Darius West

I think his issue has to do with breaking immersion or some such.  Players, huh?  Finicky bunch.

Name:  God Masks

Description:  Masks, typically made in the form of stylized representations of the gods, inlaid with precious materials and frequently of great age.  The masks are typically made of materials appropriate to the elements of the deity they depict.  For example, earth cults favor colored clays, water cults favor driftwood, air cults favor bronze, sun cults favor gold or gold leaf on wood, the moon favors silver etc. though no absolute rules apply, and they are inevitably crafted with great respect using whatever materials are most appropriate and available.
Cults:  Any.
Knowledge:  Common to all cults as holy items.
History:  During the course of rituals it frequently occurs that someone needs to become a vessel for the depicted deity.  These consecrated items serve as a valuable conduit for that power, subsuming the individual more perfectly into the deity.  At various times these items have been excessively important, such as during the Bright Empire, when illuminates abused them, and later when the God Learners abused them.  Perhaps in the third age they will become abused again? 
Procedure:  The mask is worn.  Typically they are made through a series of consecration and enchantment rituals over the course of a month or more, and inevitably imbued with the holy powers of the deities, and often worn in daily rituals to reinforce and recharge the power.  Procedures for their creation vary immensely from cult to cult, but the principle remains quite similar.  The base consecration for a God Mask requires the expenditure of 2 POW, but more enchantments may be added later.
Powers:  A god mask allows a wearer to imbue the power of the deity even if they are not initiates, provided they are not initiates or higher of a hostile deity.  They are typically used in hero quests to allow individuals to fulfill the roles of deities to which they have no ritual or pact connection, i.e. initiation.  While wearing the mask in the course of the hero quest, it is possible for the wearer to sacrifice 1POW and become an initiate.  Only when the character is a full initiate of the depicted deity will the full matrices and divine spell repertoires of the item become available.  The mask is a placeholder for the deity, and thus is itself the initiate and the initiation, but only during the hero quest.  On occasion God Masks become home to cult spirits, and some have even become the focus for cult and subcult worship.
Value:  These items are relatively common, and a recently constructed God mask might sell for as little as 2000L if taken in war.  Over time they gain more enchantments and mythic power and can become quite priceless.

That is a good plot idea YL, but their mum Imarjana Flowersinger has a well developed plot behind her already to do with Esrolia, Ernalda and Aldrya in the Garden and assuming she survives her illness, the players will have interesting new plots to chase.   As the players will have neighbors and friends of their own age in a similar situation, I could easily find a way to incorporate that into the ongoing stories of some of their friends that they might want to help out with, and have the possibility of Hanni (the 13yo girl) potentially joining Yelorna as a result.  As you suggest, that might make the party a bit more difficult to maintain as Yelornans can't really go adventuring with their brothers.

Haimiji - Actually I was going to go one worse with that... A Morokanth loan shark.  Do the maths

g33k - Amen to the cosmopolitan nature of Pavis.  That is one of the reasons I like it as a newbie starting area, you get a bit of everything in one place.  As to Argan Argar cultists and Xiola Umbar cultists looking after the kids, that is an interesting idea, but they will want a bit more quid pro quo than simply earning a few poor friends.  Argan Argar isn't in the habit of attracting human mendicants.  On the other hand, the children of an Elf Friend might provide valuable intelligence about the Garden to the trolls.  THAT would be valuable.

Hajimi-  I want to give the characters a father who they can more-or-less look up to, but yes, he will have pulled a few deals and will have made a few enemies, so that suggestion is a good one.  I didn't want to sic an enemy onto them straight away, but kicking a dog when its down is the Pavis way.  As for the other 3 ideas, I hadn't considered the Lunar sorcerer idea, but the other 2 I sort of had plans for, and it is perceptive of you to have pre-empted them.  Good work.  As for the sort of encounters they are going to run into, I was hoping for archetypal Pavic experiences, or Gloranthan experiences.  There is only 1 caveat.  One player has a huge duck-hate and refused to play RQ for years as a result and will only play if there are no duck encounters.  Plenty of room for baboons, and morokanth and newtlings etc to fill that space.

Jajagappa- So you are a fan of the MOB maximum fun style of NPC?  Far from a bad answer.  I have a paragraph or 2 on most of the NPCs, with room for more info as needed that summarizes who they are and their relations with the characters.  NPCs who become frequent ports of call I usually develop complete sheets for.  I also use a sort of shorthand "cult reaction" system for their relations with the characters at the time.  This will change of course.  Your point is well taken however.  Initially their major adversaries will be a lunar land speculator who will try to get them to sell the house, a Lunar Hoplite who is an ogre, the Dolphins street gang, and their awful situation.

Yelm's Light - Firstly, their father's gift and geas wasn't sword related, he had a skill bonus.  His swords were also captured as Lunar booty.  Players will have a hard time finding them.  As for why Xiola Umbar gets a mention, she is a neutral healing deity and she has a decent sized temple.  If you don't want to go to the Lunars, XU is one of the few obvious places to go.  As to finding a Chalana Arroy and offering to work for them, that is a distinct possibility.  Traipsing around Prax or going downriver will be a problem as it will take too long to save their mother, and she isn't in a fit state to travel except by boat, after they haul her there by litter.    Your idea about Alrdya is a good one, getting to the Garden and convincing the elves to help is one of the main adventure paths I envisage.  The Sun Dome trip is also possible, and not a bad idea.  I wouldn't advise going to Horn Gate, as the journey is way too long.  Good spitballing.

Mankcam- the 1pt of Spirit magic is rationalized as being either something the family traded to obtain for the kids, or something their parents or relatives spent 1POW obtaining a non-reusable Spell Teaching for (at least that is how we used to rationalize things like that back in RQ2 days).  I agree that this is a bit artificial, but I wanted them to start out by having to choose a common spell, and that means becoming a bit familiar with what common spells there are, so they could convince themselves they chose wisely. There are definitely right and wrong choices IMO.  You are right, they are not yet initiates, and normally wouldn't have spells, but there are many work-arounds, such as money and favours owed by Daka Fal and Lhankor Mhy in the past.

I always got the impression that fertility rune cults often knew something of Uleria.  Consider poor Norayeep trying to get Biturian to buy Morak by "whispering of Uleria's arts" (not that Biturian listened overly hard).  Uleria initiation is not difficult compared to most cults, and one might suppose that even warriors could see the value in being skilled lovers.  There is after all no reason why Uleria would be an exclusively female cult, or exclusively based around prostitution.  As any player of Pendragon knows, there are more facets to the arts of love than merely banging away like ZZ berserker.

I will be running a campaign set in Pavis starting in 1611 (to end whenever...) with a family of 3 kids of different ages who lost their father (he was a guard on the Old Gate), and whose mother is now sick at the start of one of the epidemics that swept the city directly after the invasion (the Chalana Arroy cultists left for Horn Gate, leaving the city vulnerable to outbreaks).  They have family friends that they can turn to within reason, but to get treatment for their mother will cost money that they presently don't have.  The family has managed to keep their house in Riverside, but mainly due to the fact that their mother has been secretly prostituting herself to the Lunars of an evening, which his where she got sick.  The eldest is a boy aged 15, the next is a girl aged 13, and the youngest is a boy aged 11.  If their mother dies the youngest boy will probably have to go and live with their strict Yelmalio relatives in Harpoon (which no-one wants).  There is also the strong possibility that without their mother that the Lunars may seek to evict the children.  They get a list of their full home and contents, and there are no weapons except for their old woodcutting hatchet and their grandpa's ship building maul.  They don't know that they have a rare map of the Big Rubble in the form of an old wall hanging, and that the strange leather thong drapes that they have hanging over the windows to deter flies are actually 2 old Praxian maps to treasures in Prax.  If they fail to get their mother treatment within 7 days she will certainly die, and the longer they take, the worse her condition will be even if she recovers.  The players will also get a list of about 50 NPCs with whom they have some familiarity. The two prime sources of disease treatment are Xiola Umbar, and the Seven Mothers, or they might track down one of the remaining Chalana Arroys in the area, or even a Mallian!  Their father was an initiate of Pavis and Humakt, while their Mother was an initiate of Ernalda and an Elf Friend of Aldrya (initiate).   The players will have some ability to trade on these connections as their parents are (or were) respected members of these cults, but the cults won't answer the problems or simply offer them treatment (with the exception of Aldrya, but who will require an adventure to reach).  

Currently the oldest boy is working as a porter, the girl is carrying her mother's washing business, and the youngest is running messages for whoever will pay him.  They are each getting about 2 clacks a day.  None of the player characters has a cult yet. Their mother was earning 8 clacks a day, but that rose to 1d20 Lunars an evening when she turned to prostitution.  On the other hand, if her "new job" became known, a number of people might be less willing to help the family.  The money has been spent on new clothes, and a season's food and fuel already. 

Players will get their age x5 in percentages to distribute between their skills, which are all townsman base, and free literacy in Tradetalk at 35%, 30% and 25% respectively, that their parents traded for them.  They also get 1 point of spirit magic each.  They also get a handout that presents the problem to them clearly and gives them a sense of their options, their contacts, and what is possible.  They are all new players who have never tried RQ before, though they have tried other RPGs, and are familiar with BRP as a system, but not Glorantha.   I am interested in seeing how the players adapt to the setting.  Will they tug their forelock to the hated invaders in the hopes of mercy?  Will they turn to crime or rebellion, or even worse?  Will they opt to try their luck in the rubble knowing their chances of survival as untrained youngsters are slim indeed?  Can they save their mother?  Will their little family fall apart as so many others have since the invasion?  Will they discover their family's secret legacy in Esrolia?  Will they ever find out what happened to their missing uncle?  Can they get initiatied, and if so, to which deity?  It is always interesting to see what players choose to do, but never more-so than when players are completely new to a game world.  I want to give Pavis that gritty high risk boom town feel, and the Lunars are just about to ease restrictions and issue the first adventuring and weapon licenses (curfew is still in effect however).  I want the players to get a strong sense of character identification, and to get a solid feeling for the many NPCs with whom they will interact, so it comes across like a Griselda story, but where the competence of the protagonists is far from certain, unlike Griselda's competence (which is seldom if ever disputed).  Pavis will be pretty unforgiving, but it is possible to save their mother if they are cunning and follow certain clues, and there will definitely be more than one way to solve it.  

I am interested in how you the reader would go about it, and any encounters you would recommend to spice things up.

Now, who was Hender and what are his ruins all about?

In Australia their "rivers" are essentially trench-like depressions in the ground filled with rocks, as you would find in a Japanese ornamental garden without water.  These rocky trails could easily be mistaken for paths, and were very evident when I last visited Adelaide a couple of years ago.  However they all exploded into life last week with the heavy rains and brought the city to a standstill.  My father had the questionable fortune of being caught in the action during an interstate meeting. 

Restoring a hymen probably only takes 1 point of healing.  It is hardly a major wound requiring a "regrow limb" style of magical investment.  It sounds like the sort of ritual you can perform daily.  Do you ever get the feeling that unicorns and their whole virginity fetish are just a tad creepy?  Do they have a "sense virginity" skill, or is it more like "sense sexually active female", with virgins as the null set?  It is mentioned that unicorns mate with certain types of deer, but deer don't have hymens in our world.  Only mammals with an aquatic evolution in our world do, dolphins, whales, pigs, hippos, and we humans.  We are decidedly odd apes.

So, Ethilrist's steeds are darkness demons.  The trolls may even approve?

Well the mounts are referred to as demon mounts who devour their victims.  To be fair, perhaps they are darkness creatures, but Sense Chaos tells me otherwise...

Pavis invented his own sorcery?  Like Zzabur?

In my most recent campaign Innsmouth wound up being taken over by the Mi-Go a la "Invasion of the body snatchers" after the actions of the players.  The dominance of the Marsh family slipped, and the Gold refinery was reinvigorated by new capital as Denver Terrestrial Technologies took over and began investing in Bolton's disuses rare earth mines.  Innsmouth is looking more house proud and prosperous these days and the train line has re-opened.  It is still all secrets and Stepford wives, but there are new masters.  It sounds a bit like this Innsmouth 1950s, which amuses me.

The question then becomes, where did Pavis learn this Auld Wyrmish sorcery, because the EWF draconic mysticism was essentially philosophically incompatible with it.  To this I can see only one clear answer.  There was only one sorcerer of note in the EWF, and that was Delecti, (creator of the beast men, survivor of the Dragonkill, exile of the God Learners).  That is unless Pavis went to the Clanking Ruins and met up with the Zistorites and their stolen Mostali magic, but then I doubt event he Openhandists would have tolerated him.  The Delecti idea also goes some way towards explaining the plethora of vampires in the Big Rubble.

I think Snakepipe Hollow probably needs Chaos units.  The usual Broos, Ogres, Dragonsnails, and perhaps The Hand. 

The game probably needs a matrix of what bonuses and subtractions you get with other allies for recruiting various allies.  For example Cragspider would be annoyed by the recruitment of Yelmalio, the Grazelanders (Sunnies),the Aldryami or the Dwarves and vice versa.  I can't imagine Sir Ethilrist's chaos mounts are widely loved either.

I have just been looking through Plunder.  It makes you wonder about the deeds of Gazhmen, Tora, Bajora, Mazoo, Minanen,and Nosma(s? typo).

Thanks for the info 7Tigers and M Heldson. That was some solid information to draw from.  I wonder if the Fox king refers in any way to the Red Fox clan of Colymar?  Pesky trickster kings eating people, head hunting and teasing folks by behaving chaotic.  Anyone would think trickster was a front for chaos worship...  We had a trickster who cut his own head off and then spoke to people just to "freak the normals".  When will tricksters learn that Thanatar isn't nice to joke about? Our Gray Sage had a conniption!

I think I read something in issue 1 of RQ Adventures had a local headhunting spirit cult based around the worship of "Otyan", perhaps the pre-chaotic form of Atyar?  Was it in Tradetalk too?  I think that is the Fort Engoli reference.

Did nothing show up on this topic in Guide to Glorantha?  I ask because I missed out on the first edition (but will be damned if I will miss the second).

Here is wiki's trimmed down summary on headhunting:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Headhunting

Supposedly the Celts also had a magic weapon made of the brain of a Formorian dipped in lime (stone) called a Tathlum.  I know that Samurai had a whole system of etiquette and divination based on the severed heads of their enemies quite apart from the bare sketch that wiki provides.

I wonder if there is anything else in the RQ fanon or canon?  If not I will just have to write it I guess.  I am GMing  a refugee kid, born in Pavis who is "going home" to Tovtari lands, who needs a bit of culture shock.

Well those puppy sucklers over Wyrm's High Pass have their own way of doing things.

She sounds like an Ogre heroine to me, who comes back like Mani or Jaldon.  Shamans can be a huge nuisance that way.

So apparently there are tribes of the Orlanthi who take their enemies heads as magical trophies, not like Thanatari but in a less chaotic way.  I would suspect that this would be most prevalent among somewhat primitive Orlanthi like the Vantaros and the Tovtaros tribes in northern Sartar.  Has anything been written on this outside it being mentioned in GS lore auctions?  Fact check me while I rip this tool from Thanatar, to confound his presence in the scheme of being etc... 

Name:  The Hunting and Waltzing Torc

Description:  A strange looking torc, with a flexible golden mesh band reminiscent of scales, and tipped with a dragon bone dragon head, and a dragon bone tail that join together to form the Ouroboros, unlike other torcs.  The eyes of the dragon are marked as a beast rune and a dragonewt rune, and the tail has a dragon rune on its underside.
Cults:  ASSOCIATED:  Dragonewts, Orlanth Dragonfriend, Maran Gor.
Knowledge:  Limited to old Orlanthi Tribes with a history of supporting the EWF.  It is also known to the Earthshaker Temple in Tarsh, and to Dragonewts.
History:  The dragon path was not known for its use of external magical items, but humans tended to ignore such niceties in favor of pragmatism.  The Hunting and Waltzing torcs were created as a means of supporting the human military arm of the EWF by providing them with extra control over the dinosaurs they employed in battle.
Procedure:  These items are worn around the neck.  The wearer will notice nothing unusual about it but becomes aware of the presence of  dinosaurs, dragons or dragonewts within 120 yards.  They can hear the instincts and emotions of the dinosaurs quite loudly, but the dragonewts and dragons can choose whether to communicate.  The torcs do not detect as magical, as dragon magic is ascetic and not within the normal purview of detect magic spells.  Divine magic will be able to identify the torcs as magical.
Powers: The torc will allow communication via mindspeech with dragons and dragonewts in range as if the wearer were fluent in Auld Wyrmish.  It allows the wearer to control dinosaurs within range if they succeed in a POW vs POW contest.  This control can become a permanent bond at the cost of 2 points of permanent POW, but only within range, and only when the torc is worn.  A torc wearer may also bind a fetch or allied spirit into a dinosaur as their preferred familiar.  Torcs cannot contest control of a dinosaur, and the first controller maintains dominance.  While the torc wearer is able to control the dinosaur, any strong emotion experienced by the torc wearer may be transferred to the dinosaur if it is in range, and so the item must be used with care.  Removing the torc will remove the effects of control, as will moving outside the 120 yard range.  These items allow for a greater ease in the care and training of dinosaurs offering +50% in Dinosaur Husbandry and Dinosaur Training due to the close link of the wearer to the beasts.  The torcs may be used to simultaneously control more than one dinosaur, but this requires a very disciplined mind, allowing the control of an additional dinosaur for every point of INT and POW over 16.  To  maintain this control over multiple dinosaurs in battle will require a successful Battle skill roll each round or they will begin to stray depending on the circumstances of battle.

Value:  80,000L.  Military powers may be more enthusiastic at the prospect of the power of these items and pay as much as double.  That is of course assuming they don't merely confiscate it.

We have used Arroin's blood (once), chaos slime, morokanth thumbs, storm bull's ear, and styx water.

Name:  The Cloaks of Finovan's Riders

Description:  A woolen cloak dyed in dark green and red tartan that smells of horses, cattle, and blood even after being washed repeatedly.  It detects as being magical.
Cults:  Associated - Orlanth, Thunder Brothers, Finovan.  FRIENDLY - Eurmal, Lanbril.
Knowledge:  Mentioned in the many folk tales and songs about Finovan
History:  Finovan the Thunder Brother was a wonder to behold when it came to stealing cattle, but all too often he needed to ride with those less skilled in such pursuits.  He complained of this to the women of the Storm Tribe, and gaining their consent, they wove the cloaks that Finovan subsequently enchanted.  There were 11 such cloaks made.
Procedure:  You wear it like a cloak.  To create the effect you sweep it dramatically open.
Powers:  When swept dramatically open, the cloak will create a billow of mist that spreads rapidly covering an area 15 paces in radius around the wearer that will hang in hollows and valleys for up to half an hour.  It can be used twice a day.  The mist will distort sound and create false images of men and beasts within the mist.  This has the effect of reducing opponent's Scan, Listen, and Missile skills by 40%.  Darksight is unaffected.  Detect enemies and detect cattle spells will simply detect the mist.  The spell Cloudclear will remove the effect.
Value:  Wise orlanthi will pay as much as 50,000L 

NOOOO!  Don't stop this emerging flame war !  It has mythic resonance!

As the elves are the only elder race not included in the game I really support this.