Sir_Godspeed

The East Isles has Thella, the Goddess of Dreams. They also have Avanapdur, an anti-god (a divine being seen as a dangerous, basically) who managed to create an empire that turned out be an illusion, a sort of dreamlike influence of the middle world. Dreams is a pretty major theme in the East Isles, with different philosophers taking different views on whether they are beneficial or distractions for mystics, for example. Not so much in Genertela though, to my knowledge, though dreams in and of themselves are pretty important for several deities.

Oh yeah, Ullr and Skadi are both inspirations there, it just sorta makes sense. I wasn't so much worried about anachronism as I was about there being some kind of material or lifestyle conflict between skis and snowshoes or something. I don't know, might just be overly cautious. Thanks for the pics. Actually those petroglyphs could be something the Muskox People (or their ancestors) do. Not a whole lot of permanent influences on the landscape in Northern Pent, but those might be a neat touch (especially if one throws in a little sacred time magic or even some initiation or Heroquest stuff). Aside from those I also consider them putting up cairns for historical, territorial and mythical purposes. Mayb adorned with animal skulls and the like.

I hadn't considered any of this, sounds very cool! I've been weighing skis versus snowshoes and I'm not sure which of them are more suitable to their lifestyle. Ideally I'd just have them use both, but I'm not sure if that runs into some kind of problem. One of the goddesses I have loosely worked out, is their version of the goddess of young, unmarried women (or perhaps she's more of a goddess of young unmarried people in general). She is also the goddess of foraging, and the goddess of skiing, and is mythically attributed the feat of taming the arctic fox. Oh yeah, I mentioned in another thread that the Muskox People keep foxes a bit like dogs. Fox is also a Trickster, so there's a potential for some fun dynamic there. Now, admittedly, I suppose it would make sense to make the Ski Goddess a goddess of hunting, since winter is not really the time for foraging.

It makes sense for there to be a mix of Storm worshippers in Fronela. The Bull People (whether Enjoreli or other term) is really an umbrella term, referring to that particular blend of animist and theist pastoralists that, for the purpose of simplicity, come from a "Storm Bull tradition", as it were. Consequently, that Vadrus left behind a separate "Vadrus tradition" is pretty understandable. With their chief god dead, them being easy converts also rings true. Now, granted, everything gets pretty muddled, since lots of Bull People also converted to become Orlanthi, and some Bull People also became Malkioni (ie. much of Loskalm), and moreover we obviously have Orlanthi of the "Vadrus tradition" who herd bovine cattle and using cattle imagery alongside boar imagery and bear imagery. Imagery isn't tantamount to totemism or divine patronage, of course, but it does make it harder for us to decipher exact relations backwards in time. This muddled past is something I'm looking to deliberately incorporate into my Muskox People's worldview and mythology. Even if they are far away from Fronela, I'm working with a social and mythic status inspired by the one in Silver/Dawn Age Fronela (and arguably Prax), albeit with a different result.

Certainly. I don't think there's a standard quest for this, as each instance of forming a clan would be unique. It's a shame you haven't got more feedback, as this seems like a cool story. For a place to put Voria's Garden there are others here who know the geography much better than me, but I was thinking that there might be some kind of magically isolated valley in Dagori Inkarth, a mountain massif located to the east of Dragon Pass. It has a lot of Trolls in it, though, so some story regarding them might have to be spun. The unique livestock sound interesting too. Having them serve as a symbol of the group, and maybe the Wyter taking the shape of one of them could be interesting.

Here's an idea: what about natural events momentarily transporting people to the Hero Plane without their knowledge? So say there is a momentous storm, and you take shelter in a cave or an empty shepherd's shack. Then, someone enters and asks for shelter. You treat them in a certain manner, and the morning after the stranger is gone, the storm has lifted and some manner of karmic justice befalls you. Only then do you realize that the Storm brought you to the Gods world for one night, where Orlanth himself tested you in disguise. Or in older parlance, a bit of a "short world" interaction, I guess.

Well, allegedly. The modern Orlanthi explanation for the creation of the EWF is clearly strongly biased against it, and Eurmal doing it is as much a stock explanatory trope for bad things as it is an attempt at a factual explanation.

Arguably that's true for all gods, it's just a matter of how you approach them, and that varies by culture. This isn't spelt clearly out, though, but I think it's kinda implied.

This thread has been screaming for the Jonstown treatment and I'm stoked to see it happen!

Yes! I had the same notion! This is something I've given some consideration, and my general thoughts are something along these lines: - They're not typically ridden except in certain cases, such as by the young, infirm, or perhaps through some partially-ritualistic warrior class for purposes of raiding, counter-raiding or what have you. Not the lengthy pursuits of horses, but short spurts, I'd imagine. Almost like reverse-dragoons, in a way. EDIT: Another, admittedly entirely fantastical idea is to have them act a bit like guard dogs, able to support their human herders on command by headbutting enemies until the humans come in and mop up. Who knows, maybe both could be used. This is firmly in the realm of fantasy, I admit. The main point is that they don't ride around willy nilly on them like some kind of woolly pony, though. - Much more commonly they are used to pull sleighs or travoises, perhaps more specifically something like the Nordic pulk or ahkio. Native American or Inuit equivalents are probably fine too, but I'm less familiar with them, except stuff like dogsleds and toboggans. The main issue here is wood, so it's possible that the Muskoxen People version of these, instead of having a full wooden body, will be built with a wooden frame (using slender willow or birch, either gathered or traded for) and leather covering, a bit like a kayak. It's possible that the pulk/ahkio is mostly just used for winter, and a travois or possibly even some kind of body-harness is used for summer. The pulk/ahkio might be disassembled during summer, or it might serve as a "boat" (mostly to store items and infirm people) for river crossings or even fishing, if sufficiently sturdy. - Lastly, and more speculatively, Muskox People Muskoxen might be a bit bigger than most wild RW Muskoxen, at least on average. Not huge, but to make certain things a bit more plausible, and, uh, Rule of Cool, I guess. Not crucial, but potentially fun? I'll admit, this is mostly hypothetical, as I don't know the exact practicalities, but it seems generally feasible.

That's good to know! I see quite a lot of confusion online about willows in general and arctic willow, which is teensy tiny and barely a nub. The latter being the one I'm previously aware of being eaten by muskoxen.

Muskox and those herding them will still be absolutely dependant on fodder grown during the warm season, and it is during the warm season they will be fattening up and expending most of their (non-heating) energy. My point is that it's easy to see them as part of the forces of Cold, as it were, but more prosaically they just happen to be exploiting the margins rubbing against Cold better than others. This is delving into their mythology, but my idea so far is to have them have a very complicated and ambivalent relationship with Valind and the Glacier. And I guess it bears mentioning: Valind is definitely still Storm. Not Orlanthi storm, true, but Storm nonetheless. I'll try to outline some mythology later, but my general idea is for them to venerate a dead chief god who is roughly analogous to both Umath and Vadrus. This might mean that they were once Vadrudi, but they might as well have been Storm Bull people too. I personally don't want to make the parallels crystal clear. Or in other words, I'm not really looking to just make Orlanthi with a different coat of paint and some thicker jackets. If I can, which I'm still not sure I'm skilled enough to do. That's all fine, but ultimately the point is to show that the Pentan steppe is nowhere near as big as the Eurasian steppe as many people tend to think it is (which is admittedly a far mistake to make given that Genertela tries to be Eurasian in miniature, with its own miniature China to boot). Also the Dovrefjell habitat is a pretty big outlier, being an introduced populated. I was mostly going off the Canadian arctic range, which admittedly will be distorted by a flat projection, yes, but is still fairly sizeable, covering most of Northern Nunavut except Baffin island and swathes of Greenland. And this, it should be mentioned, is the current RW habitat of an animal that is recovering from near-extinction at least partially due to overhunting as well as climatic change. Going back some thousand years, most of circumpolar North America, and a good deal of Eurasia would have had muskox populations. HUGE tracts of land, no Monty Python joke intended. Anyway, this is all getting a bit technical. I don't think nailing down a *specific* size of range is necessarily all that important: what's more important is to find some key locations to work out from, and to get a general feel for the landscape, ecology and lifestyle down. Or does that sound too wishy-washy?

I initially thought Range 1 would be more interesting, but that might just mean that I'll need to read up on/invent more for Range 2. In terms of size, I agree they look big, but this is for a few reasons. 1) These are just generalized areas, not to be taken as exact measurements. 2) Not every group is going to wander all over it, rather it implies the space in which Muskox People can be found, not necessarily the space that all Muskox folk traverse regularly. A bit like Praxians out in the waste. Large distances covered only collectively, not usually individually. Also, similarly, very low population density. And lastly, 3) Genertela is not actually as big as we like to imagine it. It's only about the size of North America, or even just the contiguous USA. These ranges are about the size of... Nebraska? Texas? Just based on eyeballing it. RW muskoxen are found in a bigger area. Maybe both. Maybe I'll just settle on an intermediary that runs roughly parallel to the Troll Marshes (the dark brown area between/intersecting between them). Browsing refers to eating leaves off woody plants, iirc. Grazing is eating stuff off the ground. My issue was whether Muskoxen, if they had the opportunity, would eat from leafy plants. Either way, it's not a huge issue. I agree on the climactic issues, and indeed I do not envision them being a "serious" competitor for the Pentans, partially for the things listed above, but also partially just because they aren't going to be nearly as many as the Pentans. That being said, that doesn't mean they might not have a state of endemic raiding and counter raiding (mixed with seasonal trading because that's just how it goes) in a local sense. This is where my earlier point about the absence/mislocation of the taiga comes in. In the RW, the way it goes is usually that you have a temperate belt of grassy plains (steppe/prairie), then followed by a belt of woodlands north of that (taiga/boreal forest) and finally a belt of plains with permafrost north of that (tundra). This applies to both Eurasia and North America, as far as I know. Glorantha is different. Not only is the taiga mainly gone from Pent, burnt down in the Dawn Age, but there forest that's left in both Pent and (the much bigger remnant) in Fronel is shown as being riiiight up by the Glacier and the sea, respectively. This creates a weird scenario where, if I want to keep the Muskox People within the frame of the visible map, I need to place them south of what little forest we see, which means I'll be placing tundra and steppe next to each other. Where there would in the RW have been a buffer between horses and muskoxen, there is none in Glorantha. It requires a somewhat different way of thinking. I've got some thoughts that I hope to share later. The keyword is increased dynamism. That's hilarious! And honestly, not what I'd expect. If anything it's the moose that's the ugly one, and I say that with a deep fondness for the King of the Forest. This is worth considering more in detail, but just off the cuff, here's a few: Uncolings are animist Hsunchen with shapeshifting abilities, I believe. Muskox people are not Hsunchen, are mixed animist-theists, with little in the way of shapeshifting except maybe in some exceptional cases. Additionally, reindeer in the RW migrate much farther distances and in much larger herds than Muskoxen, though given some environmental factors mentioned above, I might change that (plus, lengthy migrations make for good story hooks and drama). Uncolings are also fairly peaceful, as far as I know, while I intend to make the Muskox People suitably fitting for the Storm worshipper mold and make them quite warlike, albeit within the limitations of their habitat and context of neighbors. I hope my meagre answers/comments have been somewhat interesting. Thanks for all the feedback, I am very much feeling my way with this.

Lord Death on a Horse is Chaotic? Huh, I never knew.

I loved that too! Sadly underrated.

Possibly, but it's also possible that the Sun overstepped its authority already with the beginning of the Golden Age, as outlined in the Brightface myth in the Entekosiad. That's very far back, though.

I'm getting the impression that the various incarnations of Moon has been there somewhere.

Yup, Sanskrit. Or at least from Hinduism.

Complicating things geographically is Glorantha's inexplicable tendency to have taiga forest NORTH of tundra, which does my head a bit in, but I suppose that's neither here nor there.

Remind me to never mess with you then. "Yes." Jokes aside, the Muskox People were amongst other things inspired by the conversation about the "Bull Belt", with similarities from Prax to Fronela. Similarly to all of these, there's a history of potential Beast Totem and Storm People overlap that I personally would like to keep as vague as it mostly is for other similar groups. Hence the "yes" above. Thanks for the suggestion! To be blunt, I am intending to stretch the published infor as far as possible to give their environment and cultural context variety and diversity. I'm less concerned with staying 100% in line with Chaosium canon, and more taking the approach that this could more or less be slotted into canon and not disturb too much. In practice that means I'd like them to have contect with Pentan Horsemen (Storm and Solar), Dark Trolls, Frost Trolls, Frost Giants, Reindeer herders in the far west if possible, Yak people in the far east if possible, Gopher Hsunchen to the south (I'm not sure how far south permafrost would go, but I assume Gopher Hsunchen would live south of that), possibly an offshot/stop of the Etyries Caravan, and I'm working on some ways to justify contact with Aldryami (in the form of half-hibernating nymphs or dryads who survived the Tallgreen's demise), the Altinelans (treading carefully here so as to not diminish the exceptionality of Loskalm's one-off contact with them), and possibly incorporating some ideas I've had about moss/lichen elves (basically "sprites" of a sort). This isn't including lots of spirits and elementals of course. I suppose I might have some minor shards of the Blue Moon here and there, although that might be overkill. Still working on their pantheon and associated gods (those worshipped and those propitiated only). I'm also still working on their history, though I've got ideas regarding the decimation of the Tallgreen in the First Age and Sheng's Empire (considering having them act as mercenaries/feudatories/vassals in both instances). I'm thinking that Sheng's Empire was a transformative period of time that saw them visit Peloria and bring home some (relatively minor) wealth, but which caused a greater awareness of the outside world and material goods and culture. Of course, if they're in the 2nd Range, Kralorela is as like a place for them to have served - and it brings up possible contant with entities in the foothills of the Shan Shan and even Chen Durel, however rarely. I'm not sure if this makes it come off as overly fanciful, and "Mary Sueish", but when I look at published material on other localities, I feel reasonably justified in inserting lots of little "exceptionalities", even if they might not really be there from the Guide's bird's eye perspective, as it were.

There's a quote by Cristopher Tolkien on J.R.R. Tolkien's works (I'm paraphrasing as best I can): "There are my father's published thoughts, his latest thoughts and his best thoughts on his works. These are not always the same." I'm guessing the same goes for Greg.

I suspect quite a lot of sorcery - and at least definitely mysticism is like this - running around like an idiot and throwing fireballs and leaping magically is what an irresponsible madman does with his access to the Infinite. A TRUE magician works with a grander perspective (or in the case of some mysticism, an incredibly narrow perspective, to avoid entanglement).

I thought I'd might as well create a proper thread for this instead of making a bunch of different question threads. Summary: I'm trying to do some minor worldbuilding for a Storm-worshipping Muskox-herding people in the north of Pent. I've already done some worldbuilding for them in other threads, but it's all pretty loosey goosey still. Right now, I've looked into the geography, and I'm considering two different "primary ranges". My main concern is making it in an area that's feasibly the kind of terrain where muskoxen could thrive. Lichen, mosses, hardy grasses and arctic willows (not to be confused with willow trees). I'm not sure if Muskoxen can browse, but at any rate I am also thinking some scattered birch and larches, and possibly some spruce here and there. My other main concern it making it far enough north that this group does not directly compete with the horse-riding Pentans, because, to be honest, that's not a contest they could really win, imho. That being said, I don't expect them to be isolated from each other, and not all contact being hostile. With that being said, these are the two proposed main ranges of the Muskox People. I welcome all comments on which you prefer, or if you prefer neither (also note the possible, but unmarked range inbetween them). And of course, with the wording "primary range", I intend to say that they will probably range beyond this every now and then for whatever reason. Pent is not really the land of neatly arranged borders.

The Red Moon is a divine realm, a place with a geography and natural features and a civilization of sorts, even though it is of course mythic and weird and all that stuff. My question is quite simply: is there any kind of trade between the Red Moon and the Middle World. My one assumption is a tribute train, but maybe that stops at Glamour. Are there exports from the Red Moon, perhaps as gifts to especially noteworthy cult members or Lunar nobility? If so, what are these?