Darius West

In other publications (Borderlands, I think) we are told that Herd men have big flat teeth that they use for munching on vegetation. The point is a vexed one. Also, think about how much less sense this makes economically than having herd men eat grass and morokanths eat meat. You would actually have morokanths out hunting meat to feed their carnivorous but stupid herd men, who then provide them with no economic value to speak of. This model is economically unsustainable in terms of energy expended to results, and cannot be made to work, because it flies in the face of why domestication of animals occurred. Human beings never domesticated large carnivores, other than perhaps the larger dogs. The reason dogs and cats work is because they help with the hunting, vermin removal, and guarding and the food they provide helps to feed meat to the humans. By comparison, you can keep a lion, and even train it, but you can't domesticate it, and it is furiously expensive to maintain, as you will need a large number of animals to feed it, and they in turn will require land that would otherwise be used for other economic activity. Herd animals work because grass is plentiful, and the animals display a level of social behavior that allows them to be controllable, and the food output they provide is a valuable addition to a human diet that cannot be obtained by any other means than by eating either meat or feces (and most of us know which we prefer). Herd animals also provide other useful things such as milk and its products, maybe wool , and leather, as well as bone and sinew which are useful in making weapons and other tools. Unless Herd men are following this model, the morokanth should have gone extinct before time, not through the intervention of chaos or wicked gods, but due to pig headed stupidity, and a complete inability to deal with their new ecological reality.

Thanks for reminding me how much I disagree with this point. Non-meat eating morokanths make no sense economically and even less sense given the nature of Waha's Covenant. I have entered my objections into the forum topic "Bits of Glorantha you ignore".

Actually another pet peeve that I have with the present Glorantha canon is this whole idea that Morokanths aren't able to eat meat, i.e. are not carnivorous/omnivorous like humans. I cannot get this idea to make any sense whatsoever, and so I have removed it entirely from my Glorantha. Think about it... Waha's Covenant specified that the winners get to ride and eat the losers, but have an obligation to look after them too. Let's ignore the other logical problems with Waha's Covenant (such as what exactly was the competition, and why did Humans have to compete against so many different beasts when the beasts apparently didn't compete against each other, etc.) This leaves us with the outcome, which was that humans an morokanth won, but somehow morokanth cannot eat meat, despite the fact that they are effectively the ultimate winner of the entire contest, having beaten the humans. This doubles down in contradiction when you consider that the humans of Genert's Garden likely didn't eat meat either before Waha's Covenant. This also makes no sense in the context of the spell Alter Creature. Humans who have the spell cast on them devolve into simpleminded grass eaters who lack the power of speech and reason. Cast the same creature on a human again and they become normal humans and are able to think and eat meat again. So... What happens if you cast Alter Creature on a morokanth...? Also the whole notion that morokanth can make herd men into something of economic value other than food and hides is pretty ridiculous. If morokanth are herbivores, then the notion that they train herd men to bring them food is absurd, because there is plenty of grass for everyone, and the notion that these herbivorous morokanth are too lazy to lean down and graze is perverse. It is also silly to imagine that stupid herd men are going to bring tasty treats to the morokanth rather than eating the item themselves, while not impossible, doesn't sound like a good working economic model for managing a tribe. It is also highly unlikely that Herd Men can be trained to manufacture items for trade. Herd Men are likely to be less intelligent than chimps, so the chances that they could make items worth trading is unlikely, as we have never been able to train chimps to do so irl, though it might be remotely possible for very smart chimps to learn such skills. So the notion then would be that herd men bring food to the morokanth so that the morokanth can do the manufacture, save that most morokanth don't have thumbs, and so can't perform manufacturing tasks despite being mentally capable of doing so. Of course this all begs the question of who they are trading with, as Prax and the wastes weren't exactly replete with settlements of any size for most of their history, and certainly not during the Pre-Time to early First Age period when the cultural methods of the morokanth and other Praxians would have been laid down. The simple fact is, that unless the morokanth eat their herd men, they cannot justify the effort of keeping them AND there is the whole issue that non-omnivorous/carnivorous morokanth make no sense within the lore, as Waha's Covenant is about who eats whom, as much as it is about who rides whom. To this end, in my Glorantha, morokanth herd humans, and other Prax beasts, but their herds aren't all that large, as they ride Prax beasts about as well as another Prax beast would, because, surprise, they are big ol' Prax beasts, just smaller than some of the others.

Centaurs and Minotaurs have an Earth based mythical history that especially relates to bronze age and classical Greece. They are therefore far more setting appropriate. Disney characters? Not so much.

I actually have less of a problem with an armored flamingo than meeting Donald Duck. Call it a branding issue.

You may want to correct the title. I read it and was wondering if Los Tin the Dark was a Kitori AA merchant.

To explain the difference Between Customs and Elder Race Lore, remember that joke part of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade where Indy says of Marcus Brody: "The hell you will. He's got a two day head start on you, which is more than he needs. Brody's got friends in every town and village from here to the Sudan, he speaks a dozen languages, knows every local custom, he'll blend in, disappear, you'll never see him again." Well, obviously Indy was lying about Marcus, but the fact is, Marcus likely had a very high Lore skill (Middle East), which is an academic understanding of everything he is seeing, and maybe even some language skill in Arabic, but a very low Customs (Middle East) which is more of a practical day-to-day "get along with the locals" skill (and obviously Marcus had no Disguise or Streetwise).

I have a friend who finds ducks to be utterly immersion breaking, so I just don't include them when he plays. I am not keen on ducks myself, but they are part of the setting, and there is this whole place on the map called Duck Point that becomes a bit problematic without them. I certainly never have ducks in Prax, not even as river bandits. Where ducks appear I substitute trollkin or baboons.

I do this a lot in all my games, especially ones where the game world is known to players. I recently had a character with genius level INT and prodigy level maths and physics who found a gate spell realize how to retro-engineer the spell to make it travel in time. Letting players get time travel is something few GMs would feel comfortable about, I admit, but I work to the maxim that if you give a player enough rope they will almost always hang themselves. In CoC, my best players treat their magic almost like a form of leprosy, where they are constantly second guessing their actions and checking themselves for negative side-effects these days. The ones who were slipshod and careless with spells are all dead or insane now, and I as a GM didn't even have to be punitive; they did it to themselves. My time travelling player was one of the clever, careful ones, and he used his time travel magic to completely defeat the Arkham Witch Cult back in Colonial times, while also setting up a bootlegging operation involving gate spells and very demented pigs (it's a long odd story that involves animal cruelty). A side effect of this was that a character who had found herself in diabolical trouble with Nyarlathotep was effectively rescued in the past without her knowledge, and woke up "as if from a terrible and incredibly vivid nightmare" to discover her new Mandela effect reality. The game of historical "What if" is potentially a lot of fun, but only if both the players and the GM are more-or-less aware of the history that has been altered. A good example of this is the Fallout universe, where transistors weren't invented after the end of WW2. Oh nonsense 😄. Nobody even remembers when the Shoggoth god rampaged through the North End of Boston. 😜

The answer is basically no. The binding enchantment becomes the new loci connection. This is great stuff David, but consider that a Zzaburi or Vadeli may wish to torture the spirit for being a pagan entity, in which case they may deliberately encase them in materials that the spirit doesn't like, to break its will and force its total obedience.

I prefer to let the dice tell the story. It feels less artificial and is often more immersive, as unexpected things happen more often. GMs often try to follow a narrative arc, while life seldom does.

Not even a named NPC? Not even a hero? Not even a Superhero? The rules as they stand suggest that anyone from initiate status and higher has a chance to get divine intervention. This isn't limited to the player characters. It is also no guarantee of success in D.I. (unless the character is a Rune Lord). I find D.I. means I can recycle some NPC stats, and give them an ongoing backstory for the next time they meet the players. "I used to have massive Power. The gods loved me! But thanks to you, I now have the Power of a baby carrot, and I owe the Chalana Arroys half of my income! I will have my revenge!"

So, a Christian Metal Band then? There is a bit of a caveat on those 20CF demi-gods. They are assumed to not represent a single person, but to be a single powerful individual surrounded by their entourage, who consist of magical specialists. Harrek for example would have a number of advanced wolf pirates, while Jar-Eel would have a body guard of Nathans and Full Moon Corps and her own entourage of healers, sorcerers, etc. Androgeus would likely have a selection of lovers, and so forth. This also applies to 4CF heroes like Argrath. As to it being pretty darn great, well yes, you can manipulate the various magical powers of the world to generate enormous skill totals that guarantee critical hits. Most of RQ's most useful magic is all about buffs, and they add up, and sometimes they multiply. As to the Great Man theory, plz, it is called the Hero Wars for a reason. The entire structure of the conflict ultimately comes to orbit the egos of the prime protagonists on a magical and mythological level, to the point where Gods themselves get killed in the process. IMHO Tatius wasn't very bright.

This is an excellent approach to a knotty little problem. If the matter ever arises, I will adopt this answer.

The idea of a trickster shrine with actual worshippers is not without precedent, but hoo boy is that character signing on for some trouble. Tricksters don't play well with others, including other tricksters. It's not that they are crazy berserkers like ZZs or Uroxi, but they are compulsive scammers, cheats, liars, troublemakers, lunatics and sometimes they are given to the murderer aspect. The God Learners tried to create a Great Temple to the Trickster in Maniria, and shortly after its creation the entire city winked out of existence (if my memory serves). The trickster character in question should be advised to simply pay an Ikadz worshipper to torture him if he is that much of a masochist. I don't know if this is the way most people play trickster shrines, but in my Glorantha trickster shrines can be found by tricksters using divination. These sites don't have a large group of worshippers, but will be small, out of the way features where a trickster can go to worship on their own. It's not that other tricksters can't be present, but they are inclined to annoy each other. Sites will include things like a disused drinking fountain that connects to a septic tank, or a gold wheel that is solidly glued to the ground and cannot be moved, or really pornographic knotholes in the timber on a wall in an alley. Tricksters may well find other tricksters lurking around such sites, but it is a moot point if they really want to acknowledge each other. Yes there are. The Wooden Sword is the classic example. Certain sufficiently charged holy items/relics can act as a conduit to a deity and serve as a mobile focus of worship, that forego the usual requirements of hundreds of gathered worshippers. It is possible, if not likely, that such a relic could exist for trickster, but do you seriously think any single trickster ever hangs on to it for long? That thing will be passed around like an Alabama cousin.

I agree. I think the Colymar have already been "trodden underfoot", and Kangharl is trying to be a pragmatist and mitigate their unfortunate position by getting onboard with the invaders, much like many Gaulish and Briton chiefs did when defeated by the Romans. Events culminating with the death of Orlanth after the fall of Whitewall were a long list of Lunar victories, and one could be forgiven for becoming disillusioned I think. One aspect of this which is worth drawing attention to, is that the Lunars don't appear to have been nearly as genocidal as the Romans during their occupations of Tarsh and Sartar. Defeated tribes were normally driven into slavery and ceased to exist. even during the Bronze Age on Earth. The Lunars certainly don't seem to have many qualms about committing atrocities, given that they have the Crimson Bat in their lineup, so the question then becomes "Why not?". To my mind, the crucial factor here is the leadership of Fazzur Wideread. I suspect that without Fazzur that the Lunars would have likely been unable to take Sartar, at least not without drowning the Sartarites in blood i.e. outrageous Lunar casualties. Fazzur, being a Tarshite native, was notoriously well informed about the peoples of Dragon Pass, and he understood how to negotiate with the Orlanthi tribal and clan system; how to play the clans and tribes off against each other, and how to use the threat of Lunar force in place of the actual costly exercise of military power. Fazzur likely understood that dead people are worthless to everyone but Delecti, and that a ruined country can't pay tax, but most importantly, that he could leverage the carrot and stick of the threat of force and the potential for political and financial support so that the leaders of the tribes and clans would eventually realize that there were more benefits to supporting the Lunars than opposing them. This is perhaps why the people of Sartar weren't simply rounded up and sold into slavery. I think Kangharl "did the maths" and realized that he was unlikely to see an Orlanthi victory in his lifetime, and that was almost true, as his last moments slipping down the Brown Dragon's gullet were a pretty decisive Orlanthi victory and a very effective application of terrorism.

Yes. They can marry anyone who will put up with them. Same as anyone else. Actually no. Vingans have no specific marriage arrangements. Mostly they stay single, drifting in and out of year marriages, as they are warriors first, so much like other people who spend extended periods travelling, their relationships tend to be a bit disposable. That being said, a Vingan doesn't generally bring much property to a marriage, so she would most likely only be able to negotiate an underwife position, which would be unpalatable. Of course if she has piles of loot that might be a different story. Most Orlanth Pantheon women spend their youth organizing a decent dowry to avoid becoming an underwife to a richer older man. Some say that the henna Vingans use for keeping their hair red is a useful contraceptive. As an expedient I play that women cultivate sylphium in their veggie gardens, which serves much the same function as our oral contraception. Of course most Earth worshippers regard children as a blessing, but after your 8th such self-fouling little blessing, the novelty can wear off and economic reality begins to really pinch. It isn't that Vingans can't look after children, or don't know how, but that isn't the life they have chosen. They are the mad warrior aunt who drops in to teach the kids swordplay, or guards them while they go mushrooming. Mostly Vingans don't put themselves in that position overly often. Vinga is a Thunder Brother. Followers of Orlanth can pray to her as an associated cult to get her blessing of fearlessness. I would suggest that rather than a book devoted to Vinga alone, we REALLY need a book that covers all the various Thunder Brothers, and their cults and abilities, that includes Vinga.

Some newtling's momma got around methinks.

Raw ambition is also a thing. It is an uncomfortable decision to make, but some Sartarites got pragmatic and decided to make the best of the occupation by towing the Lunar party line, thinking that the Lunars had won and it was futile to resist. Kangharl saw the opportunity to cement his leadership, and to get not only Lunar support but a better deal for his tribe financially. No magic involved.

What people are assiduously ignoring is that the main area still under the Syndics Ban is Brithos. Where Brithos used to sit, there is now a big cloud of silvery mist; my, doesn't that sound familiar? Remember that Snodal used the ritual murder of the God of Silver Feet to invoke the Ban, and he did that to avoid Zzabur sinking Fronela, so it was less Loskalmi magical dumping, and more a cut/paste of Gloranthan reality, using Loskalm's rejected shadow as the editing tool. So effectively the various snipped areas have been sitting in the buffer or have been "saved to notepad" (now that's a form of Irensavalism that most people don't suspect).😄 It is interesting that the Lunars have been meddling with these areas, but since the return of the Boat Planet, the spell has been crumbling, or more correctly "Thawing". Of course that presupposes that the lands in question have been frozen in time. This might be true of the Rathori who hibernated, but most of these places seem to have been going their merry way without reference to the outside world, and the KoW is no different. It is also worth pointing out that the KoW is not the only area liberated by the Thaw, it is just the most problematic. There are actually multiple areas affected, and most of them are not half so dangerous as the KoW. I mean, you have the Uncolings of Porent, the Golden Tyrant and Yelm worshippers of Southbank, Timms, Mortasor, Riverjoin etc. In any case I don't buy the idea that the KoW is the rejected shadow of the Loskalmi. Loskalm practices meritocratic feudalism, but feudal order is implicitly a military order. Yes there is the caste system, but look how the society is composed. King, wizards, warriors, peasantry. It is a place where you become a good farmer so you can join the military caste, not a place where you become a good soldier so you can join the peasantry, and live out your days honing your skill as an artisan. Peace may be a Loskalmi ideal, but Chalana Arroys they are not. Just as the Vadeli offer a novel logical spin on the castes of Brithos, the Kingdom of War is merely a more logical form of military organization than Loskalm has.😉 As to the Lunar idea that the Kingdom of War is morally neutral, well, perhaps for a culture that uses chaos monsters as shock troops this is true, but it is only true in a relative sense. If the Lunars themselves were less morally reprehensible, they would probably see a ravening horde of war hungry serial killer honed by centuries of isolation in murder-crazy-land as a bad thing, and not a potential political opportunity to cause trouble for their bothersome neighbors. 😛

The naming process for clans has no specific system to it that has ever been alluded to. Sometimes they will be named for the new chief (Lismelder). Sometimes they will be named for a feature of the landscape (Bayberry). Sometimes they will be named for a totem animal (Swan). Sometimes they will even be named for a commodity they produce (Green Stone), or a cult spirit local to their new location. Sometimes names are provisional, sometimes they stick, sometimes abusive nicknames become clan names over time. I suspect that a wise clan may choose to perform a series of divinations with their ancestors and their gods to insure that their new name is acceptable and well-omened. I suspect that the new clan is provisionally named for the leader until a new name is chosen, likely after a proper reconnaissance of their new tula is performed. How long is a piece of string? 🙂 Again... How long is a piece of string? 🙂 If the clan splitting off is doing so with the blessing of its parent clan, and their resources backing the move, then it is likely to be well organized, with arrangements made for the people moving through other clan territories in advance, all but providing depots for them to stop along the way, and with the site for the new tula explored in advance. More commonly, the split is acrimonious, and the parent clan is furious with the absconders. It may be that the new ring are clued in to a good location, or have made a deal in advance. It is likely that the new leader is an opportunist who realized that their chances for promotion in the previous clan setting had been dashed due to them losing trust with the hierarchy. It is just as likely that poor leadership has caused elements of the old clan to become disenchanted with their ring. It is also possible for a clan to become the victim of its own success e.g. when a clan reaches 2500+ population, and the local nature spirits get upset at how much of the wilderness is being "pasturized". A scenario which isn't generally encountered is when a clan is repeatedly and horribly hammered on by feuding neighbours, with their steads burned, their people taken as thralls, and their livestock and treasure plundered, and a couple of hundred survivors fleeing to a distant place a long way away. This might also be the case if the clan picks a fight they can't win with a local power like the another much stronger clan or tribe, or the Lunars, or the Grazelanders, or the Trolls, the Aldryami/Naure spirits, or the Beast Folk, i.e. a militia of spare time warriors face off against a real military power. This situation is essentially a refugee story where the survivors split into cadres and wander the land before eventually finding a place where there is land to spare, and living hand-to-mouth off the land and the charity of others. Many will be seized as thralls for doing this, others will be absorbed into other tribes and clans, but some might find a new place and set about finding the survivors and trying to start again. If you ask me, this sounds the most interesting option, but it might be a good idea if the players have a clue that this is what they are signing on for so they don't become too disheartened too early (unless as a GM, this raw emotional reaction is what you are hoping to invoke).

Yeah, the Enclosure version of Shargash didn't include the whole Shargash/Tolat/Red Planet issue, but it was a more entertaining read, and in many ways grounded Alkoth and its role in Dara Happa more clearly within the literature. I personally like and enjoy regional granularity in cults. I am not interested in the fact that Shargash and Tolat are the same god, I am interested in how the cult of Alkoth differs from the cult of the Amazons. Clearly they should have different associated cults, variance in the mythology, and differing forms of worship and standards of admission. Yes there will be similarities, but they are in essence quite different cults, in the same way Japanese Hidden Christianity was massively different to the Roman Catholicism that began it. For this reason I really enjoyed the Enclosure version of Shargash, and was a bit underwhelmed by the RQ:GoG version by comparison.

Yep. My bad. Thx. Corrected in text.

Yeah, fair enough. On the issue of the Trickster flaw, I never liked it. It is silly and arbitrary but in the wrong way. Having GMed a few tricksters now, and even played a couple, a well played trickster really doesn't need this. They make their own fun by coming up with hairbrained schemes that work in the short term, until people get wise to them, then they blow up in the trickster's face. Trickster's cannot "build"; nothing they do leads to stability, and any structure or organization they interact with can only be worse for it, unless they anticipate and accept the need for disorder to keep from becoming stale. That is why the Yelm Pantheon hates Tricksters, but the Orlanthi accept them, but on a leash.