Darius West

Completely fair, and well put. While I haven't included the whole thing, your comment represented a good approach to the problem. My understanding is that on Genertela pretty much all the iron originates from the Iron Mountains where the Dwarves trade it, with a few smaller outlying sources. Most of the iron follows trade routes from the Belskan Mostali of the Iron Mountains to the far reaches of the continent, wherever merchants go. It might be compared to how the bulk of bronze age tin likely came from the mines of Cornwall. Of course we aren't really talking about iron from our world by Ur-metal. I think it is fair to say that there was a lot more iron available in the Second Age, as the God Learners needed plenty. I would suspect that the Clanking Ruins would be an excellent source for all metals, iron included. I also think that the iron that is in circulation has probably been re-worked, re-forged, and re-purposed a great many times because it is rare. As to how rare it really is, we don't know because most humans only have second-hand access to it. The Dwarves seldom seem to want for iron supplies, so perhaps it is plentiful if you know where and how to find it?

I think we should see more home and hearth-based protection magics in Glorantha, definitely. They are a staple in so many world cultures as an expression of a family's spiritual beliefs. Spells to keep out the evil eye, turn spells and drive off evil spirits are every bit as important as those that protect a wife in childbirth, help the crops to grow, and make the livestock plentiful.

Before starting ANY game of ANY sort, I will generally stat out at least 20-40 recurring NPCs. Always the PCs' families and SOs, their co-workers, and important local shop keepers, and a few adversaries. Pendragon is good in that you have pregen knight stats in the books, and all the big names have already been done for you.

The heir's family can pay for a mercenary to fill the role for 2 years. This is the origin of scutage.

True, it hasn't been true since the metal Enchantment rules of RQ3, but I have always played that nobody in a cult will ever perform an enchantment or teach enchantment to anyone who isn't Rune level. Iron was exclusive to Rune Levels in RQ2 and I think this has always been the intention.

Kero Fin is a freakishly unnatural looking mountain. It strikes into the sky like an enormous needle of unimaginable height, and is far higher than Mount Everest. You cannot see the top of Kero Fin without hero questing. Is it in fact the remains of a Space Elevator cable system? Of course not, this is fantasy, not sci fi, and the Mostali are not right about the world machine. Yes, there may be people living an idealized life up there in this Dome like structure, but to say that they are living in some sort of space habitat is just wrong, they are Shanasse, not Shanasstronauts.

I can't quite get my head around why Praxians don't use dogs to help with herding. Perhaps 1600 years of history just hasn't been enough time to figure this trick out? We know Praxians do worship Brother Dog, but he doesn't even hunt with them.

Is Belintar a Vadeli? Is he a surviving God Learner who hid out under the sea for centuries? What we do know is he is also Jospeh Curwen from "the Thing on the Doorstep".😜

I once had a Vingan player called Tora who had become a refugee in Esrolia after the fall of Sartar. Being female and a warrior, she was far better received than her male friends by the sexist Esrolian matriarchy, who were in need of warriors given the alarming rate of Lunar expansion. Tora then parlayed her slim influence to over-reach her authority amazingly and organize the various Holy Country defenses into a trap involving the building of a great big wall manned by Orlanthi and Dwarves. The Wall itself involved plenty of sorcery, gnomes, and lava. More amazingly, she had never read Gloranthan history and did it all spontaneously, earning the sobriquet Tora the Glorious and becoming an Esrolian general with lands and title thereafter. So in a way, my Glorantha didn't vary, the deeds remained the same, but the actors changed.

I think Manthi Flints might be a euphemistic term for borrowed thunderstones. Manthi charges his with electric eels who stole the magic before time.

Aldryami do not eat plants. Aldryami eat in private. Human guests will find that they are quite welcome among Aldryami but will note that there is no communal hearth, no communal eating, and no communal toilet. Eventually human guests will notice that the Aldryami begin to watch them expectantly a couple of hours after they have eaten, and are quick to offer them leaves for toilet paper. They will notice that the elves seem to smile widely and expectantly as they pass them the toilet leaves, and seem to watch solicitously as they go about the call of nature. Soon after one of the elves will take turns with the self-same shovel and attend to their own 'calls of nature', in a conspiratorially pre-organized roster. Never ever follow this elf, because the truth you will discover is really awkward, and is euphemistically referred to as the Mystery of Lembas. Also, never kiss an Aldryami or you may discover the answer to the Mystery of Lembas the hard way. Elves... Always happy to see you...

Yes and yes. These ideas are not mutually exclusive imo Eric y'old chaos fiend. 😉

The problem with iron in Glorantha is that there just isn't much of it, and what there is generally lies in the hands of someone tougher than you. Down-at-heels adventurers generally aren't Rune Level, and of course you can't use iron at all until you reach Rune Level. Your poor rubble crawler might find a piece of iron or two, but they will generally put it into storage for the day (they hope) they make Rune level. This sounds about right. Pavic dwarves don't have access to much iron either imo. I take this as being part of RQG and the Lunars amping up their iron access while in occupied Sartar. This industry is inherited by Argrath's Sartar. I would say, yes, unequivocally, and it forms a central part of their induction as a Sword of Humakt.

I play it that the adoption of the Undeath Rune cuts the undead entity off from all spirit interactions. In effect they have become a perverse form of sorcery spell by becoming undead. They can use spells to see spirits, but they cannot interact with spirits except via spells and vice versa. There can be no spirit combat between the undead and spirits. Yes, you can use sorcery spells that drain MP to destroy the undead. Sever Spirit is used on the living, not the undead as Humakt has the Turn Undead spell for dealing with them.

Yes, you can have integrated Shamans in a civilized setting. Consider that while shamans CAN only hunt for spirits in out-of-the-way and haunted places, they can perform their rituals anywhere once they know the spirits name for summoning purposes. It is also worth pointing out that Shaman Cults follow powerful spirits who can grant Rune Magic. This means that Shamans are defacto priests, just like Priests are defacto shamans thanks to their allied spirits. Thus a shaman can have a "magical space" devoted to their "powerful spirit", but it isn't quite a temple and it isn't quite a god, just give it a couple of generations. Also, the Horned Man might choose anyone to spontaneously become a Shaman. There you are minding your own business, cooking a fish, and you doze off to have terrible dream where this antlered guy makes you fight your own shadow, and suddenly your world is populated with visions of spirits and you can do magic. The Zzaburi are going to be very annoyed about this!

This is the Nazi symbol of the Black Sun and it is called "Das Sonnenrad" or Sun Wheel. It is all over Wewelsburg castle in Germany in mosaic form. Wewelsburg was Himmler's "special SS cult place", and if you have ever played Castle Wolfenstein, well Wewelsburg was sort of the inspiration for it. So if you're ever in the mood for a great shoot-'em-up pulp style against the SS, that is the place to go for your next Achtung C'thulhu adventure.

Let me open by saying that REMOVING PLAYER AGENCY IS THE CARDINAL SIN OF GMing. I hate removing player agency in any way, and try to get them to live out the motives and interactions of their characters in the most immersive way possible. That being said, I use a lot of horrible mind magic in my CoC games, as the loss of agency is something that is pretty scary. Here are some of my methods... 1. Mind Control is something that happens "to other people". The players keep their agency, but come to fear the scaly shadow of the evil hypnotist as they create mind controlled puppets in the community to do their evil will. The players can mainly resist the magic, but they must save the NPCs. I am very into creating memorable NPCs that are actively useful to players in CoC because when they die, it really hurts and amps up the horror. Mind Controlling them is just a little less final. Putting players into situations where they potentially have to kill their NPC friends they have come to love and rely on is plenty "horror". This can lead to "fugitives for a crime they didn't commit", "invasion of the body snatchers", "exorcist" and similar fun tropes. Every author is a thief, and so should every GM steal and repurpose plots to their own ends. 2. Crude Control. Rather than destroying agency, the evil hypnotist is merely able to use their power to get the character to perform or not perform certain simple actions. The character is fighting the control, but they must still obey the ominous command to "pull the lever of doomy doom doom". This is the "Hold Person" version of mind control. It limits the character's actions but doesn't compromise their sense of agency any more than throwing a net on them might. 3. "When I woke up I discovered I had eaten my pillow" Control. The idea here being that the mind control is exercised over the player's body while they are asleep. They are a somnambulist serial killer a la the Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, except at large in the community and controlled via their dreams. They wake up fully dressed, or wake to discover shoes are muddy, or with blood on their hands, or with a child's body embedded in the radiator of their car. They faintly remember snatches of their dreams, but know the truth and must take steps to stop what is happening to them. It is a werewolf scenario, where you become a bad guy at night unless carefully contained, but only once you realize what is happening. It doesn't destroy agency, it just adds a new problem. 4. Abuse of Power with a surprise ending Control. Most players love turning a game into a power fantasy, it's an addiction, and they like nothing more than to develop a new spell or form of expertise. But what about when that spell comes with a side-effect of slight but increasingly abnormal behavior after you perform it? Players will normally keep pushing the skill regardless and wear the consequences in good murder hobo tradition. Then you begin to slide them clues that the power doesn't belong to them, but is theirs on sufferance, and the more they use it, the less control they have over the power and their character itself. Can they go cold turkey? Will going cold turkey be enough to save them? This does take away agency, but really only becomes an issue as you get closer to facing the big bad hypnotist. They thought they were using the spell, but the spell was using them. What a twist! There are definitely other ways to handle this, but I like these as they don't destroy player character agency too much, save in minor ways and in the service of the plot.

Lunars are mainly anti-chaos in a typically Solar way. Chaos is only safe when it falls within the ritual controls of the organs of the Imperial Lunar State (but perhaps not even then). There are heroes of the Lunar Empire who have won their status by attacking Thanatar temples, and most Lunar cults have no chaos components. Of course this tolerance towards the utterly inimical nature of Chaos to Glorantha and everything that lives has been made possible by the adoption of the Illumination taught by the ghost of Nysalor to the Red Goddess in hell. Soon the Lunars will come to fully adopt the powers of Chaos when Ralzakark becomes the new Red Emperor, just as the Mad Satrap prophesied.

When Orlanth left his initiation among the hostile deities who called themselves his uncles, he was told a final mystery "There is a Dragon who follows you". This bugged Orlanth, and he became a dragon slayer. In time however he eventually came to listen to the Dragons, and learned their path. This mystery went quiescent until the Second Age when a trickster in Dragon Pass discovered the way to learn Dragonewt Magic, via the dangerous split brain split tongue surgery. This opened a large new military opportunity for Dragon Pass and began the EWF. In terms of what the mystery is, the Dragonewts have their own take on Glorantha that is founded in the 4th magical path, and the only one for which we have precious little magic system, namely Mysticism. Much the way the Mostali see Glorantha as a big machine, the Dragonewts see all living things in Glorantha as Dragonewts who have left the path and become heretics (not that Dragonewts are much into punishing heretics; they do that to themselves via stupid rebirths). The Dragonewts believe that everyone has the ability to follow their path and become a True Dragon, but their path often seems extremely weird to non-Dragonewts because Dragonewts don't live, reproduce, and die the way normal beings do. The Gods themselves are actually a long way upon the Dragon Path, and would find it easy to become Dragons, but they are lost in 'heresy' so they remain static pseudo-reflections of humanity, which is more demeaning to them than the Gods themselves would be prepared to accept. Arangorf became the expression of Orlanth the Dragon. He taught Orlanth Draconic Illumination and allowed him access to Dragon Magic. Alakoring killed Arangorf using Orlanth's manifestation as Dragonslayer, which was actually (surprise surprise) a form of the Sacred Utuma Ritual, which speeds Dragons on to a safe rebirth without ties to their former body. Alakoring rejected the Arangorf mysteries and his cult helped purge and extinguish the EWF and surviving adherents to Orlanth's Draconic Path. That was all a long time ago now. Argrath doesn't see things the way Alakoring and his people did, and instead sees the possibility of marching dinosaur armies over the Lunar Empire like in the good ol' days of the EWF. Argrath knows Orlaront Dragonfriend, the notable "terrorist" behind the Dragonrise. Argrath sees immense military opportunity in gaining the Dragonewts as allies, and dinosaurs as support troops (but perhaps not trying to turn the Rockwoods into Mega-Dragon this time), much like in the EWF. What this means for the Orlanthi is a renaissance of Draconic mysticism within the Sartar Magical Alliance, with Argrath's usual magical/mystical pragmatism and Godlearnerism to create power gaming synergies not seen since the Second Age.

Etyries was a minor deity who was a counter of pots and beans, and was a sub-cult of Issaries back in the day. In essence Etyries was a goddess of the Market Stall, but not a long distance trader deity like her father. The Lunars changed that.

There are quite a few Necronomicons out there these days. Most derive in part from the Simon Necronomicon. Sadly it just doesn't live up to the hype.

I draw your attention to pages 213-214 of RQG; specifically 'shooting at moving targets' and 'shooting while moving'. The present rules for chariots only cover the "shooting while moving" portion of that, and remember also that the charioteer is subject to the Obstacles Table on page 221 that will penalize their skill, and thus also penalize their passenger's ability to fight from chariots. All-in-all, I think the rules are pretty great in this respect.

If you want a "cheap and nasty" fix to this question, consider the following option, which is something I do when someone has a skill that would be immensely helpful in "buffing" another skill in a given situation... In the case of Divination, the base chance for a correct reading is casters POWx5. To use Celestial Lore in this situation, treat it as a passion roll that will buff the base chance, but make this a cult secret known only to Buserian worshippers. This makes Buserian worshippers pretty amazing at divination, which seems perfectly reasonable to me.

Vishi isn't a shaman, he's an apprentice shaman. His spell load-out is all-but entirely devoted to dealing with spirits. Spells like Axis Mundi and Discorporate will be immensely helpful in contacting and dealing with spirits, but they are hour-long rituals. Vishi will be of great value on occasions when the party is attacked by spirits. On other occasions he is very helpful because of his dagger-axe. I happen to really like Vishi as a character, but he often seems a bit weak. He would benefit from better armor and a more versatile list of spells. At the moment he is a very vulnerable glass cannon, in that he can slam with a dagger-axe, or charge for murder-damage on his llama, and is pretty good with spirits, but is basically running around naked in armor-terms and with only 1pt of Healing is going to go down and stay down for what other characters would consider 'tickle damage'.

Because the Seven Mothers is an illuminated sect, they don't go in for spirits of retribution. Instead the initiate remains permanently linked to the Lunar Cycle. Now if you want to persecute a Lunar character, why go for some pathetic scratchy little critter they will kill with one encounter? Send in a Tax Demon to audit them, starting with any backlog of undeclared treasure that should have been part of their 10% tithe. A scratchy little nuisance is not memorable, but a tax audit is terrifying.