Akhôrahil

I hadn't heard this - I knew they were used in (at least late) Medieval Scandinavia. Note the lovely horse-snowshoes! There are also really old - 4th millennium BCE - finds in Europe.

The only reason RQ needs SIZ, really, is in order to model large monsters.

Plate bikinis should probably also be avoided, honestly.

Which kinda implies that skis are a bit rare, at least.

I'm assuming that every cult that has initiates requires an initiation ritual to join that rank, unless if the cult has some phrasing along the line of "every x is automatically an initiate of the cult". Alryami, ducks and trolls presumably initiate just like other people. Mostali and Dragonewts are less clear, as they typically don't join cults, and also have a different attitude towards the world.

Around half is usually a good rule of thumb.

Vinga and Adventurous are basically the same and Rex is not really playable, so...

The Red Emperor’s parties would seem like a similar enlightenment-through-excess. Apparently the path of excess leads to the palace of wisdom at least some of the time.

That’s how you get Mad Horse Disease, too. Are the horses efficient predators? In that case, you could release them to hunt on their own for times. Do the Char-Un have any tributery peoples that could pay them in, say, chickens? The steppe should have gophers or suchlike - rodents might be a mainstay of the diet. Will the horses settle for fish?

This actually makes a shocking amount of sense! Plus, your enemies will likely be a bit intimidated knowing that if they die in combat against you, your horses will eat them.

Including ones running on solar panels.

There’s a constant tension in the worldbuilding between how it’s described as bronze age but often looks more like classical antiquity. That said, it’s often better than it seems - non-metal bow crossbows are old, the better ones are mostly dwarf-only (and dwarves have renaissance level technology), some horses are magical (and heavy cavalry can be bison), who knows what colours you can get from troll insects, and so on. I removed the Greatsword, because it also a bit too good.

Yeah. In HQ, it even works this way in the rules - you add the Infinity rune to a regular rune in order to modify it as Illuminated (in RQG, I believe the Infinity rune will be about Herodom instead?).

Only informally and to the extent the GM can remember it and push it on you - they don't add any rules-based time or money related costs the way Cult initiations do. I think it would make sense if they did. True, but I expect bunches more in the Cults book.

When I was GM:ing the QuickStart and the PCs ran into a several corpses during a cattle raid aftermath, they figured that something must be seriously off. This just isn't How Things Are Done.

It's probably a matter of degree. The crappier your fields are, the more you have to rely on herding and hunting, and there's a tendency for this to lead to a more warlike nature (if for no other reason than that you're out of options otherwise). The British in India classified some tribes, mostly hill-based ones, as "martial", seeing them as better recruiting grounds for local soldiers due to a stronger martial ethos. In Glorantha though, this also has an actual impact - if you're a War clan, you focus more on the Death rune than the Life rune, which will make you better fighters and worse farmers. Since so much of clan warfare is raiding, even a larger Peace clan may have troubles bringing its numbers to bear, and paying a reasonable tribute (which they can afford, being better farmers) will make sense for both sides.

Why would you even want this! Feeding horses is already an issue! But of course, there's also the Black Horse Troop, so I guess this is a thing. Now I have a horrible image of these horses "grazing" on the bodies on a battlefield...

"You'd better watch out..." as they say. Also: it can come as no surprise that a trollkin with a luminescent nose will get put down by the others.

Meanwhile, the Orlanthi are out of luck, because you just will not get working Alynx-sleds.

Something we don't hear a lot about but that must surely be super common is sledging. In many real-world areas, winter travel was actually easier due to frozen ground and sledges. A lot of wood-cutting transportation in pre-industrial Scandinavia took place using sledges in wintertime. You can get sleds into places where a wagon would never work. Plus rivers become highways.

I'm mildly surprised that no PHP other than the Grazers ever successfully found (and long-term implemented) the solution "get slaves to do the forbidden work for us while we maintain our good magic". It doesn't exactly seem like a stretch.

I do like the aspect where you may have to seek out another temple or shrine - this supports pilgrimages - but neither the point of POW (which increases Rune Points anyway) nor passing a few skill checks that you can prepare for and are likely within your cultic skill set anyway should be a big issue.

Although maybe she can blast you into your own Dark Night of the Soul if she overcomes your POW with hers?

The results of mysticism should probably be extremely variegated - I don't exactly see Teresa of Ávila leaping around doing Kung Fu in the tops of bamboo forests.

I take this to mean that Yelm is the ruling god but with weaker magic than would otherwise be the case, while the tribes worshiping the Four Winds are a large minority.