Sir_Godspeed

But see, that's my whole point, Heortlings would never even think of their wyters in terms of slavery or bondage like you kinda quickly did with sorcerously bound entities. I understand that this might not make a whole lot of difference from a gameplay mechanical perspective, but in terms of social and cultural significance and meaning they're pretty significantly different. It's also different from a story hook perspective too - I mean, I doubt that if somehow the magical ties that keep Hauberk Jon around were to break he would do any harm to Jonstown residents. But some kind of spirit kept in place with sorceous rites? I see the potential for something going berserk for revenge being a lot more in the cards there. I'm just saying, I think the nuances matter. Tomato and cherries are both fruit, but a cherry pizza would be a very different thing, you know?

Well, if it's contractual/mutualist, then both methods are virtually equivalent, however I was more talking about sheer compulsion, if such a thing is possible (and judging by some Malkioni history it appears to be, cf. Ladaral under Sog City, possibly Britha, the goddess switch, etc.)

But sorcerers are wont to compel/bind beings, aren't they? Are bound spirits/beings equivalent to worshipped/venerated wyters/community spirits?

I'm completely in the dark here, but couldn't the whole bloodsucking thing work to make that work?

Welcome! And thanks for the great art. ^^

That's also some great basing there, kudos.

There's a decent amount of stuff on first age Seshnela, yeah. A very dynamic setting, too.

Does anyone know what they'd be? I guess PCs aren't overly likely to run afoul of them, but for such an iconic entity it would be neat to see them roughly outlined. I assume Darkness since they're from a Hell (ie. Underworld), but should one infer anything else?

Do the Tax Demons have stats/Runes?

It just feels a bit underwhelming that there's an entire class of elementals only available to the worshippers of an extremely niche deity, afaik.

Would any of the Sea deities/peoples have access to them? Y'know, tides and all.

Ooh, this is new to me. What are they?

Glorantha already has some cyberspace-esque stuff, like Avanapdur's empire or the EWF, though in this case "virtual space" crossed over with the middle world and altered it for a while. EDIT: Also, heroquests are a bit like running levels in a virtual reality. Which makes sense, since, you know, they're running levels/dungeons in a rp game just sorta codified into the setting itself.

Precioussss...

Welp, today I learned something new and disturbing.

For a fictionalized and semi-stylized version of a bit of a mishmash of African architectural styles, the recent remake of Age of Empires 2 released an expansion/DLC with African civilization (Ethiopians, Berbers and Malians, hence the mishmash), but it looks undeniably good:

The struts along the walls are to the best of my knowledge primarily for climbing the outer walls. This is necessary because the walls need to be periodically re-covered with wet adobe. There's probably also a decorative element to them as well, as they pop up in buildings that are too low to require climbing struts.

Ancient/Medieval Ghanaian, Songhai and Malian architecture. Lots of adobe. Complex, large earthworks stretching for miles and miles. Admittedly, Fonrit might be a bit more wet than the Sahel, but I believe these are solid inspirations. Someone else mentioned ancient Egypt as well, possibly by way of ancient Sudanese/Nubian architecture (smooth pyramids, obelisks, etc.) Note that a lot of these are of medieval origin, rather than ancient, but Glorantha kinda works by levelling civilizations that would perhaps otherwise have been at different stages at different points in time (Praxians are inspired by post-contact Great Plains Indians, for example, making them inspired by literally modern peoples).

Well, so are their pantheons, to be fair.

Well... that might be a bit boring, I guess, maybe like a dull red glow from the sheer heat going through matter, or something. Whatever people think makes sense.

I guess I always interpreted that as raw heat.

I was about to mention last night how, while connecting spiritual and temporal power has historically been the norm rather than the exception, "true" theocracies have been fairly rare, imho. That is to say, it seems like the temporal duties tend to fairly often be significantly more time-consuming than the religious ones. It's really more a history of "priestly kings" rather than "kingly priests", as it were. But I could be wrong.

I meant "metropolitan" in the sense of "connecting Egypt to the wider world". Elz Ast is, from what I can tell, not much more than an oversized fishery entrepot and dockyard. Unless they're trading with the Glacier Trolls. I guess it serves as a medium to connect Oslir to the other river valleys without having to go overland, which is is useful.

These are all very good points. I was not aware that Dara Happa had a double crown, for example. That's a pretty significant giveaway, especially since there isn't really anything "double" about Dara Happa (I can't remember it from the Glorious Reascent, but it's probably mentioned elsewhere, I should get to reading Fortunate Succession). I suppose I viewed Dara Happa through a too strongly Mesopotamian lens, so that I missed the parallels to Egypt, though to be fair some of these work for both civilizations. I've always imagined Egypt as too "unitary" to be properly Dara Happan though, and more like the often quarreling Mesopotamian city-states that get unified and split up continously, but the unity of Egypt is obviously exaggerated as well, and isn't the be all end all of its history. I guess I missed just how "tame" the Oslir was. Though its mouth ends up in a decidedly less cosmopolitan place than Egypt's. Lots of stuff to consider here. Maybe I just miss guys with kohl around their eyes and wigs on their heads riding around in slender chariots and firing bows while dragging up the kopesh. But then chariots are archaic by the time of the Dawn Age already in Glorantha, so it's not like any other civilization is using them en masse either. And the Esrolians have kohl so there is some for Egyptianesque aesthetics if you know where to plug them in.

A great example of non-humans getting to put their name on something human for once. Nice.