Leingod

8 hours ago, Erol of Backford said:

She'd surely get a head shaving in her underwear after the Lunars are gone if that is the case!? Might be better to not openly work for/with the Lunars especially if she is of Sartar decent?!

Not really. Anyone in Pavis who didn't want to be branded an outlaw and forced into hiding had to play ball with the Lunars and at least nominally acknowledge them as the city's rulers. Brygga did a lot more to oppose the Lunars than most.

On 11/28/2022 at 12:31 AM, JRE said:

She is not really involved in the city

She was the city's mayor during the Lunar Occupation, she's the master of the Cloth & Leatherworkers Guild, and also leads the Free Pavisites faction within the city's political scene. How is that not involved in the city?

1 hour ago, Erol of Backford said:

Feeling like this is a Family Feud question. Survey says:

Brygga Scissortongue - head of the Garhound Clan in New Pavis.

Why would the Black Fang assassins try to kill her? Of course money or some other payment but who's behind her assailants and why? Could it be a disgruntled relative as likely they would ascend with her being eliminated?

Would there be any reason trolls would want her dead? 

As befitting such a powerful clan leader, Brygga is guarded by as many as twenty mercenary huscarls recruited from the Sartarites of Pavis County. Twice in the past five years, they have stopped Black Fang assassins bent on killing her.

Also curious could it be that she has a forked tongue and has secretive dealings with dragon kind, possibly the name is fitting physically but is hidden somehow?

She's heavily involved in resistance against the Lunar Empire; that would probably be the go-to reason.

Basically, Orlanth is a great many things, including a thief. This aspect of his being, like many others, has sometimes been given its own name and identity as one of the Thunder Brothers, in this case Desemborth, who will appear as a distinct character in myths like "The Plundering of Aron." But for the purposes of actual cult worship, a thief who initiates to Orlanth is, 9 times out of 10, just a normal initiate of Orlanth Adventurous, which provides no shortage of magic useful for a thief's work.

Certainly there could be some obscure local sub-cult somewhere dedicated to Desemborth or some thieving Orlanthi hero with some unique thievery-related magic, but that would be more of a "local flavor" thing.

Looking a bit in the Book of Heortling Mythology, Quivin's father is named both as Lodril and as Vestkarthan. On page 169, Vestkarthan has a short write-up as follows:

Quote

Vestkarthan: A great and lusty fighter of the Fire Tribe known for his ability to consume great quantities of anything. He was once a friend of Umath's, and is the father of Orlanth's half-brother Quivin, but he was defeated in the Darkness when he tried to harm the Earth that was under Orlanth's and Maran's protection

Lodril also has a write-up on page 166, but all it says is that he is an enemy god of the Fire Tribe "known for his ability to consume great quantities of anything," like Veskarthan.

Lodril is also mentioned by that name a few other times: It's mentioned that Urox gored him during the Darkness, one of many deeds that made that era worse, that he was one of those who pleaded with Yelm and Orlanth to make their bid for friendship in the Underworld (a list that also includes Issaries, Ernalda, Dendara, and Chalana Arroy).

Veskarthan has more mentions, with things like his wooing Ernalda but ultimately falling short "because of his greed." Interestingly here he is considered a member of the Earth Tribe (the myth, "Ernalda's Other Husbands," says her other Husband-Protectors besides Orlanth failed because of either jealousy, greed, or fear, and claims that greed is the failing of the Earth Tribe, as jealousy is for the Fire Tribe and fear for the Dark Tribe).  Perhaps the reference above to Vestkarthan being a friend of Umath is due to his role in the myth "The First Hospitality," which IIRC is  told in some other book with Orlanth and Quivin reprising their father's roles. His being Gustbran's father is also mentioned, and in the myth of the Dawn he is mentioned as taking over the role of tending the fire as everyone wakes up.

Quivin himself is mentioned fairly little, at least in a personified form. There's a myth where a raven was born when Quivin stared at a mountaintop and became his spy, there's the one about Thorgeir's cow that isn't really about Quivin himself, and an offhand mention of how he was defeated by Vadrus but freed by Orlanth for the sake of their shared mother, Kero Fin.

For the most part, then, Lodril/Vestkarthan is more of a name in Sartar than anything, a figure invoked in certain myths and rituals and a genealogical tie for certain deities to the Storm Tribe (i.e. mostly the Lowfires and Quivin) but not worshiped in his own right. He also seems to vacillate between foe and friend, dependent on the particulars of the myth he's in, but is nonetheless recognized as being kin. That would put him in a similar boat as the likes of Yelmalio, and so could make his worship at least grudgingly tolerable to most Sartarites. This is probably all more relevant in Heortland than Sartar, which is closer to Caladraland, but it might have been carried over nonetheless.

I seem to recall reading in older sources that some of the Vendref worship Lodril/Vestkarthan rather than Barntar. This is likely no longer the case canonically, but you could easily reintroduce it as a thing in your Glorantha if you wanted, and his worship might have a small presence in western Sartar (perhaps with a small shrine at Clearwine in its Earth Temple) as a direct result of this influence, since the western Sartarites have had at least sporadic interactions with the Vendref over the centuries.

On 10/16/2022 at 1:07 PM, Sir_Godspeed said:

Yeah, I've always interpreted the comments about Lodril as basically upper-class chauvinism and classism. Of course the aristos think the peasantry and servants are lazy and indulgent. It's a meta-comment on Dara Happan/Solar society more than a comment on Lodril himself. I assume Caladralander culture contextualizes things differently. "Yeah, Lodril is the best farmer because his granary is always full and he can shower his in-laws with beer and pork. Check out that gut! What an absolute legend."

Very much so. The average Lodrili farmer has a hard lot in life. His work is long, arduous, and utterly thankless where the old Yelmic nobility is concerned. He has to take what chances for leisure he can find, and make what small joy and comfort he can create, and at every turn he's castigated and mocked for it as a lazy, lusty good-for-nothing by the stuffy, self-righteous prigs he has to call his superiors. He strips down because his work is hot and sweaty, and is reviled as lewd and shameless. He takes a break or paces himself because it's better the work get done slowly than not at all, and is punished as a shiftless layabout. He drinks and makes merry to wind down from a stressful day, and is castigated as a slovenly drunkard with no self-control.

In fact the Pelorian farmers are no less hard-working and productive (more so, even) than their Heortling counterparts, and yet the latter are, as a group, held up as exemplars in their own society, simply because the kings and nobles of the Heortlings aren't nearly so insulated from the realities of rural agriculture and so don't apply a bunch of ridiculous and unrealistic expectations to it (they instead save that for other things).

This is a pretty minor thing and probably something that's been elaborated on by someone somewhere here, but there was always something about the portrayal of Fazzur Wideread in most of the material I'd seen that always kind of bothered me. Namely, it felt like he had a bit of "Not Allowed To Lose" Syndrome, which is what I like to call it when a writer never lets a certain character actually fail or lose at anything without some extenuating circumstance to explain that it wasn't that character's fault.

It felt to me like Fazzur was never allowed to lose a battle outright, it always had to be someone else who screwed up. Whenever the Sartarites or anyone else win against him, it's not because they outsmarted or outfought Fazzur or outdid him at anything, it's because the Lunars replaced Fazzur with some idiot for political reasons, or because Fazzur's nephew is afraid of his power and Fazzur has to quit the field to go deal with that, and he'd probably have won and kept on winning otherwise.

Now, it's one thing for a character to just be Alexander the Great come again and they're just the best ever at fighting wars, but IMO, when every setback comes with a convenient excuse for how it had nothing to do with them? It tends to get on my nerves a little.

But, then I re-contextualized it as essentially in-universe propaganda (albeit happening backwards in time from when it would have been pushed for). Fazzur's descendants became valuable allies of Argrath, so in addition to downplaying the accomplishments of Sartarite leaders before Argrath (i.e. Kallyr) by making them seem totally helpless to beat Fazzur without the Lunars tying his hands behind his back for them, you also get to flatter those allies. And of course since Fazzur was also someone who was widely respected even by the Sartarites, they won't object to this kind of portrayal, either, and may even claim it as a sort of point of pride and claim he was the only reason the Lunars were ever so successful against them.

EDIT: Note, though, that I'm talking about the impression of Fazzur and his deeds that I personally got throughout my readings; I'm not saying that at no point in the entire Gloranthan corpus is there any point in which Fazzur loses a fight "legit" or just makes the wrong call and pays for it with no face-saving or blame-shifting.

8 hours ago, mj6373 said:

Hmmm, an interesting thought. That said, I don't know if I necessarily agree. I feel like the natural thing to do when you hold one manor and get another, if it isn't close enough to your first one to personally manage both of them, is to promptly subinfeudate it to an unlanded younger brother, cousin, etc. Now your dynasty is stronger and the newly-landed knight of your family owes you a huge favor, and, while it isn't likely much help yet at only two manors' worth of holding, you have a vassal to help out in any future wars or to host feasts for you or whatnot.

The thing is, that still makes rewards of land much less special as a reward, and it kind of goes against the logic of the offer. A grateful lord you've accomplished some great feat for offers you land for two reasons: To reward you, yes, but also because he wants to bind you to him, since you'll have to swear fealty to him if you accept the offer. He's impressed at what you can do and he'd like to be able to call upon you again at need. So if the normal response to getting such an offer is "Great, I'll give it to little brother you don't know," lords have less incentive to offer land to questing knights who slay a dragon for them or what-have-you. And it's just not going to excite most players nearly as much if, as a reward for their deeds, rather than getting a manor for themselves, some NPC who's related to their character now has a manor.

Land is meant to be a very rare and special reward in Pendragon; it's something players are encouraged to spend a lot of their time and energy obtaining and, once obtained, consolidating, at least if that appeals to them. Making it a white elephant or a detached abstract benefit, by making it not worth the expense or giving it to an NPC, respectively, takes a lot of that away, IMO. At that point they'll probably just prefer getting paid in cash they can spend on improvements and mercenaries.

7 hours ago, SaxBasilisk said:

The key passage in GPC is taken straight out of Malory. Arthur says he isn't upset the Balin killed the Lady, but that he did so at his court. I think modern readers will be more likely to focus on the violence than the royal prerogatives.

Sure, but since Balin had an understandable if not necessarily "good" reason for doing it, and the Lady in question was repeatedly demanding that Arthur kill a woman for her despite Arthur having said he wouldn't grant her anything dishonorable, it isn't out of the question that Arthur wouldn't have as much of a problem with her death itself as he otherwise would, and would focus instead on the breach of his Hospitality.

Which is not a "royal prerogative;" by the standards of the culture it would be a massive slap in the face to do this in anyone's home to one of their guests, no matter their personal feelings about that guest. Even if Balin had done the same deed elsewhere, whether that be in a vassal knight's manor or even in some peasant's cottage, that host would almost certainly have reacted much the same, if not worse. The only difference would be in whether they had the power to act against Balin or not.

The Pellinore thing is great, BTW; I'd like to use that sometime.

Not sure about Malory, but in the GPC Balin beheads the Lady of the Lake for having killed his mother, and she had just been trying to demand that King Arthur murder another woman for her as a boon. I personally wouldn't be too broken up about that, and it's not like Arthur just laughs it off or anything. As for Gawain, his murder of a woman is, IIRC, not remotely intentional on his part, and he's suitably ashamed and guilt-stricken about it.

No such extenuating circumstances for Pellinore, though. Personally, I'd have part of the denouement of that quest be that Pellinore is informed that for his moral failure he has lost the mantle of "greatest knight" and can no longer sit on the Siege Perilous. Depending on how you want to play it, either he's told he'll die outright if he tries and so takes another seat, or perhaps he's told that he'll be cursed but doesn't buy it, thus dooming him to die an ignoble death at the hands of Lot's sons.

50 minutes ago, Shiningbrow said:

I doubt that.

Grazer kids would be much better at riding than shooting a bow. Especially since the former is done almost since birth (constantly on horseback), while the latter requires strength and training.

Pretty much any horse nomad culture teaches riding, archery, and wrestling to its boys basically as soon as they're capable of learning them. The Mongolians called these the "three manly skills," for example, and they're actually the most popular sports in Mongolia today. Horse archery isn't just for warfare in such societies; it's a basic survival skill for living as a herdsman on the steppes. It's not only the primary method of hunting, it's also your primary means of protecting your herds from predators (both human and otherwise). A Pentan boy would start learning all three of these skills from a very early age.

On 2/9/2021 at 7:19 AM, Voord 99 said:

One advantage of the Galahad strand is that multiple knights achieve the Grail, potentially including a PK.  In the GPC as written, this is almost certainly not going to happen, but a GM who wanted might rejigger it to make it more possible.  That’s something you’d have to give up.  Although there is a possible radical solution that might not be to everyone’s taste: the backstory of the Grail in Von Eschenbach (stone associated with the time before Adam when Lucifer rebelled against God) does not exclude the possibility that the Grail might not be the only such sacred object.  So there could be a second Grail, maybe called something else, and the PKs are by blood related to its guardians.

You could alternatively make this a thing where some other artifact is necessary for the Grail to be achieved or for the Grail Feast to happen, which the PKs can be the ones to acquire, perhaps as part of the counter-pointed quests thing. Perhaps, for instance, Percival's own virtues work against him in the quest necessary to acquire this artifact in some way, which could also help to "even out" the two kinds of knights being presented here and make it less of a "this kind of knight is obviously superior, though" thing.

1 hour ago, Akhôrahil said:

I always wonder whether this is an actual reference to "Optimus Maximus", a title of Jupiter.

It's possible. Unfortunately, Denny O'Neil (the guy who named him) has said that he doesn't recall coming up with the name, so there's no real way to know.

Also, random aside, but before he became Optimus Prime he was a simple dockworker named either "Orion Pax" or "Optronix," depending on where you look; either one would probably make a good name for a seemingly simple Lunar dockhand or other laborer...

Back on topic, them being "sprites" definitely suggests something more like a pixie than a mundane insect, and Wikipedia notes this about pixies:

Quote

Pixies are drawn to horses, riding them for pleasure and making tangled ringlets in the manes of those horses they ride.

These ones might have just been particularly malicious about it, perhaps spooking and stressing out the horses; horses are notoriously prone to suffering health problems in conditions like that, and it's easy to imagine that more than a few would die under such treatment.

5 hours ago, soltakss said:

My view is that Yelm probably didn't even notice her as he rose, so she probably isn't even counted among the wives of Yelm. After all, you don't have to be someone wife to bear their children.

But would even a Lunarized Yelmite be willing to accept the idea that Yelm would ever father a child on someone who wasn't his wife?

Arangorf I can't much speak on. Orlanth as he relates to the Draconic Path, though, I have a lot of (meandering and probably nonsensical) thoughts about.

First of all, even the most staunchly anti-dragon of Orlanthi still ultimately confess a draconic aspect to at least some of Orlanth's power; the myth of Orlanth slaying Sh'harkazeel has him take the Dragon Power for his own along with the dragon's severed head and the knowledge of the Four Sacred Breaths. The "draconic" version of the myth changes almost nothing except the context; by the act of slaying Sh'harkazeel, Orlanth granted it utuma, in gratitude for which it gave Orlanth the aforementioned powers. The difference between "Orlanth Dragonbreaker" and "Orlanth Dragonfriend," then, differs only by the slimmest of margins, and what changes isn't Orlanth's actions or even really his motivations, but the attitude of the dragon towards what Orlanth is doing and Orlanth's understanding of what he's doing.

I would posit, then, that Alakoring Dragonbreaker had an "orthodox" understanding of the power he was wielding and refuted the draconic interpretation of it, and that the EWF - due to their misunderstanding and misconceptions about the Draconic Path - had the wrong attitude towards it, and so were not prepared to properly receive it and attain the benefits of utuma.

(I would also posit, given all the above, that Orlanth's "Liberating Bolt," which apotheosized Sartar and others, was in fact an expression of this draconic power that Orlanth received from Sh'harkazeel)

There's an adventure in the Sartar Companion, "The Treasure of Two Face Hill," which seems to confirm this, IMO. One of the ways you can deal with a rampaging Dream Dragon is to learn the Dragonbreaker power and try to slay it in combat. If you do so, the dragon welcomes the heroes with these words:

Quote

At last, you have come. I have been waiting for the world to adjust to my liberation and send you. I welcome you, my utuma. Strike swiftly and awaken me. Let us purify ourselves and begin the ceremony.

Before doing its level best to kill them (presumably, this is the "purify ourselves" part of the ceremony). Afterwards it's even explicitly stated that the dragons see Dragonbreaking as a form of utuma, by which one can liberate a dragon from its physical form. In other words, it doesn't really matter whether the one who wields the power believes themselves to be breaking or liberating the dragon; what matters is that the dragon is spiritually ready to receive liberation, which the EWF and Arangolf were not, due to their flawed understanding.

This sort of reminds me of the old Buddhist koan, "If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him." The prevailing interpretation of this koan by Zen Buddhism is that to turn the Buddha into a religious icon separate from yourself is to delude yourself and divert yourself from the path of obtaining Buddhahood, which is after all the ultimate goal of following the teachings of Buddhism at all. Thus you must "kill" your mistaken belief that the Buddha-nature exists outside of yourself if you are ever to get back on the right path. In that sense, you could argue that Alakoring slaying Arangolf was in fact vanquishing an erroneous dead-end, and that he was effectively clearing the way for a more correct view of "Draconic Orlanth" to come into being later, even if he himself certainly didn't conceive of it that way.

As the "Results of the Heroquest" boxed text says:

Quote

If the heroes are victorious, they return with the objective they sought. You will have to decide precisely what that is; it can take many forms.

The soul of Hofstaring has been liberated and returns to the hall of Orlanth, but is indebted to those who freed him. Most likely the clan now has a small hero-cult of Hofstaring Treeleaper and a little votive image of the king who provides the clan wyter with a bonus to its Magic Resource. The value of the bonus is determined by the heroes’ victory level in the Heroquest Challenge or from the extended contest freeing Hofstaring,

A likely unintended consequence of the heroquest is the impact their deeds have on the reputation with the Culbrea tribe. The heroes have liberated the soul of that tribe’s great hero-king! Each hero gets a bonus to any interaction with the Culbrea tribe equal to the heroquest bonus.

Additionally, the heroes have Lingering Benefits and Penalties to various abilities as a result of their experiences in the Underworld. The heroes may have made friends and enemies in the Underworld. The Narrator in future adventures should develop the ramifications of their actions.

Finally, the hero who carried the Hands to Hofstaring (or who defeated the Red-and-Silver Goddess in the heroquest challenge if that is a different hero) discovers that his hands are now a bright red color from the wrists on. He will not be able to avoid the nickname “Redhands.”

In RuneQuest terms, I would suppose that Hofstaring's hero cult would be treated as a subcult of Orlanth Adventurous that provides a single Rune spell. If you have The Red Book of Magic, the spell "Great Leap" is the obvious candidate, though you could also reflavor "Elklegs" if a 3-point one-use spell doesn't seem appropriate to you for whatever reason.

Well, in the Colymar Campaign as written Hofstaring Treeleaper wasn't resurrected, the players just rescued his soul from the Lunar hell it was imprisoned in. This would allow him to go on to his proper afterlife, and he could now receive worship as a hero of Orlanth by the Culbrea (and perhaps also the players' clan). It's a great and heroic feat, but not one that has much effects outside of the Culbrea (and, much farther along, on Hofstaring providing aid to Argrath on his Lightbringers Quest). Sure to win your characters plenty of friends and enemies, though, which is often its own reward.

This question reminds me of one of the events from King of Dragon Pass: https://kingofdragonpass.fandom.com/wiki/Market_Insults

Quote

<X> complains that while he was a guest at the <Y clan> market, he was bullied, and insulted by a pair of their weaponthanes.  "They called us stickpickers, lichen eaters, and rag-wearers.  They said that our men are too friendly with our sheep because our women do not bear looking at.  They said that Chalana Arroy cries whenever we use the word 'mercy' and that Humakt spits whenver we say 'honor'."

The funniest and most memorable part of this event is that if one of the nobles on your Ring worships Chalana Arroy, they'll actually be so insulted that they have to catch themselves mid-sentence because they almost demand that you attack them in reprisal out of sheer outrage.

EDIT: Also, in Sartar: Kingdom of Heroes, it's mentioned at one point that an insult is much worse if it's delivered in verse, because of how highly the Orlanthi prize poetry. Calling an Orlanthi a coward is bad enough, but calling them a coward in verse is a mortal insult that demands a reply.

It sort of makes me wonder what Daka Fal thinks of humans who receive divine worship as heroes or demigods from their descendants/kin group.

Even without the Ernalda thing, it's important to remember that Orlanth and Yelm made peace with each other at the end of the Lightbringers Quest, arguably the most important myth among the Heortlings and one they repeat every year. If "Orlanth" is willing to offer friendship and "Yelm" is willing to accept it, they're acting as their gods would just as well as if they were acting like ritual enemies or competitors.

Honestly it's kind of weird for me in the context that most peoples of Glorantha (as in the real world in ancient times) engage in some form of ancestor worship alongside the worship of gods, you usually don't have people choosing one or the other and one being hostile to the other. Like, if you're Orlanthi your ancestors all probably worshiped Orlanth too, so it just feels a little odd to me that the entity you worship your ancestors through is actually hostile to Orlanth and the shamans of said entity are as well as a general rule. I'd expect more just total neutrality/indifference to the gods at worst, personally.

14 hours ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

(Not so) wild theory: just like humans kinda got absorbed into the different elemental pantheons and are more or less changed for it over the course of the God Time, it's very possible that birds also experienced something similar. 

For Storm in particular, it seems to have a practice of basically adopting or absorbing anything and everything it can get its gusts on. Maybe it's a side effect of being the late-coming element. 2 late 2 create, in time to... uh, convert.

I would posit that it's at least partly a product of Air's unique position in the progression of the elements; the other elements (except Darkness) each arose out of the element prior, and separated themselves by moving higher. But Air was born of two elements rather than one, and its domain is between them, rather than being above the Sky. Umath was, after all, a being that had no defined place in the cosmos that existed at the time of his birth, and so had to forcefully make his own place in it. Air is the element that breaks the rules, so it makes sense that it would also break rules like "has feathers and flies = Sky Rune."

Also, it's kind of a moot point in the case of the Wind Children anyway since they're the descendants of Air godlings and humans who mated during the Gods Age, when such pairings were both more common and more fruitful. So don't let the feathered wings fool you, they aren't actually any relation to birds.

Perusing their entry in the Glorantha Bestiary, Wind Children live in groups called aeries, clustered around the tops of steep mountain peaks and cliff faces, with individual nuclear families each having their own nest and unmarried adolescents living together in a larger group nest, called the "flight nest." Marriage is monogamous and for life, and children are always born in early spring. Respected members of the aerie, usually above the age of 50, are elected to the conclave, essentially an informal council that takes on a leadership role for the aerie. Members typically serve for life. Of course, Wind Children are described as generally flighty, independent, freedom-loving folk, who often are content to glide for long hours among the clouds by themselves, so I'd guess the conclave has its hands full if it actually tries to run anything.

They primarily live by hunting, taking game animals from the ground, birds from the air, and livestock from farms. They're omnivorous, but they don't like spending time on the ground to gather vegetables and the like, so they mostly stick to meat, which they often eat raw. Clothing is minimal, and they might wear nothing but a harness to carry their tools and weapons. They aren't very materialistic and don't see much value in any object that isn't either of practical use to them or pretty to look at and easily carried around, like shiny baubles and the like. They trade furs, hawk or eagle fledglings, and herbs from the high mountains in exchange for metal weapons or tools, jewelry, and trinkets.

In terms of religion, the Wind Children worship Orlanth as the storm god but ignore his aspects of warfare, agriculture, etc., as that's all irrelevant to them. They also worship local wind spirits, mountain spirits, and others as needed, and they delight in conversing with the winds and have a natural affinity with air elementals.

Honestly, given the art of the Crimson Bat I've seen, I think one could legitimately argue that it isn't even an actual bat, it's just a Chaos monster with no real non-Chaotic equivalent that just so happens to look enough like a bat that that's the go-to comparison (and of course their association with death and the underworld in Peloria means that they make an effective symbol for the Red Goddess to be seen riding on to dispense horrific Chaos-infused death and oblivion, so there's a vested interest in pushing it as a bat).

26 minutes ago, Squaredeal Sten said:

That gives us a handle on the horse trainer part of the thread.  But can a trainer train more than one horse at the same time? If not simultaneously, then does a trainer work the horse all day, or do one in the morning and one in the afternoon?

If we assume a ratio of one trainer per horse:

Then if a riding horse must be trained 5 years and sells for 75L, then with a cost of 40L the trainer is only gaining 25L over 5 years = 5 L a year.  So unless several can be trained at once it makes no sense to be a trainer of riding horses, the income is only 5L per horse per year.   And that assumes that the horse doesn't have to be fed -  though in the RW there is a saying "eats like a horse".

If training  a warhorse (the step above cavalry mount) ,  standard price for the war-trained Daron is 225L, cost is still 40L, that's a gain of 185L over 10 years, or 18.5L a year.   (Training 13 years that's  14.2L a year   )That is still not a Free standard of living unless more than one warhorse can be trained at a time.

So under those training time assumptions, the Runequest equine economy breaks down.

What different assumptions can we make to make horse training a practical occupation?

One person can definitely train and care for more than one horse at a time. Again looking at the Book of the Estate, a standard vassal knight's manor supports a herd of 12 horses, 5 of whom will be in training, and all of these will be under the care of just a stabler and two grooms.

20 hours ago, Squaredeal Sten said:

Now there is an implied next step:  If someone will tell us how long it takes to train a horse as a riding horse, a cav  mount etc. we can tell how many horses a year a horse trainer will train to make a Free standard of living. Interestingly, "horse trainer' is not among the occupation listed in RQiG. 

I have no qualifications to speak with any authority on this subject, but I do recall that Pendragon has some details that we could probably just port over as a set of default assumptions, different settings notwithstanding.

As laid out in the Book of the Estate, it takes at least three years (but preferably four) for a sumpter (a pack horse) to be strong enough to carry heavy loads. If properly cared for, these can work for 20-25 years. A rouncy (riding horse) will take 4-6 years to train, and will also be able to work for 20-25 years if treated properly.

A proper warhorse (that is, a big ornery stallion who can bear the weight of a man in armor and will stomp your enemies into the dirt alongside you) will be 10-13 years old by the time it's ready to ride into battle. If your warhorse is never wounded, overridden, traumatized, or badly handled, it could potentially have a good 20 years in it. More realistically, you've got maybe 10 years tops before it has to be retired. It also takes years to know if a horse will take to training as a warhorse in the first place; it requires not just superior size and strength but also the right temperament and etc. or else you're just wasting your time.