Akhôrahil

Glorantha certainly dodges the colonialism charge, at least - all empires are doomed and colonialists (even just cultural colonialists) will not come out okay in the end. If anything, it can go to extremes in the opposite, isolationist direction - Loskalm becomes a utopia once it's cut off from the rest of the world, and the Thaw seems to be bringing more harm than good on average.

The problem is that we're not told anything like this. It's as if there was no prophecy, Oedipus kills his dad and and becomes king and marries his mom all by his own choice, and it's described as awesome. He then goes on to conquer the rest of Greece so that he can be even more awesome (he ruins most of it along the way, but that's alright). Then he defeats the gods as well, isn't he awesome? The end. There's a reason this wouldn't be much of a story. Where's the drama or the personal arc? Where's the tension? I would love to see an Argrath who realizes he has been ensnared by fate by his own life choices, railing against it... but no getting out of it now, that's fate for you. (By the way, I'm not ruling out that the Argrath campaign might be able make Argrath a lot more interesting and a lot less annoying - I would even think it likely. There's a lot of room for it if you don't see KoS as giving a particularly accurate account.)

This could serve as an example of why you don't swear on the River Styx - it's absolute and irrevocable and it messes you up. This is Oath of Feänor stuff!

Argrath's modus operandi in warfare seem to be a total magical war of extermination, leaving gods knows how many millions of civilians dead. Exterminating the Telmori and then using their skins as crafting materials is small in the scale of things, but seems especially egregious (we do not typically look kindly on genocidaires who skin their victims for crafting projects). I don't think it's a coincidence just how poorly it compares to Sartar's treatment of the Telmori in KoS - my reading of KoS is that it compares Sartar to Argrath, with only one of them looking good in the process. Rescuing Sheng Seleris, waging climatological warfare, eradicating the gods, and being a major part in how the world almost ends, all in the name of his personal vendetta. He's like a Cold War general who decides that if you can kill 100% of the enemy and only lose 99% of your own population in a thermonuclear war, that counts as a win and should be enacted. Even if PCs can be constructed to support all this, many players enjoy aspirational play and don't like the "are we the baddies?" experience, especially not in an extended campaign. Although it would be really interesting to run a campaign and see just where the players decide they've had enough - Argrath in 1627 isn't beyond the pale yet, although wariness and concern about just how weird he is seems called for (and will prove correct). And yeah, add the Mary Sue thing to it as well - I liked multiple Argraths so much better than one single guy who is just the best at everything and ultimately does everything. When someone on the Lunar side is powerful, it tends to be because of organizational backing, large personal cults, extended magical projects, and the like - Jar-eel feels credible to me (as do Kallyr and Broyan, on the Orlanthi side). Meanwhile, we don't understand how come Argrath and Harrek are such ultimate badasses for no obvious reasons, and "they're adventurers!" feels lackluster and "gamey". Argrath does Arkat:ing better than Arkat ever did, EWF:ing better than the EWF ever did, LBQ:ing better than Harmast ever did, and so on and so on (let's not even get started on how he's much better at Prax:ing than the actual Praxians are, who need him to come save them from themselves). He can never suffer more than the rare temporary setback, and there is zero tension in the certainty of his ever-escalating triumphs until even the gods become disposable small fry. There's no emerging logic to his amazing brand-new powers (that no-one else has access to), they just happen. It screams "Player Character", and one with a lenient GM at that. There are a set of Glorantha characters - Argrath, Belintar, Harrek, and Sir Ethilrist are perhaps the most obvious - who seem (to me, at least, but I doubt I'm alone in this) like they don't belong in Glorantha at all and just dropped in through a magical portal. Steven Erikson at least put his ultimate badass ridiculously overpowered PC (Anomander Rake) far in the background when he wrote his books. HQ suggested "You can be Argrath and change future history!" RQ suggests (it seems - I'm willing to be surprised by the books!) "You can be Argrath's minion while he enacts the metaplot!" And these are my conclusions from King of Sartar, which is a propaganda piece trying to make Argrath look good! Gods know what it whitewashes. (Sometimes things almost seem like parody: "This is how we deal with assassins with no respect for life *kills assassin*." Really? It couldn't display more hypocrisy if it tried!)

I thoroughly approve of how Prince of Sartar suggests that Argrath is not the Liberator, but the Destroyer. Could be entertaining to just let the Harrek player narrate, with increasing exaggeration, just how he wins every fight he's in. No need to roll, he can't ever lose a fight anyway. Modern computer game design decisions would mean that all you need to do is have a separate 3D-model while not changing anything else. Bret Devereaux made this point about Assassin's Creed: Valhalla. It's not just that you can have a woman viking - no-one in the game even bats an eyelid.

Especially since the entire point of the cattle raid is to be sneaky and not particularly honorable. You don't want the Humakti to loudly declare himself and challenge anyone to a duel, or to complain how your approach technically counts as an ambush.

I wonder exactly how bathing is defined for the Yelmalio geas. Do you bathe if someone tosses you into the Zola Fel?

I think The Eleven Lights does a really great job here - when Argrath turns up, he's a real weirdo, and his pals are even worse, and they're obviously going to be trouble, and no sensible Red Cow PC would ever accept a mission from him. Except that the situation is utterly dire and you're grasping for straws just in order to survive, which is of course why he turned up now when you have little choice.

I don't think it's about bloodlust - it's more that Humakti have a very different approach to combat than regular Orlanthi. A typical Orlanthi has been taught limited violence and proportional responses - you beat up that herder on the raid, maybe club him if he tries to fight, but that's it. Meanwhile, a Humakti might say "he pulled his sling, so of course I cut him down". They don't do proportional responses, and any fight is at least potentially to the death. And of course, if your default response is a magically boosted sword strike, then this will cause a lot more casualties. And I would not bring a BG on a raid either, good grief! Storm Bullies can probably handle themselves, though, or at least it will be individually determined. Very likely, people with sky-high death runes aren't the ones you bring on raids - it affects their behaviour in ways you don't want there. With an 80+ Death rune, I would ask for a (failed) Rune check in order to do non-lethal combat, just as for other behavioural traits.

First off, only an insane raid leader would bring a Humakti on a cattle raid. Just don't do it! Being a (severed) Humakti, both he and the clan are legally off the hook for wergild (he will just tell them to come kill him if they can, and the clan chief will say the same thing). However, there are a number of complications. First off, the other clan has every right to attempt to kill him personally in retaliation, and because of cut ties, they can do it without his clan having any rights of venegance or wergild when it happens (this, by the way, is why Humakti need the Sense Assassin ability - they are at a constant risk of being bushwhacked). Second, the other clan can still be pissed and do revenge strikes against your clan, especially if they feel the Humakti was acting under instructions, and ultimately some Wergild payments may be the easiest way out even if no judge would convict. If he kills Lunars, the clan can argue until the cows come home that it has no legal responsibility, but it's very likely that the Lunars just won't care. It doesn't help that you feel the Lunars are legally in the wrong when they massacre your clan and take the survivors as slaves, pour encourager les autres. Ultimately, it's all about power. Theoretically being in the right is meaningless if you can't back it up. This, too, is where judges come in - if you manage to find a judge and take the case to court, then the judge could potentially rule in accordance to the law (or maybe not - the judge will rule as the judge feels like ruling, perhaps out of bias or bribery), and then back it up with authority and power. If you feel you're in the right but lack the power, an honest judge is one of your best options.

One thing that I would very likely allow in at least this situation (even though the game system doesn't support it) is a Truth Rune check to see through the Lie spell.

I'm not saying there won't be an answer - there are any number that can be imagined. "He seems to be the only one who can stand up against the Lunars at the moment, so we will just have to tolerate the rest." "I got pulled into a debt of gratitude." "I got manipulated into this, what you do?" "He critted a social roll against my PC, so the PC is convinced." "Hey, I approve of what he does, I wish we could have killed all the Telmori and made clothing out of their skins long ago!" I would expect my players to draw the line at genocide if not before that, though.

One of the big questions of The Great Argrath Campaign is always going to be ”why are we supporting this asshole, again?”

Maybe? Geases tend to be hardcore that way and not care about intents. Trickery would be no excuse.

Nice to have as a power base if possible? But everything and anything is ultimately expendable.

That seems like a non-starter. "Oh, you want to talk wergilds, do you? Let's talk wergilds... how many people did your guy murder, again?"

Oh, good catch! So Orlanth’s Ring is already up and active in general for the Dragonrise, and it’s only its movement right then that is off. Irregular, faster movement of Orlanth’s Ring seems to be an excellent omen. But what actually happens to cause it at Pennel? It seems weird that it would merely result from the outcome in the battle - it wasn’t the outcome of any battle, but rather the closing of the last major local temple (Whitewall) that chained Orlanth, wasn’t it? Perhaps we should interpret the battlefield as becoming sacred to Orlanth in that moment?

Sometimes, but not always. Matters of religious doctrine can matter a lot, for instance. Tell a Humakti "Your geas about where you can't wear armor has shifted from legs to arms", and sure, when he puts on leg armor he will realize that it was a lie... far too late.

I really wish RQ had that kind of economy/community system to it - I'm trying to create a more detailed economy model for a single stead right now, but it's non-trivial to have it fit with the wider game and not look like an odd bird. The superb community system in HeroQuest is one of its strongest selling points, I think.

I imagine he would too - I assume it's all about the sales?

I wonder if this is a probe to see if there's any interest in BRP Artesia.

They arrive at the same time as the questers, don't they - the whole point is that a correspondence is established between Kallyr's party and the constellation, so that they can "drag" it into the sky again in the non-standard way it moves just then. I think King of Sartar even has the exact moment when someone in the ritual realizes that Orlanth's Ring is up in the sky and calls it out? Then post-Dragonrise, we get the Ring back to its regular pattern, I always imagined. Only oversize now. Since my campaign is in the Risklands, I imagine I will have think of that once it happens. The Windstop itself is sure to lead to a lot of confusion, when they see strange things happening without being in the middle of it. I guess it will depend on the PCs whether they do merely defensive questing (the weather is certain to be nasty, even outside the Windstop area) or attempt something bigger.

Argrath wouldn't (he would sacrifice everyone in the universe for his vengeance, and mostly does). Kallyr might - she doesn't strike me as a the same kind of sociopath.

It did, didn't it (t11L p. 106, for instance)? Then the Red Cow heroquesters brought back three lost stars of it, and then when Kallyr brought back the old Ring entire, it was back to full strength, bigger than before (11 instead of 8)?

While Sartar Rising vol. 3 is not supposed to be canon any more, Minaryth Purple's speech (p. 50) makes it perfectly clear that in this publication, they know about the Dragon of Jarn and hope to use it against the Lunars, assuming (correctly, as it turns out) a connection between the Dragon's Head and the Dragon of Jarn and wanting to contact the Star Dragon on the otherside for more information. MP: "Maybe this time the dragon will consume the Emperor." Yeah, that does sound like a plan, Minaryth...