Richard S.

Recently I saw an article on how Dinosaurs probably didn't sound like how many of us imagine. Even among the huge, impressive carnivores like the tyrannosaurus, they would've sounded much more like modern day birds rather than the monsters from Jurassic Park: lots of squawks, chirps, hoots, and murmuring, but no roaring. Assuming Gloranthan dinos are the same way, I wonder if this says anything about their cousins, the dragonewts. I'm thinking of Auld Wyrmish as being composed of these "close-mouthed" sounds, nothing requiring vocal cords. To a human ear it would sound very melodious and alien, but it would be hard to distinguish between similar sounds. Pre-tailed stages probably lack vocal cords at all, which would explain why they basically have to be mutilated to speak human languages. I'm wondering how the split tongue could play into this - maybe it can be used to make two sounds at once, like a low and high hoot together, or a long trilling punctuated by hisses from the other side. You could have either a conversation with these "two-tone" words or two separate "one-tone" conversations at once, one with either tongue tip. If this is on top of the established olfactory and sensory components, I'd be surprised that a human could even learn 25% of the language without surgery.

I doubt that Hastatus has a full cult of his own. I'd presume that both he and the other weapon gods are usually subsumed under Yelm the Warrior, like how the Thunder Brothers are a part of the Orlanth cult.

Maybe the reason we aren't seeing as much content for the JC as we do the MR is because everyone's intimidated by the quality of book like these

Probably Daysenerus just emphasized the mystical aspects of Yelmalio. AFAIK the cult was basically the same as Yelmalio's, but when Nysalor revealed him at the Battle of Night and Day the god of the sun comes was named Daysenerus.

Of course, everyone's Eurmal and their religions are just a giant cosmic prank!

Possibly we don't have as many myths about Ernalda growing up because by the time Orlanth got to get she was already done with that. Sure, she probably did go through growth and learning, but by the time she joined the storm tribe she was a mature woman already. There's also possibly a point to be made that her learning was easier and not as turbulent as Orlanth's, since she actually had the support of her family while Orlanth basically had to figure everything out himself.

Iirc it's rules for magician characters and other such magical stuff. It's supposedly a lot different than how 4E dealt with the subject, and closer to how magic was presented in the stories.

I'm starting a petition to rename Yelmalio to the Cool Sun

Nice! I'm really looking forwards to this.

It sided with the Lunars because they paid them, and later the Sartarites for the same reason. They're mercenaries, and don't owe allegiance to any one nation, or even other Sun Domes. I'd imagine that that was part of the draw for Elmali - instead of being subservient to the Orlanth cult, they could have their own independent state with Lightfore as the primary god. Argrathalso fully supports the Yelmalio cult, he even helps his companion Rurik Runespear become the high priest of the Vaantar temple.

Nice! That's the one I'm eyeing the most.

My main question is how much of this stuff is going to be new? I know Glorantha publications have a tendency to repeat themselves, so I wonder what all in the WF footprints is actually stuff that hasn't seen the light of day in some more recent publication. Edit: I know that none of this stuff is really "new", I just meant that a lot of it has never been seen by people like me who weren't there in the early years.

I remember hearing the EWF's draconic energy field referred to as the "dragon's dream" once. My theory is that when you get a sufficiently powerful draconic consciousness it broadcasts a field in which reality begins to conform to the dragon's thoughts. True dragons, having no interest in the material world, rarely cause it to change. Ruler 'newts and the Inhuman King try and keep it constrained to their cities, so they don't unintentionally create debts to the material world. The EWF masters, however, were too interested in the affairs of the world and so their consciousness reflected that on the empire.

It depends on what you mean by dragon magic. First off, there's dragonewt magic, which is innate to dragonewts and impossible for humans to use without significant spiritual and physical modifications, such as the tongue splitting practiced by the EWF. Dragonewts dislike using their powers because they enmesh them in the world and may cause them to revert to an earlier stage by unbalancing their emotional mastery. Humans who gain the ability don't have that risk and can use dragonewt spells without fear of devolution, resulting in bizarre personalities and degraded souls. Secondly, there are some mystic schools that grant dragon powers to adherents, especially in Kralorela, but impose strict requirements on members and don't really allow the use of their powers outside of certain ritual purposes. For some more insight into this method, look up Ingolf on the Well of Daliath website. He was a dragon mystic in the EWF with incredible power who ultimately failed because he used his powers wrongly. Thirdly, in the EWF there were the so-called "short cut paths" which offered powerful dragon magics without many of the restrictions of the other two methods. The Ten Step Program, which may be related to the Path of Immanent Mastery, was the most famous of these, and allowed its followers to transform into dragons physically. Unfortunately, most of these short cuts were stunted spiritually and none of their followers, including the members of the EWF's ruling ring, ever achieved their goal of becoming True Dragons. How these exactly worked is a mystery, but we know at least some of them were theistic, worshipping dragons (or rather heroes who had heroquested to form a link to a dragon) in return for Rune magic. It's possible some were shamanic as well, gaining powers from dragon thoughts and dragonewt spirits, and the Accelerated Dragon Worship of the council appears to resemble the Malkioni Chain of Veneration, though it's unclear whether ADW benefited anyone save for the council and their direct companions. Edit: if you want some possible (though fanmade) rules for dragon magic, there are a few attempts to provide a framework for at least one method. First and most popular is Simon Phipps', which is for RQ3 and uses Pendragon's emotional pairs system but could easily be adapted for RQG (and the emotion pairs even replaced with Power pairs possibly): http://soltakss.com/dragon2.html and http://soltakss.com/kralori1.html Secondly, there's my own ham-handed attempt to develop a system for casting dragonewt magic, though it's not very developed and would require some extra work to get going: https//basicroleplaying.org/topic/5792-dragon-magic-for-rq4-when-it-comes-out/ If you have the old RQ3 Gods of Glorantha book I believe it has a write-up of the Path of Immanent Mastery, if you want a quick and dirty theistic path to dragon magic. It could easily be adapted into a cult, though I'd say initiates would have to somehow develop a connection to the Dragon rune. There is a book on Kralorela in the works too I think, which should have a more detailed treatment of dragon magic in the third age, but it probably won't be out for a good while. Edit 2 Wyrmish Boogaloo: dragon magic often leads to a form of Illumination known as Draconic Consciousness. As far as we know, it follows the traditional rules for illumination (no fear of dragons/chaos, ignore spirits of reprisal, etc.) but it's gained by communicating with True Dragons rather than through Nyaslorian riddles. I'd say that it could be a requirement to be illuminated this way to join a dragon mystic school or learn dragonewt magic, and it could possibly give the illuminate either the dragon or dragonewt rune as well.

That's a good point. Yelm also, according to the sourcebook, requires total submission of his worshippers to the priests, something that I doubt would sit well with Orlanthi. I'd imagine so, though the Elmali may not know the Hill of Gold myth, as that's not as important to Elmal's identity as the loyal thane.

I'LL TAKE YOUR ENTIRE STOCK

I can't wait until we discover that the entirety of Glorantha has been leading up to one massive, world-shaking pun

Inspired by what Jajagappa was saying, couldn't you just mock up a map in photoshop and upload it as an image to Discord at the start of each round? You could save each player icon as a separate layer so you can move them around without having to completely redraw the map each round. I do think Discord would be a good choice if you could do something like that; it's quick, easier on the eyes and more compact than a forum imo, and you can have separate channels to store character sheets and ooc discussion and whatnot.

I want to know what Arrow of Light does so I can compare all of their magics. I'm assuming it's basically just an arrow that hurts creatures of darkness, since I haven't seen it in any previous editions.

Hm. If you had an Elmali, a Yelmalion, a Kargzanti, and an Antirian all together, what would they think of each other? I'd imagine the Yelmalion would either try to convince them they really worshiped Yelmalio or just be quietly assured of it himself, but how would the others feel about worshippers of the other forms of Lightfore?

Even if it's not really canon, Elmal Guards the Stead has got me thinking. We know that, for a little bit, probably directly after the dawn before they had met the Pelorians, Elmal was the primary sun god of the Heortlings. Perhaps back then he had some disease fighting powers similar to Yelm's, won from the foes he fought while guarding the stead, and after Yelm was encountered and identified as the sun those powers were gradually forgotten and the myth changed to emphasize Elmal as Loyal Thane. I'm tempted to give a "secret" association between Yelm and Elmal that grants Fight Disease, perhaps requiring some unorthodox questing through that myth. Not sure if I'd allow the same opportunity to Yelmalions though.

Viva la Ehilm, all your suns are the same! I'll God Learner who and what I please you ignorant barbarians!

Technically speaking Yelmalio is no more legitimate a name than Elmal or Antirius or Kargzant. They're all just different approaches towards the same thing: Lightfore.

Where are you reading that it's a condition? AFAIK it's always been interpreted as a heatless subelement of sky/fire.