Darius West

Are we really sure? What about Harshax? Isn't he Belintar? Not that I am a massive Belintar fan, but I thought that was a "thing" for the 4th Age?

This is quite fair, but it would be a lot more likely if you find a rando hunting band where the dumb-dumbs don't understand the value of things, not somewhere like Tink. It certainly isn't the sort of deal that you can expect to duplicate time after time, more of a 1-off "crit" imo.

I bet you say that to all the cannibals 😉

You are making some interesting assumptions here Sten, and that's fine, but much will depend on your GM and their interpretation of dragonewts I suspect. For my money I would bring a few things to your attention. 1) Many dragonewts are kind of incompetent. You say they hunt and eat food, but there are those who are too dumb to have figured out the necessity of eating to stay alive (or don't like how it feels), and so they are born and run around for a while, then run out of energy and die of starvation, believing this to be normal as it is what they have done a thousands times before, and then they go back to their egg, having failed for the umpteenth time to progress on the Path. Remember that all the competent dragonewts have already become dragons, and the present remainder are the "bottom of the class". 2)It is perhaps a good idea to think of the dragonewts as a large monastic community (or perhaps a big "funny farm"). There is literally only 1 breeding individual in the entire society as far as humans know, and this breeding involves the production of eggs. Are they eggs as we understand them though? Likely not. The dragon path doesn't emphasize technology, but internal development. They use obsidian and dragon bone because this is what they know, and what they have, not because it is the only thing they use. Dragonewts are not Amish, they just don't have a part of their path that involves bronze working, but the EWF definitely had bronze weapons and armor. Dragonewts are mistrustful of things they don't know or understand, like bronze, but the good will of the trader who is prepared to take the time to show them the value of such things may go a long way to securing a sale. 3) You suggest that dragonewts have no use for cloth, but there is an exception; Bags, in fact containers of all kinds. Off topic for a moment, consider, given its odd dragonewt rune configuration, it is possible that wheelbarrows may actually be a dragonewt invention adopted by humans. The thing about dragonewt bodies is that they don't come with pockets, and increased carrying capacity is something they will rapidly adopt when taught. In fact items like pots, pans, blankets, scissors, lamps, tinderboxes, needles, thread, hammers etc. will be demanded if the trader is able to explain their use to the dragonewts. The dragonewts will likely completely misinterpret the lesson of course, but these are a people who make 3 wheeled carts because they can't get their heads around the use of a 4th wheel. Of course this monastic community may see these tools as unreliable fripperies from Path ignorant humans, but that isn't necessarily the case, as items that help you live will be important in those early stages of Path development. Even dragonewts need to meet those crucial Maslow's Pyramid needs to progress on the Path, they are often just too dumb to see it, but they reincarnate. 4) Everyone thinks that dragonewts are these amazing mystical beings with weird magic, and they are, but they are also often highly stupid and impractical, as they literally don't care if they live or die. They CAN enchant things, but humans who haven't had the brain splitting operation cannot understand or use their magic, and when humans have that operation they often find that their right hand no longer knows what their left hand is doing in a literal sense, due to the splitting of the right and left hemispheres of the brain IRL. This is a minor taste of what life as a dragonewt is like; consider it. 5) Different dragonewt communities are likely to trade in different ways. Obviously the Dragon's Eye uses Tink (Trade Think village), and there will be official human language experts there to do the trading on behalf of DE City and the Inhuman King (Queen? Egg laying?). Trade is often likely to be less formal if possible at all when you encounter parties of dragonewts. After all, do they even understand what trade is yet? It is likely that each dragonewt city has some idea of how to trade in place, but the whos, whats, whys, and wherefores are going to be at issue. Will they place high importance on trade and have a senior caste dragonewt who is intelligent involved, or will they leave matters in the hand of a crested dragonewt because such materialism is unimportant? 6) Don't make the dragonewts a complete pack on nonces. They do understand coinage as it is part of the lessons of the Humans 101 meditation course. They know that acquisition of resources is something desirable, and so they will seek to acquire coin, but may not really fully grasp the concept of spending, hence the legendary greed of Dream Dragons. Trading with dragonewts should be a bizarre WTF roleplaying experience, where unexpected things occur and meaning is somehow lost in translation. The Buddhists have a saying "The master points to the full moon, but the student sees only the pointing finger", or, you buy a cat a scratching and climbing castle, but they only want to sit in the box it came in. My advice? Bring feathers. Dragonewts seem to really love feathers, especially colored ones, even if they are just dyed.

Given the number of gingers, those caravans could be many tens of thousands strong if that were a universal rule. I suspect that it is mainly red headed slaves who wind up being bought and put in the caravans as a form of secret Etyries hero quest. YGWV.

In Lake Mead Nevada there is evidence of multiple murdered people found in the water, meaning that everyone in Las Vegas and even in surrounding states have become unwitting cannibals due to drinking the water which has minute fragments of the dead in them. Truly these are the end times.

BTW, this is a really good forum topic Jajagapa. Getting a bit more detail on events in the HC is useful in this "Post-Dragonrise" world.

Belintar is at least in a Lunar Hell, but might well be bound in a crystal on Jar-Eel's necklace, or may be stuck in a time paradox, depending on your interpretation of events.

Leika sees herself as Kallyr's logical replacement, so getting Kallyr raised from the dead is not on the cards. Of course Leika did overstep her authority, and that is one of many reasons people will choose to side with Argrath.

Vinga is definitely outlawed in New Pavis. Red headed women belong with the Red Moon Goddess not as some second string "Thunder Brother" of the Storm Pantheon. Plus the Lunars are not sexist, and are well aware that women can be plenty sneaky and dangerous as rebels.

Cut the suckers a break. It is likely many days since they made that promise, and people from Glorantha know better than to break a sworn oath. I would make them roll INTx5 to "remember something important", by way of a reminder, then when one of them makes the roll, tell them what they have forgotten. It then becomes their in-game moral choice as to what they do, rather than something they forgot to do as players that got them in trouble because the GM was mean. RPGs are about trust and having fun, and seriously, this isn't something the characters would forget, but human players have lives to distract them. That's my opinion at least.

Yeah, not bad and pretty close to what the Cruel Empire of Tsan Chan supplement suggested. In the supplement, humanity's survivors initially fled underground to the ghoul tunnels, where they skirmished with the Serpent Men, before realizing that all 3 independent races were in the "same boat" vis the rise of C'thulhu. They made their way underground with the Serpent Men largely taking the lead due to their sorcery. They emerge on the Plateau of Leng, where they form their new "empire", and begin fortifying and preparing an economy and defenses, and shielding against the madness emanating from C'thulhu. They drive off waves of attacks, and gradually produce a new ruling class made of humans who have interbred with the gods Wilbur Whately style, who have enough innate power to withstand the very worst that can be thrown against the Empire. And they create a ritualized society where adherence to the Law before all else becomes a sanity substitute.

Ahh, here's the misunderstanding. The Cruel Empire of Tsan Chan are NOT the mad mass of humanity. They are the last viable human culture and civilization after the return of the GOO. What they aren't is the madmen out there "killing in the name of something unpronounceable", which is not to suggest that the don't per se, but that they are rigid and structured about it, and not just a pack of random acts of disorganized sociopathic violence.

It must be said that Ewe and Wheat does make a bit of an intellectual assumption about hunter-gatherers being a pack of lack-wits, which we know simply wasn't true, especially as they were responsible for Gobekli Tepe and other sites, even with only a hunting and gathering economy. We also know that the adoption of agriculture had more to do with rising populations creating food pressure than any idea of a better lifestyle and more free time. Most Hunter-gatherers would likely spend a tiny proportion of their day obtaining food in comparison to agriculturalists, who were all but state slaves if you stop and consider their back breaking labor and taxation to a largely uncaring central authoritarian government. Of course everyone likes to imagine that they are better than other people, and so agriculturalists imagine slack-jawed hunter-gatherers who are little more than herd beasts. Now lets consider this in relation to Glorantha. Even in the Green Age, there is the assumption that humans and beasts were of similar intelligence. The difference is that it is assumed that the beasts were smarter back then, not that humans were more stupid. They stupefying of the animals comes later as a result of the Lesser and Greater Darkness, when certain gods are broken or enslaved or form covenants that stupefy their descendants. Obviously by the Golden Age, agriculture is in full swing across Glorantha with Yelm ruling everything, but back then even the animals are not "herdman stupid". I like the fact that “Agriculture as Civilization: Sages, Farmers, and Barbarians” deals with Oannes the Fish man, who according to legend brought agriculture and other blessings to humanity in ancient Sumer. I first bumped into him while researching for Call of C'thulhu and said "jackpot!". He's a lot like the goddesses Wheat and Ewe discussed in the Ewe and Wheat disputation you provided, and by that I mean he's a "culture hero"; a figure who comes and introduces a technology that changes everything. It is interesting that Glorantha doesn't have a lot of immediately obvious culture heroes, but when you look a bit harder, they are there, you just have to read between the lines a little.

Ahh... Okay then. That is a FAR more interesting problem. I thought this was another "Let's murder a critical hero" issue. I haven't played this scenario, but the potential here is very interesting. So, what counts as a bad thought in this instance becomes the issue with which we must grapple. Send in the Thought Police? Now something with a name like the "Board of Nails" sounds like a rather severe "spanking" tool. A heavy duty spanking tool used on wayward adults not children but which is supposed to help them mend their ways. Honestly idk what Argrath was doing with a damaged body, he can call on so much power it is a bit ridiculous, but nvm. What is at stake here is his mind, and what happens when he is "made good" apparently. It might actually be a good thing that this happened. As an illuminate Argrath has likely been tempted to stray from conventional morality on many occasions as the pragmatics of a situation cause him to take the easy but potentially corrupt way out. It happens to non-illuminates too, but such dilemmas are basically "illuminate cancer", that puts them on the slippery slope to Chaos. So lets imagine what would have happened if Arkat had been hit with the Board of Nails. Imagine if Arkat stopped betraying people for expedient reasons. Well, his campaign against Nysalor may have taken far longer, and he likely wouldn't have transitioned into a Troll and then a chaos creature, but in all likelihood he would still have destroyed Nysalor, as that was his fated destiny by this time. So let's imagine giving Argrath a healthy ethics refresher... He will likely become somewhat less manipulative in his sexual relationships, and less prone to use skullduggery to solve issues of state, and will become more reasonable in his demands upon his subjects. He may even be willing to grant certain enemies more mercy than was previously in his nature. I would not pretend that Argrath is a moral exemplar by Orlanthi standards, but the Board of Nails might help push him in that direction, potentially making him more selfless. On the other hand, if anyone thinks that Argrath is suddenly going to abandon Sartar and become a Chalana Arroy pacifist, well, within a system of Orlanthi morality, that would be evil, given his personal situation, not good.

Still, he has at least 1 allied spirit to watch his back and heroic reaction speed, and Guided Teleport, plus any number of other answers to assassination. Argrath has repeatedly defeated assassination attempts, his hatred for assassins is the only actual quote we have from him. I don't care how "out of it" he might be, he will still parry/riposte dead any damn healer in a heartbeat, or Thunderbolt them at SR1.

So, lemme guess, you let the party healer (of all people) hit Argrath with the Board of Nails, and likely killed him or something, right? You didn't let him use his hero powers to GTFO, with parry, dodge or Guided Teleport or any number of other potential saves. You didn't have Argrath's Humakti bodyguards slaughter the healer for trying to assassinate their liege either I bet. Here's a useful rule of thumb. Heroes can't be killed except by other actual declared Heroes, or Superheroes, or by overwhelming numbers of mooks, or major league Chaos monsters like Cwim or the bat. If you try to assassinate Argrath, he will avoid the blow like a Chanbara hero and decapitate the assassin, declaring "This is how we deal with assassins with no respect for life". But hey, if you want your players to get away with murder, let them pay the price. The Lunars regroup, crush the internally divided Sartarite clans, and roll over the Holy Country and Prax too. Soon thereafter they use a hybrid Mostali ritual to raise the Block, there being no Stormbulls left to defend it, and Wakboth is freed because fundamentally the Lunars were always a Chaotic conspiracy to destroy the world, and Wakboth is the Sacred Utuma they have chosen to do it with. Glorantha is destroyed in S.T. 1630 and there is no-one left alive to record it as the lozenge dissolves back into the cosmic chaos void like a popped soap bubble.

The Cruel Empire of Tsan Chan is probably best described as a magocracy built on strict discipline and encoded ritualism in the supplement. This adherence to the rules allows people who are otherwise quite mad to continue to function as part of society despite being mentally broken and "hollowed out". Loyalty is demanded unto death, and it reminds me of a combination of Traditional Tibetan Society, China under the CCP, The Empire of Man in Warhammer 40K, and the Dinner scene from "Roger of the Raj" in "Ripping Yarns". As to the part when mankind is "liberated" by the Great Old Ones, no doubt this is the false promise of power the GOO offer humanity. On the other hand, humanity has always been more of a threat when we work together rather than as atomized individuals who live in fear of each other. No matter how much sorcery you learn, will you ever learn more than Nyarlathotep or any of the other GOOs? Unlikely.

Yes, I bought that. Sadly I've never had a chance to use it for any CoC purpose. My players always found a reason not to go to the Plateau of Leng. Scaredy cats. Of course I blame myself for being a very sandbox-style Keeper who lets his players choose their own direction.

Fair enough. From what I read, the honey goes into the bread, and only indirectly into the beer, though I have had honey beer (I called it Quasimeado). Honey was seen as medicinal by the Sumerians, and is definitely an antiseptic, but is also something that yeast could feed on. You are quite correct. Barley self pollenates.

Hmmm... That sounds a lot like most investigators in CoC... And quite a few unhappy people deemed to have mental health problems irl now I think about it. Might there be a reason I shouldn't throw money at Mr. Price? How dire are his sins that he is deemed unfit to be paid for his writing? 🤔 Needless to say, thanks for the tip, I will see if I can find his work online somewhere.

Have a look at Bappir

Let's all toast klecser with a nice cold glass of cherry Kool-Aid 👍😁

I have been awaiting this news for a while now👍 I just don't enjoy reading PDFs.

Hi thom, let me slip into my Lhankor Mhy beard like an extra from the Life of Brian in the stoning scene here... Send my best regards to my fellow ancient RQ grognards. Okay, so they come from the more urban areas. Not a problem. Yes, they will potentially come from one of the clans of one of the Tribes in the area, but because they are living at a distance from their people's Tula, it is reasonable that perhaps the clan and tribe of their origin doesn't have as much claim on their loyalty as it otherwise might. This would be especially true if they were born and raised in the city, and perhaps only head out to the clan/tribal lands infrequently. They may well feel more loyalty to their City and its Ring than to the clan/tribe. Personally as a child of a migrant, my Ukranian babusia used to say that "when you migrate, you sacrifice your children to the new land". By this she meant that they will be raised in the new land with its values, not with the values of the Old Country. This is likely true of Sartarite children raised in a Sartarite city, rather than the lands of their Tribe and Clan. They will technically be (in this case) of the Cinsina Tribe and the Red Cow Clan, but these things are not an important part of their everyday life as they are urbanites. If they were migrants to the city, they may well keep their clan and tribal loyalty, and have an underdeveloped loyalty to the City. The thing about urban areas is that they tend to have BETTER Sacred Time ceremonies than those boondocks yokels can muster. Why? They will have bigger temples, with a more trans-tribal membership, and they will have more money. Their Sacred Time ceremonies will have bunting of brocade and rich fabrics rather than straw and flowers. Of course the City will be far less likely to sponsor Hero Quests too, as these will need to have the approval of the City Ring, and not prejudicially preference any of the clans or tribes specifically. Jeff raises a very valid point. Sartarite cities are generally located at a nexus between tribal lands, and existed to facilitate trade, and ended up creating a sense of nation where before there were only warring tribes and clans. The lands of your tribe and clan are not so far away if you are a city dweller, so how come you don't have a passion for them then? Well, there are potential reasons for this. Firstly, if you are potentially rubbing shoulders with members of "enemy" tribes and clans every day, in a non-hostile context due to the cosmopolitan nature of urban life, you may decide you personally don't hate them. This will go part way towards killing off your loyalty to the tribe/clan. Then there is the issue that while the clan/tribe may have representatives in their district of the city, that doesn't mean that you as an artisan are properly represented by them. The truth is, they may well be your landlord, and unless situations are unusual and the landlord is kind, this can be an unpleasant and exploitative relationship. Often the interests of the clan and tribe won't align with the characters' own commercial interests, and thus the tribal representative may not be someone you trust, or who actually speaks for you, but actually an unrepresentative person who "speaks for the yokels" in your character's opinion. Most societies experience an urban/rural divide that is very formative of the direction of their culture's long term growth. Finally, as an urbanite, you will likely muster with your city's militia in times of trouble and not with your clan or tribal fyrd. Who you fight and die alongside has a big role to play in where your loyalties lie.