Richard S.

Not every elemental "pantheon" has to have gods to fill every niche, especially since the elements are by no means completely separate factions, and the concept of them being organized into pantheons is just a way the god learners categorized them for scientific purposes. The god of Anti-Chaos for the whole world, not just the "Air Pantheon", is the Storm Bull - Anti-Chaos is another name for his personal rune, after all. Kyger Litor and Baroshi have some anti-chaos powers and associations, but they're not fully anti-chaos gods.

Probably just a nameless thunder brother. Lord knows there's enough of them for Broyan to just have one in his pocket.

On Elmal sources: His Storm Tribe writeup gives him Blazing Spear under his Combat affinity. His S:KoH writeups lets initiates use Fire for what what are essentially Fireblade and Firearrow, summoning Urzani, creating warmth, and burning Trolls and Chaos. If we count Mongoose, Fireblade, Firearrow, and Ignite were cult spells, and Sunspear in their second edition. Not taking a side here, just listing what I've found.

God I wish that were me I wouldn't be surprised if many of the Heortland Elmali immigrated to the Sun Dome along with their Sartar cousins. They wouldn't have as close a tie to the revelations going on, sure, and don't have the pressure of a prince trying to deal with a Darkness problem and prevent a civil war, but there was probably still some attraction to them in the idea of an independent solar theocracy. Also the Kitori were a problem to Heortland too, so that might have caused some Elmali to go lend a hand. Not saying there aren't Yelmalions in Heortland, my earlier guess was definitely way off, but with the Sun Dome being fairly close I think it's reasonable to assume a similar migration to what Sartar experienced.

Ah, I missed that

Where are you getting that Esrolia has 10K Yelmalians? The entirety of Dragon Pass only has around 16K, and he's got much more importance there than in Esrolia. I'd guess there's a minor temple in one of the larger cities of Heortland, shared by the probably only a hundred or so Yelmalians in the region, but not a full blown Sun Dome.

Something is Chaos when it has a connection to the Chaos rune. It's not always an obvious distinction, but it is a pretty definite one. Chaos isn't caused by or the source of immorality or evil, though the majority of Chaos things probably are. Though people often blame things they don't like on Chaos, regardless of whether or not it's actually Chaotic.

Little Vanntar is a small neighborhood in Nochet actually. There's also an area called Elmal's Town right next to it, funnily enough. I'm not sure what the status of Y/elmal/io was when the map was made, but I guess Yelmalio just has two temples in Nochet now. I'd guess Elmal's Watch is used for if they do stuff with the Orlanth temple.

Elmal = Yelmalio. As far as I'm aware, no one in Glorantha sees them as different cults, and even before then the issue was more that the southern Orlanthi didn't know about Yelmalio in the first place.

No, RQG just has short form: bare essentials on backgrounds, requirements, and benefits. Long form is what you find in CoP, CoT, etc.: full mythology, organization, social position, relationships, and more details on benefits.

There's also always augments, meditation, and ritual practices to increase your casting chance. It takes a bit longer, but it's not like you're going to be casting Healing Trance in the middle of battle.

Still Harmony/Dark/Life according to the Well's prosopaedia. I'd assume the same magic as well, though I'd check RQ3's Gods of Glorantha to see if anything got added. the GoG writeups seem to be closest to what RQG uses.

How would the Prince of Sartar being descended from Yelm be some sort of scandal? That'd be like someone saying they're descended from Genghis Khan: kind of interesting, but ultimately not that impactful. It's been a few thousand years since Orlanth and Yelm started having kids, people who could trace their ancestry back to either or both probably aren't uncommon. Though most people don't keep track of their distant ancestors in the first place. If you feel it should be possible then go ahead and make a spell for it, nothing's stopping you. It might not be a power of any of the major solar gods as we know them, but ygmv.

IIRC, Dark->Water->Earth->Air->Fire is the cosmological arrangement, dark on bottom and fire on top, and is also the order in which the elements are usually presented in rulebooks. The wheel showing who overcomes who, Zzabur's Sigil, is Dark->Earth->Air->Water->Fire->Dark, and tracing the pentacle gives us the dark->water->earth->fire->air genealogy as well.

No clue on centaur stuff. Fire/Sky could probably be used to let you levitate or similar, but flight generally is a thing of the middle Air since that's what you're moving through. In old HQ material I believe Air flight involved basically being carried by the wind, and you had to be constantly moving for it to work. There are certainly non-Pelorians who're descended from Yelm, and honestly if the priests really wanted to it probably wouldn't be hard to "discover" a line of descent for any candidate. But the priests really like keeping the cult exclusive, and if Orlanthi did start to initiate to Yelm it'd lead to some serious friction, as shown by the "Monrogh incident". Also, it's easier to just join Yelmalio if you're Fire-souled but don't have an established Yelmic lineage, since the little sun doesn't care nearly as much about things like ancestry as long as you make a good soldier of the Light. I doubt he had kids in any case.

It lists him as Pamalt/Mastery, but since neither of those are character runes I'd go Earth/Man. I don't think double earth, that indicates ownership and that's still Ernalda, or Fire, since he's a direct child of Gata and that's the domain of his uncle Lodril anyways.

Judging by the other cults, I'd say his RQ3 GoG form is most similar to what we'll eventually get. He has shamans and rune priests, though shamans may not become priests (though acolyte/god-talker is fine) since that position is reserved for chieftains. As a shaman cult, initiates can learn any common spirit magic, and Pamalt also provides Comprehension and Pamalt's Touch. Rune magic includes all common spells, Command Gnome, Earthtouch, and Gnome-to-Gargoyle. In terms of associated cults, Chalana Arroy provides Heal Body and Lodril provides Summon Lodril. I expect his full writeup will provide more associate cults, but I doubt the rest will change much.

The Glorantha classics have everything the Runequest Classics do and a little more. The RQC line has some designer notes, which are nice, and the overall presentation is far better imo, but if all you care about is material the GC line is best.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't Godunya's rune and the Dragon rune the same thing? Or at least the shape that I know as the Dragon rune was repurposed into Godunya's in later canon. You make a good case for using the Dragonewt rune instead, and that would also lean into the idea of how draconic hero cults spiritually stunted the empire. I used Dragon mostly because I wanted Orlanth Dragonfriends to be able to use their Dragon rune if they joined any of them, but maybe Dragonfriends also actually use their Dragonewt rune instead of Dragon. It'd still give them a leg up on entering the mystic paths, but they'd need to develop a new form of connection to the Draconic Absolute, not bound in undeveloped and terrestrial understanding. I didn't include any sort of rune-reducing mechanic since, in my eyes, that's only a risk to the actual mystics. People who wield false theistic dragon powers don't suffer the same paradox of gaining power over the world while struggling to leave it behind. That's another point for having dragon cults use Dragonewt instead, I suppose.

Personally I'd let a human gain another Form rune through a heroquest or somesuch, but it'd be a seperate rating rather than part of a binary. Or maybe it would turn into a form rune trinity of 33/33/34?

From a Jeff facebook post, which you can find on the Well: https://wellofdaliath.chaosium.com/home/catalogue/websites/facebook/runequest-on-facebook-january-2021-highlights/#ib-toc-anchor-17 I believe Ginkizzie is a Half-Dwarf, too, or a half-dwarf-three-eighths-human-one-eighth-elf 😛

I believe the romans did have a fairly good supply chain at some point, which was another thing that gave them an advantage over some of their neighbors alongside the aforementioned roads.

That is a-ok with me! Thank you!

The westerners recognize gods as being gods, the Zzaburi just teach that humans are intrinsically superior to gods. The Malkioni are humanists, not atheists or even really monotheists. And you can have a godly ancestor without being a god yourself, just ask anyone of even middling importance on the lozenge.

The way I'd rule things is that magical Darkness like Create Shadow always allows Dark Walk to be used, even if it is just "a haze in sunlight", but in natural darkness it needs to be at least as dark as a clear night. Once you've cast the spell I'd give a little more leeway with the light level, maybe up to "very edge of torch light", but the invisibility might start to flicker a bit around there. Almost any amount of magical light demolishes it though.