Eff

Yeah. If the warrior women cults are just game-mechanical abstractions to allow women to play traditional adventurers while not being weirdos like Humakti and Storm Bullies or Lunars, then the restrictions are kind of 🤔. But if they have a Gloranthan reason for existing, then they're pretty much fun. Unicorn riders! Earthquake summoners! Women with bright red hair doing the Final Fantasy Dragoon thing with wind magic! The Kalin Kadiev (iirc) art of the Axe Maiden where she's painted her hands blood red up to the wrists and the rest of her arms the color of dark earth! All prime stuff!

Well, I have my own theory, namely that the seventh soul is the representation of Chaos within the self. But it's also possible that it's seven as in one better than the completion of six elements and six forms, or seven as in one fewer than the eight powers and thus near-completion. Numerology is fun and frustrating, or, perhaps, funstrating.

Well, I actually see them as parallel. You can go deeper on either "track", (a surface level of the plower-and-sower role might well be what a friend described as her view of the prototypical Vingan: a sunburned woman sitting on a dock and fishing without a care in the world) and eventually emerge somewhere in deep mysteries.

Oof, BoHM is one of the gaps in my Gloranthan knowledge. Interesting that the large birds of prey seem to be divided in that way. Essentially, Trickster in Glorantha is much more a Loki or maybe Coyote figure than Reynard or Nanabozho or a "contrary". Violently self-destructive and only helpful because he's usually to blame in the first place.

Hawks, eagles, and falcons are most closely associated with the Sky, or rather with the Sun. Thankfully, the Orlanthi do have acceptable ways to mediate the powers of the Sky within their society (Elmal, Yelmalio, Rigsdal the Night Watchman), but a child with those kind of Solar connections would probably be marked for something. Priests and god-talkers would probably try to make sure that that something takes the form of "cast out from the Sky people and so of course we'll take them in as the hospitable Storm people". They may or may not succeed. I endorse all of this.

Not if it's a Storm bird, like waterfowl (ducks, geese, swans) are!

Depending on your game/story/personal vision of Glorantha, either 1) a divine vaginoplasty, complete with implanted uterus and ovaries (I think it's pretty well implied from various sources that the former, at least, is completely possible and so this is probably the most "accurate" answer if there ever were an official one), 2) the birth happens entirely on the Otherside via magic, 3) a phantom pregnancy that ends with an adorable giant snake/lizard coming into the stead with a bundled baby attached for delivery. (It could also potentially be a stork but I personally love the Ernalda/Earth connection with reptiles), 4) any/all of the above depending on the person. At the First Battle of Chaos, seeing the dead return to life and seeing the Red Goddess fly forth on the Crimson Bat, its eyes gleaming in all directions with enlightenment, its tongues drooling in hunger as it spotted the Carmanian forces, well, it spontaneously Illuminated a great many people, but in a way that led them to be heavily Chaotic and also crazy. Their leader became known as the "Mad Sultan". They proceeded to wander Peloria. Early in the First Wane, the anti-Lunar hero Jannisor Moonchaser managed to lure them into Tork, a region of Saird just south of the Imther Mountains, and seal them away from the rest of the world. The Lunar Empire has attempted to maintain this seal, though it behaves irregularly (as anything Lunar or Chaotic, and in this case both, will do) and expands or shrinks unpredictably, pulling people in or spitting out denizens. The first Mad Sultan escaped during the wars against Sheng Seleris, and he was the one who killed the first Mask of the Red Emperor for the last time (along with the last Tarshite king of the original dynasty). He currently lives in Dorastor with some of his followers. There are possibly other Mad Sultanates scattered around the Lunar Empire, though none quite as large or with as deadly a history.

The Vinga cult is said to be popular in Saird. This suggests that, like Barntar replacing Orlanth Thunderous, Vinga may well be a politically acceptable fig leaf for worship of Orlanth under Lunar rule (especially since the Red Woman iconography of Saird is presumably identified with both Vinga and Sedenya). Heroquest's 1st Edition is obviously an old source and in this specific instance is probably untrustworthy, but the Esrolian homeland in that book suggested Vinga was a major goddess for "foot soldiers" (as distinguished from the common "warriors" associated with the Thunder Brothers in that period of Gloranthan publications and their profusion of subcults). So we might well suggest that in relatively urbanized Orlanthi societies, the Vinga cult is socially important for providing a core of disciplined infantry for the city militias (and in turn the connection the most prominent Vingan, Kallyr Starbrow, has to Polaris/Rigsdal, takes on an intriguing aspect). King of Dragon Pass gives Vinga the blessings Pathfinder and Fyrdwomen, blessing explorers and allowing women to fight in the fyrd defensively. What do these mean, when taken together? That is, what does it mean that your clan has a Vinga shrine dedicated to a Fyrdwomen blessing? I will suggest, from these bits of evidence (popular in a more urbanized area, the HQ1 stuff, and KoDP) that this means your cult has a couple Vingans who dedicate their time to training women in fighting in the push-and-shove of shieldwall combat. I'm not sure what the Pathfinder blessing necessarily means, beyond Vingans possibly being ideally situated in steads and hides that are somewhat isolated from the tula (just like Elmali are best positioned on the edge of the clan's precincts). In other words, the subcult is distinct (albeit this distinction is an artifact of inertia) and not just totally absorbed in the way that Hedkoranth Thunderstone is because it provides unique social functions which clans find valuable. On the fertility aspect, there are of course levels of initiation, but I would suspect that someone deeply dedicated to Vinga not just in the warrior woman role but in the overall "performs masculine duties" role would have to worry more about impregnating partners than being impregnated after unprotected sex. Very much not something that should affect a player if they don't want to opt in, of course.

Yeah, if we ditch pronoun stuff, then I'm all for your view of Nandan!

Nandan really doesn't have much more information available. What information does exist (mostly in the form of old Glorantha Digest/mailing list discussions/arguments) is likely very outdated. From that information, there are kind of two broad interpretations possible: @Qizilbashwoman takes the tack that Nandan is the goddess of trans women (or more specifically those trans women who wish to take on a traditionally feminine role within Orlanthi society) and I, personally, take the tack that Nandan is a god of a complex nonbinary gender identity wherein the person is identified as taking on a feminine role (to the point of pregnancy and childbirth) while still also being masculine for other social purposes. It all depends on whether you want to keep the pronoun usage from older material consistent or not, and how you interpret the six genders of Orlanthi society. Beyond Nandan's involvement with gender identity within Orlanthi society, Nandan is also probably invoked for those instances when Orlanthi men have to take on a feminine role for whatever reason. (Title card for Gloranthan showings of Some Like It Hot and Three Men And A Baby: "The blessings of Nandan lie on this film".) Nandan also allows men and masculine people a route into the Ernaldan mysteries and rituals, but this is a very vague statement and I have no idea how definitive it will be for NPCs in future game products products.

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...