Nevermet

There's some mention of mining gods in the Fronela Chapter of the Guide. Copper Man Valley has a collection of mining earth goddesses, and Enneserah worships Ganestos as a god of miners who stole from the Mostali. (Also, the idea that Ganestos is worshipped FAR AWAY from Spol is absurdly fascinating to me, and worthy of another thread).

I'm now dreaming of a form-fillable version of some kind.

I'm also assuming 1st Age Weartagi look more human than the Weartagi of the 3rd Age Hero Wars. Sailing around the underworld for a few generations may do something.

Yup. And through that, the same Rune could be very different depending on the god. Lhankor Mhy and Yelmalio both have the truth rune, Mastakos and Issaries both have the movement rune, but what I'd let an initiate of LM or Mastakos have as a breakout ability would be a qualitatively different list than what I'd let an initiate of Yelmalio or Issaries do.

Why do you ask / where is it from?

Thanks! I like their antics too

ok! The actual play updates will continue, and I reserve the right to ask for help when I get stuck.

Just re-read the Manirian Chapter in the Guide, and I'm irritated I missed something: Apparently, the second but unlabelled mountain on this map is Troll Mountain: "A small tribe of trolls inhabit this mountain, a gift from Arkat to his allies. Despite their small numbers, the trolls here are particularly fierce and are known to be aided by sorcerers of the Kingtroll cult." (P. 362) Now... this raises a ton of questions, like when did Arkat give them the mountain? After Kaxtorplose was saved but while he was an Orlanthi? Or after he had left Maniria completely but was now a Troll? My understanding is that Stygia never reached into Maniria, so it had to be during the Gbaji Wars. But either way, now we now when the Uz showed up, give or take a few decades. It doesn't answer whether what condition the mountain was in, though it tweake my previous list: It was already Ice Peak, and maybe that's why the Uz wanted it. It wasn't Ice Peak, but the Uz turned it into Ice Peak to make it more hospitable to trolllife It wasn't Ice Peak, and the Godlearners turned it into Ice Peak to try and kill off the Uz, but SCREW YOU UZ KEEP LIVING All of those are plausible, honestly.

To avoid spamming the board, I'm going to keep all my actual play posts in a single thread per scenario, rather than 1 per session. Also... is this a worthwhile thing to post, or are actual play threads not really a thing here? I don't want to be "that guy" who constantly puts threads on a forum that are meh or not really what the forum is for. Anyways, the intro scenario, a murder mystery on a caravan, ended with the players fully invested in their characters, which is awesome. Now the PCs are heading to Selgos. Lady Featherjoy is a noble of Selgos owes them favours for "saving her" from joining a cacodemon cult, and they intend to extract those favours from her to improve the caravan's business. Additionally, Dara possesses a strange magic item that she wishes to research more: an intelligent, musical axe that feeds off the psychic energy of crowds. She hopes one of the temples in Selgos has some information. Here is a quick "community sheet" for the caravan: Selgos, meanwhile, is going to be an awesome viper pit despite its small size (about 2,000 people). Here are some things I'm planning on simmering there: The year is 1623, and emissaries of Greymane are in the city trying to recruit Nimistori and mercenaries for their next glorious campaign into Esrolia. the PC Kullen, now a healer, is a disgraced Ditali warrior labelled as a coward and cursed for refusing to kill a fire priestess in Thonble on his first raid. The Cacodemon Cult is still active in Selgos. The Ogres are working toward trying to unleash a summoned cacodemon in the city. Featherjoy's family, is also in trouble. They turned to the cacodemon cult because they were getting pushed out of the market by another family (who maybe were also in league with the Ogres. Will the PCs try to save her family, or let them fall and spend their effort elsewhere? King Volusus of Jaraz plots to centralize his power over the Nimistori, and dreams of annexing Fay Jee and taking over Handra's sea trade <<Something Something 52 Tombs of Castelein Something>> The main thing I need to decide by Wednesday is a "bang" (to use Ron Edwards' terminology) that the players need to react to. I think it's something like, "The PCs arrive at the Featherjoy estate the same time as Greymane's recruiters, who are renting the place for their recruitment drive." The PCs will then be forced to decide if they're ok with Featherjoy getting in bed with the Solanthi.

I truly sympathize with this.

I look forward to that

Also, I'm going to continue punting on most moon issues, cuz it's not my knowledge base.

Interestingly, the Uz migrated to the Yolp during the First Age after Arkat starting moving into Peloria (according to the Glorious Succession, IIRC). So, they're probably originally from Halikiv or Guhan originally. None are mentioned anywhere. It's exclusive Ludoch dominance in the Mournsea, IIRC. I'm assuming the Ludoch of the Mournsea are if more focused on salvaging stuff from the land than other Ludoch populations.

I like the idea of Ice Peak being a dead or killed volcano. It's not just Broken in the eyes of the Mostali, it's a momument to blasphemy in the eyes of the Caladralanders. It's also, if I'm reading the map, the stopping point of all volanic activity in Maniria; no Volcanoes or hot springs are to the west of it. So, then the question becomes when did it die, who killed it, and how did the Uz get there. Pure brainstorming follows: One simple answer is that the Uz killed it before time, and they've just been chilling there since. I can easily see a small but strong Uz community defending a mountain and a hunting ground in the First Age, and successfully survive (and possibly thrive) as the Kotor border land between the EWF & Godlearners. A much more gonzo answer would have been that the Godlearners killed it in one of their experiments. I mean, this is the land of the Goddess Switch and the Trickster College... seeing if they could make an ice volcano seems like something the people who made firebergs would want to try to do. This doesn't explain the Uz, though. Maybe the Uz showing up and its character as an ice-cano are not directly linked? Maybe the Uz marched to the Haunted Fields and Ice Peak during time? Perhaps they were trying to dislodge Palangio's Newts from Ryzel in the First Age? I could imagine Uz vs Newt battles doing weird staff to the landscape, like creating an ice volcano. I'm less sure why Uz would have gone there during the Imperial Age. In the Third Age, maybe it was a group of Uz who couldn't stand Belintar, so they said screw this and marched west.

....I almost have a response to this. Arrrgh. ok. #1 job on the to-do list: Make as much sense out of Ashara and Castelein the Traveller as possible. This is both a relatively manageable task (on the Manirian Scale, at least), and its a central feature to the setting at the beginning of the Hero Wars. I'm going to put blinders on and work with that first. The Short Version: If Irensavalism is Platonic Idealism, Ashara is a weird mix of Hegel and Habermas. God help you if you can follow that sentence.

According to Tradetalk, the Uz claim it is one of the original sites the Uz came to the surface world, which would explain why the fields are also haunted I guess. It still raises the question though of why the Mostali don't fix it. I guess Gemborg has a very long to do list, one that was probably untouched for most of the 2nd age, sandwiched as it was between EWF & the Godlearners.

It's a little surprising that the Lopers managed to leave some Blue Moon cultists around Maniria, but that's a whole other kettle of moonfish

Y'all are making it hard for me to actually do work in my job, ya know

Honestly? I didn't. As I think of it now.... it's possible Castelein has a revelation leading him to Ashara, which would make him very different than, say Rokar's application of logic. But revelation is a very different beast than what happened with the Abiding Book. I lean away from replicating that, as the manifestation of the Abiding Book is one of those defining, unique moments in Glorantha. I don't have time right now to figure it out, but I think Castelein developed his understanding of Ashara through a combination of communication and movement, rather than law. He travelled, he saw very different people, he ritually traded with them, tried to understand them, and through that saw something "beyond". NOTE: None of this is a defensible claim about what the books say, but IMG preferences.

Agreed. And in most ways, just playing with the texts is my goal. I'm not trying to write a Maniria sourcebook. I will admit, though, that I am tempted to try to write a Kaxtorplose book, as (1) I'm as fascinated by Kaxtor as I am Castelein, and (2) it feels manageable, at least in comparison to Maniria as a whole.

Just wanted to say I agree with you. It's more likely that Alatan and Khorst are most similar in terms of their heritage, with the Ramalians as a cousin culture. All three are descended from Slontons, as are the commoners of Highwater and Kaxtorplose (well.... Kaxtorplose was around before and after Slontos, but its experience of being absorbed by the Middle Sea Empire is another issue.

You clearly understand academia 🤣 And thanks. I'll read this later today. One of the biggest pains about trying to figure out Maniria is one of my own, consciously chosen goals: I want to maximize my ability to justify my setting choices based on pre-existing publications. Not just what I think is cool, but what makes sense according to the Guide, the Sourcebook, the Stafford Library, etc. One of the things I'm dreading the most is trying to justify my choices of exactly how much the Wenelians are similar to other Orlanthi, vs their own, distinct thing. There are so many fragments to consider. Figuring out the theology of the School of Ashara, by contrast, is easy. Figuring out the the goals of the Aldryami? Eh, not too worried. Figuring out how much the Wenelians are like Esrolians, Caladralanders, Heortlings, the Ralians... oh, the headache. And then trying to then define the influences from Entruling, Haranding, Mraloti, Paralori, Helering.... oh, I need a drink. And then there's Handra, Kaxtorplose, Ramalia, and Caratan, which are all completely different messes. Trying to make justifiable decisions about all that is Hell. A glorious, wonderful Hell.😎

Hmm. I'm of two minds about this, and neither is coherent enough for words.

Oh, that's tempting. Where is that from? sigh... I really need to make a to-do list...

Hmm If I ever made a clan questionnaire for the Wenelians, I would write it up in such a way that there were no clans that could favour Darkness. Instead, it would be Earth, Air, Fire, Water, and Law. Law clans would be rare, but they would indicate a "Malkionized" clan that has its local leadership engaged in the Ashara School in some way. There also needs to be a discussion of the Beast Rune to indicate affiliation with Hsunchen / Entruling heritage Argh... so many things...