Richard S.

I'd believe it

The Invisible God and the Cosmic Dragon are the same being, and the caste system of Malkionism reflects the life stages of the Dragonewts. Both the IG and CD created the world through devolution and distinct actions, and in the process incorporated themselves into the world. Both of them are beings far beyond the understanding of mortals, nearly impossible to reach and incomprehensible to all but the most dedicated followers. Both of them endorse a form of magic which relies on the power of the user and doesn't require the intervention of supernatural beings. Both of their followers believe that they are greater than the material world and will eventually leave it to join with their creator in blissful unity. Finally, both of their religions are disturbing and often incomprehensible to outsiders. Crested/Scouts = Dronar/Farmers. Both are the lowest rank in the social ladder, subject to the whims of their betters and providing for the community. Beaked/Warriors = Horali/Soldiers. Both serve as the elite protectors of their community, and both are easy to fall out of their path via interaction with others. Tailed/Priest = Talar/Ruler. Both serve as the speakers and public leaders for their communities, engaging with outsiders and indulging their desires, yet entrenched enough in their religion that they do not easily fall. Some may think that Priests should be the equivalent of Wizards, but if you compare the social roles of the two it doesn't add up. Winged/Ruler = Zzaburi/Wizard. Both are the true rulers of their communities, though they prefer to act through others rather than directly, both are masters of their respective magics and are in charge of spiritual health, and both seclude themselves from the world in favor of spiritual pursuits. There's a lot of holes in this theory, and I don't even fully believe it, but it is interesting that there are so many similarities in the first place.

Well they aren't trying to suppress Ernalda for one - everyone loves her. As for Orlanth, of course they do. What do you think "Summon Evil" does?

Yelmalio's core myth ends with a battle against chaos parasites so it makes sense they'd be pretty sensitive to Chaos usage.

I imagine that most Yelmites would see the normal mix of broo, vampires, gorp, walktapus, etc. and agree that "yup that's chaos". They'd also look at a bunch of trolls swarming out of the mountains or an Orlanthi chieftain sparking a rebellion and think "yup that's chaos". They probably allow the Red Goddess to be a little chaotic because she can tame the broos and vampires and trolls and Orlanthi into orderly, non-rebelling things that serve the greater glory of the empire, and thus Yelm.

AFAIK, the core rulebook will include examples for everything. The SRD is just a reference doc and baseline for hacking the system, not the core rules.

The Aeolians believe and can prove that Orlanth is a direct emanation of the Invisible God and all their other gods are emanations of Orlanth. The sorcerers don't get their power from Orlanth though, or from the Invisible God, that's not how sorcery works. They are merely holy/devout/knowledgeable/blessed enough to know how to manipulate the natural laws of Orlanth's universe without needing him to do it for them. Among most Orlanthi yes, most sorcerers will follow Lhankor Mhy, but it's not like you need to be a member to learn it. Sorcery is a completely self-centered exercise that requires no intervention from gods or spirits to learn or use - I don't see why LM has to be involved for Aeolian priests to learn sorcery.

I don't think so. The Aeolian Wizards worship the Invisible God through Orlanth. Lhankor Mhy is at best a less important emanation of the IG or Orlanth, and only barbarians who refuse Aeol's message believe that he is the patron of sorcery.

They'd probably send Heroquesters into the hero plane in search of a myth on which to found their cult, and with proper support they'd probably come back with something. Whether it was created or just found doesn't really matter - in Glorantha, 99% of worship will give you something, usually proportionate to how many people are doing the worship.

Arcane Lore is absolutely not something to be used for games. It's a collection of notes and rough drafts from Greg that are all vaguely connected as being about Heroquesting or Gloranthan metaphysics, and show many contradicting points of view on both of those as Greg's own ideas changed over time. Some are from early Runequest, others are from Hero Wars/HeroQuest 1, others don't relate to any game. I sincerely doubt the RQG Heroquesting info will be anywhere as incomprehensible though interesting) as Arcane Lore.

There's actually a topic on this already

It's not that they were in denial of it, they just believed they could make it consistent.

Ah, sorry if I came off as rude. I spelled and said Nysalor as Nyaslor for years so I was legitimately worried I was wrong about Horali too.

Wait, shouldn't that be Horali? Or have I just been misspelling it all this time?

A campaign set in the wake of the Hero Wars, where the players have to deal with the problems of a new age and help the other survivors recover, a la the Theyalan missionaries.

Argath (well, one of them) is basically confirmed to be a reincarnation of Arkat, especially following Belintar and Sedenya/Jar-Eel's conversation in Prince of Sartar. It's possible that he, or someone acting in his name, is one of the Arkats of Ralios.

inb4 they release the Red Book and it's just a stack of notecards with spell descriptions written on them

I saw the thread name and I was like "ooh is someone trying to put together a Gloranthan movie watching night?" and now I'm sad. All the suggestions are cool though, I've only seen Bahubali part 1 but I'll check the others out.

That's the dwarves who go into battle in full unenchanted iron. The west has a lot of iron compared to central Genertela, sure, but not even close to enough to armor up every Horali with it. Remember that literally every soldier, from city guards to tax collectors, are Horali. I do imagine the Zzaburi spell them up before battle, but I wouldn't go so far as to say they have no magic of their own. Even if they don't have sorcery, we know in Seshnela at least most of them are part of warrior animal societies which are basically thinly veiled Hsunchen cults

So am I right in assuming that this will be covering not just the modern warfare of the west but its history as well? There's a lot of sketches dated pretty early on at least.

The Third-Eye Blue clan teaches their sorcery orally I believe. In cases like that each song is probably a grimoire, with separate sections being the specific spells. It's also possible to learn sorcery spells individually without a grimoire, which is harder but probably doesn't always need a book either. And yes, each caste is supposed to know some sorcery appropriate to their work I believe, though the Zzaburi are the only ones who fully understand the principles behind it and who can do anything more than small blessings and cantrips. I'd also imagine that outside of the ur-western society that is Brithos most non-Zzaburi would also use Rune and spirit magic, perhaps even moreso than sorcery, as it's much easier to learn and use, and in the case of farmers especially it's valuable to have an actual working relationship with the land (aka its spirits and gods), rather than simply bending it to your will.

Well, there must be some unfortunate reason for the "never bathe" geas

I've seen them fairly often. Any system with a bunch of disparate abilities can benefit from them, since they mean you don't have to go flipping through the book every minute or so to remember what something does. Even just a sheet of paper with spell effects summarized on it is nice, but for systems with a whole lot of spells a deck can sometimes both look and feel nicer to use.

This brings up another question I've been wondering: where are the mines? Maybe it's talked about in the guide and I just missed it, but where does all the metal come from and who mines it?

Mostal is called the god of stone by most people. I don't know if he's actually worshipped by humans, but that's his title among them. You do make a point though, save for nonhuman cults like Flintnail or Mostal there's not many gods of mining or masonry. I think at least one of Lodril's sons is associated with building cities - in fact I'd say the whole solar pantheon is to a degree - but you'd think there'd be someone doing that job in Dragon Pass too.