Leingod

Historically, Orlanthi have often been fine with slavery and engage in it fairly regularly, but for religious reasons some Orlanthi groups - most often ones with connections to the Hendriki and the Larnstings, it seems - didn't do it personally, but even most of them didn't see it as a problem otherwise (and likely still sold captives into slavery). If there's a lot of abolitionist sentiment in Sartar nowadays, I'd argue it's largely come about as a direct result of/response to the Lunar Occupation, during which many Orlanthi were made slaves to pay taxes levied against them (as opposed to taking captives through raids and battles, which is of course the "right and proper way" to enslave someone), and entire tribes were coerced into rebellion so they could be summarily crushed and enslaved to serve as the labor force of the Reaching Moon Temple, with their lands given over to foreigners. And then you have the fact that a lot of the groups that collaborated most with the Lunars happened to be groups who making a lot of money off the slave trade. In other words, insofar as even some of the Orlanthi in Sartar can be labeled as "anti-slavery," it's come about at least partly as more of a general anti-Lunar attitude.

Probably not. Early references call him stuff like "Dux Bellorum" i.e. "leader of battles," implying he was a war-leader rather than a king.

I'd go with a badger, personally.

I seem to recall reading somewhere that, though she's titled "Goose Girl," Isbarn is generally seen as being put in charge of all domestic poultry by Ernalda. Obviously the durulz aren't domesticated animals, so they don't count.

Yeah, it was probably from Pyle or someone writing in similar circumstances in the "modern age." You likely won't see it, for instance, in Welsh or Breton sources, since their highest title was always "King of the Britons." Culhwch and Olwen also calls him "Chief of the Lords of this Island," and the Welsh triads seem to use the phrase "Arthur's court" and "the isle of Britain" interchangeably, which is honestly a more impressive flex than calling yourself "high king" as far as I'm concerned. Other sources in Britain usually kept that title or something similar (Geoffrey uses "King of Britannia," for example), or else called him an emperor, assuming they ever specified his title at all, which most likely didn't because at a certain point you just assume people know who you're talking about when you say "King Arthur." And of course there were some that called him "King of England," usually writers who didn't know or didn't care that such a title would be wildly anachronistic.

I would say the definition of "reach" in the Temple of the Reaching Moon comes from one of (or both of) the following definitions from Wiktionary: So "reach" can mean both the act of extending one's power and influence, and the territory seized thereby. They euphemize it a bit by calling it "reaching," which doesn't have to mean something inherently violent, but it really is the same essential thing as if it were called the "Temple of the Conquering Moon."

And of course the third time's the charm, it isn't a proper recurring motif if it only happens twice.

I think you mean +10 Glory. +10 Honor would be a hell of a reward for winning a mundane competition, much less an archery competition. That said, I'd think a martial competition sponsored by and watched by the warrior class would merit a little better than that, even if it is primarily for the common soldiery. Maybe a purse of £1 for first place and +50 Glory.

In the lore of the game, Hyalor was the son of Yamsur by a Nivoran woman (Yamsur and Hippogriff traveled a lot, and visited Nivorah fairly often; according to the Nivorans Yamsur was Elmal's charming but feckless brother). The wounding of Hippogriff and her becoming Horse (thanks to Hyalor) happened in Nivorah itself, and the Nivorans had thus already developed an equestrian tradition (in two factions, one of Riders following Hyalor, and one of chariot-riding Wheels following Samnal, one of Elmal's sons) before they left the city. Of course, that's the in-universe lore that the Riders are telling themselves generations later, and there are several points in these narratives and myths that clearly contradict each other and make clear that the received stories aren't necessarily 100% accurate (and in fact they've actually forgotten Hyalor's connection to Yamsur entirely, and it's something you can rediscover in-game by picking the right option in a Heroquest ritual where you ride to the Gods War).

Ah. I misunderstood then; I mean that Flesh Man is kind of the "universal ancestor" for human worshipers of the Lightbringers, being a son of Grandfather Mortal, with all that entails.

My own take is that Orlanthi are fairly gender essentialist; there's a spectrum to it, to be sure, as to what exactly being a nandan or vingan means to someone in particular, but on at least one level, it is commonly accepted that a "nandan" is anyone who is biologically male but assumes the societal role, duties, and behaviors Orlanthi society traditionally ascribes to women, which includes joining Earth cults (even Dark Earth cults) and taking part in rites that Orlanthi men are otherwise excluded from. On that level, the very act of becoming an initiate of Maran Gor would be enough to be considered nandan. And if you had a high enough Earth Rune to successfully initiate (and remember that initiation here is a magical and transformative experience, it's not really something you can just "fake" unless you're a filthy Illuminate), and enough dedication and ambition that the possibility of attaining Rune levels was a real concern for you... Well, by pretty much everyone's definition in-universe, you're clearly a nandan.

I always figured that was more Flesh Man's role, personally.

The issue is that gods can be more than one thing at once, and that things that are true of them in one place can be seemingly completely contradicted by the information you find about them elsewhere.

I guess that puts an interesting spin on some of the stuff Belintar did to get people on his side, like "Andrin the Zombie."

It goes beyond the purely commercial, too. If we keep up the Disneyland comparison, it implies that Belintar has constructed his Holy Country in such a way - maneuvered the assets and resources, put in place his agents and instructed them to act in such a manner, etc. - to make sure that you only see it from the angles he wants you to see it from. Whether you're an inhabitant or a visitor (or shall we say, a regular or a first-timer?), the Holy Country is very deliberately set up to make sure you come away from your experiences with the impression of it that the God-King wants you to have. In the same way, the architecture of places of worship have always been built on the same lines of carefully crafting a particular impression to make you feel that you're in a holy place. You could say the same about Belintar himself, again going back to Jar-eel's comments on this inscrutable "patchwork god" in Prince of Sartar, who seems to know more than anyone but perhaps was just putting up a front the whole time, and whose carefully crafted illusions start falling apart once someone spots the threads and starts to pull on them. EDIT: Not to say that Belintar was necessarily just some cosmic con artist, though. In many ways, this interpretation paints him as an artist and a visionary who harnessed the power to make Illusion into Truth in ways that make the Red Emperor look like a hack, because like Walt Disney he understood the power of imagination and wonder in ways that very few others before him did.

Plus, if we do think of the Holy Country as Belintar constructing his own theme park, it ties in rather well to Jar-eel's observations that Belintar is a "patchwork god" and her wondering aloud if he ever really even had a plan or was just making it up as he went. A theme park like Disneyland is something specifically crafted to sell you on an illusion, after all. In the first place, it's the illusion that there's a real, physical place where you can go and see all these stories and fantasies and interact with them in the here and now. Perhaps even more relevantly, it's crafted to give the impression that there's always more to it than you're actually directly seeing, even though generally speaking that isn't true and all going beyond the boundaries to see more than what they're showing does is ruin the whole thing by showing you all the wires and the mascots on their smoke breaks and whatnot. Maybe the real reason no one can reach the City of Wonders after Harrek sacked it is because he laid bare all the carefully crafted illusions that made it the City of Wonders at all, breaking the spell forever.

So did Belintar also call the design choices meant to draw people to certain locations "weenies" like Walt Disney did? To explain: Disneyland's design is a very deliberate way to draw the eye first to the central location, which you can see from almost everywhere, and from there to the different areas arrayed around it in turn through the use of attractions designed specifically as eye-catchers, like Cinderella Castle for the Magic Kingdom. This both helps guests orient themselves and leads them where the park's designers want them to go (namely, to the big show-pieces and money-makers). Walt named these "weenies" when discussing how he wanted the park to work with his "Imagineers" because he would often lead his pet dog around the kitchen with a weenie. So if we go with the idea that the Holy Country and Disneyland share certain design principles, we can perhaps assume that it's because, like Walt Disney, Belintar wants to draw visitors and settlers (and their money) toward particular places over others.

Yeah, I feel like adding distances and fatigue mechanics and whatnot isn't really playing to the strengths that made me attracted to HeroQuest in the first place, which is that it's primarily a narrative-first experience that decides whether or not you can do something largely by how narratively appropriate it would be, rather than trying to simulate the gritty details of your character's trials and travails in Glorantha like RuneQuest. Not to say that trying to find your own preferred middle ground between the two is at all a bad idea, but I like the loose and flexible approach to magic where the Narrator decides if they'll allow you to try something (possibly at a penalty) based on whether it makes narrative sense for you to be able to do it and/or would be appropriately cinematic.

Dunno about that, though it wouldn't surprise me if that was the case. Dara Happa has a long history of cribbing notes from its neighbors and either passing them off as its own or at least claiming they did it best. See for another example hoplite warfare, whose invention is attributed to Daxdarius.

It's true that Pelanda isn't Dara Happa, but early Dara Happan history and culture was heavily influenced by Pelanda. And most relevantly here, The Glorious ReAscent of Yelm (pg. 25) appropriates the Pelandan myth of Daxdarius slaying YarGan in single combat, only attributing the deed to Urvairinus rather than the Pelandan Daxdarius (in fact, Urvairinus himself seems to be a composite of several different militarily successful deities/rulers all rolled into one figure) and calling YarGan "Arganum."

Yelm-as-soldier is definitely a thing, his mythic complex has him mastering the bow and other ways of war and then handing them off to subordinates as he grows, much as he does with things like dance. There are also gods of particular weapons, like Hastatus for the spear and Ulkamoon for the club. Several past emperors are also worshiped as war gods, like Urvairinus and Kastokus. Polestar is essentially a god of officers.

This is very much like what you see with China, where we have a tendency to view "China" as this static monolith that barely changed for thousands of years, when of course that isn't remotely the truth. And a big part of the reason we see it that way even now (and even within China itself) is because, for propaganda purposes, that's how most Chinese elites throughout time wrote and talked about it, due to each of them wanting to emphasize their continuity with the glorious past to legitimize themselves, including - nay, often especially - the dynasties ruled by Sinicized foreigners, of which there were many. And of course you tend to change the record on which dynasties were legitimate (and thus good) and which weren't depending on political expediency, as well.

On the question of Orlanthi vs Yelmic notions of justice, there's a boxed text from Pavis: Gateway to Adventure that explains some of the difference (it's on pg. 319):

My understanding of it is that human sacrifice (among Heortlings, at least) goes through Ana Gor, who incarnates within Dragon Pass as Sorana Tor. Other Heortling deities who demand/receive human sacrifice do so through her, and the sacrifices go to her afterlife, the Beautiful Place. Even if I'm wrong about that (and I may well be), just because it's Maran's afterlife doesn't necessarily mean it's a horrible place to be. Just like Ernalda isn't all sunshine and rainbows simply because she represents the positive/life-giving aspects of the Earth, Maran probably doesn't have to be all skulls and blood 100% of the time just because she's a Dark Earth goddess. She was a mother once, too, and maybe sacrificed kings are received as she would her own children?

From what I remember, Humakt is the only god from the Storm side of the Heortlings who makes a habit of demanding human sacrifice (though even that's not a regular thing), which is just one more way Humakt is actually kind of female-coded by Heortling standards if you think about it. Usually, Storm gods just demand you go out and kill other people when they want to see blood spilled, rather than sacrifice your own or your captives.