), then you come in strength with the main seasonal caravan, fight them, beat them soundly, complain to the Governor...again... raise your final price, and be done with it. The simple fact is that you can't build the scaffolding necessary for stone buildings without timber. I suspect that Mostali used bronze scaffolding, and sorcery back in the time of the old City, but today they will have to make do like everyone else. Do you seriously think that the Flintnail cult is called in to cast "Support" or the equivalent sorcery every day of construction? One of the rules is that the use of magic costs money. Money that most Pavisites don't have. Temples, fortifications, and official buildings (some at least) may be built in stone, but most people living in Pavis simply can't afford that, and the illustrations from Pavis supplements and maps support this. Most buildings in New Pavis are not stone but adobe, mud brick, cob, or wattle and daub, manufactured from the mud and reeds of the Zola Fel. You need timber for supports in mud based buildings or your supporting columns severely restrict your available inside space if you want a second story. Given the well established architectural style of New Pavis from the artwork, they are using timber. Consider the illustration on page 65 of River of Cradles, or all the support posts in Gimpy's on page 73, or the planked deck of the Temple Barge on 74. Shrubs will yield short lengths of wood suitable for axe handles, short hardwood bows, and arrows. Bone and horn are great materials for making composite bows, and even tolerable armor, but you can't get lances that way unless we want to retcon in some sort of amazing adhesive, that is better than boiled beast cartilage and actually strengthens the glued materials, like some modern "alchemical adhesives". Otherwise we are back to timber. Either way, you can't make a decent lance or spear without wood, and what do most Praxians take into battle? Spears and lances pretty much every time. Pikes if you are Agimori or a Sun Domer. And heirloom spears are fine, but what do you do when you have six sons and at least 3 of them need pikes, but you only have the one heirloom pike? Or when that pike breaks and your family don't know the repair spell? As population grows, you need more weapons. Strangely however the stonemasons are not building much in New Pavis, based on the illustrations and architectural style but spend most of their time trying to rebuild the Rubble apparently, if the cult write ups are to be accepted. Quite a few things are not strictly listed and written up in New Pavis that would be required to make the city viable. For example, we also don't have much of a write up about how Pavis supplies its population with fuel for their hearths for cooking, or where the stockpile of that fuel material is located. I would not argue for wood as the preferred material, but either dried reeds or dung chips. A city of 3-5,000 people would require a mighty big stockpile of fuel for their cooking fires. Where is it? Because that lack of fuel is a way bigger problem than the apparent lack of a Carpenter, given the number of undescribed buildings in Pavis. The fact is that Pavis is a fantasy city, and most GMs and players don't worry about where the fuel for the cooking fires comes from. As with going to a supermarket, the goods appear in the market and the problem is solved, and nobody asks where they came from... until they do, and nobody knows. I have closely researched each of a series of construction methods for stone, and various types of mud and clay, but inevitably they can't be done without timber, either inside as supports or roof beams or used as scaffolding. Without timber you wind up with multiple 2m thick clay support columns to support a second story, and buildings that look a lot more like Mos Eisley than New Pavis, Dwarf sorcery notwithstanding. Who can throw money away on Dwarf construction sorcery apart from Dwarves? Well, the Flintnail cult can earmark their spells for given work periods, but they are mainly beavering away on their own hidden projects, hence the premium price. If you aren't a big player, you won't pay for sorcery, unless Pavis cult membership nets you a massive discount. I suspect they could also get timber from the Stormwalks, even though Prax is in the rain shadow; probably one of the reasons Barbarian Town exists.

I guess I am most interested in the Hidden Paths of the Praxian Tradition. It does specifically say there are many other small societies. These would be the elements that would give individual clans their most distinctive aspects I think. As for dropping bachelor and warrior terms, really? I mean, clearly unmarried males in any tribal society form a distinct classification, and are especially important as a measure of how war ready a population is. A warrior is simply a term for someone who has an established skill at fighting. I would assume that a brave is a bachelor, but a married rider has lived long enough and raided hard enough to get a wife and is therefore a warrior. The notion of bachelor societies is another pretty much ubiquitous term across the nomad and tribal societies of Earth, especially among societies that have a warrior tradition and where the young men therefore need training in those skills. As for warrior societies, that is merely the more adult form of the same thing. I would imagine that the young men need to compete to earn the right to go from lay members to initiates in the Hidden Paths.

I am surprised that nobody mentions timber in the imports section for Pavis. In my New Pavis the Lokarnos Cult has a longstanding defacto monopoly on wood and timber imports that can't really be brought into the city in any size without wagons. Having given the matter some thought, New Pavis has big problems in this regard. While it is possible to build a house using adobe, wattle and daub, cob, or mud brick, it is very hard to do without timber. It is possible to use arches or slabs to build a second story in mud, but raising the slab will require a crane, and a crane will need to be made of timber. In an environment where space is at a premium, such as a walled city, timber is hard to do without. Making supporting walls from mud brick is certainly possible, but they need to be thick, and thickness is not desirable in this instance. Working in finished stone is possible of course, but without timber, even that becomes a headache of improvisation. One individual who notably breaks this mold is Barran the Monster Killer, who comes to Prax in search of timber of all things. Of course he doesn't stop on the River of Cradles but heads upstream to find Giant Boot timber for his new vessel. So we know that if you go into the Rockwoods there is timber there. Of course the Rockwoods are pretty dangerous, what with all the broos and trolls and avalanches. Now according to Glorantha Digest there are trees growing in the lower reaches of the Zola Fel. This would seem somewhat insufficient. Considering that most of the nomads use either lances or bows, and the Yelmalios and Agimori use pikes, there simply has to be a good local source of long timber fit for crafting such weapons. It is quite possible that there are plantations of trees specially grown and closely guarded for these purposes along the Zola Fel too. Now the use of timber poses issues for the Aldryami in the area, but obviously nobody is harvesting the Garden. As the Lokarnos cult is not sourcing its timber from Elf forests, the Aldyami probably don't overly care. Pulling any decent sized piece of timber out of the Rubble may be worth the time, as structural beams, and even complete boards would be valuable. In my New Pavis the supply of timber is a closely controlled resource and each consignment of timber has a fate determined well in advance of its arrival. The primary claimants for each cargo are the Lunar Authority who earmark a certain amount of timber for maintenance and fresh construction. Next is the Pavis Temple and Flintnail, who are responsible for maintaining existing buildings and earmark some materials for construction projects in the Rubble. Ultimately, most timber will go to the carpenter's guild, but supplies of wood also get earmarked for use in some boat building, when reeds won't do. Weapon hafts and items such as javelins and arrows will mainly be imported. All the major families, the Goldbreaths, the Eiskollis, the Garhounds etc all maintain carefully protected copses of trees, possibly something like red oak that puts on 2ft a year and is quite strong and grows to 40'-50'. Obviously New Pavis doesn't stockpile any form of wood for burning as fuel. For this they would rely on animals for dried dung chips and tallow for lamps. It is possible that dry reeds will also be used, especially for torches.

metcalph has the right of it imo.

I think much could be understood about this Nabuzel Ninequills if we had a clue about what was in the Red Book. Does it even have anything to do with Lunar Worship, given that it is a God Learner artifact? Next up, as Glamour is part of Dara Happa, and Dara Happa was EWF territory not God Learner territory, what has Nabuzel found exactly? I would guess it was part of an old EWF intelligence report concerning some sort of God Learner grimoire... unless the item came from Dorastor and the God Learner experiments there (heavens forfend !) So what is the Red Book ? A Grimoire of blood sacrifice and chaotic magic fresh from the collective id of the Vadeli ? Uleria's address book? or a Grimoires from an egalitarian Malkioni heresy that sought to abolish castes and property (like the Dolcinites or the Bretheren of the Free Spirit, sort of proto-Communists) ? Perhaps the Red Book is the fabled lab text that allowed the God Learners to create the Fire Bergs that broke the Waertagi ? It sounds to me like Nabuzel is a vicious opportunist, with just enough official clout to be properly dangerous. I imagine that the various relevant Lunar intelligence communities look on him with considerable consternation. He was quite probably a member of one or more such organization in some sort of analysis role. I imagine that they are sizing him up to check his influence before it grows too large, and potentially to steal his prize before he can land it. Nobody likes an interloper on their patch. I imagine that the enemies of the empire look on Nabuzel as being merely the latest form of cancer the Empire had infected them with, but I imagine they would be partial to his coin if the risks were not absurd. I imagine that there would be plenty who would view Nabuzel as this sort of target for Lunar internal scrutiny and would use him as a stalking horse to discover and liquidate or turn established Lunar spies in their communities. He's obviously trouble. I also really like Jon Hunter's contribution. A nuanced character is always better. However driven he may be, you need to humanize him. Even sociopaths have quirks and attitudes.

Damn, the link is broken for me.

What do we know about Praxian bachelor societies and warrior societies ? I mean we know a lot about Storm Bull, and a bit about Oakfed and the Three Feathered Rivals. I would imagine there must be a plethora of Praxian spirit cults that sub-initiate within and without clans. Glorantha: The Second Age: Pavis Rises on pages 91-96 details a simple system for randomizing ancestors, and I believe that Avalon Hill's Heroes ran a detailed article on the Ostrich riders that had a write up on their integration of Yelmalio as a warrior society, as well as a boomerang cult? Or has my memory failed me? We also know from Cults of Prax that Morak is the product of a secret Storm Bull mating ritual conducted by such a society, something that Norayeep oddly seemed a little ashamed of. On the other hand that suggests that young women join warrior societies too, meaning that Eiritha herd expertise is potentially available, and warrior societies probably have their own herds. It is also possible for Eiritha worshipers to join such societies looking for a husband if their prospects aren't wonderful with their clan.

So you see the process of becoming Khan as essentially a democratic process? It never even occurred to me that a Khan was elected. I always assumed that Khans were chosen through a more ritual and initiatory process; that clan members were keeping a mental note of who was the best leader, the best raider, the best defender of the herd, the one others might learn from. I assumed that Khans had to perform a series of difficult ordeals, quite apart from their formal Waha initiation, vision quests involving starvation and psychotropics, or more "A man called horse" style pain based initiations, part hazing, part heroquest. I thought that the child of a Khan gained a huge starting advantage by being around "power" and thus was more likely to inherit as would any noble, not to mention that they would be more likely to receive an advantageous marriage. Of course the Eiritha priestesses would want a fertile Khan who would listen to them, and who was an able leader and warrior too, and could play politics to get their candidate selected. In the case of 2 or more highly able candidates, no doubt there would be a series of trials by ordeal, or a short quest to determine the best candidate. I would guess however that on most occasions, the present Khan would simply name a successor, and if the successor didn't measure up then the clan would gradually drift into the ambit of another clan for a while before splitting off under another leader. Voting with their hooves if you will. I suppose an unpopular or incompetent choice might make people pack up and leave early. I would have thought that a quasi democratic process like wapentake might be fine to select who would lead a raid, but selecting a Khan would be a lot more of a top-down selection process by the clan religious hierarchy. To the original point however, I concur that peace would be the preferred norm within a Praxian Beast Tribe, unreservedly even. I mean of all the people who you can make war on, why your own relatives? Why your own tribe? On the other hand, I think human relations have a tendency towards fractiousness, and often the bitterest fights and rivalries are those within an organization or familial group. That is where prestige and power is handed out, and someone always winds up feeling slighted, someone always has an ambitious spouse who wants a bigger slice of the pie, someone is always bitter that they didn't get the girl or the boy or were the younger brother and nurse a resentment. I would suspect that a lot of what Waha does around the campfire of an evening in fact is trust building stories and methods to strengthen internal clan bonds and mitigate trouble before it occurs.

So what happens when the Sables who have accepted the Red Moon meets the White Bull Sables? They sit down all chummy by the fireside and laugh about the vagueries of the deities like a bunch of old illuminates? Probably not. Politics is very pragmatic, and in many ways direct religion, and Waha is a very pragmatic deity. We know that warrior societies form and "bully" clans politically, as Jaldon did after his early and unsuccessful attacks on Pavis. I see it differently. Waha values strength, and raiding is a way of life. Different clans within a tribe may well have ongoing political differences, for example when Ansil Clan needs 25 head for a dowry and Flower Bison owes them 25 head but says they cannot afford to give them up because their herds are too small, Ansil takes the 25 in a raid as they are warlike and feel owed AND slighted, but this enrages Flower Bison who counter raid to get them back, starting a tit-for-tat feud and breaking. Similarly if a Khan wants to count coup against another Khan within his tribe, stealing from him shows that he is weak while the successful raider is strong. The real issue is the spilling of human blood in such raids. The raiders are probably obliged to disable but not kill their opponents, and when such a taboo is broken then an outlawry, death price, and reconciliation has a chance to occur. On the other hand sometimes these old wrongs have a long tradition, and even at tribal moots the other clans need to separate the problem members on opposite sides of the camping ground. Often warring clans form the political polarities within tribes, and the tribe itself serves as a means of mitigating the worst excesses of the conflict and stop it escalating. In King of Sartar for example, it is quite acceptable for feuding clans to be in the same tribe; the danger being that they can shift to another tribe and potentially cause a tribal war. That is no danger in Prax, as once an impala rider always an impala rider; clans don't switch beasts. As for female power stopping the feud, I think you will find that often it is the womenfolk driving the feud behind the scenes, especially if we are drawing on anthropological precedents from our world, like the Bedouins, the Berbers, the Mongols, the Tibetan herders, and the Plains tribes of North America.

Do Praxians raid other clans of their tribe? E.g. do Bison riders raid bison riders on occasion, or Ostrich riders raid their own? What are the consequences for such raids ? Do they signal a catastrophic upheaval within the clan or is such activity pretty ordinary?

ls it possible that while the entry #271,852 starts on page 30, that entry #271,852 goes for 3 or more pages, and the relevant text entry is on page 32? That way both entries are correct but using a marginally different notion of how to reference, as would be typical in any LM temple, and would generate endless academic arguments.

That is true only up to a point. As far as I am aware, the tusks were on top of a leather helmet, and broken teeth could be replaced. A bronze helmet by comparison could not be so easily repaired as it would require re-casting any broken piece from scratch. You can't just cold work bronze back into position, or even reforge it the way you do with iron. Bronze is a very unforgiving material. I am sure re-sewing a few broken tusks is a doddle by comparison.

How can you take no credit while being listed in the credits? If you are listed in the credits, you are probably allowed to take a little... As for the RQ6 hack, I already have a copy, but thx.

Only 40 or 50 pigs huh? Well if the tusks are too small you can't use them, so that would mean either keeping a boar alive for long enough to produce good tusks or buying the tusks from a hunter. RQ6 says that a regular pig costs 50 silver and a superior pig costs 150 silver. So pricing tusks, even at half the value of a "reasonable pig" still makes the price of the helmet 1250 silvers, but lets face facts, it is probably more expensive. This at least makes a tusk helmet around the price of a standard plated helmet costs (1400), and probably a lot more. It would probably weigh around the same amount too at a guess.