Akhôrahil

I picked the Risklands when I started my campaign with much the same premisses as you have, for some different reasons: Focused on the stead and a small community, but with room to expand. More freedom from published sources (my Orlanthi are the HW/HQ kind), while still being Orlanthi (also, it's pretty common that you can run Dragon Pass material with only minor adjustments, such as Cattle Raid (GM pack), the Quickstart, or This Fertile Ground (Jonstown Library)). Living at the absolute edge of civilisation, the PCs matter right away without being particularly powerful. Since PCs automatically increase rapidly power, a lot (and I mean a lot) of room for more epic stuff later. Less risk of being overshadowed by NPCs (You Will Never Be As Cool As Argrath). So far, it has gone really well, and to my surprise none of the players wanted to smuggle in a power-gamed character - it was all farmers, herders, hunters, crafter. Get yourself D:LoD, Lords of Terror (actually a lot better than CoT), and @soltakss's Dorastor Jonstown book (in my case, read it, realize it's absolutely not the campaign I'm running, then mine it for ideas rather than use it as printed).

Mmm, took well over 300 years for life to return, so perhaps not so much...

What happened was that it was cursed to be dead. Only much later did it become chaotically fecund. (Although to be fair, he cursed Dokat with broos and stuff.)

Is it Arkat or Dorastor that was covered in chaos features, here? Dorastor was mostly dead ground after Arkat's curse, and I kinda doubt that Arkat himself was mutated? Or?

At this point, you have to wonder if you're playing the right game, though. There seems to be little point of having a heavy, detailed rules system if it's not being used because it can't cover the activities the characters do. Interesting, so they always have a cult to sacrifice to for Rune Points? Horned Man provides this?

I think this is a problem of a kind. A game that's constructed the way RQG is tells you how activities in the world are performed using the rules, such as Discorporation. If you handwave this away and say that the shaman can always bring the apprentice, then the next question becomes "Oh, so shamans can bring other people along? How many? This might be useful!" Internal consistency of the rules matters in a game of this type. It's part of MGF that the rules actually model the world in a simulationist game, and having to handwave is bad and against the design objectives. The sensible fix instead would be to say that all apprentice shamans receive the Discorporation spell as a known rune-spell for free (or if you're feeling stingy, as mandatory first rune spell). Or just that they can discorporate the same way shamans can (but never should on their own, as this is super dangerous).

While I'm sure chaos mutation happened to a number of Lunars, should we really picture the Tripolis or Pelanda as eager tentacle-hives, rather than places viciously oppressed by their new monstrous overlords (and then killed in droves by Argrath)? I don't buy it.

I know there’s some write-up (likely inofficial) of Minlister that allows the character to cast a mass Arouse Passion on the drinkers. 🙂 Oh, and it’s easy to imagine situations where you would want to Arouse Honor in someone. Very practical. Any GM worth their salt would find a way to make Arouse Love have unexpected consequences... 🙂

Good point - Zola Fel’s intelligent fish clergy should reasonably have extended lifespans.

Agree about this. It’s also part of The Arming of Orlanth, so standard equipment for him.

As the wolf-brother isn’t a regular wolf, it makes sense that it would be longer-lived even “naturally”. By the way, I imagine Allied Spirits in animal form also don’t age the same way the regular animal would?

Economically and politically, this makes a lot more sense, too - the initial advance is into already lunarized areas, and the Janube is such a better way to the sea that it’s not even a contest. The drive into Dragon Pass mostly makes sense from a magical and religious perspective - it’s how the struggle against Orlanth was supposed to be won. (And of course there’s the fact that the Ban didn’t allow a proper westward expansion for the longest time.)

Talastar is also mostly pacified, at least until Oddi. The economy is bad, the Lunars get some taxes, the Orlanthi get to worship as long as they don’t cause any trouble, Talastar makes for a buffer against a Ralzakark, and after White Shirt Day, the Lunars can tell themselves the whole place is Lunarized and technically part of the empire. Outside of religious fervour, there is little reason to fight for either side. Post-Oddi, I have no idea.

One strong theory is that the Good Empire is the breakaway Lunar provinces. Those are both the best part of the empire and small enough that they can be balanced against Argrath’s significant power block (perhaps not perfectly, but enough that both sides could have an interest in peace). We will presumably never know how it would have gone had they tried it. (The Good Empire as Glorantha’s version of the Gallic Empire?)

I think the extremely partisan source would have gone out of its way to mention that...

You don’t think being King of Dragon Pass helps with fighting the Lunars? The political power that brings is why he does it. Supposedly yes? Not all conflicts end in total extermination of one side. Not while they were winning, unsurprisingly. The Good Empire strikes me as a reasonable partner for drawing up a peace with, though.

Wrong, and then wrong a second time. Recipients gets a POW vs. POW as per the standard rule, and it's Rune Master (i.e. God-Talker, Rune-Lord, or Rune Priest), not just Rune-Lord. (There probably should be exceptions for sorcerers and shamans as well, but there isn't). It does raise the question of how you resist your own spells in cases like this... always 50%? The case assumes that you’re a Rune-level yourself, or that your pals are, or that you raise your counterspells, or that you do something funky about ranges (you walk away until the preferred targets are close to the range limit and the party members are outside). Getting in one of these should be very doable. (Also, "the GM might stop your shenanigans by fiat" is assumed in all of these egregious munchkinnery discussions, so is not much of an objection.)

Peace is another spell along those lines - it takes all non-Rune Levels whose POW you overcome out of the fight, leaving you free to slaughter them (I would imagine they’re allowed to run away, though). (Obvious caveats about cult restrictions.)

Accelerating upwards? Better hope it doesn't hit anything after accelerating by 1 g for 1625 years!

Because it's down, sheesh! 🙂 (I wish I could go with the Greeks and say that you're pulled towards the center of the Earth Cube, but this wouldn't make sense in the way it does for a spherical world, and also, you couldn't fall into Hell in this case. Plus Hell would be upside-down, which while hilarious, isn't supported.)

So Voltron, only with broos instead?

Ralzakark. Just the other Ralzakark.

But his being a broo informs all he does. Ralzakark wants to emulate Ragnaglar. He wants to rape Glorantha. His broo-ness is his driving force. To me, it’s like saying it doesn’t matter that Jar-eel is a Lunar.

I do imagine he follows a personal code - you can probably trust his word. Most of the time. It’s just that this code also allows all kinds of atrocities. (Which isn’t exactly unique among honor codes, it must be added...)

“Having valuable lands close by”?