Richard S.

I think that, while Yelm might have overall less initiates than Orlanth, his cult has at least as much if not more influence than the latter. Since Yelm's cult itself has a very hierarchical structure, and because his priests have divine authority over pretty much every other solar cult, Yelmites naturally can exert their influence much more easily and over a wider area than their Orlanthi counterparts. Orlanth's cult, on the other hand, doesn't have a strong central organization and only has as much authority as his priests can personally acquire through family, friends, and/or violence; even his associated cults are only held together by voluntary bonds, or by Orlanth continually beating them up. The counterpoint to this, of course, is that Orlanth's cult can spread much more easily, since all it requires is his initiates going somewhere and establishing themselves as the new top dogs. Yelm worship, on the other hand, has to have a base of solar cults (or certain earth cults in a pinch) to establish itself on if it wants to actually rule. Though this also means that Yelm can step right back onto the throne after an upset so long as there's still Lodrili peasants to rule, while Orlanthi who've been forced out of an area will have to go through the process of fighting to be top dog all over again.

I'm sorry if I came off as patronizing, that wasn't my intent at all. Your idea of the Andins being a mix of several different elder races is interesting, and not what I was responding to. My own knee-jerk reaction was that they were trolls, so I was refuting my own idea to mark out what I thought they were not. It was a confusing way of saying it, and definitely not a very valuable musing compared to yours and jajagappa's. If you want more of my thoughts on what they are, I like the idea of them being mostly a mix of various underworld spirits, maybe including some troll relations but mostly of weirder types. Many of them are only partially or temporarily physical, so they can wander the east isles in spirit form and then manifest to cause trouble. Some Andins are little furry imps who run around misplacing tools and tripping people, others take the form of great shadowy beasts with red masks who lurk in the wilderness and prey on travelers, and others might be nearly invisible phantoms who whisper in the ears of mystics to disturb their meditation. The east isles aren't my usual corner of the lozenge though, so I'm not entirely sure what would fit there thematically.

If they were described as demons only by an in-universe speaker, I'd probably be on board with them just being another troll queendom, but given that the Guide itself doesn't get more specific than "demons" I'm inclined to think they're something else from the underworld. Maybe they're distant relations of trollkind, but I'd use the statistics for "demons" given in the bestiary. Edit: "Demon race of the Vithelan antigods. The Andins are vicious and foul entities that enjoy manifesting themselves as evil, demonic, and rapacious spirits that enjoy preying on the living." (GtG, page 476, emphasis mine) Maybe they're naturally spirit creatures with the ability to become physical?

To further add to the issue, the Well entry for "eight celestial sons of yelm" lists Derdurnus, Deumalos, Falsoretus, Ghelotralas, Ghevengus, Reladivus, Verithurusa, Zator, and Zaytenera. Though considering all of their individual pages are under "recently updated" I think it may still be a work in progress. Zator I think is Buserian, since they have the same personal rune. Reladivus is identified with Kargzant.

I don't think Chaosium has the rights anymore, and while they may be interested in reacquiring them it's not a high priority.

The copper plates of Yuthuppa (Mythology, p40) name the eight original sons as Zator, Reladivus, Shargash, Derdurnus, Deumalos, Falsoretus, Verithurus, and Ghevengus. They're all in the Prosopaedia I think.

Love that instead of going with mystic lunar symbolism, or the classic fantasy roman look, they just decided that it's bat time now.

On the topic of same/different god debates...

What myths do they have that directly contradict each other? And even then, the godtime being contradictory and nonlinear is an already established fact so I don't see how it disproves anything. The fact of the matter is that the official stance has Lhankor Mhy and Buserian as the same god - you can call it a retcon, have it be different in your Glorantha, but at this point it can't be disputed within the context of published Glorantha.

The Seven Mothers were fully mortal before their ascension. It's been noted that Irrippi Ontor and Yanafal Tarnils have similar cult structures to Lhankor Mhy and Humakt, but it's never been suggested that they're the same beings. Dendara and Ernalda, similarly, have similar ranks and requirements but are still separate beings. Though their separateness is a little more complicated. Buserian and Lhankor Mhy are fully identical save for associated cults, as Buserian is only associated with Yelm and probably Mostal. They're the same entity though, the Dara Happens presumably just prefer the part of the godtime where the Knowing God is a part of Yelm's court. https://wellofdaliath.chaosium.com/lhankor-mhy-in-central-genertela/

I don't think Buserian and Lhankor Mhy have that sort of relationship at all; it's probably just languages making the name different, like Lightfore/Kargzant/Yelmalio/Elmal/Antirius/Metsyla. Dendara and Ernalda are unique in that they actively refused to admit sameness or even kinship with each other.

The dragonewts taught some of their secrets to humans, including dragon magic. The people most in on the secrets were the human priesthoods, so some draconic secrets probably began to leak into their regular rites, but no gods were "draconised" as far as we know, though many dragons (and/or draconic heroes) were worshiped as gods. The closest thing was probably the Orlanth Dragonfriend cult, though that was probably just a subcult of Orlanth teaching Auld Wyrmish. The common religion of the EWF stayed largely Lightbringer until 889, when the Third Council ordered that all Lightbringer worship should be directed to them instead.

I don't think the Runegate Yelmalians have any more connection to Lhankor Mhy than the Sun Dome does. Even going back to Storm Tribe I'm not seeing anything.

Whoops, I just completely missed that. Regardless, I still doubt they'd be any better than neutral.

I don't think Yelmic Lhankor Mhy would have any more connection to Yelmalio than Lightbringer Lhankor Mhy does. Buserian is mostly a Dara Happan cult while Yelmalio is barely present there, so there might even be less of a connection.

Yelmalio and Lhankor Mhy may not be friendly, but Cults of Prax did note that they do occasionally have close ties. Light Priests must be literate, which essentially makes Lhankor Mhy lay membership a requirement, and I'd bet there's a connection through mapmaking as well, which both Lhankor Mhy's Grey Ones and Yelmalio's Togtuvei teach. Sharing the Truth rune is doubtless also helpful. I don't see any problem with allowing your player to join, but make sure to remind them that being a dual initiate is going to eat up a lot more of their free time and money. They might have some trouble getting accepted immediately, since they weren't an apprentice, but that's more a problem of how long it'll take rather than whether they can.

I think the current view is that cult initiation happens between 16-18, and is synonymous with adulthood initiation. So, technically, cults do take children, though they're probably no longer children by the time they gain their first spell.

Why not Lhankor Mhy? He doesn't have any racial restrictions, and if your trollkin is free enough to be making his own living then he's probably outside of troll lands, so access to an LM temple shouldn't be a problem. No better cult for a scribe than the god of scribes! Argan Argar is great for being an intermediary between trolls and humans, but not so much for paperwork.

She's an associate of Orlanth Thunderous (gets Cloud Call), so yes with him at least. I assume she gives Flood in return, like Engizi does, but I don't believe it's said anywhere.

Last I've heard it's still slated for March 2024

I think the removing the fetch thing is probably a holdover from when things hadn't been developed as much, since it's pretty much copypasted from RQ2. Alternatively, maybe you can read it that troublesome shamans will end up on the wrong side of a spirit of reprisal and get killed. That'd certainly require superhuman effort to reverse! Is that post on the well of daliath? That sounds interesting.

Yes. Daka Fal is the default form of ancestor worship. No, because Magasta isn't an ancestor of the Triolini.

I could see something like every iron dwarf's armor having an essentially permanent casting of Shape Iron on it (expiring in a few hundred years or so), allowing them to be easily repaired or resized for another soldier.

If you're talking about the monomyth art foldout, it's intentionally unlabeled. I think that since it's trying to condense the whole gods war into a single image, the viewer is supposed to come to their own conclusions about what all is happening and who is represented.

Anyone else see this blog post last week? There's already been talk about the Lunar book over on the RQ board, but apparently the Pendragon core book and a campaign (The Grey Knight) are releasing in March as well. Good to finally get a date. https://www.chaosium.com/blogthree-new-chaosium-releases-for-march-2024/