Nevermet

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

8 hours ago, Joerg said:

Neither the trolls of Halikiv nor those of Shadow Plateau seem to have a special reverance for Gash and Gore, suggesting that they were not among those led by these twins.

The Elder Wilds trolls on the other hand seem to be from the same migration group. No idea about the Yolp ones.

 

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.

8 hours ago, Joerg said:

Argan Argar is one of the migration leaders, he is the one to break Lodril's mountain (nowadays Shadow Plateau). He is the likely migration hero for any trolls in Maniria, which aren't that many. Are there any sea trolls in drowned Maniria' Mournsea?

None are mentioned anywhere.  It's exclusive Ludoch dominance in the Mournsea, IIRC.

8 hours ago, Joerg said:

The Mournsea area is obviously very much interested in the Blue Lunar tides. At a guess, so are the Ludoch of southern Genertela. High Tide is when they get to partake in stuff from the border to the dry lands. Much like coastal human fisherfolk comb  the tidal zone for whatever the sea has left behind, the Ludoch are likely to comb those areas for stuff from the dry land having made its way there. Do Ludoch set quicksand traps to capture beasts on the salt licks?

 

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.

3 hours ago, jajagappa said:

Sounds like a place where Argan Argar broke Lodril's Spear.  

Surprising that the Mostali haven't sent out a repair party yet (or maybe they did and they were eaten).  Perhaps the plans got mislaid (stolen)?  Some wandering merchant/Trader Prince carried the instructions off to Nochet to get lost amidst the archives of the Temple of Knowledge?

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.

9 minutes ago, scott-martin said:

I'd say answering these questions is a big piece of how the Hero Wars play out in the West. Taking them in reverse order indicates that they have a historical awareness of pre-Rufelzan "lunar" phenomena (although probably as a condition rune suggesting relational or process concepts) and that the Twins play a big role in that. A lot of this has since been purged or enticed up to join up with the Empire but vestiges probably remain here and there for MGF. Specialists probably bicker the fine distinctions until they run out of breath and ink but I have no record of an elemental "moon" being important to these cults in the western era . . . while Tolat is the red planet and Annila is occult, I don't think western sorcerers have ever assigned either much of an elemental court to manipulate via the standard techniques.

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  

10 minutes ago, Ufnal said:

Did you consider treating Ashara as the same kind of phenomenon that gave us the self-writing Abiding Book? I.e. a direct epiphany/intervention from the Invisible God, or whatever other kind of phenomenon the Abiding Book actually was?

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.

1 minute ago, scott-martin said:

Love it. Development in this part of the world has faced its challenges but humble questers can still make hellacious discoveries here. 

These hexes deserve it.

 

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.

11 minutes ago, scott-martin said:

Why not, right? You're already in for the project of a lifetime, why not make it more complicated? 

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.😎

6 minutes ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

Don't underestimate the degree to which Entru was integrated into the Earth-complex, I'd say.

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

1 minute ago, scott-martin said:

Maybe have some real fun, give them a version of one of the archaic western elemental systems that separate Sky from Fire. ASHARA may do the duties of Man in that world to push against the old totemic tribal world.

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...

As of the Guide, I take "Rokarism" to mean a post-Godlearner Makanism that actively tried to be traditionalist, bending the Makanism back toward (but not becoming) the Brithini, as it rejects Hrestol.  So, editing down the Abiding Book, they have Solace and a more rigid caste system than the Middle Sea Empire had, and no Joy (the jokes abound).  This goes to another point you raised, which is a tricky issue when talking about religion in both Glorantha and the real world: the public rarely perfectly subscribe to the careful and exacting doctrine developed by philosophers & theologians, instead coming up with their own local innovations and syncretisms.

8 hours ago, Ufnal said:

One strange bit of trivia - the unpublished Runequest: Adventures in Glorantha apparently lists the Trader Princes as being secretly Arkati. Don't remember that being used later.

 

Similar to Joerg (maybe?), I'm seeing "Arkati" in this instance being less a direct link to Arkat, and more a shorthand label for "Henotheist from Ralios," where I take henotheist to not only mean the use of multiple magics, but a relatively coherent worldview where there is an invisible god behind the theistic gods of the runes.

The more I get into this, the more messy it gets.  The city of Drom and Helby are Galanini, matriarchal worhippers of the sun and horses.  As such, I do not believe Ashara is an indigenous belief to Helby.  I'm currently leaning toward thinking Castelein invented the School of Ashara, possibly after spending time in libraries or among cults elsewhere in the greater Safelster region.

5 hours ago, jajagappa said:

Why march when intrigue will do just as well! That's what the Demivierge (and Esrolians in general) specialize in.

Good point.  The Ditali will likely get some military retaliation, while the Solanthi will be more subtly messed with.

Heh... I'm now imagining the leader of Kithma / Thomble having delusions of granduer, believing it is their time to rise to dominance in Eastern Maniria.

19 hours ago, davecake said:

A Carmanian game, especially one around Spol anyway, cries out for a lot of gothic romance. The Edark legacies of the Spolite Empire and the excesses of the Bull Shahs are everywhere, including in the local manifestations of the Lunar Way (the masochistic mysticism of Gerra, and murderous Natha cult), and there are necromancers, Darkness witches, brutal thuggish warriors, etc all over the place. And then there are the vampires. Of course heroes will want to fight these ancient monsters - but the big complication (besides the obvious difficulties of killing a vampire who might be over a thousand years old and a skilled sorcerer) is that many of them have sworn to assist the Empire in maintaining its secret Vampire Legion! So the battle against the vampires must be secretive and without the support of the Empire (but perhaps often with the support of the terrified peasantry). 

Crib freely from stuff like Vampire: The Dark Ages or The Witcher if you want - but more importantly, gothic novels and vampire stories and scenery inspired by the gloomy forests and harsh mountains of Eastern Europe etc. 

Yep.  Spol is all folk horror, all the time.

6 hours ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

I'm not familiar with Blood over Gold or Ashara. Would anyone be up to just give me a little primer or something on it? I understand it's no longer in line with Chaosium's vision, but hey, I'm curious.

Leingod already covered the big pieces.

In Blood Over Gold, The Trader Princes were heretical westerners who were a heretical sect that split from Rokar: they rejected castes, and they had a set of sacred texts that were about communication, ritual exchange, and change more than rigid laws.  Culturally, they had a very "Italian city-state" feel in some ways, especially from the artwork.  They were also culturally Western, but outside their cities were the Wenelians, who were presented as animist Orlanthi.  They Guide's version of Maniria tones down the cultural distinctives a bit.  Overall, the Trader Princes came across as more wealthy and powerful in BoG than they do in the Guide, and also less bronze age.  IMHO, etc.

A few key things, however, remain constant:  First, while the Trader Princes appear to have a very commercialized understanding of wealth (more in BoG, but in the Guide also), Castelein the Traveller, the founder of the Trader Princes, was a master of ritual gift exchange as a way of creating agreements and alliances.  And second, the Opening is presented as inevitably  destroying Trader Prince society as we know it.

20 minutes ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

I'm not familiar with Blood over Gold or Ashara. Would anyone be up to just give me a little primer or something on it? I understand it's no longer in line with Chaosium's vision, but hey, I'm curious.

I will in a few hours

 #2: The Castes of the Trader Princes

18 hours ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

I was loosely of the impression that the Trader Princes themselves (and their families) were basically Talars (possibly self-styled, but who is going to dispute that?), and they ruled over Orlanthi commoners in lieu of Horali and Dronari. 

I'll admit, I had not considered how the Solanthi and Ditali confederations played into the urbanized trader towns. I hadn't considered that there was a continuity between them, I always got the impression that they were separate entities, at least politically (ie. the Solanthi and Ditali were more hinterland "rubes", if you will, compared to the caravan-aligned trader city-states, but that they at least were independent of the Princes). But I could be way off here. 

From what I can tell, this is very much a "Blood over Gold" framing of the Trader Princes, which claims the Trader Princes and the Asharan Church are heretical offshoots the Rokari.  Additionally, they are explicitly described as negotiators and fair brokers between Wenelian "rubes" (completely fair term, IMHO, for describing BoG Wenelians).  (See BoG, P. 17)

However, this gets heavily revised for the Guide.  First and foremost, I don't think we can talk about the Asharan Church as a splinter-sect from the Rokari any more.  Castelein the Traveller was probably from Helby, as the Manirian Road starts in Drom, and we know he started his journey to pay a tribute to the Prolori, arriving in Esrolia in 1170.  I don't think someone from 12th Century Drom, east of Jorstland, would be a Rokari.  And I also don't think they would be a promoter of castes, as the Arkati were not about castes, and the Middle Sea Empire wasn't big on them either.

It is most likely that Castelein was always a henotheist, though an idiosyncratic one who viewed Issaries as the mask of God (kind of like how Idovanus was the mask for Carmanos).

I'll write more later, but I think this is a very important point for Maniria: Castelein brought a henotheist faith to a group of Orlanthi who leaned heavily into animism, and a hybridizing occured.

There is too much in this thread for me to genuinely react to at this moment, but there are two things I want to touch on, as I feel they're probably very "immediate' for understanding the setting and what happens in the near future.

I want to deal with Entru, but that's going to take study, especially given how many cataclysms reshaped the population of the area (To put in modern language, I suspect the DNA of current Wenelian tribespeople have more in common with Esrolia than Dawn Age Entrulings).  And in general, I want to try to do as close of a reading as I can when it comes to the variant Orlanthi mythology of the Wenelians.

I also feel like Ramalia is just gonna be a mood at some point, and I'm not in the mood at the moment.

But things to talk about?

#1 Esrolia

19 hours ago, jajagappa said:

After a generation of war and barbarity, at least some of the Esrolians will work hard to:

1) keep the region weak and disrupted

2) ensure another Greymane does not arise

As of 1625, there are two prominent players in Esrolia:  Queen Samastina of Nochet (leader of the Old Earth Alliance; focused on northern Esrolia, trade with Sartar and abroad by sea including Handra, and the threat of Harrek and the Wolf Pirates); the Demivierge of Rhigos (leader of the Warm Earth Alliance; focused on southern Esrolia, the Vinavale, and the eastern end of the Trade Road). 

However, there are some other players.  The Red Earth Alliance is weakened but not gone and had significant holdings in western Esrolia bordering on Maniria (there's a reason Queen Hendira was so focused on the western barbarians) - and they may want a piece of the Trade Road business to boost their wealth.  Longsi Land, led by Queen Nevaleen of Kosh and Velentru the Wild Man, is meant to be a wildcard here, and with associations with the elves of the Arstola Forest. And farther west there is the Queen of Handra, who wants to keep the sea trade active and diminish the role of the Trade Road.

For some reason, and I'm not sure it's justifiable, I had been working off the assumption that most of Esrolia's attention would remain focused on Argrath and the Lunars.

That said, I agree that the Ditali are going to feel a lot of retribution from Esrolia.  Staton is probably going to be the subject of a very nasty seige.  A full march into the Solanthi lands of central Maniria, though, sounds like it would take a lot of effort for little reward.

5 hours ago, Ufnal said:

This is so awesome! I've been thinking about doing a very similar "notepad" thing about Maniria for quite a while, but something always distracted me. My vision of the region is both much less well-informed and much closer to Blood and Gold, with all the Ashara stuff left in, but I will be reading with keen interest!

As I said in my OP, Maniria is "my" Glorantha because of Blood over Gold.  I realize it has some problems with sometimes having too much medieval art, having some continuity problems with teh Guide, and inventing another son of Umath, but darn it... its where I started

4 hours ago, AndreJarosch said:

And there is TRADETALK # 10 and # 11... still available via DrivethruRPG...

I have them, and they are well worthwhile.  Especially for the Caratan stuff, since there is nothing on them elsewhere.

Oh, 1 thing I will say is that I'm going to try to develop a consistent hermeneutic, or interpretive strategy.

The only part I'm sure about is that I'll accept the framework of the The Guide and the Sourcebook as canon, and then I'll take the Stafford Library stuff very seriously.  Beyond that... people's opinions, published zines, etc.... I love ideas and debates, and I love seeing the different versions of Glorantha that can result.

ok, i can't say anything worthwhile.  'night y'all

thanks Nick.

Insomnia has allowed me to see this now, but not respond effectively.

I appreciate everything.