Leingod

Sounds like a good idea. Another potential avenue to explore here is the fact that most (though not all) species of apple trees are totally dependent on insects for pollination; they can't self-pollinate and have no way to get their pollen from one tree to the other on their own, so they need insects (usually bees) to do that for them. And there are some interesting possibilities in this connection. For one, in Dagori Inkarth the worship of Gorakiki Bee is dominated by the Bee Tribe of the Vale of Flowers, whose queen has made treaties with the local Aldryami and, interestingly, with Joh Mith. In other words, the Uz worship of Gorakiki Bee might be an in-road toward a treaty with the trolls, perhaps with the help of Joh. Secondly, both the Heortlings and the Bee People know the bee goddess by the name Enra, and the Heortlings claim that she married or at least "spent time" with Minlister the Brewer at some point (and their resulting child is how mead came to be). And the aformentioned Bee Tribe actually have a regiment of Bee Riders they can call upon, so presumably Enra = Gorakiki Bee is at least implicitly if not explicitly acknowledged by both parties. What's more, Minlister is usually regarded as the son of Elmal a.k.a. Yelmalio. Meaning that both brewers (at least those who learned from Heortlings and worship Minlister) and Yelmalians might have unique in-roads into enlisting the aid of Enra/Gorakiki Bee and her worshipers (Uz, Bee People, or even both).

It definitely is a very good book, but a lot of the major regional lore is included in the region's section of the Guide to Glorantha, which is why I didn't list it. Most of what's in there that didn't make it into the Guide is mostly so specific to Maniria that you don't need to get it unless you're already planning to campaign there, or is based on the now-outdated portrayals of Western cultures as largely medieval Europe with the serial numbers filed off (which I understand some people are fine with or even prefer, but I honestly like what we have now a lot better).

I would posit that one thing that helps with this is that stuff like "motivation" is one of the easiest parts of a myth to change without ill effect, especially compared to "action." When the sons of Umath emerged from the pits as full-fledged gods, the Evil Uncles threw them a feast. That this was them essentially trying to cover up their attempted assassination is fairly immaterial to the myth or the quest, and it isn't a problem if the people playing the Evil Uncles are genuine. If the actions don't change, then your motives for them differing from those of the role you're playing is usually not a problem. I tend to see Inora as pretty proudly independent, albeit sometimes willing to ally with her various kin as it suits her (but just as willing to oppose them).

That could be a cool thing to run. It could be a thing where you tell the players from the beginning, "None of you are making it out of this fight alive" and tell them this is about getting to decide how they die and what they do in this doomed final battle. You know, short of stuff like "I take Arthur with me" or whatever. Maybe they die heroically saving some ally, who then goes on to be the one who teaches the PC's children all about their amazing valor and knights them when they're older or something? Stuff like that.

Or perhaps they're the remains of giants; the Heortlings believe that the "Lost Rocks," an erratic cluster of wandering lights in the sky, are the remains of a giant called Ganvaktakarn (who may also be known as "Sky Giant") who was slain by Orlanth. If that's true, maybe the earthly remains of ground-bound giants sometimes become "lost rocks" as well?

Your best bets in terms of more recent HQ2/HQG stuff are definitely Sartar: Kingdom of Heroes and the Sartar Companion. Those have plenty of the info you're looking for, only some of which (the depiction of Elmal being the big one) is no longer viewed as canonical. Very Sartar-heavy, obviously, so if you want a campaign set mostly in Prax or anywhere that isn't Dragon Pass it'll probably be less helpful (though any place that has Orlanthi at all will still see these having some use). Much of what you'll find in Pavis: Gateway to Adventure is actually taken from several of the older supplements on the region (Borderlands, River of Cradles, Sun County), though some stuff - like the depiction of the cults of Pavis and Flintnail as actually being primarily sorcerous cults that offer little to no theistic magic of their own - is new. The HeroQuest: Glorantha book itself is of limited use if you aren't interested in playing HeroQuest and just want lore. If you're at all interested in a campaign taking place in the Jonstown Confederation (especially the Cinsina Tribe), you actually might want to get the first book of the Red Cow Saga, The Coming Storm. Actually, even if you aren't doing that, it's a great book to mine for ideas about how to run a clan-centered campaign, there's a bunch of useful and interesting NPCs you can easily transplant elsewhere with minimal fuss, and it's overall a great read. HeroQuest Voices is great if you loved all those "What My Father Told Me" snippets older RQ books had, because it's almost 70 pages of literally just that on a wide range of different potential homelands. Makes for great introductory handouts you can give your players if they're playing in a new part of the world they might not be familiar with, or have decided to play as a non-human race like an Aldryami. I'm not really as familiar with the old HW/HQ1 material, though I've occasionally seen people say they still mine Anaxial's Roster for information on Gloranthan creatures (sentient and otherwise) and in-universe myths and lore about them, so that might be a good place to start.

Since the official version is that Argrath's father was Maniski, does that mean the genealogy tracing him through Venharl the Climber in King of Sartar is wrong/referring to someone else, or is it just a case of someone switching out a name on accident and everything but the name of Argrath's father is the same? Or is it now going to be the genealogy of some other important NPC? It just seemed pretty detailed to be something that's just totally non-canon now.

The RQG book briefly describes the Hendarli Tribe on pg. 130 in a boxed text.

For a Heroquest that's low-stakes enough that one of your own people are playing the role of antagonist rather than doing a Summons of Evil thing where an actual enemy is drawn into the role, or going out and seizing some outsider to force into the role (never enter a Sun County near a Yelmalian holy day), the risks are probably quite low. The potential rewards for someone stepping up for that are thus also probably low, since usually they don't face much other than a bruised ego or some cuts and scrapes; if anything worse than that happens they might get commensurate compensation from the clan. But it's unlikely they'll get any magical benefit from it. It's likely seen as just an unpleasant job that someone's gotta do, either a volunteer or someone who loses in a drawing of lots.

Warning: Rampant God Learnerism. Storm Bull, Maran Gor, Shargash, and Zorak Zoran are ultimately all aspects or reflections of a greater cosmic concept/archetype. They wield Death, but are not devoted to it like the Grim Death God; it's more of a tool in their hands, albeit one they use with great gusto, and they are often a father or mother to some group. They are feared and even despised, but they are accepted as necessary because they can fight and defeat some foe that no one else can, and through their acts of spreading death and destruction were ultimately instrumental in saving the world. This doesn't necessarily need to be as direct as Storm Bull fighting Wakboth: You might think Maran Gor doesn't fit there, but she vanquished the foe known as Hunger when no one else still alive could by fertilizing the fields with blood. Each of these four gods, I will note, has a different Elemental Rune; this suggests that perhaps the major point of difference between these four particular aspects of a particular cosmic principle (which we will refer to as "The Destroyer") is that each filters this concept through a particular elemental perspective: They are each embodying the potential of that Element to be terrifying and destructive and horrible, but that potential needs to exist, and each of them does something that proves this appropriate to how mortals understand that elemental force. Going even further, we can relate this ur-concept of The Destroyer to that of The Trickster: Each of the many Trickster gods clearly have some connection, are some glimpse into a greater truth, because each of them is ultimately some mortal's attempt to comprehend the force of Disorder made manifest through Illusion. The Destroyer is the same kind of thing, but instead of Illusion, each god that is a shared glimpse into this cosmic force is Disorder made manifest through Death, and it just so happens that the most prominent examples are also each glimpses of this principle expressed through an Element. There are, obviously, two major problems with this (Well, okay, there are a million of them and this is all insane nonsense and ramblings, but bear with me): This raises the obvious question of where the Watery version of The Destroyer is (maybe Wachaza?), but more pressingly, Urox the Storm Bull is usually depicted as having the Runes of Air/Death/Beast, not Air/Disorder/Death, as he would need to in order to fit alongside ZZ, MG and Shargash. He is (pun intended) perhaps the ur-example of "The Destroyer" who saves the cosmos, but he doesn't have the very Rune that I'm pinning this whole theory on. This is, obviously, a very important question that needs an answer or else this whole thing falls apart. So, I guess this whole thing fell apart and I've got nothing. Whoops. Still interesting to ponder on, though, right?

I guess that's one of the changes that's happened since the Feathered Horse Queen took over? The RQG book still says the Vendref worship "Ernalda and Barntar" with no mention of Orlanth, but on the other hand given how Barntar can be a subcult of Orlanth I guess it would hard for the Grazers to tell the difference until they suddenly start throwing Thunderbolts at you.

Unfortunately no, I'm not really in the habit of keeping the saves after I beat a playthrough, since I use the same name every time and it got confusing. Sorry about that. Although, in my most recent save, which I do still have, I got a bug where I managed to convince all the clans of the Cenala revelation in that first event, but the game acted like there were still non-believers, even after Cenala showed up and healed the valley. So I'll send that, at least.

Several cults that incorporate individualized geasa/taboos often seem to include celibacy or some other restriction on sex or marriage as a possibility. It's one of the possible four taboos for a Golden Bow shaman, and the cult of Yelmalio has celibacy requirements of five different levels of severity that can be imposed upon them (every Fireday, every Truth Week, every Fire Season, all of the above, and total celibacy), plus the "never love any but Earth cultists" geas, depending on how you interpret that (that is, would a loveless marriage with a non-Earth cultist count?). EDIT: Also, Light Priests can't marry after they're ordained, but preexisting marriages are fine... unless they're married to an Earth cultist, in which case they have to divorce exactly five years later, symbolizing the sundering of Sky from Earth when Air drove them apart (i.e. Orlanth stealing Ernalda from Yelmalio). This also leads to the ritual of the "Three Blows of Anger," where in revenge Yelmalio struck down three of Orlanth's allies, and which is recreated when the divorcing Light Priest slaughters some random prisoners ("prisoners" sometimes being "whoever we can grab," as Biturian Varosh found out) who happen to be members of Orlanth-aligned cults like the Lightbringers.

Maybe this is just me, but the sheer number of BG axe maidens - especially in Esrolia, where they can field entire battalions of them - proportional to what a typical young woman would need to go through to decide to join the cult of her own volition, suggests to me that the Earth temples aren't totally reliant on that happening in the numbers they need to supply their demand. That is, I would be willing to bet that Earth temples that feel the need for a lot of BG worshipers to protect the temple its interests will raise some children - orphans, foundlings, some stickpicker's child whose kin don't have to means to care for them, etc. - with the specific goal of trying to lead them toward choosing the cult of Babeester Gor as they grow up. Obviously, if they don't "click" with it then there's no use forcing it, but if you get a kid young enough and are in complete control of their education, you can probably get more hits than misses, especially as you get more experienced in knowing what to look for in a promising candidate as they grow up. But maybe I'm just getting conspiratorial with it.

As for sources on the Locaem, Pegasus Plateau is definitely the most in-depth look at them, basically everything else is just short snippets here and there as far as I can tell, most of which is already in PP. There are at least a few bits and pieces to find, though. Here's the ones I found. Wyrm's Footnotes #15 classifies them as Axe Orlanthi, and since most of their clans came to Sartar as a cohesive group from the start that may well mean most of the tribe can draw its roots to the North March in Esrolia or parts thereabouts in Heortland (in other cases I tend to assume the branding of tribal identities like that only really indicates a plurality among the clans rather than a unified tribal character/origin). It also has a gazeteer of Sun Dome County and the surrounding area where you can find some interesting write-ups both for, you know, Sun Dome County (which I'm sure will be helpful for a Locaem campaign) and also has some interesting bits on places already detailed in Pegasus Plateau, like Salvi's Top (where it mentions that Orlanth and the Owl Lords receive sacrifices), and Three Emerald Temple (where it notes that this is also the main place of worship for Sun County women, which I don't think is made explicit in PP). Sartar: Kingdom of Heroes and the Sartar Companion contain material that's been superceded, and what they have on the Locaem is very sparse, but there are one or two. The first one has a brief paragraph on them c. 1618 where it says they're called the "Spear Tribe" because it's their weapon of choice to the point that even many of their Humakti prefer it; it also says that Gavial Brightspear offers (or, offered, now) sacrifices to "foreign gods" instead of Orlanth, which may or may not just be a shot at Yelmalio. The latter has a list of rumors where "The Locaem Tribe is about to split in two" is marked "True;" obviously that didn't come to pass, but it gives even more credence to how the tribe has so far been totally unable to agree on a new king. It's a good scenario to dangle in front of players who are already interested in trying to keep the Locaem united, with clans starting to make alliances and draw lines against each other and weakening the tribe at a critical moment, which helps justify the PCs needing to pursue unusual means like trying to contact old gods and heroes for divine back-up in their efforts, all fertile ground for adventures. Oh, and it also gives Sora Goodseller (whom you may remember from The Smoking Ruin) a Locaem apprentice, Harstal Verlainsson, who c. 1618 was already good enough to run his own caravan but stayed out of loyalty. If you ever need or want a merchant NPC with ties to the Colymar in your campaign, there's a name and connection for you. Finally, regarding a "home clan" for the PCs, while it would obviously depend on whether you felt up to it or interested in it, for a Locaem Campaign like that I'd actually recommend maybe allowing the PCs to come from more than one clan, perhaps all of them having grown up relatively close to the borders of multiple clans if you want them to easily interact in the adventuring off-season and/or justify them having grown up with each other (the borders of clans, especially clans in the same tribe, can be fairly nebulous and fluid). It could present some interesting roleplaying opportunities if you had PCs from different clans - maybe even rival clans - working together even as the tribe itself increasingly seems on the cusp of falling into factionalism, and help get across what stands to be lost if the Locaem really does split apart.

Sorry to resurrect an old topic, but I found this while looking through some other stuff and had some findings to share. Whether this Raven is the same one worshiped in Prax I couldn't tell you, but I'd imagine the two are fairly similar spirits regardless, including their Runes. As for owls, they're birds, who are usually associated with Sky/Fire, and the Orlanthi apparently consider them watchful guardians against Darkness. That kind of "vigilant, sharp-eyed defender" archetype is often associated with the Truth Rune (see: Yelmalio/Elmal), so yeah, Truth is a good option, and it may well have associations with Fire (or not; perhaps there's a legend of the owl giving up its connection to Fire so it can better do its job as a night watchman or something along those lines). As mentioned above, the Raven Clan's connection to that spirit is unclear, and so you can take it wherever you want. Maybe they were willing to carry out Raven's request, or maybe they disagreed over how to deal with Raven's wrath, or maybe they disagreed with whatever price Owl Lord demanded for his protection (most spirits don't work for free). The interesting thing, to me, is Raven asking them to kill the spirit of Bran Creek. The book claims that the creek is the physical body of Great Bearded Bran, Salvi the Good's distant God Time ancestor, so its spirit probably shares some connection to Bran as well. The Book of Heortling Mythology describes Bran as "a destroyer of animals and spirits," and Raven is an animal spirit, so there's any number of reasons why it might hold a grudge. What better revenge than forcing Bran's own descendants to kill some part of him? It's also written that he did so to protect his people from them, so that might be why Owl Lord isn't hostile and was willing to extend his protection to the Locaem. As an aside, the BoHM also writes of Bran that he was noted for his "furious frenzy when fighting against anyone on horseback, a chariot, or other animal or vehicle." Which could be both a good starting point for working out magic for a hero-cult or Orlanth sub-cult of Great Bearded Bran that could give some useful anti-cavalry (or anti-animal, or anti-spirit) magic, and perhaps even a potential source of conflict later if that hostility towards animals leads to unforeseen difficulties with heroes bonded to hippogriffs who might, say, be looking for some kind of divine sanction to help one of them become king (and who better to ask than the great God Time hero himself?).

In HeroQuest/QuestWorlds, the powers a god can give its worshipers come directly from the deeds they performed in the God Time, so to get a good idea of what a worshiper of Gerendetho can do, we should expand on Gerendetho's mythos and deeds. We'll start by saying that he's a son of Lodril and Oria (or some other prominent Earth goddess, if you'd like), so he's got an intimate relationship with the powers of the Earth. However, I'm going to strip Gerendetho as his own cult of most of Lodril's fiery powers, both destructive and life-giving. This is partly because Gerendetho is associated with distinctly non-volcanic mountains, and his titles suggest less of an intensive agricultural focus, so his main fertility "thing" isn't going to be warming the earth to grow crops like Lodril's is. Maybe he still has that particular power as a subcult for farmers. Gerendetho is associated with earthquakes (and probably subsidence; you know, landslides and such), though, just non-volcanic ones (kinda like Maran Gor, though the similarities largely end there). Since the people of Kostaddi view him as their benevolent, fatherly protector, these are probably interpreted as collateral damage from his struggles with enemies who would harm them, and earthquakes or landslides are occasions where the people offer prayers and sacrifices to strengthen him so he can triumph over his foes; if the rumblings cease without doing too much harm, then it worked. If not, the foe was strong and Gerendetho had to fight long and hard, maybe even was hurt, which will probably presage similar incidents during the year. And maybe if it's just harmless tremors, that means he isn't using his mighty earth-shaking spear and is just wrestling. The spear itself might be something some say he was gifted by Lodril, others by Oria, maybe in some versions he beat his father (either in a competition or an actual fight) to get it or even just stole it outright, depending on who you ask. Perhaps there are even versions that don't account for Lodril at all and he wins/makes the spear himself. Anyway, as I said before, his mythos is primarily centered around the people of Kostaddi, whom he protected and taught the things they needed to survive the Great Darkness. Perhaps he just happens across people in need after acquiring his spear, and in his mercy teaches them to make their own spears so they can use them to hunt. There might be a running theme of him acquiring knowledge of how to bring home food like this by seducing a relevant goddess; in this case, some equivalent to the Lady of the Wild. This being his first time, he forgets to bring her home as his wife, and that's why hunters still have to go out and hunt. As time goes on, things get worse and hunting isn't enough, so Gerendetho goes out and this time encounters a goat goddess, whom he brings home as his wife, and thus his people become goatherds as well as hunters. This would probably be Uryarda (or some other local name for her). This time he brought her home properly, but made some other misstep that explains why goatherds need to spend a lot of time away from their normal homes out in the pastures with the goats. Then we get the third time, where things continue getting worse and Gerendetho goes out once more and finds the barley goddess, and this time he gets it all right and so a farmer only has to go out to work the fields instead of spending a long time away from home. Alternatively, some worshipers or subcults might reverse the moral of this “worst-to-best” narrative, so that with each goddess he meets, Gerendetho is actually losing more and more of his freedom and having to work harder and harder. Perhaps the hunters go with this version, the farmers with the former, and the goatherds say that their lot in life is the happy medium. Either way, this progression takes Gerendetho and his followers from hunter-gatherers to pastoral, goat-herding nomads, to mostly sedentary agriculture, but still with a mixed, pastoral lifestyle, rather than the intensive agriculture of most lowland Pelorians, with its extensive irrigation work and all that. And throughout this, of course, there is fighting. It starts small, though; as hunters, they only really fight for their food, since they can run if they have to and have little anyone wants, but maybe there's a great hunt or a fight with a rival or something. As herders they have to protect the flocks, but goats are good at fleeing danger (even if you have to track them down afterward), especially when there's hills and mountains about, though maybe there's an epic fight with some predator god. But once you're growing barley you can't really just pick up sticks and leave anymore, so that's where the focus shifts from survival to protection, as Gerendetho and his people face greater foes; this is probably where Granite Man is fought and the Jord Mountains are created, as that seems like a sort of capstone on the story of Gerendetho's triumphs. Presumably things start getting worse immediately after this high point, as is the case in most Greater Darkness narratives, until they're just barely holding on by the Dawn. That raises the question, though: Who's Granite Man? It might be a giant or something similar, but I personally like to think there's a link with the dwarves living in those mountains. Perhaps “Granite Man” is just what the people of Kostaddi call some prominent Mostali of that time, or a local name for Mostal (whom they confuse as being a conventional god), or even is just the dwarves embodied in a singular figure for Gerendetho to fight. You could take that in multiple directions, of course. Maybe there's a version where Gerendetho's spear was taken from the dwarves, and his title “Spear Shaper” comes from his stealing the secrets of working metal into spearheads from them. Maybe there's still mutual hostility over all this. Personally, though, I'd take the lack of mention of hostilities between the dwarves of Noastor and the humans of Kostaddi as evidence that some kind of accord was reached. Or maybe it was even that Granite Man was some malignant being who enslaved the dwarves, and when Gerendetho made the Jord Mountains out of the rubble it was to give the freed dwarves a new home? So, with the basis of a mythos laid out, we come at last to Gerendetho's runes and the powers an initiate can use, maybe some talk about subcults and feats and such. As I mentioned earlier, Gerendetho's runes are Earth and Fertility; I'm figuring on him as still ultimately a lesser, local version of Lodril (at least, that's what he is by the Third Age), so he doesn't get three runes like Lodril does, and ultimately I decided Disorder was the one that could most easily be removed. Again, this is all very much WIP. e Earth Rune Gerendetho's powers over Earth mostly relate to feats of provision and protection. Initiates can use this affinity to: Hunt or fight with spears and javelins; protect pastures and fields; cleave through solid rock; make the earth shake or shift; draw strength from the earth; and summon and command lesser earth gods. Depending on the specifics of his relationship with dwarves, he might also have powers in this Rune related to fighting or befriending dwarves; also, depending on what his spear is made of and how he got it, he might grant the power to work a single specific metal (probably copper) into spearheads and/or enchant them. x Life/Fertility Rune Gerendetho's powers over Life/Fertility mostly relate to feats of survival and strength, though he does have some fertility powers. Initiates can use this affinity to: Find food, water, or shelter; eat almost anything; endure the elements; walk, work, or fight tirelessly for a day; seduce women and “feminine powers;” and fertilize pastures or fields. For subcults, I'd want there to be at least three, to cover the three general aspects through which Gerendetho provides for Kostaddi (and each representing a goddess he seduced): Hunter, Herder (of goats), and Farmer (of barley). Right now, my general idea is that (these names are placeholders) Gerendetho Spearhunter can lure prey to him, Gerendetho Goatherd can move as quickly and sure-footedly over the Earth as a goat, and Gerendetho Barleycorn can keep the fields warm and protect them from frost and pests. There might be one or two extra things each, feel free to suggest any ideas, of course. For feats, there's definitely at least two: One derived from his creation of the Hungry Plateau and the Jord Mountains, a breakout from the Earth Rune, and another derived from his seducing goddesses to bring their life-giving power home to his people, a breakout from the Life Rune.

So, while reading Griffin Mountain (and probably influenced in no small part from my playing Six Ages), I had this vague idea of a character pop into my head which prompted some thoughts that I figured might be worth sharing. To anyone who doesn't know, Griffin Mountain was an old sourcebook on Balazar, a paleolithic land of dog-loving hunter-gatherer clans in the Elder Wilds that are (very) loosely unified under three tribal kings ruling from citadels of cyclopean stone built by a Yelmalian hero named Balazar, and who get a lot of their food from raising pigs since agriculture's mostly a no-go in this area (and it's pigs specifically because Balazar brought his people an idol of Mralota the Sow Mother). One of those citadels is under Lunar rule with a puppet king, another is playing host to Orlanthi exiles, and the third is sticking to tradition so far. The concept I had started with some idle questions popping into my head as I read, the first being, “Kingdom-building in Balazar would probably involve bringing a new livestock animal like Balazar did. Maybe goats?” and the second, “So there's this female Yelmalian devotee of a royal family who's sworn to love only Earth cultists, but those are thin on the ground here. You know, I've wondered, do guys like Lodrili count? I'd imagine they do.” Those questions were ultimately what led me to come up with the character concept of a goatherd from Kostaddi who was enslaved as the result of a revolt that was put down (perhaps even the very revolt that got Duke Raus exiled?), but managed to free himself and ultimately fled into the Elder Wilds, where he found refuge and a new home with the White Goat clan of the Balazarings (who are in an actual list of clans, which I thought a nice bit of serendipity; maybe he convinced them to take him in because he charmed their wyter? Or whatever totemic spirit Balazaring clans might have). Said character would be an initiate of Gerendetho (I know that Peloria has relatively low rates of initiates; if needed, I'd probably explain it away as just as a matter of practicality, since a goatherd spending a lot of time alone out in the hills can't exactly rely on a priest to worship and use magic for him as needed like a city-dweller or even a village farmer can. Or maybe he worked for the cult, guarding its sacred flocks?). And that led to the reason why I figured this might actually be worth posting here: I started brainstorming on what my idea of the cult of Gerendetho in a HQ/QW context would look like that would best suit this character concept and campaign idea (not that I think I'll be playing it anytime soon, if ever), which perhaps someone else can make use of. Now, I believe the official word on this (expressed by Jeff in a RuneQuest thread on this very topic, IIRC) is that Gerendetho is a local name/form of Lodril, and that his cult would thus be the normal Lodril cult (or a subcult thereof) with some local flavor. But while I'm still going with Gerendetho being an aspect/son of Lodril, for my own purposes with this particular concept I'm going to say that, at least in HQ/QW terms, it's one of those things where Gerendetho can function as both his own cult, with his own unique powers and attributes totally separate from Lodril's, but also as a local subcult of Lodril that gives worshipers a few (but not all) of said features. While I'm at it, I should bring up that there was some HQ1 material on Gerendetho (specifically a brief write-up on pg. 124 of Heroquest: Roleplaying in Glorantha), and while I am going to take quite a bit of inspiration from that, it's not going to be a wholesale adaptation. So, let's (finally, I know) start actually trying to detail one idea of the cult of Gerendetho... In a separate post, because this one's already getting kinda long, and my WIP write-up is probably going to end up even longer. In brief, though, currently my take on Gerendetho is mostly a mythos of survival and protection (with powers for his worshipers to match) in a more hill-bound, pastoral way than the usual Lodrili manner; the general thrust of what I have so far is that Gerendetho taught men how to make spears and javelins (which he may have learned or even stole from his father, depending on who you ask) to hunt with, then tamed goats and taught them how to herd, then tamed barley and taught them how to farm ("tamed" here might perhaps mean "seduced/captured a goddess"). Then, since his people were now tied to the land and possessed things others wanted to take, he taught them how to fight to protect themselves and their livelihoods, and that's where you get his fight with Granite Man (and probably others) and the land of Gerendethlia that was the God Time precursor to Kostaddi. Compared to Lodril, he thus has much less emphasis on intensive, irrigation-reliant agriculture (the parts of Kostaddi where that predominates are where you'll mostly see Gerendetho as a Lodril subcult) and also lacks most - but perhaps not all - of Lodril's fiery attributes and powers (both destructive and fertile), but has some powers of survival that Lodril doesn't that are more useful for pastoral hill folk (or a fugitive stuck in a region with virtually no agriculture). His runes are Earth and Life (I'd have liked to include Disorder, but I want him to be a more minor, limited god than Lodril, so he doesn't get the full suite of three runes that the major gods get).

On the topic of my wild, probably-incorrect theories and speculations about gods, I've got one about the god whose death and fall to the ground triggers the Skyquake halfway through the game. As has been noticed before on this thread, Dostal is almost certainly the god the Grazers will worship later as Dastal; not only are their names almost identical, they also have nearly identical portfolios as the gods of both hunting and with being the god who teaches boys how to be men (note that Dostal's myth is barely even about the actual hunt itself, but instead the lessons he imparts to the future chieftains of the Four Clans). However, it's not exactly the same: that same write-up on the Grazer pantheon in King of Sartar I referenced above also says that Dastal is the god of herding. Dostal, of course, has no such connotations that we can see in the game. In Six Ages, the god who dies midway through the game is called Yestal the Herder, a minor god who "guards the boundaries between pastures;" other than the calamity his death causes, he's apparently so minor to the Riders that he never merits a mention outside of it. Which seems a little odd when you consider how important pastures and herds are to the Rider way of life (admittedly, fellow herder-god Voriof was also barely mentioned in King of Dragon Pass, but let me have this). It seems likely that after Yestal's death, his portfolio as the god of herders was taken up by Dostal/Dastal (incidentally, note how similar those names are), but I'm willing to bet that this was a process that had already been happening for some time, and Yestal's death just finished it. Yestal was probably a god that dated back to Nivorah, while Dostal is mentioned in multiple places to have been adopted after the fall of the city. My guess here is that Yestal had a more prominent place in Nivorah and the early years of the exodus from it, perhaps even having been the god who taught Nivoran boys valuable life lessons, but that once they were out in the wilds Dostal's lessons were just more useful and applicable, so over time Yestal faded into just being a part of Elmal's entourage, a name in the crowd that nobody really worships except as collateral in big rituals honoring a bunch of gods at once.

It's interesting, because King of Sartar (on pg. 90-91) lists the gods of the Grazers and the vendref and says that their great earth goddess is Orest ("Earth Mother, who gives forth all life. The mountains are her children"), who is the mother of La-Ungariant ("First Wife of Yu-Kargzant, and goddess of the women of the people"). Orest is the one identified as Ernalda in the vendref section, saying Ernalda is "another name for Orest, except this one allows herself to be cut with plows." On the other hand, later stuff like the RQG book's write-up on the Grazers (pg. 116) says this about the FHQ: This might just be a case of old material being superceded by the new, but my personal theory is that the FHQ has taken advantage of the ambiguity of "aspect vs child/sibling" when it comes to the divine that the Earth goddesses in particular have a lot of. In other words, I suspect the FHQ succeeded where the God Learners failed because rather than try to directly prove that Ernalda = Dendara, she proved that La-Ungariant/Dendara is not merely Orest's/Ernalda's daughter but an aspect of that greater goddess, which adds enough wiggle room that the undertaking could succeed. But La-Ungariant is the name most used, because it's the one most Grazers would encounter more in their daily lives; I suspect Orest was one of those divinities that was mostly just a name to them until the FHQ came around.

A fancy way with a really cool name, thank you very much.

A god doesn't really have to die to be displaced by another one (see for example Siwend, who was apparently the Orlanthi hunter god before being completely displaced by Odayla and so just sort of faded away). Other descendants of the Nivoran diaspora - most notably the Gamatae headed by the dynasty of Jenarong, whom I mentioned above - kept her as Gamara, which is what all references outside this game call her (same with how Buserian is spelled with a "y" in this game). In fact, Jenarong built a temple to her in Raibanth. Of course, whether and where exactly she survives in the Third Age I couldn't tell you. Plentonius identified her with a figure on the fourth row of the Gods Wall (which represent the "Gods of Below" whose worshiped is proscribed), which indicates she wasn't really looked on kindly by the Dara Happans after the Jenarong Dynasty (much like a lot of nomad stuff), but there may be some memory of her left somewhere.

This isn't really "lore," but I figured this bug was funny enough to be worth showing. Apparently I smoked the Zar Hawks so hard in that last raid they started thinking and acting like they were another clan entirely even though they're still answering to the name Zar Hawk. To make it more on-topic, I'm guessing the name "Zar Hawk" is meant to be inspired by Zarlen, the Bright-Tailed Wanderer, son of Elmal, and Hyaloring god of explorers. An interesting thing to note is that The Glorious Re-Ascent of Yelm (pg. 32-33) names Emperor Jenarong as the descendant of a god called the "Starlight Wanderer." A footnote says this god is "probably Reladivus or Kargzant," but as far as the game's lore is concerned, Reladivus-as-Rider is probably the Dara Happans carrying out Manarlavus's threat to un-person (un-deity?) Elmal by attributing all of his attributes and deeds to his son (though the Wheels do still worship him, so maybe not entirely), and Kargzant is likely a later development of the Elmal mythic complex that diverged into a different god (or rather, my own theory is that "Elmal" is a name being used for the benefit of the player, so both Elmal and Kargzant are offshoots of the Nivoran diaspora's patron sun god that developed differently). My point being, maybe Zarlen is the Starlight Wanderer, and over time he became considered more just an aspect or title of his father, whom Jenarong knew as Kargzant and paid worship to. Or maybe Zarlen somehow morphed into the Star Captain called Kuranits who was the Starlight Wanderer's son? Another notable thing about Jenarong's reign is that he (well, his father Hirenmadar) restored Raibanth, which had become a ghost city, and its inhabitants - when they later get mad about an influx of new refugees - are addressed as the "Seven Families." And what's more, Jenarong solves this problem by making the refugees half-citizens; it presents this as an innovation of Jenarong's, but in the game, you can give this very status to people you encountered in clan creation. Hmm...

I think "Relandar's Ranking" is my favorite, just for how annoyed the narrator is about Hyalor and his tablets. Well, okay, "Hyalor's Long Ride" is probably my favorite. It's surprisingly touching with Hyalor's farewells to his people and his faithful steed.

Many of the Sky forces encountered in this scenario are hostile, but not all of them; at one point a host of warriors called the "Angels of Antirius" come to the boat's defense, and in the boxed text describing the officers, the (unseen to the characters) captain is revealed to be Anaxial. And from my own reading of it, I don't think it really implies this is a new thing or necessarily specific to the Hero Wars. There's just a boxed text describing that some people will catch a glimpse of the Young God, and that whether or not a character saw it should be written on their character sheet. That's definitely a strong implication that this was meant to lead to something down the line, but we can hardly begin to guess at what with only that to go on. Now, since the secrets of the Young God were what allowed Lorion to enter the Sky World, we can suppose that perhaps the Young God was also key to the raising of the Boat Planet in some way. Maybe his secrets were used here, or his permission was sought, or maybe even his seeing and acknowledging this was key to allowing the Boat Planet to become a "proper" part of the Sky World again, once all the opposition was beaten away. There's some bits and pieces of the Glorious Re-Ascent that seem to paint the Young God as a sort of gatekeeper for what gets to be allowed to remain in the Sky World, after all.