Leingod

3 minutes ago, John Biles said:

In Heroquest, Initiates couldn't do any *blatant* magic.  Just about everyone in Dragon Pass was an initiate, but it meant they could use magic to boost mundane things.  Use the Earth Rune to give your axe a keener edge, use the Fire Rune to boost your endurance of heat, and so on.

Unless you're describing how it was in earlier editions (I never really bothered reading the mechanical stuff in those, since HQG was already out by then), that's actually more in line with what HeroQuest called "natural" or "basic" magic. As HeroQuest: Glorantha describes:

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Basic Magic

Some level of magic is available to nearly everyone in Glorantha. Upon completion of the rites that mark you as an adult member of your community, you can use your Runes to augment another ability, but cannot use them directly as an ability until you are an initiate of a cult. You cannot do anything overtly supernatural with it; you simply get magically better (in a manner consistent with the description of the Rune) at doing ordinary things.

For example, a hero with the Movement Rune might use that Rune to augment his fighting by attacking with “blinding speed”. Or a hero with the Darkness Rune might use that Rune to augment her ability to sneak past the temple guards by “staying in the shadows”.

Meanwhile, becoming an initiate allows you to use whatever Runes you share with your god as a normal ability, and to do blatantly magical things, just so long as it's something in line with your god's deeds and abilities.

For my part, I came into Glorantha through HeroQuest (well, King of Dragon Pass and then HQ), and I've never really gotten deep into the RuneQuest mechanics, including the ones regarding cults and worship. So, I tend to just go with what seemed to be the case in the stuff I was introduced to the setting through, which is that most every free Sartarite (or Praxian) is an initiate into a rune cult or spirit tradition, though it strikes me as a good bet that "stickpickers" of all stripes (that is, the not-enslaved but very marginal folk, whether that be a charcoal-burner in Sartar or a day laborer in Pavis) are usually stuck as laity because they can't really afford to give 10% of their time and income to a cult.

2 hours ago, EricW said:

The interesting implication of this, the Lunar heartlands could have a real problem with finding people willing to commit to one of the cults. Some of the people who follow the Lunar Way go insane - everyone would know someone or have heard terrifying stories of someone who lost their mind after contact with the mysteries. Having eliminated most immediate threats, surely most ordinary people would see little need to get excited about participating fully in Lunar religious life.  I mean they would turn up on holy days, but let priests and sorcerers do most of the heavy lifting. Unless there was an imminent threat of course, such as a major loss on the borders of the empire, or an incursion, in which case lots more people might commit out of patriotism or fear.

I personally got the feeling that that's exactly why the "Little Sister" cults exist. They provide extremely limited forms of the Seven Mothers' magic, but don't require any Kindling rites and each one still provides useful and practical magic for a given relatively high-status profession (namely soldiers, healers, clerks, and temple attendants), so for a modestly ambitious Heartlander looking to move up in the world rather than seek deep spiritual truths or entrance into the echelons of the great and powerful, they're a less demanding route toward reasonable upward mobility in service to the empire.

6 minutes ago, Loïc said:

I'm running The Coming Storm HQ campaign, and one of my players chose the "full text writing creation" and created a valindir... Indeed, such a character isn't thought highly of in Red Cow Clan, and when the Great Winter will come, he certainly will have big problems (a lynch mob...). Then, his background is also certainly the most creative of all the party: he's some kind of a village idiot (a handsome and strong one, but yes, a village idiot) in Red Cow Fort, a stickpicker, and there was some really good prophecy dedicated to Valind in his background, with strong links with the clan and the other players... We discussed it, and considered Valind (at least an aspect of Valind) as a primordial force of nature, destructive and indispensable in Orlanth's society. In the cycle of seasons, after all, winter and the winds of Valind are useful, for without them, there should be no renewal of life... So is his character: there is no matter of good nor evil, he's like a child, with all his innocent cruelty and destructive drive.

Of course it isn't "canonical", but players' creativity and commitment should always be encouraged and rewarded...

It's funny, that kind of reminds me of how the old Hero Wars and Sartar Rising stuff portrayed Valind and his place in the Great Winter. In Storm Tribe, Valind's write-up states that the Heortlings see him as the "bad child" of the Thunder Brothers; he's that annoying punk no one likes (apparently "valindi" is often used synonymously with "entitled whiner"), but he is still family in the end, so you try to put up with him.

And in the context of the Great Winter, that's potentially where Valind finally makes himself useful (again, to the Heortling perspective), because Valind doesn't just give his followers powers to summon cold and snow, he gives them the power to survive or even fight off the powers of winter. They wouldn't exactly be making pockets of springtime or anything, but turning aside a blizzard or being able to go out and hunt or scavenge food while everyone else is shivering by the fire is still a lot. This makes them very helpful at this time, but (again, old material, might not be canon anymore) that also means the Lunars target them. Which leads to an interesting situation where the Valindi - who are traditionally consigned to the margins, if not living as actual outlaws - might suddenly both need to rely on a wider community to survive Lunar manhunts, and be treated with a lot more respect by people whose survival they helped ensure.

As stated, Samastina and Inkarne are definitely the two biggest ones, operating at the same level as Broyan/Kallyr/Argrath/etc. Other, somewhat more low-key Ernaldan heroines also exist, either doing their own thing at a smaller but still very significant scale (which is probably where the likes of Entarios and her daughter Ernalsulva will be) or being one of the named companions to any of the biggest players, like Ernaldesta the Vigorous is to Kallyr.

12 minutes ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

Isn't there any door-ward/"bouncer" of the hall that could offer some kind of challenge/greeting ("Halt, who approaches the Hall of the King of the Middle Air? Make yourself known!*", etc.)

Elmal? Someone else?

(*seems like a nice excuse to have them assume identities or run some minor Rune check or something, but obviously I'm just speculating)

I don't recall ever reading anything about whoever would be responsible for that, actually, though it certainly makes sense to be a thing. It might be one of those roles in myth that has a different person filling it with each myth (and version thereof), so that you might have to talk your way in past Rigsdal in one Heroquest and Vinga in another. And, if we take that as the case, it's also a pretty natural place to put in a slight deviation from the myth that often crops up in Heroquests, by just changing who's guarding the door, with the easiest or best means of getting past them being different from what they might have planned for.

Bringing back the talk of Tatius and his choice of location for the temple, the Sartar Companion has this to say on page 80:

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The  New  Lunar  Temple  in  Sartar  deviates  from this strict design and is intended to mend the Broken  Ring.  Lunar  sorcerers  divined  the  presence  of  a tremendous amount of  unknown energy in the foothills of  the Storm Mountains and calculated that it  will  expand  the  Glowline  to  cover  all  of   Dragon Pass, Prax and the Holy Country: the ancient refuge of  Rebellus Terminus.

In  1580  ST  Emperor  Militaris  ordered  the  plan   funded   and   implemented.   Worship   groups   were  seeded  and  linked  to  the  process,  and  it  has  continued  since  then,  stalled  more  often  by  politics  than by enemy action. But it has never stopped.

The   Assiday   family   committed   their   entire   fortune  on  this  and  was  a  driving  force  behind  the  Conquest  of   Sartar.  The  foundations  for  the  New  Lunar   Temple   were   laid   by   Governor-GeneralEuglyptus Assiday in Sacred Time 1612. “This is the year  we  remake  Sartar.”  Unfortunately,  Starbrow’s  Rebellion  ended  Euglyptus’  plans  and  delayed  the  project.  In  1617,  Tatius  the  Bright  arrived  in  Sartar  to  take  direct  command  of   the  project.  Needing  additional  laborers,  Tatius  ordered  the  destruction  of   the  nearby  Dundealos  tribe  and  enslavement  of   the  survivors.  Tatius  will  accept  no  delay  in  the  construction  of   the  New  Temple  and  his  success  will propel House Assiday into a dominant position within the Empire.

The "Broken Ring" is a Dara Happan name for the Ring of Orlanth (also called the Broken Planet); it was Umatum, which was broken by Shargash, and it corrupts and pollutes the perfect order of the Sky. So if we go with this, it's Tatius trying to bring back a "fixed" Orlanth/Umath/Rebellus Terminus who will fit neatly into some Lunar or Solar notion of a "perfect sky" to put his own family on top politically. Which probably helps explain why bringing back the Ring of Orlanth with its Three New Stars into the middle of this was such a serious disruption of his plans even before a dragon rose up and ate everyone.

1 hour ago, Godlearner said:

I was wondering what they were, not play them out. 

Ok, so why did "they hope" that the demons would drive him mad? It seems that he was not being punished as the rape of Thed occurred later, afterwards?

To clarify, the "Evil Uncles" (who seem to be Lodril, Magasta, Flamal, etc.) cast the sons of Umath into different pits, hoping the trials in there will take care of the young godlings before they could come into their own and become as powerful and threatening as Umath. The other four (Orlanth, Humakt, Vadrus, and Urox) all managed to overcome the dangers of their respective pits (and, in so doing, each came into his own as a full-fledged god, exactly as the uncles had feared), but "the other brother" fails in the Sex Pit. Orlanth leads his brothers in getting him out of there and do their best to heal him of the damage.

14 hours ago, Diana Probst said:

Borderlands has 'The Morokanth of Bilos Gap'.

Pavis: Gateway to Adventure gives the name of this clan as the "Green Stripe Morokanth" on page 124.

1 hour ago, metcalph said:

Arstola forest is south in Maniria.  The Aldryami name of the Forest is Newbloom (KoS p89)

Ah, my mistake.

Elves probably use the name "Arstola Forest," and it's humans who call it the Stinking Forest because it's home to the Ivory Plinth, trolls, and Snakepipe Hollow.

3 hours ago, Akhôrahil said:

King of Sartar depicts him as essentially doing everything, himself, personally.

But then it would, wouldn’t it?

I don't remember where exactly it was from, but I remember reading somewhere something to the effect of, "We often talk about these heroes as though they were these lone figures doing everything themselves, but pretty much every hero has an entourage of companions who do a lot of the legwork that later gets credited to the hero, who tends to overshadow everyone." The companions of Argrath, Harrek, Jar-eel, Kallyr, etc., etc., have probably been responsible for a lot of deeds (or at least helped in a lot of deeds) that don't actually get remarked upon when people recount their sagas.

And what's more, if Argrath was a fairly hands-off guy who mostly sent warlocks and companions and mercenaries to do a lot of the actual dirty work until something sufficiently important comes up for him to bother his enlightened self with, it wouldn't really be flattering from an Orlanthi perspective to actually portray him faithfully as such in a saga meant to aggrandize him. The Orlanthi love their active, dynamic warrior-priest-kings, after all.

Heck, the Dara Happans consider an emperor who sits around on a throne all day barking orders as an ideal and even they sometimes do this. You'll sometimes see records saying "the emperor did this" and "the emperor fought here" when what's probably more likely to have happened is "the emperor commanded this to be done" and "the emperor sent out a general to fight here."

10 hours ago, Eff said:

(Sixthly, and conspiratorially, you curse your bloodline with limited fertility to restrict the extent to which the royal family can grow. Not that Sartar would do such a thing.)

The problem with that theory is that Sartar's descendants all had a pretty decent number of kids. Of the ones who weren't assassinated young, the majority of them had 2-4 kids. Sartar's bloodline has never had any serious problem with fertility, they've mostly had problems with getting assassinated by Lunars (and sometimes Esrolians).

28 minutes ago, Jape_Vicho said:

I've been reading this a lot on the forum and I'm really interested but I have never found where this is explained, could anyone point at something that I should look for or something of the sort? 

You mean, a proper description of the actual rites? If so, I'm not really sure. It is kind of alluded to in stuff like the Guide; Hon-Eel is said to have discovered maize, she's strongly associated with imagery of human sacrifice alongside agriculture almost everywhere she appears in there (being depicted with a bloody sickle while dancing triumphantly over a man's corpse, for instance), she's stated to have rediscovered old Naverian rites of human sacrifice, so it's at least still there, but otherwise I don't know of any books that are still canonical that actually lay out the Maize Rites of Hon-Eel.

1 hour ago, Jeff said:

So if I was a traveler from elsewhere and came to Esrolia, what I would first notice is that it is packed with people. And I'd notice Nochet, which makes Boldhome and Furthest look like villagers. 

That's a very fair point. Most people aren't going to see these places and be able to get any kind of accurate idea of how many people live in the country versus the city; that's why a census exists, after all. It might be that Sartar keeps getting characterized as a rural backwood despite the relatively large urban population simply because it's sandwiched between Tarsh and the Holy Country, which both have a much larger overall population and have cities that are much larger and more built-up. So the popular perception of Sartar at least still makes plenty of sense. Especially since, Boldhome excepted, Sartar's cities are pretty humble-looking.

10 minutes ago, Akhôrahil said:

I think the argument is that 20% urbanization is huge. Probably unreasonably so. This is higher than England in 1800, higher than the U.S. in 1850.

 

Exactly, thank you.

In fact, a larger proportion of the overall population are city-dwellers in Sartar than in much of the Lunar Heartlands, such as First Blessed (whose proportion of city-dwellers to rural folk is a little over 1 in 6), and is only really beaten out by Silver Shadow (just under 1 in 4). And unlike the Lunars, the Sartarites aren't using blood-soaked corn rites and winter-blocking Heroquests to support those kinds of numbers.

So even by Gloranthan standards, Sartar seems to have a lot of its overall population dwelling in cities for a polity that's consistently characterized by people both within and outside of it as a backwoods, "barbarian" kingdom inhabited by quarrelsome hillfolk, which you wouldn't think would be able to support a city of 11,000 that doesn't even have a river running through it (meaning all goods shipped in have to come in overland).

Sartar is usually described as a pretty rural place, with a relatively small urban population; Sartar: King of Heroes, for example, claims less than 10% of its populace live in cities. But the numbers seen in the Guide to Glorantha don't seem to line up with that portrayal, and certainly not with that proportion. Those numbers are 25,000 urban and 100,000 rural, which would mean that a full 20% of Sartar's population are living in cities, a much greater proportion than many places that are described as being very urban.

Now, part of this is because it's counting the 5,000 people living where they work at the New Lunar Temple, but even if we throw that one out, that's still 20,000 and 100,000, meaning 1/6th of Sartar's populace is urban, and that's still a lot for a supposedly rural "barbarian" kingdom, and that in turn raises the question of how you could support that many. And most of that is down to Boldhome having a population of 11,000.

So, is the answer that Boldhome is just dangerously, unsustainably overpopulated? Has its population swelled by thousands over the course of the Lunar Occupation, for example? How are they keeping that many people fed, when the city is built into a mountain and there's really only so much you could possibly buy or take as tribute/taxes from the surrounding tribes?

It's well known that in Pavis, Lunar soldiers and administrators call a crappy posting no one wants that's used as a punishment is called a "Corflu job." What many don't know is that this is merely one end-point of a virtual road network of similar colloquialisms, spreading out from the Heartlands. In Sartar, such a posting is a "Pavis job," while in Tarsh it's a "Sartar job." Meanwhile, over in Sylila, the ending of a similar network is that the Lunars there call that kind of punishment an "Elkoi job." And with each new conquest the Lunars make, a new term for a crappy posting that no one in a different area wants is born, as the chain gets another link.

And thus, the true recipe for the Lunar Empire's success has nothing to do with its magics or its administration, but that, whether by sheer brilliance or happy accident, the Lunars have created happiness and contentment among their populace by making a situation where almost all of them can look over somewhere else and say, "Whew, glad I don't have to live there. I better be a good citizen to make sure it stays that way."

5 hours ago, Kloster said:

Not owning 'Nomad Gods' and not having played since more than 20 years, I can't check. But I am (almost) sure their weakness is due to their low numbers.

The Guide to Glorantha says there are about 10,000 of them; much smaller than any major tribe, but the same as the Pol-Joni, and definitely larger than several of the remaining independents, since those are numbered at 30,000 altogether.

4 hours ago, Kloster said:

Yes. For me, most baboons are standard, normal praxians. The only trouble I see is that they don't have a tribe herd animal.

I wouldn't say they're considered "normal" Praxians, but I do get the impression that they're generally (if grudgingly) accepted as Praxians, and an independent tribe in their own right. Same with the Agimori and (maybe emphasis on grudgingly accepted) the Basmoli.

3 hours ago, jajagappa said:

I think many of these great events are.  The deaths of Orlanth/Ernalda and the Great Winter should trigger many efforts by many different folk to get their plans in order for the Hero Wars.  The rise of the Boat Planet just a year before is a good example.  Whether or not events during the ship's passage along the Sky River contribute to the Dragonrise should probably be up to the individual GM, but a lot of convergent events (and claims) could aid the Dragon's awakening. 

Definitely. Stuff in The Eleven Lights like the boxed text "Around the World" (pg. 143) regarding the Three New Stars makes that pretty unambiguous:

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This event is visible around the world. During the events of Orlanth is Dead, those Orlanthi outside the area of effect of the New Lunar Temple, living in locations such as Ralios and Umathela keep their magic. However, they are aware of the changes in the Sky. Across Glorantha, Orlanth’s Ring no longer traverses the Heavens.

From each of these lands heroquesters set off to the sky to return Orlanth’s Ring to its rightful place. Heroes from those lands, such as Garundyer in Ralios, each work to return the stars to the Sky and have their own story of how they obtained the Three New Stars.

This is normal. In Glorantha great events are often the result of many heroquesters journeying to the Other Side.

Which is good, because it means a campaign set in Ralios or Talastar or wherever isn't consigned to just passively watching stars disappear and reappear from the sky, having a metaplot that isn't relevant just kind of happening somewhere a long way away. Every campaign can have its own distinct explanation for what the disappearance of Orlanth's Ring means and what the consequences are, and every campaign can have its own version of the Heroquest that puts the Three New Stars and later the full Eleven Lights back up in the sky. It's just up to GMs (and/or writers or even players) to think up what those might be.

5 hours ago, Scorus said:

Such things are not hereditary, but lineage is very important in Sartarite society, otherwise they wouldn't constantly be naming their ancestors back multiple generations. As someone that grew up there, she could claim a strong understanding of the needs of the village, she would have grown up with "pretty Aileena", as she was known back then, Brightflower and others. She would be well known (for better or worse) to long-time residents and she has a lot of martial experience. If Leika was the one that named her father as thane, then maybe she would remember him fondly, appreciate his service, and want to help his family. Do not confuse a clan/tribal culture with a meritocracy.

That said, her claim went nowhere in my game as the eventual Thane had led the defense against Tusk Riders and had a letter of support from Aileena. She will be back, however...

On the other hand, though, she joined up with a mercenary company and left home right after coming of age and seemingly hasn't come back to this parts of Sartar since. If she'd remained in the tribe, or even if she was just in semi-regular contact with it, that'd be one thing, but if no one in Apple Lane has seen her since she was just out of childhood (which in itself doesn't really suggest she was all that attached to the place or its people), then in many ways, the woman who suddenly arrives demanding her "birthright" is virtually a stranger to many of the people living there now, even the ones who grew up with her.

On 12/29/2020 at 7:20 AM, Charles said:

Many years ago, Nick suggested Darth Vader as a model for Tatius. He could no longer breathe Orlanth’s air without mechanical aids, and his shadow follows a different Sun.

That's interesting. Personally, I tend to think of Tatius as being closer to Admiral Tarkin, with the Reaching Moon Temple as his very own Death Star.

Her claim is pretty nonsensical as far as standard Sartarite property/inheritance laws go (I guess all that time abroad has given her some un-Sartarite notions about what being someone's daughter makes you rightfully heiress to), and I think that's probably the point; it's a case that would be laughed out of the tribal court (unless the tribal king was unhappy with their thane for whatever reason), so Raveena is either going to try to gain allies in the tribe to strengthen her case (likely out of whatever enemies or rivals the thane makes), or try to get outside help, maybe even from Lunars looking to destabilize Leika's still-fragile reign.

Or you could just have it be some absurd claim no one takes seriously and laugh her right out for it, or maybe just settle it with a duel.

8 hours ago, JonL said:

This sort-of works, but can run afowl of the opposed nature of power runes. A smuggler who is strong in Trade and Disorder works, but not so much if the trader magic is based on Harmony. Similar closed doors arise from replacing Eternal Battle with Death & Beast for Urox.

Except (in addition to @Jeff's point) even in HQG, Disorder is listed as one of the "Opposed Runes" of Issaries (along with Stasis and, of course, Chaos), and the Communication Rune is still explained as being a combination of Harmony and Motion (but for some reason instead of just having both those components lumped into its powers, Issaries gets Communication and Motion). Your theoretical smuggler would probably be better-suited to having Illusion than Disorder, I think.

1 hour ago, Joerg said:

The Dragonkill may have occasioned a great increase in dragonewt numbers. Biggest dragon orgy in recorded history.

Only because the Red Emperor blocked them from one-upping it during the Dragonewts Dream (at least if you believe that repopulating Peloria with dragonewts really was part of the plan).