Sir_Godspeed

Yeah, this is a good question. Previous iterations used specificities like "sword-thane" or "weapon-thane" which always sounded nice to me, and left the door open for non-martial noble retainers, but I don't know if that's unfeasible now or not.

There's also a bunch of Ralian titles, as per the Guide, (count and duke come up there too, I think), like Archon, which I'm going to guess has the same meaning in Glorantha as it did in the original greek (ie. literally "Ruler").

Good on you! 😅 Would've been a pain otherwise.

Ooh, that's super cool! Is the background handmade, or is it a prerendered texture? Stipling that by hand looks crazy time consuming.

Nice!

Child adoption across clan boundaries (probably rare, but not impossible). Making of new clans from disparate members. That's at least a couple of situations where removal of previous tattoos might be applicable - not sure IF they are though.

The mixture of measurements is doing my head in.

I'm trying to envision hulking Dark Trolls or Cave Trolls give off high-pitched squeaks/pings now. Amusing, although probably too high-pitched to even hear. If indeed it's actually literal echolocation and not something magical "similar" (per the quote) to sonar/echolocation. On another note, I watched a clip of a RW blind person using echolocation. I was skeptical, but it seemed to be the real deal. He was able to determine the difference between an empty and filled cup at about a meter's distance just by tutting in his cheek. Neat stuff.

I've seen discussions about this (others have argued it's about perceiving Darkness as an element, completely separate from any other sense we might otherwise consider analogous), is there a canon answer?

Yes, very much like xenomorphs. Except that the non-consensual mating is not subtext, but very much explicit.

Vaguely, though it goes in a different direction. Glorantha is the "cosmos", which is a Greek term for "that which is ordered" (more or less), and so you have the physical, mythical and social universe as mortal understand it and live in it as the cosmos. Chaos is the Other. It breaks order, twisting and warping things with no design or end goal. It must not be confused with mere disorder, rather it is not just the absence of order, but rather the sheer opposing force. ("Order" here is not "lawful" in DnD terms, it's more the basic structure of the universe, the basic perceptional categories of people and so on.) The best way to explain it is that it's a force, but so utterly unfettered and radical and unpredictable that it twists, perverts and breaks everything that people normally hold dear. It's almost like applying some kind of corrosive or acid. It's not just tearing down a tower of bricks so much as it is taking the bricks and melting them into goo making any rebuilding impossible except as a gross and dangerous parody of its former form (potentially literally, but in this case metaphorically). It can create, change, decay or utterly annihiliate (to the point of virtually retroactively removing something from existence), but the things it creates and changes are so at odds with the normal natural order of things that they almost always appear inimical, hostile and harmful to mortal. There's a more complex cosmic side to it, where Glorantha is this bubble of order within the Void, and chaos can arguably be seen as Void creeping into the universe. It's sort of Void where it shouldn't be, maybe. Like putting washing detergent in cereal. Washing detergent in itself is fine, but it should never be mixed with food. But then, on the other hand, there's a hidden truth that a slow trickle of Chaos is always emanating from the very bottom of the Underworld, called the Chaosium, and without it Glorantha would stagnate into static lifelessness. Like electricity from a cord driving the TV. One thing to mention is that in Glorantha physics and morality are basically two sides of the same coin (but not in a directly 1:1 mechanistic relation), so for example people like the Orlanthi view breaches of social conduct (ie. crimes, deception, and so on) as having ripple effects and endangering the physical universe too. Of course, different groups in Glorantha have different kinds of moralities, and so there's an argument over to what degree Chaos is objective or subjective. We'll probably get no answer there. Lunars (and some others) believe that Chaos is not really an "other" of Cosmos/Glorantha, but is an integral part of it too (see the Chaosium above), so they believe in integrating Chaos into their theology, magic and empire, seeing it as something that can - with lots of precaution - be controlled. Groups like the (traditional) Orlanthi, Praxians, etc. reject this notion completely. We even have some examples of Chaotic beings achieving spiritual enlightenment (called Illumination in Glorantha) and becoming benevolent. (Also, it's not like you have to be Chaotic to be a right bastard in Glorantha.) The similarities with Warhammer is basically that it is this strange force that "leaks" in from some other dimension as it were, and warps and changes things contrary to natural conditions, creating monsters and attracting ambitious or desperate folks, and generally causing havoc. There are also different gods associated with it. The main difference is that Chaos is not fueled by mortal emotions as it is in Warhammer, being more a fundamental part of the deep workings of the universe. Also Glorantha Chaos is decidedly less 80s Heavy Metal magazine covers and hairmetal than Warhammer Chaos, though there's hints of it here and there. (I've probably misspoken, contradicted myself, confused you, missed something, or otherwise made a mess of this. My apologies. Chaos is both easy to define - it's the Big Bad - and hard - see above. This is perhaps as it should be.)

I couldn't tell. Though I haven't read the Rough Guide either, so I don't know exactly how "silly" the silliness is, and how "serious" (or "dry" depending on your perspective, I suppose) the seriousness is, so I have no real insight into this.

My impression as a newcomer to Glorantha is that this is a throwback of sorts to back when ALL of Glorantha had the tongue at least somewhat stuck in the cheek. There's still some of it left (ducks, "casino town", troll paraphernalia like parasols and sunglasses and shirts with logos on them, punny names for various characters - I mean, Prax is a literal Doctor Seuss reference, and Koromandol is a reference to a folk hippie music album or something, Nochet and Dunstop etc. are just wordplays), but art direction and nomenclature has taken a different direction. Anyway, I could be wrong, it is what it is.

Ordeeds were a kind of (quite large) antelope-like ungulate, yes. They are now extinct, I believe, but you can find visual references of them in Six Ages. Vederi is unknown, I believe. But he might as well be a pseudonym for Ragnaglar, who is also associated with goats. Nothing else is known, I believe.

Is his torso a bit short?

The Artmali descended from their namesake's mother, having previously lived on her surface (ie. the surface of the Blue Moon). There's a trend, as far as I can see, for languages in Glorantha to derive from some kind of primordial elemental language, so Theyalan seems to be descended from "Storm Speech", allegedly the divine language of the Storm gods (this is very simplified, no need to mention mixing with Earth tongue, loanwords, etc.) Anyway, the point of all of this is that while the Artmali spoke the Artmali language, it might be worth asking what kind of language it was. Perhaps there is a "Lunar" divine root language like those of Storm or Darkness or Fire. Maybe the Red Moon and Blue Moon have different ones, either unrelated or branching. Maybe not at all. Either way, davecake pretty much covered it. I guess you could call it "Ancient Artmali" or something, to separate it from modern Artmali.

Western being logographic would be good, but given that Theyelan runes are already basically logograms, and that the East Isles section on Revealed Mythologies specifically detail the invention of logograms (or at least a myth of it), I'm wondering if there isn't a preponderance of logographic systems already. Anyway, perhaps this is better discussed (or spitballed, really) in a dedicated thread.

Exactly. Maybe have this scenario of Genert "lifting" the Wastes/Prax up like some kind of Cthonic Atlas. Or maybe have him carve a deep fissure in the earth for the water to seep into (bonus points for a newly added mythical landmark after the flood recedes. Maybe an underworld fissure, or a deep canyon, or an inland sea or something). I dunno, go wild.

Diacritics. Interesting. So Western might be a kind of abjad (Base consonant + vowel symbol above or below). That's obviously guesswork, but still. Interesting.

It's interesting seeing the cover for Apple Lane. I'm used to the picturesque covers it usually gets (either original or republications) but this one is balls to the walls.

I'm not claiming that all languages that are close to each other inevitably become more similar, but comparisons to real life are of limited use when something like the Closing and the Dragonkill haven't really occured. (I mean, maybe, sorta, desertification or depopulation leading to isolation, but usually in less extreme and durable terms than the above, afaik). So in Kethaela we have these factors that in my opinion speak to Heortling and Esrolian being similar languages (which, I feel is necessary to point out before this discussion pivots too far elsewhere, was my original point. ) - Esrolia and Heortling coming from a common language family, Theyalan, and arguably the common sub-family, "South Theyalan", thus having a basic affinity to begin with. - The Dragonkill would have sent large numbers of speakers of a similar language ("Imperial Kerofinelan"? "Middle Heortling"? "Late Theyalan?" Whatever the name, doesn't really matter) into both Esrolia and Heortland. - The Closing would have closed most of the avenues for mass-volume transport, and the results were severe de-urbanization in Esrolia, at least, implying that such trade was indeed vital and of a much larger volume/value than whatever the Trader Princes of Maniria could sustain with caravans. - The Geographical isolation from interior Genertela by the Crossline making trade or migration overland impossible. - Prax is a big IF, but overall it's my impression that due to the major cultural differences (religion, marriage rites, subsistence styles, etc.) large-scale cultural crossover is not the norm, although there are obvious examples of it happening at various points (Pol Joni, etc.) - The Mirrorsea remaining open and representing one of the few avenues for low-cost transport and also a major source of food for everyone living around it, thus making traversal desireable to some extent, though naturally bulk foodstuffs will generally be consumed in the vicinity of the entrepot, as opposed to being transported long-distance. Basically, based on these factors, it's my personal opinion/impression that even if Esrolian and Heortling/Heortlander had diverged during the Second Age, it seems highly plausible that they would come closer during the first parts of the Third Age due to common cultural and geographical isolation. Another possible scenario is of a kind of Sumer-Akkadian widespread bilingualism, albeit between two languages of the same family rather than between to unrelated languages, muddling the situation a bit. A third possibility is that the above factors were so devastating that no regional exchange of material and immaterial culture was possible or desireable, making them retreat in local regions, almost like a mini-Darkness, but Jeff doesn't seem to think so, and it does sound a bit too extreme for me too. I realize "homogenization" might have been a too absolute term, as I was more trying to convey a trend of increased mutualism rather than a complete shift to just being the same language (which I agree is unlikely and unecessary), but I'll just have to live with my mistakes, I suppose. If that's non-canon, then fair enough. I know that Runequest rules probably have Sartarite (a subtype of Heortling/Heortlander I presume, possibly with other influences) and Esrolian at some percentage of mutual intelligibility. I'm also guessing it's reasonably high.

Our discussion was mainly focused on lingusitic affinity. Did Belintar keep their languages apart? That would seem excessive to me (both in-universe and from a writing perspective).

Brilliant!

Links?

Today I discovered the French illustrator Philippe Druillet, and I immediately thought of Glorantha. Some of this stuff looks Lunar, the other stuff might be God Time or even Chaos, but pretty evocative stuff regardless.