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The text is not clear/deliberately vague. However, Dara Happans divide the soul into six portions- the physical body, the life force, the fertility, the intellect, the shadow, and the awareness. "Heart and eyes", if they are not a literal reference, seem to suggest the life force and awareness (or Warmth Portion and Sight Portion, in DH terminology). Or, alternately, seeing someone come back with a drastically altered physical body and acting in a very different way than they had before.

Well, we know that at some point the Glorious ReAscent of Yelm was lost outside Alkoth and Yelmgatha recovered it. The big questions here are 1) when did this loss happen? After the Bright Empire? After the Dragon Sun? During the Yelm Is Not movement? Under the Carmanian Emperors? The time interval certainly seems like it needs to be longer than the Carmanians or Yelm-is-Nots as the cause. 2) How important is the Glorious ReAscent to solar worship? Is it the equivalent of the Kojiki? The Sibylline Oracles? If the GRoY is important for the proper worship of Yelm, then it may well be the case that Dara Happan religion in its current form is younger than the Lunar Way (though by only a few years). I don't think this is likely, but certainly it seems plausible that there's a religious reformation at that point.

Does this mean Clearwine is the Napa Valley? 🤔

1. The God Learners had an entire institute devoted to exploring Trickster. Trickster was in a way key to their efforts to understand Glorantha, as they recognized that Trickster could be found in their mythology, and in the mythology of the other people they encountered, but playing a similar role every time. It's been suggested that they were even inspired to begin their researches by a manifestation of Trickster that crawled out of a book they had recovered from the ruins of the Bright Empire. Unless that was Gbaji. Or Wakboth. Their institute was located on Slontos, and so it is buried under a vastness of earth and sea from when Slontos rolled herself over. 2. Trickster has many names and guises. Many of these are not very well established, but we know that Trickster manifests as the spirit Raven, as a hare god in Pelanda, is known to the Arbennan people of Pamaltela, and presumably is, if not a universal figure, at least nearly so. (One wonders what Trickster looks like in Brithini society, but possibly in Arolanit Trickster goes around complimenting things for how grey and lifeless they are.) 3. Being a Trickster is all about crossing boundaries, so Trickster magic does that too. It's different from standard magic in that it crosses the seemingly firm boundaries of the culture's understanding of magic. It's also different from standard magic in that it's more likely to blow up in your face. Being a Trickster is, in contemporary language, all about self-ownage. 4. and 5. Tricksters are basically people who behave in deliberately contrarian ways. This means that, say, Orlanthi Tricksters are cowardly because courage is so important to Orlanthi societies as a cultural value. Thus, Tricksters will behave in just about every way humanly possible, so long as it's running against the grain of the culture they live in. Usually, though, they behave in deliberately immoral ways because moral values do tend to a sort of similarity across cultures. Eurmal Friend of Men, though, is Trickster when he's stealing Fire from the gods to bring it to humans. (Or some other benefit that crosses the boundary between sacred and profane- one wonders if Trickster brought the secret of smothering fires to the Uz?)

Well, The Fortunate Succession is of course somewhat vague. It notes that, after a long period of time wherein draconism had been growing more powerful in Dara Happa under the Golden Dragon Society, the Emperor Dismanthuyar was enthroned, and at his enthronement, Sunspears destroyed "the dragons who were trying to intervene", following which the EWF sends armies north, accompanied by Dragonewt colonizing efforts. Dismanthuyar then sends his son Urvanyar to face the EWF armies. The Dara Happans claim that all three of the battles were pyrrhic and that each side lost a third of its army (Urvanyar dying in the second battle) until only the Dragon Sun was left. The Dragon Sun then allowed Dismanthuyar to be cremated in full honor after he was dragged out of Yuthuppa. Then in the section for Karvanyar's reign, it's noted that the Dragon Sun stole Urvanyar's "heart and eyes", but that the rest of him gave birth to Karvanyar. The Dragon Sun themself is described as "not an emperor" though passing all Ten Tests and wearing the regalia properly. They were apparently so popular they brought about a significant amount of conversion to solar draconism, and had so much raw power nobody even tried to rebel until Karvanyar. And then Karvanyar's dynasty spends about a century first overthrowing EWF rule of Kostaddi and Saird, and then purging foreign influences from Dara Happa and promoting the "Yelm Is Not" movement. I think the most likely explanation is that Dismanthuyar ordered the murder of a number of Golden Dragon Society members at his enthronement, which prompted an EWF response. However, his son Urvanyar was secretly a Golden Dragon and had a draconic awakening when fighting the EWF or the DH armies. When he did so, he became the Dragon Sun and returned north and assumed the throne properly, passing all Ten Tests and bringing about 30 years of fairly peaceful rule, following which a Hero from the lower classes of Dara Happan society emerges and assassinates him at a wedding. His body appears to have been visibly draconic, since they note that the Dragon Sun has the same "heart and eyes" that Urvanyar does but also that he doesn't have hands or genitals, which suggest there's some scales going on but his Antirius Portion and Warmth Portion are identical. After Karvanyar ascends to the throne, he or some later Emperor spreads the story that his father was Urvanyar and the Dragon Sun stole Urvanyar's parts to impersonate him.

It's a joke. The Dara Happans insist that the Dragon Sun was an abomination that tricked its way into becoming Emperor, and Karvanyar liberated them from its tyranny. Meanwhile, we know that the Dragon Sun was one of the few EWF-associated people to complete their draconic ascensions and become True Dragons, since they reappeared at the Dragonkill after Karvanyar "killed" them and currently hang around Prax. It's also oddly reminiscent of Orlanthi efforts to explain away the EWF by saying Orlanth was beguiled by Arangorf the Inner Dragon. (Of course, there may be a deeper truth here associated with the Aroka and Sh'hakarzeel myths...)

And I mean, even if there is a Platonic Form of Orlanth, that form also has to incorporate the Orlanth Storm at a very minimum, which, uh, complicates any kind of anthropomorphicity. Perhaps there was a God Learner sect that attempted to reconcile this, and ended up producing a subset of puppet theater where a little hurricane glove puppet stabs a little sun glove puppet before wooing a little earth cube glove puppet....

Heroquests vary. Some are just people dressed up in costumes performing a ritual play, some begin as ritual plays and then the participants enter the Hero Plane, some begin with the participants entering the Hero Plane and then move from there. In general, this varies depending on how much power you're attempting to draw out of the Otherside- the annual rituals to remake the world at Sacred Time are almost always pure "people in costumes" quests, at least for people on the ground level of a clan. On the other hand, cult initiation begins as a ritual play and then shifts you into the Hero Plane, generally speaking. There are connections between all the planes, and a shaman could and in some cases must use the Spirit Plane to enter the Hero Plane. Ruleswise there is not yet an official RQG answer. My quick-and-dirty semi-systemless approach is as follows: 1. First, take your myth (or write it up) 2. Divide the myth into a series of "stations". These stations are the basic segments of the myth. 3. Locate the stations which have obvious tests that the quester must pass, and discard the rest for the moment. 4. Determine what's being tested in each station and assign appropriate character aspects (skills, raw attributes, traits, passions) to the station. Ideally, assign at least two. 5. Depending on your group, you may wish to have the stations that involve combat be run as full combat, or you may wish to have it be a couple of appropriate checks. 6. Take the stations which are not the beginning and not the ending and randomize their order before running the Heroquest. Make sure players are well aware that this is going to happen. 7. When you run the Heroquest, the players will probably be mostly encountering other questers or minor Otherside entities as the "side characters" of the quest. Use this for descriptive value. 8. At each station, provide them with a description of what's there, let them decide how best to approach it (and if they come up with a creative solution let them apply it) and give them hints about the station if they're a little stuck. 9. Unless the players catastrophically fail (say, by attacking Orlanth when he's the one who gives the quest or whatever) or are severely wounded, let them continue the quest until it's finished, whether they fail or pass any given check or not. Keep track of where they pass or fail. 10. The total percentage of passes determines how well the players did. If they passed everything, they got everything they asked for, possibly something extra (they always get something extra if they did something creative). If they failed everything, they get nothing. In between, they get part of what they asked for, and guidelines for this can be based on what exactly they failed. An example, using the Issaries the Conciliator Heroquest from King of Dragon Pass: Our valiant questers have gone through the quest, which has nine stations: 1. Talking Lhankor Mhy into coming along 2. Talking Urox into coming along 3. Determining the cause of the Great Darkness 4. Fighting the Chaos thing 5. Meeting the Digging Stick people 6. Meeting the Long-Noses 7. Meeting the Big-Teeth 8. Negotiating peace 9. Negotiating with Paratur. I'll say there are 20 total tests in this quest, a number I just made up but which is nice and round for percentage calculations. Our questers managed to pass 15 tests out of the 20. That's a 75% success rate, so let's say that they get the majority of what they ask for, but are still missing a major component. The questers undertook this quest to negotiate peace between the Stiff-Bristled Pig Clan and the Hummingbird Clan of the Ditali people, as their feud is threatening to fracture the Ditali confederation by bringing about war between two Trader Princes. Their failed tests were mostly in the realm of prideful behavior (the questers weren't content to let Urox fight the Chaos monster and they refused to let Paratur take a treasure from them), so I conclude that while their quest has succeeded in cooling down the feud, there are still prideful people in the leadership of both clans who refuse to make peace. Time for the players to conciliate in person...

I don't think there are any canonical people who do, but they surely exist in some sense. That being said, a Trickster with a Truth rune is probably more aligned with Disorder than Illusion as far as Trickster goes. But in general- Truth is largely about objectivity and the process of internalizing objective facts into the subjective. Illusion is largely about subjectivity and the process of externalizing subjective facts into the objective. So you have the "finding the truth" element of scholarly gods, but you also have honor codes and binding geases as far as prominent Truth deities go. And Illusion deities are mostly entertainers, and Trickster in his many masks. So in that sense, perhaps an illuminate who has cultivated Illusion and Truth both would be able to use their magic to twist these aspects- transforming subjective beliefs into raw facts, warping objective codes into subjective interpretations. Very dangerous indeed. The most obvious deity to represent with these two Runes would unfortunately be our good old Chaotic friend, Gbaji the Deceiver.

Molanni is bad because she's stagnant, foul air. Air that never moves, air that stays in one place. Air and Stasis. She's an affront to the rightful order of things, so of course she went and married the Emperor or one of his court and of course she's the mother of wicked creatures like Daga. (Contrastingly, Brastalos is the No Wind- air that only appears to be standing still but is actually secretly moving, the eye of the hurricane.) Dara Happans appear to not know who Molanni is beyond a single mention in the story of the wedding of Yelm. If this is an effort to adapt a polygynous tradition where Dendara was first among Yelm's wives, then there's a synchronization with conventional Orlanthi interpretations. In general, though, I don't think they have many stories of Molanni. Calm, gentle air is considered righteous, but Molanni is stagnant air and not even unwashed Dara Happans could call her good. Much like how the destructive aspects of Orlanth are downplayed in Orlanthi culture, I presume that Molanni is almost purely a list deity in Peloria.

Perhaps the sacrifice of Argenteus was deliberately meant to keep Takenegi out of play for a while, then. Either to help purge all the gunk clogging his Moon Soul or to clear out the ranks of the schemers so that there could be a reckoning once he returned. And then Argrath sidles in with Sheng Seleris, Jar-Eel is dead, and that's how you end up with Emperor Ralzakark.

I certainly don't have anywhere near your level of formal experience, but reading xianxia webnovels and my girlfriend's short stories and novellas certainly has me feeling cold at pseudasia too, haha.

I'm not a big fan of Kralorela or Vormain. Both of them tend to stick out aesthetically- Kralorela is very Ming (down to the point of facing a devastating invasion from the north after a political vacuum emerges, and then at this point I started drawing parallels to Sheng as the Yuan, Godunya's first reign as the Song, ShangHsa and the False Dragon's Ring as the Jin...) and Vormain is very early Edo/late Sengoku (the piracy is very pre-Edo, the isolation is very Edo/stereotypes of the Edo period) and while I'm certainly not opposed to heavily Chinese- and Japanese-influenced areas in Glorantha, I'd certainly prefer ones that looked a bit more in line with the feel of antiquity. Of course, then those become less immediately recognizable as Chinese-influenced or Japanese-influenced unless you've got a personal connection or are a big nerd.

And of course, when Sheng Seleris comes along, all the "core" parts of the Lunar Empire defect to him (except for the area Glamour directly controlled and Alkoth proper) and it's the Carmanians and provincials on the fringes who save the day. And then immediately afterwards there's a major religious reformation, part of which involves the creation of a new writing system and language to tie the Empire together more closely. It makes me wonder about what the First/Second Wane Empire looked like in terms of governance- did Takenegi changing Masks lead to a centralization of power, or an effective decentralization and ceding of power that Great Sister and then Hon-Eel attempted to counter?

Well, my formative Gloranthan experiences were, in order: the core book for Heroquest's first edition, King of Dragon Pass, then Nick Brooke's Etyries site... Of course, one could also, if you were willing to keep your tongue firmly enough in cheek, suggest that as the Moon is Red, White, and Blue, the Lunar Empire is clearly the United States of America. Cue Fazzur Wideread and/or Jar-Eel saluting in front of a giant moon rune flag...

Well, I mean more that the imagery that Sedenya chooses for herself is that of a peasant revolt throwing off the oppressors (along with the human sacrifice imagery, of course). And then you have the aspect that Takenegi doesn't have any independent source of legal authority beyond being Dara Happan Emperor, which then leads to the civil war after the death of Argenteus, as no one has any real claim to rule the Empire until Phargentes the Younger... Of course, the real reason here is that it makes for a great deal of Romanesque irony to have the idealized Lunar society be so beautiful in its egalitarian vision, and then the reality being massive latifundia, Roan-Ur, Moonburns, the Cult of the Crimson Bat. Like the contrast between Roman firm expressed belief in liberty and their meek acceptance of the destruction of the Republic (and also mass slavery, but that's slightly less hypocritical in the Roman's own terms...)

I mean, the Arrolians aren't too bad (until Riverjoin joins the Kingdom of War). And the Lunar Way lacking any kind of sovereignty rites in and of itself (and of course the sacral weapons of the scythe, sickle, and kopis being adaptations of working tools) suggests that the ideal form of Lunar government is probably some sort of democracy, or at least something as oligarchic as the Buddhist sangha in terms of decision-making. Pity that they had to go and adopt Dara Happan methods of government, then...

You can probably trace the high proportion of unfree people in Esrolia to the effects of trying to reconcile urban life with Orlanthi cultural customs. If freedom is something that's maintained by a continual state of low-level raiding to liquefy wealth...

Well, Esrolian city-states seem to be one step above tribes in terms of organization (or they have some way of organizing a lot of clans coherently into "super-tribes"), at least. Oh, yeah, "barbarian versus civilized" is a great way of thinking about the conflicts Orlanthi have with their neighbors in Peloria and Fronela and Ralios.

Of course, the model I learned in college (but which is heavily challenged) was a division between band/tribe/chiefdom/state. The central distinction here is the question of where authority resides- in bands and tribal societies, it resides in personal abilities and charisma, chiefdoms base authority on kinship, and state societies base authority on non-kinship formal structures. As such, Orlanthi might fairly be claimed to be tribal (certainly the tribe and clan are the most sustained polities in Orlanthi life outside of Esrolia), chiefdoms (kinship structures are dominant), or states (but the actual means of acquiring authority in Orlanthi society is via formal elections). How barbaric of them, to slip categories so easily. 😆

I think it's probably the fallout from a magical duel, yeah. She attempted to Lunarize Sorana Tor, Sorana Tor demanded a few things in return. Something similar probably happened in Oraya with the contest against the Pentan shaman, but there Hon-Eel seems to have gotten away less affected.

I briefly mused at one point (when considering a Reddit topic on possible Incan/Andean-aesthetic areas in Glorantha) that the pre-EWF Kingdom of Orlanthland might well have the kind of high-altitude terraced farms and carved-staircases-and-rope-bridges roads you'd associate with the Inca, or would if you're me, at least. And then I pondered whether potatoes are a Draconic secret- Dragonewts don't seem to plant seeds because all their crops are hidden underground! Of course, when they decided to wind up the EWF, the Minarian Memory Removal was therefore done to remove all memory of fried potatoes from human minds...

Thank you, thank you. I should probably get a blog or something to post this stuff on...

I have two stories of Etyries handy. One is sui generis, one is part of a larger work. 1) The Goddess's truest followers have always been the lowly of the world. Bandits, street girls, disgraced scholars, queens without regalia, followers of the Wasp God too waspish for Carmanians, madwomen who barter with spirits, slaves. Etyries was a merchant, and who expects much from someone who leads jackasses around by the nose for a living? And yet when she came before the Goddess, in those days when the Victory was fresher than morning dew, she started and nearly fainted, it is said, and the Goddess pulled her out from the line and said, "Here, she is a Natural!" She did faint, at that. And between her and Valare, that is how we learned what Naturals were. Etyries had all three of her eyes open, and all of them caught the Goddess's light. The unfiltered light of the Goddess, in those blessed days of the Zero Wane, brought madness to anyone who saw it, and Etyries was no exception. But her madness went deeper, and she saw further, and when she recovered from fainting, tended to by the Goddess Herself, she looked up and pulled out a coin from her purse. She held it up to the Goddess and said, "This I might have offered to you before, but I see now that it is a glamour, and so it already belongs to you." The Goddess, it is said, clapped Her hands and laughed and said, "You, I shall personally instruct! You are already well along the Way." Etyries learned quickly at the Goddess's side, and then she sallied forth and shared her insights with the merchants, the traders, the lenders, the tax-collectors, and the speculators. Some understood, some said she had gone round the bend, some merely scratched their heads and returned to their abacus. Etyries returned, frustrated, and consulted with the Goddess for a long time, and then with Irippi Ontor for a while, and then she spent her time writing and writing, even as she instructed those who had proved receptive to her revelations of the intangible. She wrote even as the Goddess ascended into the Air and wrapped the Mask of the Red Moon about her. Finally, a year before Yelmgatha died, she finished her work and apotheosized. It was an explanation of the Lunar Way in simple, clear language that even the most prosaic shopkeeper could understand. Unfortunately, it was so perfect that it apotheosized with her. And so we who follow her have been bedeviled with hecklers ever since. If you are lucky and capable and pious, you may be privileged to someday see it in her emporium on the Moon, and perhaps copy out a single sentence. 2) "Vibe Check!" The Goddess declared this many times. It was a frequent exclamation of Hers. Whenever She was introduced to someone new, after greetings She would often say this, usually gently tapping them on the forehead. Normally She would follow this up with some small words of praise. But She also screamed it forth just before Her scythe swung down on the Shah of Carmania. And after that, She was heard to say, "Terrible, just terrible." And this mystery confused many. One day when the Goddess was instructing Etyries on the proper uses of hazia, Etyries at last ventured to ask Her just what that meant. The Goddess giggled uncontrollably, fell over on Her side, and finally said, "I'm hungry, let's find something to eat." As they ate, the Goddess said, "This is what I look for when I say that. This is the fullness of goodness that I sought." And She kissed Etyries in delight. And Etyries finally understood, but she never told anyone else what the Goddess had meant.

Who do you think does all the grunt work of scribing and copying? Starseers?