Leingod

Maybe in some cases, but I think in many others it's something they go in knowing that it's a very likely death sentence. After all, we all die eventually, so why not get to be a powerful king for seven years and then spend your afterlife being paid homage and worship by the Tarshites on holy days?

Wyrm's Footnotes #15 has a very brief blurb on pg. 39. The same page also briefly describes the Neutral Hills.

I've considered doing the same, though for me it would need some substantial alteration in the particular saints used (the Britons of the 5th century wouldn't be using the same list of saints as the Franks in the 8th, after all, especially since some of those saints haven't even been born yet!). You could even make equivalents for other religions pretty easily; patron deities for pagans (Celtic or Saxon), and patron spirits for Heathens (mostly animals, but maybe you could add some plants).

I imagine this particular bit is one where you see a great deal of difference between Mo Baustra in Prax and Vaantar in Sartar (I don't know enough about Goldedge to venture a guess as to how they organize themselves, but it probably leans closer to the "slaves and/or tenants supporting the templars" thing). In general, though, tenants or slaves wouldn't directly toil for Templar families, but for the Sun Dome Temple itself, since the Sun Domes are a theocracy where technically most property - including land - belongs to the cult of Yelmalio. In Prax, the Sun Domers have very little cavalry and are more dependent on their militia to guard against Animal Nomad raids that their Templars can't respond to in time. Therefore, you'll see fewer tenants and more freemen, because each free farmer is a (hopefully) decently trained militiaman ready to fight to the death to protect his land and family. In Sartar, the Sun Domers do have cavalry, but they also have a large population of slaves toiling in the fields for them, which might balance out in terms of supporting the full-time, well-equipped soldiers versus having a healthy number of free farmers. Now that I think about it, since so many of the Sun Dome's initial populace came from dissatisfied Elmali - many of whom would have come from the higher levels of Sartarite society, since so much of Elmal's magic and mythos is bound up in either combat or horses, which are both fairly high-status pursuits - I'd be willing to bet part of the impetus for developing a substantial number of Ergeshi was that many of these new Sun Domers would have been very resentful of being made to labor as tenants. Even the ones who were tenants before would have no doubt felt cheated, since it would mean the bright new vision of a land where these Light-worshipers would be the ones calling the shots that they abandoned their old clan and tribal identities for wanted to put them right back where they started, only now with lots of added taboos and restrictions. Vaantar's participation in Tarkalor's wars might have been just as much motivated by the need for captives to enslave to stave off a revolt or mass desertions as any notion of religious animosity against Darkness-worshipers or Monrogh's personal friendship with Tarkalor. But then Tarkalor and Monrogh are dead, and the Lunars have a lot more slaves they're willing to sell, and pay better for mercenary work besides... EDIT: Trying to go somewhat back on-topic, it occurs to me that, if there is a Sun Dome Temple out there with a significant number of unfree/semi-free tenant farmers rather than slaves or freemen who are obligated to serve in the militia, those might well worship Lodril rather than Yelmalio. That might be how the more northerly ones tend to do it.

There are most definitely local differences between Lodril and Veskarthan (beyond just the name), but overall I think most Caladralanders would hear about Lodril and just say, "So that's Pelorian Veskarthan," and ditto a Pelorian would hear about Veskarthan and say, "So that's Caladran Lodril." To most people in-universe, the two would be recognized as different names and faces (and perhaps even some different attributes and powers) for the same god. They're both spear-wielding (phallic), volcanic gods who make the earth fertile, so most would agree with the identification. I mean, if the Greeks could accept that the Arcadians worshiped Zeus as a god of lycanthropy as legit, I'm sure each of them would just look and the other and go, "Weird, but you do you, I guess."

Very possible. Or, if you don't want to make as big a deal of that (or just want to save it for later), it could be that only the Jenstali were cursed and the land itself is fine if you aren't one of them (or related to them, if you want a more selective problem). Or maybe if at least a few members of the new clan actually had some Karandoli descent, and that either keeps the curse from triggering (which can have its own storytelling potential if there are only a small number, or even if it actually hangs on this one very old woman who was born a Karandoli, or something like that) or gives them (especially if they're PCs) some options for dealing with it that wouldn't be available normally.

Another possibility would be the Brambleberry Hills, which lie between the Arfritha Vale and the Dog-Rat Valley. They were home to the Karandoli clan of the Colymar, who vanished mysteriously. The hills were then taken over by their rivals, the Jenstali (also of the Colymar), until they were mysteriously wiped out by a mysterious curse some years later. The hills are now "overgrown with weeds," i.e. uninhabited. King of Sartar ties this in with Argrath, who claimed to descend from the vanished Karandoli in the male line (though he and at least his father were actually raised among kin in the Orlmarth clan). If you'll look on the maps provided in the GameMaster Screen Pack, you'll see that a clan that settled in the Brambleberries would be right in-between the Lysang and Namolding, the sundered "Tree Triaty" clans (inhabiting the Arfritha and the Dog-Rat, respectively), which means settling here would pretty much inevitably lead to both the Colymar and the Malani trying to lay claim to a new clan's loyalty. Which sounds like it's got plenty of story potential. The old Karandoli lands are believed cursed, at least, which is why no one lives there ever since the Jenstali died, but it might just that the Jenstali were cursed because they and the Karandoli were bitter enemies (King of Sartar also seems to claim that it was one of Argrath's ancestors who wiped them out, because in an attempt to expel the curse the Jenstali used the "Summons of Evil" and, well, lost).

Every man in Sun County is a member of the cult of Yelmalio, and in fact Sun County is a theocracy where membership and standing in the Sun Dome Temple is required to do things like own land (which all at least nominally belongs to the temple). Some of them will also join an associated cult that serves a useful and necessary purpose, most notably that of Lokarnos.

Interesting and a bit weird, but that underlying idea that Kallyr and Polaris had a kid who becomes a demigod Star Captain is a very interesting one to me, actually.

Bought it yesterday but haven't had time to read much of it, though I'm definitely enjoying what I've seen so far.

Dunno about the stone beasts, but they're noted as moving incredibly slowly, so even if they're hostile to adventurers they probably aren't that hard to avoid if you don't set up camp. The lack of capitalization in "void" probably just means that the Syphon flows into a void, as in a dark hole that goes super deep. Page 258 of the Guide says it leads into the Underworld. Perhaps it even connects to the Styx?

My own thoughts on the matter are that the Larnstings are actually a counterpart to the Stormwalkers of Old Wind Temple. They're both these weird, enigmatic mystics with great and unusual powers who only occasionally come down into the world to use them, and the difference between them seems to mirror the split between the cult of Orlanth Thunderous and Orlanth Adventurous.

I read once somewhere a myth that describes Orlanth as the only son of Umath who learned how to change things in ways other than just breaking them (though he still did plenty of that too, of course). I'm also put in mind of how King of Dragon Pass has you doing Sartar's deeds and phrases them as (IIRC) taking old things and making new things out of them. That is, transformative change, where you're not making something whole-cloth but turning something into something else. This is the essential power of Larnste which Orlanth inherited from his grandfather, and which the Larnstings like Sartar often display. When the old ways didn't work, Orlanth went out and found something new to supplement or replace them. His mortal followers in Sartar trend towards the conservative, because a.) they were formed from Heortlings who didn't accept the novelty of Belintar the Stranger, and b.) who better than the followers of Orlanth to understand the dangers of reckless change? They understand and respect both its powers and its dangers, perhaps a bit too much to properly embrace it, even if they don't admit that. This is, perhaps, the key difference in the worship of Orlanth after his death and rebirth in the Great Winter. It is now absolutely clear to all that things have irrevocably changed, and the Old World is gone. The Third Age is over, and the Orlanthi can't cling to the way things used to be anymore, but must now fight to make sure that this change is what they call the Right Change, the one that makes the world better and fixes what is broken. But as mentioned above, Orlanth's powers of change are ultimately transformative: He doesn't usually make new things whole-cloth, but rather tends to repurpose or transform the old. What was old is made new again, as they are rediscovered or repurposed.

They're probably also angry at how willy-nilly they are with it, using it not just to prevent starvation, but simply to just have even more food. At least a few Shaker priestesses almost certainly see that as as incredibly disrespectful, to invoke the terrible powers of the Dark Earth for convenience rather than need. Probably because as a male, patriarchal ruler in the mold of the old Yelmic emperors, he's understandably very leery of these rites that are so close in spirit to the concept of the sacrificial kingship that Brightface overthrew. And given that the eventual fate of the Mask of Argenteus is to be sacrificed by Great Sister, he's right to be.

It wasn't ever exactly "canon," I think, but Gloranthan Adventures 1: New Beginnings gave the Konthasos a chieftain named Henth the Steady, a farmer who mostly just wants to keep his people fed and alive. Though he did canonically get head-hunted by Thanatari, you can just assume that hasn't happened, since your PCs haven't run that campaign.

That's probably the intended word, but from what I can tell, "[Name] le Cure Hardy" was the spelling of the nickname given in Mallory to Sir Borre/Bohart/Bohort, one of Arthur's sons, and also to Sir Ozanna/Ozana/Osanna, a recurring minor character of the Round Table who mostly shows up to get beaten up along with a bunch of other third-stringers so that a more important character has something cool to do.

Sir Julian is detailed in The Great Book of Pendragon Treasures, which is a collection of older, unpublished material from the 90s, IIRC.

Not sure how useful it is, but I've recently been interested in the Garanvuli, and within Time you had something kind of relevant to this question in the birth of Dinorth Garansson (247-298). He was born well past the Dawn, which The Book of Heortling Mythology says happened thusly: So this might be something similar, where something caused Esrola to incarnate in human form to have Kaxtor.

IIRC Paris is treated as a dishonorable coward for killing Achilles with an arrow.

Didn't Sartar create flying, air-breathing fish?

Wait a minute... Is this the meta-origin of one of the mountains in the Quivins that Boldhome is on being called "Thorgeir's Cow?"

That may be less economical in Glorantha, since if they don't offer enough you can still make decent money by keeping or selling your captive as a slave, and you probably don't want to maim your captive if that's your back-up plan; it might lower their value, and healing costs money. Plus, among the Heortlings at least, the kin of whomever you're holding ransom probably aren't totally helpless (especially if they've got the resources to pay a decent ransom at all and are thus worth trying to sweat out for extra money in the first place), and the Heortling legal system and ethos is that "Violence is always an option." If you push too hard with your demands, well, nothing except the fear of failure and the possibility of escalating hostilities between clans is actually stopping them from trying to take the captive back by force (or even taking captives of their own to strengthen their bargaining position), and unless you're a pack of bandits out in the wilds you can't really rely on anonymity or being hard to reach to protect you from that. And if it gets to that point, the kidnapper's own kin might not be on their side if it feels like they got the wider community closer to a feud just for the sake of greed.

There are a lot of circumstances that can lead to someone having room to argue that more or less wergild or ransom is owed. The set prices are really more of a basline than a hard-and-fast rule, and it isn't considered shameful to negotiate over it, so long as there's some actually plausible legal argument to make. For example, let's say you're offering wergild because you injured someone in a fight. Legally, you owe that person's family a certain price. But if you argue that the person you injured had injured one of your kin, or that he had trespassed or caused property damage or something, you might have room to argue that the wergild you have to pay should be reduced. And so on. What's more, "No one can make you do anything," and if someone decides he doesn't want to accept wergild period, or demands an outrageously high one, that's their prerogative. One is not actually obligated to offer or accept wergild as compensation, and sometimes a Heortling will decide that only blood will pay for blood.

"Mayor" is actually still used for the leader of a city ring (council) in Sartar and Pavis. I also seem to recall that the thane of Apple Lane was originally its "sheriff."

The adventure book in the GameMaster Screen Pack lists the duties of the thane of Apple Lane in particular as such: Keeping in mind that Apple Lane is a rather unusual settlement, and so the duties of its thane might also be outside the norm in some ways, this is nonetheless probably a good template to keep in mind for what kinds of duties a thane might expect to take on when they accept the appointment. It is, as stated above, essentially a social rank that marks you as one of the community's leaders, possibly with some special duty, like serving as the bodyguard of a chieftain or king or protecting trade going through an important road on the clan or tribal lands.