Sir_Godspeed

Another fun idea for the pile.

That's neat, I like it.

A seed for a new living ship.

Jesus f***.

That sort of makes sense, because from your perspective the future is no longer - how do I put this - something that's unresolved. It's just as real as the present or the past. Or rather, arguably, all of time is effectively happening concurrently. Or maybe not, but it's a neat thought.

May your community's celebrations and rituals promote a healthy new year, keep ill spirits at bay, and bring happiness after the trying times so far. (Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to you all!)

I definitely think that's the case. In fact, I believe that's MOSTLY the case. Few genuine genealogies have probably survived since before the Dawn, or the end of the First or Second Ages. And then there's the whole deal with the Dara Happan Emperors and their, imho, highly suspect genealogies/king listss, so I'd guess it's a Glorantha-wide thing. Which makes sense, Glorantha is all about the power of myth*, not the power of, I dunno, genetics or properly managed inheritance portfolios (unless the two fall under myth. ) (*not that a genealogical link being real precludes it from being a myth either, of course)

This makes me think Trolls might have paper too, if only for trade purposes.

I'm just spitballing of course, but if they want the sea to be deep, maybe the lowlying areas today covered by the Elf Sea covers the site of one or more deep lakes. Sorta like dumping a Caspian sea on top of one or more Lake Baikals. Obviously just fudging it around a bit to get to a potentially desired result. Dry rift valleys are also possible, of course.

Or maybe you're not so much seeing the event itself, but a ripple or echo emanating through time as the Compromise is temporarily shattered. A shadow imprint, reflection, afterimage... any such metaphor might do the job. Not the real thing, but enough for certain people to realize that there's something special about those visions.

Previous thread on the topic with lots of nice artwork:

Going all the way down to the Chaosium and dunking one's head in it, as it were, might offer some outside perspective. It might also be an illuminating, mystic heroquest of some kind. Just spitballing.

I'm curious, is there something particularly noteworthy in terms of their motivations, behavior, culture, etc. that goes beyond/against what we see in the Guide? Not to breach copyright, of course, just curious.

I'm not sure if the Dwarfs can entire the God Time or have anything equivalent of Heroquests, BUT in the case they don't, here is my idea: The Mostali view the God Time as essentially a "blueprint" for the World Machine. Mostali can use various means to observe it at its various stages and use that as a way to reverse-engineer what they believe are the solutions to fix the World Machine in Time. They do not, however, view the God Time as the *actual* past, as it were (if such a term even makes sense with regards to the God Time). When mortal heroes visit it, the Mostali basically see it as a form of "internet piracy" where the mortal copy concepts from the blueprint and manifest them in Time (artifacts, powers, followers, etc.), and while not a part of the plan, this is largely harmless. Alterations to it, however, in the vein of what the God Learners did, represents an existential threat to their works. Which raises some questions why the Dwarfs never intervened against the Middle Sea Empire. Perhaps they had their own secret reasons. Perhaps they knew it would revert itself? Perhaps they were in contact with a certain Blue Meany. Perhaps they were overtaken by a temporary heresy that preached that this alteration was for the better, only for its adherents to get ousted? Or perhaps something entirely else. Alternative take: Mostali don't view the God Time and Time as separate in the same way almost all other races do. How? Who knows. They're weird like that. Or for them, we are weird. Weird and broken and out of synch, like a glitching program that needs, eventually, at some point, to be either rebooted, or deleted.

Which is of course the point of every good joke!

There's some Plains Indian in there, too, iirc., even if it might be more evident among the Praxians.

Keep in mind that most Orlanthi endemic warfare is basically thievery or bullying/intimidation. Get in, nab some cows or livestock, maybe seize some hostages for ransom later, get the f*** out before they manage to warn anyone or mount a defense. Knock a few heads around if you have to. If Orlanthi battles are anything like real world dark age battles, or stateless clan societies in general, they are basically gang fights: try to outmaneuver the enemy, overwhelm them with indimidation, get them incapacitated or kill someone fairly quickly (maybe through skirmishing) so that they back off. If you can get into a position well enough, you might be able to make them to just give up and back off or high tail it, which is ideal. Casualties are probably overall low (a clan can't sustain that many casualties before the social fabric and economic output is threatened. If clan has 500 adult members and 14 of them die in a battle, that's a big god damn deal, a casualty rate of 2.8% to the entire of adult society in one fell swoop. Suddenly you have orphans, widows/ers, families that need help and support for the foreseeable future due to loss of labor power, etc., not to mention the effort that's needed to press wergild claims, assets used for funeral expenses and rites, mourning period, etc. etc. It's a giant hassle. Maybe there's even tribute demands from the victors involved, even involving thralls which means you lose even MORE labor power. It only takes a few of those relatively small battles before a clan is toast.). I might be too conservative in my estimates, people who are more familiar with ancient warfare and stuff feel free to correct me. I think both in Glorantha as in the real world, the reason why fights may appear bloodier than they probably are is because all the attention is given to the handful of people that actually killed or died. That psycho who rushed at the head of the formation and bonked some dude's skull to smithereens is the exception, not the norm, but he is also celebrated afterwards with a real rip-roaring poem that people remember, and likely the only think people remember of that battle after a few years. Humakti are more like a drone strike when what you needed was a reconnoisance patrol.

Which begs the question: what are Archidomedes' plans, ambitions, schemes? Does he have some secret plan that needs foiling by heroes, or is he already kinda preoccupied with regional politics and basically working at top capacity?

He might also be a descendant of the rebel governor. A closed-off dynasty still keeping some traditions from the old country, as it were. Some sort of Fonritan Ptolemaics.

Yo, Yuthuppa, get on this, stat! You need to do a holiday around this. Sacrifice a cheese or something, I don't know, I'm not yer dad!

Aw hell yeah.

Congrats!

I basically envision him as the Count de Monte Christo.

Yeah but... would the dragons *really* care about all that? I can't help but think that the dragons pretty much have everything under control and they only allow this stuff to happen because it's not really interfering with their plans.