Leingod

I could see Southern Heortlings (whom I've also seen called Southern Theyalans) referring to all the Northern Heortlings by the broad category of "Alakoring," as mostly just a way of referring to them as a large, general category of "those guys up north who are still Heortlings, but are kinda weird about it."

Of the two? The one on the left; a scorpion's genital aperture is located near the front of its body, on the first mesosomal segment. The one on the right doesn't cover any of the things that underwear are meant to cover with a scorpion's body plan. On the other hand, that would still leave the anus exposed, since on a scorpion the anus is right beneath the poison bulb on the tail, where it connects with the last segment (the tail itself essentially just being an elongated, articulated posterior). So if you were really committed to preserving the modesty of this Scorpion Man, the underwear would likely need to come in two pieces rather than one or else would cover virtually the entirety of their lower body. Which would be inadvisable if Scorpion Men still need to breathe through their spiracles, which are located along the segments of the abdomen.

Might be. Maize is very drought-intolerant, and the dry season/wet season cycle of the Zola Fel might not line up well enough with growing maize for it to be a good idea.

Except the Grantlanders are not the Native Americans in this equation as you've implicitly made them by that comparison, they're the colonial settlers who moved onto the natives' traditional stomping grounds and put down roots in some of their best pastures. The only difference is that this colonial pursuit is largely penal rather than something most of them chose to embark on (which didn't stop the Australians from committing their share of atrocities when the opportunity arose, incidentally). Obviously, it's a really shitty situation for the ~10,000 Grantlands settlers and in general for Lunar settlers in Prax, but a.) 10,000 exiles of various different cultural groupings who happen to have been ruled over and exiled by the same massive empire do not comprise an ethnicity, nor would even their utter destruction be an "ethnic cleansing" by any but a very loose interpretation of that term, and b.) the Praxians are not just some ravening horde of bloodthirsty invaders, they're the native inhabitants of this land who were kicked out of some of their best grazing by an expansionist empire that is even now plotting to use these colonies as a source of soldiers and supplies to wage a long-term campaign of cultural genocide on the Animal Nomads because their way of life is inconvenient and annoying to the Lunars. That the Grantlanders are mostly being used as tools and pawns in this plan, and that they're nevertheless going to face the brunt of the consequences rather than the people who planned it, is obviously a tragedy, but painting the destruction of the Grantlands, even in the worst-case scenario, as the ethnic cleansing of some vibrant and established culture is both overstating the actual extent and degree to which any kind of unified "Praxian Lunar" identity has been established and exists (especially given many are still recognizable individually as Talastarings, Carmanians, or Pelorians), and also implicitly paints the Praxians themselves as some savage horde come to destroy civilization for no good reason rather than the native inhabitants who are rightly pissed that some of their traditional grazing lands were taken from them violently at spear-point by invading imperials and then given away to a bunch of strangers who then (whether the Praxians know it or not, though they're clearly ready to believe it even without proof) planned to use it as a base from which to make further attacks on their way of life and identities. This is a messy situation that isn't easily reducible to "victim" and "aggressor" unless you gravely oversimplify it, IMO.

I'm drawing mostly from Pavis: Gateway to Adventure, which might well have been superceded by later statements or people might prefer older stuff, but that was my introduction and pg. 46 makes pretty clear the colonial intentions of the Lunars: Which probably sounds pretty familiar to someone versed in American history and the succession of Indian Wars.

Basically, sort of like like Corflu, San Diego was built in an area that was primed to become a major port of trade but was overlooked and under-utilized, with no one who was both willing and able to actually put the necessary resources and work into developing it (or else having very bad ideas about how to develop it that didn't pan out) until real estate developer Alonzo Horton saw it in 1867 and declared he'd never seen a site more perfectly suited to a city. He built New Town, which is now Downtown San Diego (Old Town, as the original settlement is now known, was built around a Spanish fort built atop a hill, and was miles away from navigable water). That, plus a lot of promotion and glad-handing, saw a huge boom in the city's population and prosperity such that by 1878 it was believed it could potentially grow to rival San Francisco in commerce, and as a result Charles Crocker, manager of Central Pacific Railroad, consciously chose not to extend the railroad to San Diego in fear that it would take too much trade away from San Francisco (San Diego got its railroad in 1885). Anyway, perhaps if 1613 is the turning point for Corflu, you could say that funds raised from selling off the Grantlands from 1615 to 1621 were at least partly used towards renovating and developing Corflu (in much the way Mexican San Diego funded its first fledgling boom by breaking up the lands of the Spanish mission and selling it off to establish ranchos, who also provided the town with its only major exports at the time, hides and tallow). You might even have at least one of the domains get into ranching cattle and/or herd beasts, which IMO makes the resemblance between the Lunar government's policies in Prax and their ultimate goals (i.e. disenfranchising the Praxians and destroying their traditional way of life) and what the American government pursued even more obvious. But that's maybe getting away from the stuff you're talking about and more getting into how *I* see the Lunars in Prax.

So kind of like post-colonial San Diego minus the shipbuilding capacity (hides and tallow would be good choices for exports from Prax, come to think of it), particularly San Diego after New Town was built but before the railway.

10 years (tops, and only for the first wave) isn't a "generation," since only young children would have actually "known no home but the Zola Fel and the Grantlands" at that point. Still sucks for them, of course, given that a lot of them didn't actually have a choice in settling there, so they're paying the price for their government's policies that they had no say in. But hey, that's empire for you.

As I recall, Count Robert is one of Arthur's earliest and staunchest supporters, so if it's that hard to buy you can just use that to justify the delay; Arthur has trouble believing that a good and loyal man like Robert would do the things he was accused of, but he can't be seen as lax on traitors. Therefore, he's giving as much of a grace period as he can without losing face so that an investigation can be done to prove the count's guilt or innocence, thus the 40 day time limit.

This almost certainly reflects the later development of the Hyalorings once they left Nivorah leading them to recontextualize their earlier myths; in the present day, the Riders take a dim view of kings, and even Elmal is portrayed as only taking on the responsibility of being the Sun (and thus, these still being a Solar people, implicitly the rightful king/emperor of the gods) reluctantly and out of necessity. That would make sense as how a Solar people like the Nivoran exiles could potentially choose to view the imposition of the Glacier; even the likes of Yatelo, a god of hunger, are argued by at least some as being a Small Sun. As has been pointed out earlier in this thread, the term "sun" seemed to be a much looser category back before Time cemented the idea that there was only one actual Sun.

On the other hand, though, to say that Ralzakark isn't a broo by that logic sounds to me like it's akin to saying that Harrek isn't a pirate and that Argrath isn't an adventurer. That these descriptors are serious understatements and obviously don't sum up the totality of the thing they're describing doesn't make them wrong or invalid descriptors, it just means you need to add some qualifiers.

I've probably taken a combined 4 years of Spanish classes from high school to college and still can't speak or read it for crap, unfortunately. I see. I guess in Paladin he only had the castle of La Roche and maybe some surrounding lands, and it wasn't until Duke Thierry wants to give land to his half-brothers that it becomes the seat of an actual county of the same name? Regardless, it means my potential "descendants of Drogo of Champagne" idea needs some reworking, unless maybe instead of the descendants of the brother who revealed the plot they're descended from the one who died in prison, who had a son raised as a hostage in court and became a knight, and that's how they got their start? Eh, maybe just drop that idea entirely, and if the idea of bad blood with Champagne is still going to be around, it can just be that it was Doon's father or grandfather learned about the plot, and the reward was a much more modest La Roche fiefdom than the county it is at the start of the story proper. And yeah, even just reading the Cliff Notes version in the Family History section it definitely comes off as being much more Landri's story than Doon's. And I'm not surprised that a story where the evil son is named "Malingre" isn't going for deep, complex morality.

"The Descent From The Mountain" is actually kind of interesting to me, as it seems to me like some things are either missing or changed in the identities of the gods, which I hope is on-topic enough that bringing back this thread isn't an issue. First of all, it names the "chiefs" who each lead herds of (male) beasts: Vingkot leads bulls, Voriof rams, Vederi goats, and Varnaval ordeeds (which, yes, are a kind of antelope). And the alynxes help them with the herding. It's interesting that Vingkot is being associated with bulls here, rather than Urox or Barntar, the ones most commonly associated with those animals. Then it names the herds and herders of Ernalda's household behind: Uralda the cows, Nevala the ewes, Entra the sows, and Isbarn the poultry; again, the alynxes help the herders. Leaving aside the poultry, note that there are sows but no boars, and billies but no nannies (that is, male goats but no females). The latter probably isn't a case of avoiding mention of Thed because "we don't talk about the Unholy Trio anymore," since Ragnaglar is stuck at the very end of this story, mentioning his anger at being shown up. After that, the chiefs call on their Wild Companions. Vingkot calls the Great Bull, Voriof the Great Ram, Humakt suddenly appears in this story and summons the Great Wolf, Barntar appears suddenly to summon the Great Pig, and Varnaval the Great Andam (which I suppose is the source of the name of the Andam Horde). Orlanth proves himself the greatest by summoning Yinkin, which is likely proof because of the aforementioned fact that the alynxes have been helping everyone. A few things to note: Vederi/Ragnaglar doesn't summon a Wild Companion, even though Ragnaglar is mentioned as being angry over the results of these summonings. Vingkot is associated with bulls rather than Barntar or Urox (maybe the Great Bull is Urox, and there's some myth I don't know about where Vingkot takes Urox to heel?). Humakt seems oddly out of place with his wolf, but maybe that doesn't really mean anything except that Humakt is always that weird, intimidating guy who doesn't quite fit with the rest. And Barntar summons the Great Pig, even though I don't recall any association with him and pigs being mentioned anywhere; that and the omission of any boar-herding chief leads me to suspect it was originally either someone who was forgotten or someone who was deliberately taken out of the story in Barntar's place here. Personally, I suspect it was Harand, with Entru being the Great Pig that was his Wild Companion. That would be a nice, neat way to resolve this oddity, which, naturally, means that I'm almost certainly dead wrong.

So, reading through Paladin, I got pretty interested in the story of Doon of La Roche, which is apparently one of the lesser known chansons. First question: Is there a good English translation of this story that one can acquire relatively easily/cheaply? Alternatively/secondly, has anyone here read Doon de La Roche? If so, are there any details about Doon and/or his family given in the work itself? Like, does it ever detail what Doon did that saw him marrying Princess Olive, or any characterization for the likes of Geoffrey or Doon's cousins? I ask because the House of La Roche struck me as a good fit for an important local house that the Player Knights could all be a part of that isn't too important and well-connected, so I started thinking about possible hooks for a campaign of that nature. In terms of what was already there, I figure giving Sir Tomile a reasonably powerful extended family would be a good start, who would naturally be sore over the recent events of Tomile and Audegour's deaths and the loss of La Roche and Cologne; I might even change things so that, instead of being mutilated and sent to a monastery, Malingre manages to buy/wheedle his freedom from Pepin and perhaps marry into some decently powerful “villainous” family to get the backing to continue to bedevil Landri and his relatives on his own time (which can be yet another source of tension as first Pepin and then Charlemagne are, as in so many chansons, repeatedly prevailed upon to side with the villains against the heroes, or to demand peace be made at the least convenient times). Maybe if the Player Knights make an enemy out of the family of Sir Eingar in “The Adventure of the Jewel,” Malingre manages to bank on that enmity to tie himself to them through marriage to secure more power and connections. Another (or perhaps an additional) possibility for an enemy I had in mind that was also kind of an expansion on the House of La Roche's history and connections to the rest of the Frankish nobility was inspired by the fact that, in the family tree given in the book, Doon of La Roche's grandfather is a “Drogo of La Roche,” about whom no other information is given. So, I decided to look for any prominent historical Drogo who I could draw inspiration and relationships from, and found that there was a surprisingly important and well-connected Drogo who even lived very close by: Drogo of Champagne (c. 675-708), the elder half-brother of Charles Martel and the Duke of Champagne. Said Drogo had four sons: Arnulf, who inherited the duchy; St. Hugh (d. 730), who became archbishop of Rouen; Gotfrid, and Pippin. He seems to have been considered an important figure, as several later imperial annals being their year-by-year accounts with his death, perhaps because it's considered the point where Charles Martel and his branch of the family begins to eclipse that of Drogo. There's a suggestion of at least one attempt at conciliation between these two branches in Arnulf's time, but in 723 Charles had two of Drogo's sons “bound, Arnold [Arnulf] and another who died.” It doesn't say which son died or what happened to Arnulf or the surviving son (since Hugh, as mentioned, died later). Paladin only gives the names and reigns of contemporary dukes of that area, none of whom have names that can clearly be linked to Drogo or his sons, nor does it ever mention this episode. Fertile ground for storytelling, then! So, first off, a bit more background: Drogo of Champagne was married to a certain Anstrudis (or Adaltrudis) somewhere in the late 680s/early 690s; she was the daughter of Waratto (d. 686), who served as Mayor of the Palace in Neustria and Burgundy. Waratto was temporarily ousted by his own son Gistemar, who died fighting for power over his father at some point, and after Waratto's death his successor, Anstrudis/Adaltrudis's first husband Berthar, went to war with Pepin of Herstal (father of both Drogo and Charles Martel) and fled after being defeated and then quarreling with and murdering his mother-in-law over the terms of the peace. Pepin then took over Neustria and Burgundy as Mayor of the Palace and wed Waratto's daughter to his oldest son, Drogo. It's important to note that Waratto's properties were mostly located in the vicinity of Rouen, and that Champagne was on the border between Neustria and Austrasia, reasonably close to Rouen (where, of course, Hugh eventually became archbishop as well as acquiring several monasteries); it might be that, without any male heirs (and the backing of Pepin of Herstal), Drogo was for all intents and purposes the heir of all Waratto's properties, so we could easily imagine some reasonably close connections between the ruling houses of Champagne and Normandy (or at least the County of Rouen) here, for further fun color. This marriage thus served to secure Pepin of Herstal greater power and connections in Neustria, but likely became seen as more of a liability during Charles Martel's reign. My running idea, then: In 723, what happened was that Arnulf and either Gotfrid or Pippin were plotting against Charles, but the third brother and possibly also Hugh of Rouen revealed the plot, which led to the imprisonment of Arnulf and his brother and said brother's death in captivity. Arnulf himself, however, was either restored to his duchy or else was just forced to retire to a monastery in favor of a young heir who could be raised as a hostage. Hugh of Rouen was given charge of Fontanelle Abbey in 723 (and next year was also given the administration of the dioceses of both Paris and Bayeux), which we could spin as a reward for his loyalty, while the other brother was made the first Count of La Roche (probably at least in part to a.) guard against any further disloyalty from the House of Champagne, and b.) provide said house with a powerful “traitor” to focus all their enmity on rather than on Charles himself), and his son Drogo was the Drogo of La Roche given as Doon's grandfather. This probably requires some very young births for the math to work, admittedly, since Doon of La Roche was fathering illegitimate children as early as 733, but I think it adds some interesting possibilities. For one, there's the obvious point that the House of Champagne likely despises their “traitorous” relatives in neighboring La Roche, or at least that there's a simmering feud that flares up at least once a generation. Additionally, remembering that Charles Martel died in 741 and Pepin and Carloman split the kingdom between themselves, with Carloman getting Austrasia, we could suppose that Pepin being the one to marry his sister to Doon (with Cologne as the dowry) the very next year was some calculated attempt to undermine the loyalty Doon should have owed to Carloman, perhaps as a reply to some similar attempt by Carloman to court their distant relatives in Champagne. Or, to make things much simpler, we could change things as written so that it was Carloman who married Olive to Doon to secure his borders (keeping in mind that La Roche is described as the strongest fortress in the Ardennes region in addition to being a border region, at least if we suppose that Champagne has come to be seen as a part of Neustria rather than a border between the two), rather than Pepin the Short. So yeah, that's what I've got so far. Any thoughts/answers/corrections/etc. would be appreciated, as this is kind of new territory for me.

They were (are, technically, as there's 3 Shakers left as of the last time I checked) also celibate, which doesn't quite match Maran Gor's situation, but the general idea that you don't marry or have kids fits well enough, as does the setup of communal orders surrounded by non-communal sympathizers track reasonably well with the situation of the Tarsh Exiles.

More a silly headcanon than a theory: Every elemental Rune has a particular method of unarmed combat attached to it, and for Earth that's grappling, which is why Earth deities and worshipers tend to be excellent wrestlers. Barntar is acknowledged as the best wrestler of the Thunder Brothers, for instance, but that's because he's favored by his mother's side of the family and was taught some of their secret wrestling moves by his mother and aunts. (I don't really have anything in mind for the others, except that Darkness gods and worshipers are definitely scrappers who see nothing wrong with biting and scratching; it's a rare fistfight between Uz that doesn't end in someone getting an ear bitten off). Now that makes me imagine the story of Amaterasu hiding herself in a cave and the gods having a loud party to entice her out of hiding, but with Yelm and the Lightbringers.

No, they're called "quakers." (Actually, does anyone but me crack a smile every time the "Shaker Temple" is brought up because it calls to mind the obscure Christian sect called the Shakers, a.k.a. the "Shaking Quakers"? I feel like it has to have been an intentional joke on someone's part)

I mean, according to Homer, the color of the sea can be described as "bronze."

The funny thing is that in 5e there's a period where they changed (most of) the Anglicized names into Celtic/Brythonic/Roman/etc. where possible and into more fanciful, descriptive names when it wasn't. Problem is that it was a big adjustment to ask of people who'd been using all the Anglicized names and now needed to consult a list to know what names were referring to where (which is another advantage that's lost in ditching the modern names; you can't just look on a map if you aren't sure where Sockburn is) that was also a lot of work, so by the time the 5.2 corebook is released they've switched back. I'm actually in favor of not using the modern, Anglicized names personally, but they tried it and decided it wasn't worth all the trouble and confusion.

Or maybe names like "Yelm" and "Elmal" are simply being translated into their more recognizable modern forms for our benefit to keep things accessible to new players or people who only know Glorantha from King of Dragon Pass, which would also explain why Orlanth isn't being addressed as "Umatum" or some other Peloricized name you'd expect Dara Happan refugees to be referring to him by.

Depends on which kind of plow you're using. The lodril plow? Absolutely, that's his wife after all.

Plenty of Heortlings and Sartarites seem to cultivate fruits already. There are clans named for fruits or with nicknames referring to fruits (the Antorling are called the "Apple Clan," there's a Cinsina clan called the Blueberry, the Konthasos are named after the goddess of grapes and are called the "Wine Clan"), and one of the oldest adventures set in Sartar takes place in a hamlet called Apple Lane. EDIT: Found a relevant passage from Sartar: Kingdom of Heroes:

Depends on who you ask. It runs the gamut from "he was a treacherous asshole who was almost as bad as Gbaji" to "he was a flawed hero, but he still saved us in the end" to "he was really cool, and all that 'betrayal' stuff is definitely not true."

The way it's described in Sartar: Kingdom of Heroes is that the plowman "turns the Earth to meet the Air." So, in the Heortling view, you're uniting husband and wife to make the land fertile so that Ernalda's daughters (the crops) can be born and grow. Barntar himself is repeatedly described as the link between the powers of Air and Earth, as much Ernalda's son as Orlanth's even if he isn't allowed to know the deeper mysteries of life and fertility (merely being the facilitator of it). Further, Barntar is described as Ernalda's favorite son, and there's no mention of any enmity or hostility directed his way from Maran or Babeester (in fact the former tried to keep him as a thrall once and put him to work for her), so it doesn't seem like the Earth goddesses treat Barntar's plowing as a rape or defilement or any such kind of crime or injustice (and if it were, Babeester in particular would have a lot to say about it, and her axe would be doing the talking). Of the Earth goddess I'm aware of only Aldrya hates that kind of thing, but only on the principle that she wants wild forests instead of farmlands and doesn't care about what anyone else wants or needs. That's sort of how you get what's called a "triaty," a small three-clan tribe seen in the Human Resettlement where men of Clan A only marry women from Clan B, men from Clan B only marry women from Clan C, and men from Clan C only marry women from Clan A (potentially you could also reverse this with male exogamy, which may well be what the Tree Triaty did, we don't actually know much about them). It's a good way to help cut down on inbreeding and ensure strong relationships in a tense situation where you don't know your neighbors (and may not have any for a while) and your population is quite small.

Argrath's an honorable man right up until it gets in the way of killing the Lunars, at which point, Illuminate he is, he casts it aside without a thought and doesn't face the normal consequences of doing so.