Evilroddy

Wow! There is great information here. Lots for me to think about. 

My initial idea was that the caravan would be run by Red-Hairs and that attached to the caravan would be other smaller merchants tagging along for protection and guidance. The Molari-Sor have sent a small merchant group with a capable but ultimately potentially expendable member of the family to oversee the caravan. Three Red-Hair merchant houses form the core of the caravan and one house in particular is in charge of the caravan. This is augmented by smaller merchant houses, one Orayan and two from First Blessed. In addition there are two Lokarnos merchant houses from Yutthuppa and Good Shore participating. Finally there are some few independent merchants tagging along. All non-Red-Hair merchant houses and merchants must agree to pay a fee dependent on the value of their cargo and also agree to a one-way profit sharing scheme as well. The Red-Hairs provide all of the mounted scouts, guides and about 70% of the mounted guards. The other merchants provide about 30% of the mounted guards and all of the foot guards for the caravan. Additional guards, scouts or escorts are recruited from local Pentlanders as the caravan passes through their areas of influence. Adventurers, travellers, and others make up about 2% of the caravan. The caravan has about 90 heavy wagons with six-horse teams, an equal number of two-horse carts and about 600 pack animals including sables, mules and horses. There are about 60 heavy cavalry of Red-Hair stock and about 140 light skirmishing cavalry of Red-Hairs. There are also about 80 cavalry provided by the other merchants (20 HAC, 30 MC and 30 LC). There are also about 120 foot guards mostly LHI and LMI. Foot guards are about 50% missile troops and about 50% spear armed melee troops. There is a small contingent of powerful magical specialists.

Thus the caravan has approximately 90 wagons, 90 carts, 1400 draft and pack animals, 300 military mounts, 1200 food animals, and about 1300 people in the caravan. The Red-Hairs have also hired two giants (10M and 7M) as heavy lifting capacity for un-bogging carts and wagons, clearing obstacles, to provide longer range heavy missile capability and to generally intimidate potential foes.

Thanks to all above for your ideas and suggestions. I will now begin to rethink the caravan and make appropriate changes.

Cheers and good gaming.

Evilroddy.

Metcalph:

Thank you for the reference from Vol. II of the Guide. I had missed that one! 

M Helsdon:

OK. I guess they will stay in the Kingdom of Ignorance as they winter over in the East. No Kralorela for the party unless they wish to gamble their lives on covert penetration and travel.

Iskallor:

LOL!  Alas, I run a RuneQuest II/III game so 7W is sort of irrelevant. The PC's look nothing like Kraloreli nor do they speak the language, so I think they will fall short on the disguise and subterfuge spectrum. 

So, does anyone have any ideas about the other questions in my OP?

Thanks to all for your generous guidance.

Cheers and good gaming.

Evilroddy.

Metcalph and M Helsdon:

Thanks for your help in seemingly eliminating the east-southeastern route. I have the G2G and have read that but did not conclude it was the exclusive route. Now I may know better if I get an explicit conformation of the exclusivity of this one destination. I guess I was not clear in my previous posting - my apologies. Is that the only place that the Lunar caravans go? Do they penetrate further south into Kralorela itself? In the Guide it talks about foreigners having to spend a year in defacto quarantine in the south (Lur Nop) if they arrive by ship but if I remember correctly it mentions somewhere (I can't recall where) that this does not apply to foreigners who come with caravans in the north. Am I mistaken or is this true? If true, does that mean the caravans move south from Jangi-Shar through the Kingdom of Ignorance and into Kralorela proper?

My apologies once again for any lack of clarity I have caused.

Cheers and good gaming.

Evilroddy.

Jon Hunter: 

I really like the giants and twisted pseudo-giants which you have created. You have very interesting ideas and a gift for creativity. Your creations have depth and nuance which makes them both fascinating and attractive - even the most twisted, corrupted or reprehensible ones! Thank you for sharing these wonders of your imagination. They make an old RuneQuest junkie pine for the halcyon days when he played and refereed in Balazar, the Elder Wilds and Garsting so very long ago. Well done, sir.

Cheers and good gaming.

Rod Robertson.

To the wise Magi of Glorantha:

I have some questions about the trans-Pent caravans which travel from Oraya Sultanate to the East. 

1) Are these caravans homogeneous groups specifically created by the Molari-Sor Clan and run by Redlands agents, guides and guards? Or are they more heterogeneous corporations of independent Etyries and Lokarnos merchant houses which band together under the banner of the Molari-Sor Clan? Can Argan Argar and Issaries merchants participate in some capacity?

2) Do these caravans hire unaffiliated mercenary guards or are they guarded by Redlanders and the private guards of the merchant houses involved?

3) Are Yara Aranis cult members allowed/encouraged to join such caravans as protectors from the horse nomads or are they considered an unnecessary provocation to the Pentlanders?

4) What route do these caravans take? Is it Palbar to Ha'ar Za'al to Red Hair Place then east-northeast over the Gork Hills (if that's what they're called that far north), then east-southeast to Kralorela or east-northeast to the Kingdom of ignorance? It's the last leg that I am confused about. Where do they cross the mountains and where do they go from there? Finally, how far into Kralorela do the caravans travel?

5) What foes and allies are likely to be met along the way? Foes - wild beasts, Redland bandits, hostile Pentlanders, Trolls and trollish horrors like Dehori, Gagarthi horsemen, hostile Hsunchen peoples, Chaos bands, Giants, Huan To and their ghoulish hosts, Kralorelan bandits, far-ranging Praxians? Others? Allies - Redlanders, Pentlanders, friendly/benign Hsunchen peoples, Wind People, Kralorelans? Others?

Thanks in advance for any guidance which you can offer. It will be greatly appreciated.

Cheers and good gaming.

Evilroddy.

JAA:

The PDF's are only a starting point. It is your creative impulse which will breathe life into Glorantha. While Greg Stafford was the Cosmic Egg which spawned this wondrous world we all share and enjoy, it has grown and been enriched by all who play in it. It is the product of the I Thought, We Win nurturing which almost three generations of gamers and fans have poured into this magnificent cosmos. So, while canon and orthodoxy may be important to some, creativity and imagination are the forces which will drive the bubble in which the Lonely Lozenge floats up out of the void of chaos and infinite possibility. You make Glorantha now, so take up the mantle of creation and cry, "Ecce Omnia! Fiat Verum Gaudium!".

Cheers and good gaming.

Rod Robertson.

Davecakes:

Wow! You make me almost want to drink the crimson kool-aid! Lunar philosophy may be flexible and elastic enough to make room for religious intolerance and domination under the aegis of inclusiveness, ruthless exploitation of the conquered under the banner of social correction, liquidation of uncooperative or philosophically challenging populations as moral sanitation, promotion of destructive chaos and disorder in the service of imperial hegemony and growth, harnessing demonic powers as an ethical instrument of state power and necrotic self-pruning on a grand, societal scale to suit the needs of the chosen few. But somehow you make it seem ethically and morally consistent and in its grand design, ultimately benign!

That is the essence of the grand occlusion of the Lunar Way. If one is "we" or "us" then the "I" is irrelevant and personal responsibility for personal actions goes out the window. If all is done in the service of "Us" then millions of "I's" don't matter and can be swept away with the wave of a hand and those millions smeared upon the imperial regalia like an anointing oil, or a ghoulish jam. Isn't that the exact opposite of the lesson of the I Fought, We Won philosophy? Behold the renaissance of the Wakboth and Sedenya/Gbaji/Nysalor is its harbinger. Behold the renaissance of the Wakboth and Argrath/Harrek/Arkat is its harbinger. Heroes of illumination arise and nature revolts. Illumination is the void and the darkness made palatable by illusion and delusion/occlusion. Sevening is surrendering to the seven deadly sins and embracing the wicked way as the righteous path.

Woe to the world, Glorantha is doomed!

Cheers and good gaming.

Evilroddy.

Davecake:

Quote

If you were Illuminated, you'd understand. Gbaji just means deceiver. But if nothing is true, then aren't we all deceivers? And if nothing is true, then everything is permitted.

 

Given the Lunar Empire's penchant for excess and breaking the rules when it suits them, the empirical evidence implies that in the eyes of Lunar elites, everything IS permitted unless you're whacked in a dart war. So my question stands. Is Lunar illumination really just occlusion and madness hidden by illusion and deception on a continental scale? 

Also, given that many of the chief agents of all sides in the Hero Wars are illuminated in some form or another and further given that the Hero Wars will do great harm to the world and bring about the end of the Third Age and a new lesser(?) darkness, aren't such illuminated agents just catalysts for global destruction and ruin? Thus it would seem that just like in the times of Arkat's and Nysalor/Gbaji and in the times of the end of the Middle Sea Empires and the EWF, illumination in some form was a major contributor to the destruction or collapse of societies. Is illumination metaphysical chaos?

Cheers and good gaming.

Rod Robertson.

Is Lunar illumination a lie? Is it really just an illusion? If the Red Godess met Gbaji (disguised as Wakboth?) in the underworld, was ambushed but later defeated her foe (?) and then traded places with her vanquished adversary, then isn't the Red Godess the essence of Gbaji in disguise? If the Red Godess is the channel through which the Empire teaches Nysalorian philosophy and discipline and if the Red Godess is Gbaji, then is the entire Lunar creed occlusion cloaked in illusion and deception? Man, this stuff scrambles my brain.

Cheers and good gaming.

Evilroddy.

David Scott wrote"

Quote

So 300 Yelornans. I'd say 90% have travelled the Unicorn Path to the Green Age and returned, so that's 270 Unicorns. The remainder have yet to do so, failed or their Unicorn has died. The others ride white horses so they look cool.

Why would the percent of Yelornams with unicorn allies be as high as 90%? Wouldn't allying a unicorn be something which only higher initiates or levels above had completed? Wouldn't most initiates be on the path to gaining a unicorn rather than already having one? I would argue that the number would be much lower than 90%. Perhaps as low as 10-30% depending on the magic and mythic resources of the Praxian tribe or company you examine. I'm interested in how you arrived at 90% and I readily admit that I am winging it with my guess-timations.

Thank you for your work and deep interest/knowledge in this topic. I have learned a lot from your posts above.

Cheers and good gaming.

Evilroddy.

Quackatoa:

"ptyrant-prince" I love it!

Cheers and good gaming.

Evilroddy.

Patrick:

The revenge of the cradle is a common terrestrial theme, why not Glorantha? Isn't reproduction and fecundity what the Ernaldans are all about? Bless Crops, Bless Animals, Bless Births, Twins and more? I get your point but wonder whether a desperate people under occupation or threat of occupation would, even from a Gloranthan gestalt. I have no idea what the answer is which is why I asked the questions I did. I like your point about population recovery by 1621/27 but given the daily lethality of Glorantha would a rapid population recovery have occurred so quickly?

Cheers and good gaming.

Evilroddy.

Man! Am I lost. This thread is befuddling me. I am most definitely un-illuminated! I guess I'm just a rude and ignorant Praxian Stormbuller with below average berserker skills, a Block-head so to speak. 

Why is Kim's post above so short and yet so long? Is it a Nysalor riddle of some kind, or am I blind to the wisdom which follows his third short paragraph? My head hurts and my eyes burn; am I on the correct path?

I will read on with wide eyes and a vacant mind until the sweet mead of illumination fills my head and warps my soul. A toast to you all! 

Cheers and good gaming.

Evilroddy.

You have a thirding here too! Pod-casts or even videos of roleplaying games can be very instructive and thought provoking. They can offer insights which you can't get through books and PDF's or websites. It can challenge the local orthodoxies which I assume we all tend to fall in to when we game with the same folk for years or when we bring new players into our own interpretation of an RPG or a setting. Another benefit is the popularization of the game system or the game world. Chaosium and BRP might do very well to explore this dimension of the hobby. One need only look at the resurgence of D&D in the wake of pod-casts and video/streaming shows focused on actual game sessions to see that this is a powerful marketing tool to bring the hobby and a company's products to new audiences with an appetite to play and disposable income to spend. Thus live roleplaying pod-casts and videos/streaming could be very good for both those interested in playing the hobby and those interested in selling the hobby. Thank you Carcosa for this excellent suggestion and Kim for your seconding. This is most welcome!

Cheers and good gaming.

Evilroddy.

Metcalph:

The Yezidis are a good parallel qualitatively but I caution that there is an order of magnitude greater Yezidi population (950,000-1,500,000) than the 100,000 Esvulari given by Jeff on the previous page. Thus a quantitative parity does not exist. Indeed, there are about 100,000 Yezidis living in Germany and I wonder if they will maintain their religious and cultural identity and traditions in the next 500 years or so. They arrived in large numbers in the1990's and are losing small but significant demographic strength to assimilation and westernization already. Five centuries is a long time!

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yazidis

i am not sure how well their caste system will hold up in Germany but I'm not going to bet money either way.

Cheers and good gaming.

Evilroddy.

Quackatoa:

Whoa! Wader minute! Is this some kind of web feat? Such fowl play! After peking at your posts I am aghast and agrebed! Such daffy quackery will fell me like a severe mallardy and I don't want to feel down no more! While you might think these fit the bill for the Hero Wars, I think it's just a misguided flight of fancy. You might as well have drawn one up as a one-handed, Star Wars Gedi and entitled it, "Luke, I am your feather."! But I must admit I liked the Dragonfriend one, it was quite drake-onic, and that's no eggs-ageration. Was it a decoy to distract me from the rest? We don't want to see any more of this nonsense, dewey? 

Lordy-Lordy-Lewey, I'der done it differently so I'm going to have to pin this one on you, Quackatoa! Waddle you do to get out of this now? Escape in a Huey? Perchance you wood duck this? Claim the evidence against you is poultry and go for a mis-trial or just wing it? They'll shoot you to pieces. I'm don; ald puns annoy me!

I'm so sorry.

Evilroddy.

Jeff et. al.:

I saw and read your most informative post. With the exception of the notes on caste structure, the information was appreciated but was also too esoteric for my purpose - which is to better understand how the Aeolian Church and Esvulari society work in a temporal sense. I think (hope?) I understand some of the dimensions of the metaphysical construct you are trying to describe but what I'm after is how it operates in a world dominated by turnip yields and other material concerns. I am interested in the institution of the Aeolian Church rather than its more arcane beliefs and dogma, although those are also very important too. Unless I have player characters attending a religious conclave, what I'm trying to discover is how the a Church appears to the lay people and to outsiders with little or no grounding in Aeolian dogma and epistemology.

I do appreciate the thought which you and others have put into this and your efforts to describe and explain the philosophical and spiritual underpinnings of the Aeolians and the Esvulari. I value that greatly as it informs me as both a GM and as a life-long fan of the marvel that is Glorantha. But I am also interested in the more mundane and crunchy aspects of the institutions of the faith and its resultant society and how that society interacts with the pagan and monotheistic societies around it. That is what I need as a selfish GM to better narrate my campaign.

As to the caste system and endogamy, I have a concern. My position is based on the presumption that the caste system is a pyramid-shaped hierarchy with many at the base and few at the apex. If my presumption is wrong than please ignore my concern which follows. In such a small population how can a very small noble/Talar caste maintain its existence given the vicissitudes of living through hundreds of years of a world as lethal as Glorantha? If such a tiny caste cannot renew its numbers by the uptake of the most promising of lower castes then isn't it likely to face extinction in short order? This would seem to make it difficult to maintain an effective and socially legitimate noble/Talar caste in the face of upheavals, war, disease and other challenges. If the reproductive pool is too small, the ability to recover from disasters and to maintain a functional and effective noble caste is less certain it would seem. Have the Esvulari just been very fortunate to have escaped such existential challenges or are there other factors at play here?

Once again thank you to all who have made this a most interesting discussion and a big thanks to Jeff et. al. for piloting this latest iteration of Glorantha which intrigues and informs us all.

Cheers and good gaming.

Evilroddy.

PS. Thanks too to the cerebral cortex and amygdalae of Greg Stafford - the cosmic egg of our shared passion!

Correction:

My heat-addled brain caused me to write KoDP instead of KoS (King of Sartar) in my earlier post. Apologies.

My memory is that Knight Fort is very old and its origins lost to memory. My memory is also that after the failed Starbrow Rebellion fugitive Sartarite warriors joined Broyan Volsaxsson in garrisoning the ancient fort as mercenaries for the Heortlands' governor-king from 1613 to late 1615. Broyan's garrison was replaced in Earth Season 1615 by Rokari knights and mercenaries who garrisoned the fort until the fall of Tigerheart in 1620. After that the garrison's personnel becomes more vague. I suspect that some of this was from Jeorg's version of the Heortlands history but I cannot actually remember how much is his and how much came from the KoDP.

In my campaign, the fort had a small Aeolian garrison and an Aeolian baron. This small force was augmented by mercenaries bought and paid for by the Heortlands' governor-king using the Pharaoh's revenues. These mercenaries were Orlanthi and Aeolian, then Rokari and finally (after the Talar's conquest of the south) God Forgotters at various times from 1613-1624. After 1624 things deteriorated badly and the fort's garrison was much smaller and ad hoc in nature.

Cheers and good gaming.

Evilroddy.

From a more temporal standpoint, what effect does the prominent role played by women in the Lunar Empire have on traditional Orlanthi societies and the Orlanthi view of women? If your arch nemesis is led by a female deity and six other 'mothers', if your cities are assailed and conquered by unstoppable female heroines, if the children of Umath are under attack by persuasive, female missionaries and if Lunar garrisons have large numbers of female soldiers with their boots on Orlanthi necks, might there not be a reaction against strong female martial roles? This might be further exacerbated by the possibility that powerful bodies of women, being eminently more sensible than similar bodies of men, might be more inclined to coexist with invaders and bide their time rather than trying to jump into self-destructive violent resistance always? Just as there was a reaction in Esrolian society against patriarchy and male-storm runic power, might there not be a more local reaction against female-harmony/stasis power and female martial-storm prowess?

As for homosexuality, when a population is under stress and needs to reproduce as fast as possible to recover heavy losses and resist invaders, traditional Orlanthi open-mindedness to homosexual lifestyles might be eclipsed by an imperative to reproduce as quickly and efficiently as possible. Such biological under-currents often have a substantial effect on how societies behave and adapt when conditions deteriorate and priorities change.

Cheers and good gaming.

Evilroddy.

If Aeolian culture in the Heortlands is just an Orlanthi culture with a Church and a magical elite laminated on top of it, then what role does the Aeolian Church play in Esvulari society? Is it just a collection of churches and small colleges serving the upper most strata of Esvulari society or does it have real day-to-day connections with the whole Esvulari population? Are Esvulari peasants and craftsmen more likely to have stronger ties to pagan cults and rites but wizards less? Does the Aeolian Church struggle to keep the rank and file in the fold or does it allow its adherents to explore pagan, Brithini and now Rokari beliefs and rites? Is there an Aeolian body of orthodoxy with authority to keep the faith and is there some sort of an 'inquisition' or cannonical authority which can use coercion to protect the faith? Are the wizard class/caste mostly connected to and part of the Church hierarchy or are there many free mages who while being nominally Aeolian are mostly involved with the temporal world and their own pursuits?

How does the Aeolian Church reconcile the use of sorcery with the traditional Orlanthi suspicion/out-right hatred of sorcery? Why hasn't Esvulari society been ripped apart or assailed from outside by Meldek feuds and wars? Presumably cynical pagan leaders have tried to whip up sorcery-based bugbears to weaken Aeolian power and to further their own pagan interests? I'm sure the God-king's governors try to tamp this down but it would seem to me that sectarian violence would be an issue despite the governors' best efforts.

Does the Aeolian Church try to enforce the old caste system of the Brithini (and presumably the Ingareen God Forgotten) or do they have a community without caste distinctions like the Orlanthi? If the latter is true, then who can become an Aeolian adept of magic and who is barred from such pursuits? Is it a merit-based system or is it expensive and therefore open to only those of substantial economic means or is it associated with class and birth rather than caste per se? While I presume Aeolian colleges would only likely teach approved magic (ie. sorcery), can students of magic also acquire spirit/folk magic and if associated with a pagan cult like Lhankor Mhy or Ernalda/Chalana Arroy could they also have access to divine magic and rituals?

Finally, what role does the Aeolian Church play in temporal matters? Does it have lands or revenue grants (like Turkish Igta) which give it economic and temporal power or does it depend on tithes, donations and wizardry revenues to maintain the Church? Are powerful urban guilds dominated by Aeolians as opposed to pagans and more recently Rokari and thus are such guilds an unofficial arm of the Aeolian Church, sort of like Muslim brotherhoods were in Egypt or the Abbasid Caliphate? Are Aeolian land owners beholden to the Church more than other Aeolians and do local Aeolian military elites form a sort of 'Church Militant' to protect and promote the interests of the Aeolian Church?

I hope my many questions are not too much of a burden, but the Heortlands was a major locale for mine and others in my old gaming group's campaigns, so I am very interested how this newer version of the Heortlands unfolds and reveals itself. 

Cheers and good gaming.

Evilroddy.

GamingGlen:

Are you talking about big broobies? :-)

I'm so ashamed to have sunk to the level of bad puns so quickly. I blame TRose's "Cold Broo" pun for setting me off. Curse you, sir!

Cheers and apologies.

Evilroddy.

metcalph, Jeorg and other wise magi:

Wow, this is a very interesting discussion. Thank you so much for your insights and speculation. My head is spinning!

Cheers and good gaming.

Evilroddy.

Hmmm! Much to think about here! Thanks!

Cheers.

Evilroddy.

Quote

There is an important difference between the Brithini of Arolanit and the God Forgottens.  The God Forgottens are still attached to the Purification Rune (as per the Middle Sea Empire and also the Holy Country chapter of Prince of Sartar graphic novel) which looks like a Moon Rune (hinted as long ago as Pavis: Threshold to Danger whence the Wand of the Seven Phases of the Moon comes from the Machine City).  They don't use it to master chaos but they do use it to purify themselves to draw closer to the God who has forgotten them.

metcalph:

Wow, that is mind blowing stuff and it throws my albeit limited and old-fashioned understanding of the God-Forgotters into a complete re-think. Thanks for giving me much to think about. My mind is blown! Having not seen the sources which you have cited I will blindly speculate and ask the following question. Is the pseudo-moon purification rune you associate with Ingareen Brithini iconography and symbolism related to Anillia and her tidal cycles of renewal and the blue-streak?

Cheers and good gaming.

Rod Robertson