Nevermet

I don't remember anything off the top of my head. As a guess? The Brown Caste will often have a value in using animals, but riding animals is for people who need to get somewhere fast, and that's usually not for them. Talars need to survey their kingdom, Horali need to get to battle, and Zzuburi may need to get places despite their venerable age. I feel something like that argument would hold sway some places. Not the Trader Princes, but elsewhere. I could imagine something like that for Kaxtorplose. And I'd imagine the Ramalians would promote something similar.

Another point I didn't emphasize enough. I fully expect there is no 1 set of answers that applies perfectly to all those regions. The Trader Princes are Hrestoli followers of a singular hero, on top of a rural Orlanthi culture (the Manirians). Their answers to those questions will not be the same as they are in the urban & diverse area around Safelster, or the puritanical Rokari, or the Idealists of Loskalm. As a guess, the smaller a population, or the more its about western influenced culture than something more institutionalized, there will be more flexibility and acceptance of gray areas. Meanwhile, the Rokari probably have exact measurements for what makes a spear a hunting tool vs a weapon of war.

I have not engaged texts for this, but here are my initial opinions. To use anachronistic language, Talars set policy. Who to trade with, what are the taxes, etc. Dromali merchants are the ones in the stalls, haggling and figuring out how to execute the Talars goals. I think the Trader Princes are probably unusual in the centrality of ancestor worship related to Issaries' children. According to the Lightbringer book, the Trader Princes are Goldentongue. I suspect the Dromali would be more Garzeen. There may be a "in case of invasion" clause for rising a militia out of the Dromali, but yeah, probably not too much armor Commoners across the world know how to wrestle and punch, and I'd imagine that's the case for the Dromali too. Also, in militia situations, they would have weapons that have other uses: spears, bows, pitchforks, daggers etc. Dromali wouldn't be proficient with things that are exclusively weapons (swords, halberds, etc) As above, I fully expect Dromali would know how to use tools that are sometimes weapons. So, yeah, slings would definitely be on the list. But the average Dromali would be less combat ready than the average Sartarite farmer / herder. The average Horali, though... I think I'd agree with you Depends on the specific Malkioni population, I suspect. The Blues may be the only literate people in some communities. In others, there may be sections of the other castes who can read, at which point the drudgery of copying scrolls etc would be outsourced to them.

BTW, while I admit some of my activity here is acting like a 5 year old who proudly wants something he drew on the fridge, that's not the only motivation. These maps are part of a desire on my part to detail the history of Maniria from the Sinking of Slontos up to the "present" in RQG publications. It's useful therefore to think through the geography as I worry about social and historical dynamics. I have most official Glorantha pubs from Hero Wars RPG on. So if I've missed something mentioned somewhere, I'd love to know. If I misinterpreted something, or at least interpreted different than others, I would love to know.

Sadly, I'm toward the end of what I should do right now with maps. I need to get back to reading books. However, here's the bits specific to near Kaxtorplose. Here's the map in the Guide: So, here's my second age map version, including the faint river that goes from the sea through Ulanin, Kaxtorplose, to Doaer: Focusing that river, I started wondering about it, and I decided it was likely 1 of the paths Arkat's forces took to free Kaxtorplose (that would explain why there's a town named Ulanin, a pre-Dawn hero from Hendrikiland. Anyway, it probably had some interesting associations with separating life and death, rightness and wrongness, etc, so I decided to use part of the river's banks as the new shore of the mournsea.

Added my first non-Guide elements to the map: Additional minor streams (in black) Meetinghall Mountain / Island (white triangle in the center-south) Added a handful of things from Blood & Gold

No, his uncle. But again: we're not talking about that.

The Talar ordered us not to talk about that incident.

Actually, I think a lot of Malkioni Blues would disagree with you and say we can understand the world, and by understanding the world, we gain an insight into the IG. Maybe not the Irensavalists, as they have a demiurge. And the Brithini IIRC don't actually believe in the IG. But the Rokari I think would agree, as would several other Makan-informed iterations. Of course, OOC, we can debate whether the Malkioni were "right" in this assessment, or if this is why most of the Middle Sea Empire is now underwater. But at least IMG, there's still an Enlightenment rationality thread in the Malkioni, for good and for ill.

Anyway, that also for me is how I think about the difference between "bad" henotheism and "Orthodox" Malkioni rune magic. The more one focuses on the personas/personalities of who is venerated & worshipped rather than what they represent, the more one stumbles into a henotheism the Rokari would probably get angry about. "Orthodox" Malkioni are interested in how to use the power of the air rune, but they're not interested in being or cosplaying Orlanth. If a little happens along the way, well, that was inevitable to an extent, but its not the goal.

IMG Malkioni religion is grounded in natural theology: to understand nature is to understand God and God's will. Now, some versions of Christianity (Catholicism) like natural theology, and a few (Karl Barth!) denounce it. The Malkioni, though, are heavily grounded in it. The only exception is Malkion's initial revelation, but beyond that, it claims no revelation and almost no divine intervention. The question of imposing values on nature vs developing one's values from nature is the big issue. I think in retrospect very few will defend where the GLs ended up. Heh... now I'm thinking about the Is/ought fallacy as a path to illumination for Malkioni, but I'll worry about that later. Anyway, the Aeolians are terrible Malkioni in a qualitatively different way than, say, the Rokari, to the extend that they try to get out of the box of natural theology and start equating specific deities with the IG. That'd mean the Aeolians are terrible Malkioni in a way similar to how Carmanians, the Chariot of Lightning, and (maybe) the Asharans (if they still exist). The Rokari are terrible Malkioni for completely different reasons. And in addition to being terrible, they're just awful 😉 My knowledge about the Aeolians is out of date, so I'd love to know what in the above is wrong.

Heh, maybe I should just post the map file as a JC publication LOL Though to be clear, the map is really centered on Maniria for my own purposes. In retrospect, perhaps I should have fully included the Holy Country, Dragon Pass, and Prax, but I didn't.

According to the Guide, the Reforestation attempts to regrow the Greatwood that existed at the Dawn, and eastern Ramalia was not part of the Greatwood. The Valekos area was, but I'm working off the assumption that the undefined alliance between the Ramalian rulers and Tarinwood will spare Bizos. The other thing I did in the name of MGF is I used the 2nd Age map in the Maniria chapter to identify all GL ruins, above or below the water line. So, yeah, plenty of stuff in Ramalia to do.

I've been teaching myself Inkscape to make maps, and I've been learning by making my own SVG file map of Maniria. I thought I'd share 3 maps that highlight the catastrophes of the region. First, here is basic map of 3rd Age Maniria Second, there is a map of 2nd Age Maniria, before the flood. And third, there is a map of Maniria after the Reforestation by the Elves. The difference between the 1st and second maps does a good job of highlight just how horrific and deadly that must have been. The Reforestation map, OTOH, isn't quite as immediate, but it is still a massive problem, as agriculture and transportation will likely be devastated by it.

I'm now imagining Eurmal with a cannon. Very easy, very bad.