jeffjerwin

I'm working on a scenario (someday, perhaps, for a Gloranthan Repository) called "The Woodwife's Lonely Cry" set in the Troll Woods. This is a regular photo because the paints still drying on my reference map - I added in some depth to the mountains with acrylics, as it was easier for a fogey like me than using GIMP or some-such. 

Edit: Maybe I'll paint the whole area at this scale for my game in mixed media. Give the ground some depth and contours; the woods some definition...

Were Trolls and Elves in Glorantha always intended to be as unique as they are? I got a sense from RQ2 (pre-Trollpak) and Wyrm's Footnotes that they were more generic fantasy creatures originally, or were seen that way; I mean the old "Dark Troll" comics, for example, and the Tolkienesque elf art - was it in the main rules? I was a player then, so I may be inferring based on what I knew then, but the full-on Plant People depiction of the elves didn't really emerge until RQ3, I think. I remember finding it surprising. Dwarves also changed in how they seemed to be portrayed, but they never played a major role in the games I played so it was less obvious to me.

In any case, trolls living in woods doesn't seem odd at all to a person familiar to Northern European folklore. The inconsistency - or apparent inconsistency - was in Trollpak they were defined as truly omnivorous and hungry, which meant that forests were vast larders ready to be stripped of all fare - before Trollpak, Troll Woods and the Stinking Forest made more sense than not - trolls were imagined chiefly as monsters of the outer wilderness and underground, not as embodiments of hunger, ameliorated with intelligence.

Edit: the Tolkienesque elf was in the RQ1 and RQ2 rules and I think drawn by Luise Perrine.

1 hour ago, Atgxtg said:

I agree. I think pretty much every fantasy or FRPG idea that Greg and his group liked and wanted to try out got incorporated into Glorantha/Dragon Pass. They just kept adding new things "down the road" a few miles, and then, eventually altered and adjusted things to make them fell more like a natural part of Glorantha and less like a transplant. I think it helped to give the cultures greater depth, as there was something of a layered approach to the cultures. First the original transplant, then adapting the it to RQ game mechanics, then "Gloanthizing" it, then finetuing things to better fit the area it wound up in, and finally letting it grow organically into something that "belonged" there. 

Though it also gives Dragon Pass that very old-school flavour... it's the one part of Glorantha that's well... kind of zany.

Ducks, for instance (Keets hardly count). Every single Elder Race in close proximity. A cr*p-ton of dangerous ruins. 

Edit: ... and, of course, Dragon Pass wasn't even part of Glorantha originally. It was retrofitted in when GS noticed it "filled a gap".

1 minute ago, Mankcam said:

I kinda viewed it as a smaller Mirkwood - in Middle Earth that forest used to be The Greenwood back in the earlier era, before it was tainted by The Shadow, of which the presence of such made it a forboding place - hence it was renamed Mirkwood

I always felt that The Stinking Forest was a stand in for Fangorn or Mirkwood to an extent. It had become a more dangerous or foreboding place since the presence of Trolls and Tusk Riders had entered it, although pockets of Aldryami still exist there (no less dangerous of foreboding to humans in many ways). I kind presented it with some physical impact of such that made it stink as well, perhaps sulphur laden waterholes etc that actually stink (like Rotorua in NZ) 

I've long suspected that parts of Dragon Pass [and other parts of Glorantha, no doubt] are remnants of non-Gloranthan campaigns, or campaigns that veered out of GS canon when they were played. The Tusk Riders are basically orcs. The terrain around the Upland Marsh, Lismelder lands, Wintertop and the Grazelands is awfully similar to the central part of Arduin (there's even a "Howling Tower" there). I think it's been suspected that Carse/Karse and Refuge/Sanctuary are also interpolations from other worlds...

29 minutes ago, jajagappa said:

We also don't know much about life in the Stinking Forest.  It was part of a greater elf forest, but clearly has been impacted by the presence of the Tusk Riders.  And trolls going from Halikiv to Dagori Inkarth are most likely to pass through there rather than going up Snakepipe Hollow.

That's the route - Halikiv to Tarsh to the Stinking Forest to Dagori Inkarth that the Swarm took in 1623...

4 minutes ago, Joerg said:

IBut back to the topic of uz and forests, apart from the jungle trolls who live in an environment that regrows almost as fast as it can be eaten and the Kitori woods, there are no known places where trolls and forests coexist for a long time. Xemstown in Fronela will be interesting when the Ban lifts.

The uz concept of sustainability pertains to darkness, not to plant growth, They will rely on fungal growth, which might even possess autotrophy (Growth) in Darkness (stygosynthesis or umbrasynthesis?) - we are talking about Glorantha here. Fungus might get predatory only when the darkness is impure.

There is one other forest - or quasi-forest with both Aldryami and Trolls - The Vale of Flowers in Dagori Inkarth.

11 hours ago, jajagappa said:

 Varzor Kitor was of unknown parentage (IIRC), but would have been of the Man rune.  The Guide (p.235) notes "Varzor Kitor accepted and learned the deepest secrets of the Darkness at the feet of the Only Old One."  One of these secrets would have been the shadows ability to change shape and size.

Was not Varzor a Heortling as well? After all, his descendants/adoptive descendants are Kitori and Orlanth-worshippers alongside the Troll Gods, and the name Kitori originally designated the humankind in the Unity Council (BoHM, p.128): "In the Darkness, we were all Kitori. The Kitori thrived in the Unity Council days. The term "Kitori" was used broadly in the Silver Age and in the Dawn Age. The Heortling king was often called King of the Kitori, though in accuracy he was a King Among the Kitori. For many people the Kitori were synonymous with the Unity Council. During the period of the High Council of the Lands of Genertela, the Kitori were increasingly associated with just Kethaela and the Heortling kings were rarely called "Kitori".

Thus Varzor is likely - but not, I'd admit, conclusively - a Heortling. It's interesting that Varzor could also become a woman and bear children through this power: this is obviously not a power known to trolls, unless is a very dark secret. I wonder if the Kitori Kings or Queens still know this, but it seems like something only a Hero can do.

It's also interesting to compare the Kitori Shadow Lord's changing/altering powers to the changing/making new power of the Larnstings, whom they shared northeastern Kethaela with. It's very curious indeed...

(Presently developing an episode for my game called "The Man in the Leaden Mask...")

In any case earlier it was said that Aldryami hate Trolls. I think "hate" is a bad word for their attitude for the Eater, which has been a natural part of the World since the Compromise. Everything in proportion... Without fire, rot, cool shade, and insects, there would be neither soil nor new life.

Are there any trolls at all in the Kitori Wilds? Any troll kin? I always thought there were some true trolls and such there alongside the Kitori.

25 minutes ago, Yelm's Light said:

I was thinking more along the lines of the Seven Mothers plus Sedenya which equals eight, hence octa-, not hepta-.  And a symbol of chaos, eight arrows equidistant from each other at any radius and radiating from a common center.

Ah, Ok.

7 minutes ago, David Scott said:

Well spotted, one side for each of the seven lunar phases.

An octagon has eight sides. You mean a heptagon. It's possible however, if we are viewing it at the right angle.

4 minutes ago, M Helsdon said:

Um, no. The Thracian thunder god was Zibelthiurdos, and it's a mite tricky to derive Thor from Zibelthiurdos....(unless you chop the front and back off to get Thiur). Of course, Zibelthiurdos was usually equated with Zeus, but all the Indo-European pantheons are filled with storm gods, and ideas travel easier than people...

Of course, in Glorantha, Orlanth is perhaps only the local Southern Theyalan version of the name of the Storm God; we know the Dara Happans know of the names Orlanat(um), Orlanat(us), Erlandus, and Lanatum, all perhaps (mangled) North Theyalan names. However, in a desire for sanity, Orlanth is a good approximation.

I should mention that this was pseudo-historical rubbish - Snorri Sturluson seems to have invented the idea. In the Middle Ages/Renaissance period, historians (and rulers) wanted to derive everyone from Biblical and Trojan ancestors (Japheth was equated with Iapetus or with Jupiter). No one but kooks believe this today. There is no evidence of a connection between the Scandinavians and the Balkan peoples except as Indo-Europeans. Another such claim was that the Getae were the Goths and the Jutes.

In Glorantha such claims might have a bit more foundation.

I tend to think there was once many Orlanths, not fewer, but that is part because of looking how "Zeus" has many mountains and many birthplaces. In the God-time, all could be true. There's also the conflating of Orlanth with Humath/Umat/Umath.

32 minutes ago, jajagappa said:

Argan Argar is a god, so neither troll nor human, but certainly of Darkness.  His son, Ezkankekko the Only Old One, was the figure who was neither troll nor human.

The Kitori are nominally human, but can appear to be more/other.  But they are not trolls.

Of course. Well, they are not descended from Kyger Litor. But they have the Darkness and Man runes, which makes things murky.

5 hours ago, David Scott said:

If we’re going to base stuff on tiny artist squiggles then clearly the rear shop with the awning centre left is a lunar building too, it has moon phases on its front :-)

Oh pshaw. Those are Darkness Runes. The shop belongs to a Torkani initiate of Argan Argar. Far more likely in Swenstown this talk of Etyries...

44 minutes ago, GianniVacca said:

Are the Kitori trolls? I thought they were Darkness-worshipping humans.

It depends on what you mean by troll, my friend. There are ways to be both; just talk to to the Shadow Lords and Ezkankekko about that. And Arkat. Argan Argar is not a troll, after all, but he appears to be one to dark sense. Men see him differently.

1 hour ago, jajagappa said:

I'd likely go with the idea that the Kitori helped protect the sleeping trees with an oath made in the Underworld with the sleeping elves/dryads.  In return, the trees when woken would blot out the light of the sun from reaching the ground.  Consequently, the trees of the Troll Woods have a very dense canopy.  There are probably very few elves, with the Kitori largely acting as the protectors and benefactors of the trees.  Argan Argar would be the primary cult, encouraging trade and the harmony of the shadows rather than ZZ.

Yep! A pretty on spot description of what I came up with too!

I've been contemplating a tangental problem for some time - See my Volsaxi questions thread comments - regarding the existence of the Troll Woods there. Normally regular forests would be eaten.

Ultimately I had a theory about a lost secret of I Fought We Won and "Forest Shadow" (an elf version of Argan Argar/Surface Darkness) that allowed (originally) for a symbiosis. But I also have things warped by the seizure of a dryad by a ZZ undead rune lord and her imprisonment in a barrow, so that as with fire there's a localized dominance by ZZ. However, just as with the most human Kitori, there's a "Shade" and "Obscurity" tradition that lies forgotten but technically accessible to the remnants of the Aldryami there.

I like exceptions in my Glorantha.

2 hours ago, Joerg said:

Did it? I don't see sod-wall longhouses anywhere in that game, nor are the horses period-appropriate pony-sized.

 

(I stand corrected on the RQ2 Art, sorry)

In terms of Icelandic apparel - if not buildings: see this : http://www.hurstwic.org/history/articles/daily_living/text/clothing.htm - I mean, the Orlanthi women in the game even have keys (from that link)

: 

Dunham talks about Icelandic sagas in this interview here: http://hillcantons.blogspot.com/2011/02/interview-with-man-behind-king-of.html

To be honest, I seem to have assumed that the art reflected these ideas. But I now see it's not so straightforward,

8 minutes ago, waltshumate said:

You obviously have  not seen the artwork from KoDP which is quite obviously based on Nordic/Germanic sources, nor read the statements from Jeff stating the Orlanthi are nothing like those cultures. Unless you have decided to ignore all that evidence.

Let's take a deep breath...

KoDP based the Heortlings on Icelanders. There was nothing to contradict this explicitly at the time, though early 80s art suggested a more Bronze-Age direction.

However, winter dress is going to be different from summer dress: the KoDP is clothing fit for a colder climate.

For a modern version of Thracian traditional women's dress, see here - the common features in color and pattern with Slavic attire (and a bit of Scandinavian embroidery tradition as well) is noticeable, but there is in fact cultural continuity in the very festivals (i.e., the Goose Dance) that these groups still celebrate: 

Weirdly enough, the Thracians were claimed as ancestors by the Scandinavians, based on a supposed origin of the Aesir in "Asia" and Thor from "Thrace".

18 minutes ago, g33k said:

KoDP is a 20-year-old computer wargame... I would presume any squarecentricity to be an artifact of the tech.   Same square-ness exists in Civ, FrEx.

In addition, we know that Vingkotling forts were round or oval (a practical shape if you're heaping earth or fortifying a hill) - compare Clearwine and the map of (I think - might be misremembering here) Two-top. While it is possible that the shape of the perimeters changed for ritual reasons, there ought to be a good reason for it.

Vinga and Vingkot

As I’ve mentioned very briefly before the names Vinga and Vingkot are rather obviously related. In terms of mythologies, it would be sensible for Vinga and Vingkot to be twins or siblings, and thus share a mother: Janerra Alone.

(I also think Vingkot is an eroded form of *Wing-kolat, with –kolat being the same root as the name of storm and wind spirits, Kolatings).

If this is inferred or outright believed by Broyan and his Vingkotling Ring it would not merely be good manners and befitting a rebel king to host Vingans in his households, it would be mythically required… We may note that Leika and Kallyr are Vingans and became the chief weaponthanes and allies of Broyan in Whitewall. I imagine therefore a reconstructed/synthetic double recognition rite: ‘Ho! Brother, remember me?’ … ‘I have not forgotten your red hair, sister, and your spear… (list of boasts and features of Vinga)…’ and embrace of such women as trusted kin. This is paired with the Vingan recognising Vingkot as her brother and friend, strengthing the claims of Broyan to be Vingkot. (This also rules out any theories about intimate relationships with either women, however).

Worcha Rage and Stormfall: the problem of Vingkot’s death

A bit before this it was commented that I barely touched on Broyan at Whitewall. Well, this is because I was contemplating the problem of Vingkot’s death and the potential trap that existed for Broyan if he hero-formed there against the Bat.

Here’s an excerpt from Sartar:KoH:

‘Whitewall is an ancient fortress that was one of the last strongholds during the Darkness. It was atop Whitewall that King Vingkot, the first Orlanthi king, fought the monster called Worcha Rage and, though defeated, with his last breath he invoked Orlanth who came to defeat the Seas. It sits atop a high plateau of white stone, which the builders used to make the city’s walls. The old Hendriking kings lived there, and afterwards the high kings of the Volsaxar ruled from there. It is a place of great magical power and ritual importance. With the Lunar Conquest of Sartar, Whitewall is the last great stronghold of the Orlanth cult.’

‘Last breath’ tends to indicate something rather particular – a dying breath. Now Vingkot’s death is elsewhere connected to a fight with a chaos godling at Stormfall. He, of course, is also said to be deathless, and thus, burdened by his wound from chaos, was burned alive to allow his spirit to become a god.

These are very bad things to have to confront if you’ve taken the name Broyan Vingkotling. In fact, one could speculate that the Lunars knew this. A chaos godling is just the thing to strike down ‘Vingkot’. The fact that the Crimson Bat manages to approximate the vastness and implacability of Worcha as well is a bonus. And that Whitewall besides being Broyan’s capital is also the mythically resonant site of a near-death or mortal event for Vingkot, so while Broyan could heroform Vingkot versus Worcha to save Whitewall, it would most likely kill him.

So Broyan, clearly, changed the rules. He was a Hendriki king, so that is what he chose as his strategy: Larnsting retreat and trickery. This was of course the way of Free Hendrik. But Broyan’s juggling of a second kind of hero into his repertoire has certain unavoidable incompatibilities with Vingkot… Vingkot is not a trickster hero; he’s certainly not the sort to escape like a sort of Heortling Brer Rabbit, leaping across the sky, ‘burning’ with his frenzy of liberation and outlawry. Vingkot is of course the archetypical Orlanthi (not just Heortling) king: generous, brave to the point of foolhardiness, potent, a builder of fortresses, a conqueror of peoples, a slayer of shadow men, ice men, waters, and dragons. Hendrik is the outlaw, the wiley thane, the suspicious (compare how he responded to Harmast to how a ‘great king’ might have), the unpredictable, the treacherous (he tricked Palangio into Dekko Crevice), the Uz-friend (at Dekko Crevice the Uz fell upon the Iron Vrok and killed him and all his shining army), the one who knows the owl ways, the alynx ways, and – curiously – also, he is an ancestor of all Hendriki but is never described as anyone’s father. Though as a member of the Gavrening clan, the blood of Yinkin, he probably has a number of bastards. Instead it is Harmast who has many sons, and I suspect Hendrik’s ‘adoptive brothers’ and sisters that carry on his lineage.

These are both Orlanth. But they are diametrically opposed Orlanths. And to be Hendrik in that moment so he could leap on the Bat and slay it by cunning and sleight is Hendrik, not Vingkot. Here, if not before, Broyan was doomed to the manner of his death. Hendrik was never a troll-thrall or a servant of Darkness, but he did know the Shadow Sacrifices and he was allied with the Kitori against the Bright Empire. When one is Vingkot, of course, one is a friend to Elmal, a husband to the ‘Summer Wife’, a father of horse-loving daughters, a slayer of ‘dark men’. But to best the Bat, Broyan needed to be Hendrik in that moment, and by that he bound himself to the oaths of Heort and the Only Old One…

This is, I think, why he failed to make the sacrifices once he returned to Whitewall. Because to do so was to cease to be Vingkot. He chose death – willfully or blindly ? – instead.

12 hours ago, M Helsdon said:

The related illustrations include versions more suited to Sartar and Esrolia, with thatched and tiled roofs, respectively. The house shown is from Pavis.

Here are a few from the related series. Note that further research indicates that the outer walls in all cases are too thin.

I am currently working on a 'fortified palace'.

What style roof is used in Hendrikiland?

Having had adobe houses in my family (and a friend lives in one down the road), the outer walls ought to be about four or five feet thick. Wide enough to lie down in the eaves of the windows and nap, if I recall correctly from my childhood.

15 minutes ago, Yelm's Light said:

If it is, the artist doesn't seem to know very much about the background.  The girl on the cover of RQ2 (and the QS) is shown wearing only the Fertility Rune, not something you'd be very likely to see on a Humakti.

 Yes, you're right. Huh. Still, the outfits are rather similar. Perhaps she had a mid-life change of religious focus... Though they have different tattoos. I think the look is descended from the old artwork (and the new) but, you're right, they've got to be different people.

8 hours ago, Joerg said:

 

 

More to the point: an Eiritha priestess from the Oasis population or the sedentary Paps population. With the post of Most Reverend Mother held by a Sable queen (IIRC) and the Paps far away, he could have snuck across the Storm Mountains and have wooed an oasis priestess. Possibly Cam's Well or Pimper's Block.

But the world of Vingkot is broken inside Time. There is no way a Vingkot king can do exactly like Vingkot, unless he manages to retrieve Tada.

Basically, I read this as a wonderful character concept for a sage follower of Broyan (or later on Argrath, or any other hopeful founder of a Vingkotling dynasty) - research all those forgotten myths and suggest weird magical alliances.

 

 

Maybe there's a connection with Argrath White Bull - later an ally of Broyan's - and the Praxians to this attempt to "find" Tada? Maybe Broyan's decision to seek the Vingkotling mantle is a result of his partial success here? In which case the "seeking of Tada" and "Double Marriage" hero quests might have been researched and attempted in c.1610-1612... and Broyan uses the mythic power accumulated by the attempt to return to Hendrikiland and forge a new ring. I see another veteran of this quest being Argrath of Pavis... and the Healing at the Pairing Stone as being quite possibly misplaced in that narrative. The Pairing Stone may be significant to Vingkot's marriage...

49 minutes ago, Yelm's Light said:

That's more evocative of Pavis than Boldhome to me.  Biturian and Norayeep in native(-ish) garb and a prominently displayed Lunar building?  The woman petting the bison looks like an Earth goddess type, Ernalda or Eiritha, though since she's only partially visible there's not a lot of info available.  Granted, Biturian is haggling with a fellow Issaries trader, and the girl is Humakti (not all redheads are Vingans...).

That last brings up an annoying peeve of mine, that the Humakti is wearing a 'female' breastplate.  It identifies her as a woman for purposes of the artwork; the character looks androgynous enough that there could be confusion as to her gender otherwise.  But no warrior worth her salt would wear it if she ever planned on fighting.

I suspect she's supposed to be the same warrior as found on the classic RQ2 rules cover and the quick start for the upcoming rules.

5 hours ago, Joerg said:

 

So basically, you have Broyan starting out as _a_ king of the Volsaxi before 1613, and becoming _the_ King of the Volsaxi sometime after Kallyr's revolt?

 

Well, there's only a few paths that take one to high king of a confederation...

Being a (royal) thane; being a respected chief, or, better, a tribal king, or having some sort of relationship to recent kings (and being at least a thane).

Let us look at 1613-5 - at this point Broyan sheltered Leika and Kallyr. To do so he had to have the authority, at minimum, equivalent to a Dar chief. This would allow him to offer them salt and shelter. This means that Broyan had a hearth.

By 1617 Broyan is able to challenge the provincial governor, Orngerin, and Belintar's magical wards and seize the kingship of Heortland/the Hendriki. To do so requires a massive hero quest, with many supporters. These supporters are siding with Broyan as a manifestly political act. No Lunar assassins have winnowed the numbers of the descendants of the Volsaxi kings - they can't, really, because the kingship is elective and "everyone is descended from kings" is a part of the reality in the area.

So by 1617 Broyan is a highly plausible candidate for Volsaxi king, at least among a magically potent minority of tribal leaders. Jane Williams' dates (from her Kallyr research) suggests that the old king died by possible malfeasance but we didn't know about Orngerin's possession of the regalia then. The exact means of deposing and killing Orngerin might be a version of the Bad King Urgain heroquest (in fact, his name sounds kinda similar, which would be handy for any rhymes in the chanting). If they used that one, Orngerin would be transformed from amiable bureaucrat into a cruel tyrant, but that's a mythic necessity... An even more perilous choice, however, would be confronting the Bad Emperor, and given the mythic overlap between Vingkot and his father, this might have been chosen.

By 1621 the Sartari in Whitewall are a good portion of the defenders. In fact, Broyan's power probably rests in his strange friends. It is not impossible that in 1613 Broyan, seeing his friends fleeing the Starbrow Rebellion, did a "Creation of the Clan Ring" rite and created a clan from his followers and kin somewhere in neutral or disputed ground (perhaps on the eaves of the Troll Woods) and thus arranged things to be able to legally give them refuge. If so this would fit very well with a Vingkot persona. This made his group not just a war band but also a political player.

Until 1617 there's no real Hendriki king, so the name Volsaxi/Volsaxar suggests to me that the four tribes of the north were under the customary "presidency" of the Volsaxi tribal king. Which also strongly suggests that Broyan gained that title before he could challenge Orngerin. My own campaign had/had it that the old king was murdered as a preparatory step to the Lunar invasion in 1619, a few years prior. Exposing this murder and the malfeasance of another candidate for the throne I have planned as an adventure...

5 hours ago, Joerg said:

 

So you want to make it personal, caused by the King, rather than an ironic back-lash from taking on an office with old debts nobody told him about, or debts that he thought he was above and beyond?

 

(in regard to the Shadow Sacrifices)

If no one told Broyan about the Shadow Sacrifices then his sages and law speakers have committed malpractice.

The Shadow sacrifices appear many times in Hendriki king lists, which I read as "in-universe". Yes, I think Broyan committed an act of hubris. He said "I am a king in the manner of Vingkot, not a Heortling chieftain!" (or some such) and dismissed the notion of continuing them. Vingkot is not an ally of trolls: he "fights the shadow men".