Sir_Godspeed

There's also the one in King of Dragon Pass where you can sue the ghost (revenant? It looks like it has a body) itself on behalf of its bereaved family.

Ancestor worship is so common in the RW that any one of a myriad of forms is possible. Greeks, Romans, and just about any ancient people conceptualized veneration of ancestors as important to the current wellbeing of the recognized family. From what I read between the lines, I'm wondering if perhaps (Southern?) Chinese ancestor worship isn't perhaps the most apt comparison? In this model, any family which are recognized as descending from a notable figure (or potentially a collective generic-ancestor) will invest into shrines or even temples dedicated to said ancestor, and visit and conduct ceremonies there. A member of the family will be appointed to maintain the shrine/temple and conduct said ceremonies, being for all intents a priest even if the term isn't used. The role might be applied to less or more prestigious lineages or a certain numbered child of a family (second sons or something?) or it might be something that is in rotations every few years and is either given to a younger person before they take on more active responsibilities, or provided to an ageing relative as a way to provide for them. Potentially, a Dronar could be hired or something, if the role is seen as more a caretaker role. (Junior Zzaburites could of course also be involved, but I feel like they're a bit overexposed in the literature already, so trying out other approaches). Due to the importance of "proving" ancestry, lineage lists might be important, and maybe reciting ancestry might be a part of ceremonies, effectively actualizing the bonds to make the magic benefits (and social cohesion) possible. Tombs, sarcophagi, death masks, death murals, alleged likenesses as statuettes etc. might all be important and copies made to sit in alcoves in the various domiciles outside of the shrine/temple itself, unless of course the shrines are smaller affairs to begin with and just another room in the house. Just speculating, of course.

I like that narrative/mythic explanation. If a spirit has been through the Court of the Dead and returned to the world, then clearly everything is in order (guardians spirits, ancestral ghosts, etc.). But if something that is dead circumvents or avoids the just judgment of the dead, to cling on to the world of the living regardless... that's unnatural and inimical to the living. You know, as a rule of thumb.

I just saw this yesterday! I remember seeing ads and previews for the comic back in the day, it was very intriguing. Sad to see it never got finished.

It could be an interesting quirk to have insulting someone's foul-smelling breath be a big deal. Breath is the gift of Orlanth. Denigrating that is a big no-no unless you're all close family member or long-time friends. I suppose insulting someone's perceived fertility could also be really serious. Telling a man or woman that they're not able to perform their matrimonal duties or carry on their lineage would probably be grounds for a beating. Family lines are serious things, even if the Orlanthi are otherwise pretty open about adopting a child, or marrying someone with children from a previous marriage and such. The main caveat here is that this can get a bit too real around a table: it's a RW issue that can be upsetting for players themselves. So sticking to oathbreaking, thievery, cowardice, etc. is probably safer.

Something something goats.

Eh, I didn't worry too much about that. This isn't the thread for my own takes on things, but I thought it would be cool if "mundane" expertise had sorcerous secrets baked into it. So a Master Mason, for example, would through his masonry tutelage learn not only to calculate load bearing and such, but also specific sorcery that deals with ensuring structures' stability and what have you. Perhaps these were ultimately Kachasti, Tadeniti or Kadeniti secrets or whatever, but their origin is effectively irrelevant. From the Master Mason's perspective, the geometry and the sorcery were not separate things, but all just part of the secrets entrusted upon him by previous masters. He would probably not even recognize it as "sorcery", just more "Master Mason secrets". Ditto for other specialist Dronar guilds. I was inspired by the mention of the Brithini Dronars mentioned in the Guide, who seem to work with more than non-magical techniques. Now, obviously, this is not the path Jeff is going down, and this is not how things are going to be, so no worries and no protests from me. But YGWV and all that. I assume in the light of new info, those Dronars are indeed either just friggin good at carpentry or whatever, or they have access to Rune magic through whatever ancestry or divine interaction Brithini are allowed.

I like that perspective and it matches my personal idea that Malkioni Guilds and organizations had their own specialized sorcerous secrets . This wouldn't be sorcery, of course, but it gives off the same vibe. I like "civilians" also getting some cool stuff, lol.

Can Rokari Talars use swords now? On another note, I like your outline above, @metcalph, I wonder how a similar character example for a Horali would look.

Yeah, speaking personally as a newer fan of Glorantha, it feels a bit unnecessarily specific to bring up the Praxian term for institutionalized ancestor worship (ie. Daka Fal) when discussing ancestor worship in general, but I recognize that this is an artifact of how RuneQuest publications have taken form.

So do the 3rd Age Malkioni believe that the ancestors they worship exist in Solace?

Well, it wouldn't be shamanism nor Daka Fal, presumably? Or maybe shamanistic, but with Western cultural trappings, certainly.

If I remember correctly, in Revealed Mythologies he claims to be an Erasanchula (not Srvuali as I claimed above), so some sort of primal Runic being on par with some of the greatest gods, basically.

I was of the impression that Malkion the Founder and (El)Malkion the Sacrifice (4th and 5th action, or something like the Storm Age and Greater Darkness) were basically Malkion acting as Grandfather Mortal, or the Man Rune. It certainly has always seemed sensible to me that some incarnation of Malkion is analogous to Grandfather Mortal in some sense or another.

Zzabur rejecting the Compromise and thus choosing to stay within Time and maintaining his personal, individual agency seems congruent with the character. To paraphrase Lex Luthor: "A god? Hah, do you KNOW how much power I'd have to give UP to become a god?!" Hence the existential angst continues, inevitably.

It's interesting that Zzabur is referred to as a mortal when he is literally an immortal. (I know it refers to him being flesh and blood and presumably killable, but it's funny nonetheless.) Nothing super-new there, but it does raise some interesting questions about to what degree concepts like srvuali and burtae hold up. Zzabur claims to be a srvuali (pure runic emenation being on par with the purely elemental gods) doesn't he? Can those be mortal? What distinguishes mortals from gods in the earliest of the God Times? (Something does, clearly, because we have consistent references to mortals as opposed to gods even then... well, sometimes. Sometimes not). Relative level of power. Participation in the Compromise. Being a subgradient creation, etc. The early "Malkioni heresy" has also always been fascinating stuff. The relationship between Brithini and mortal (err, I mean... time-mortal, I guess) Malkioni has some similarities to the Jewish-Christian relationship, albeit with a far stronger position for the former than in the RW. Britha being his supposed mom... And him potentially denying that in favor of a more intellectual Runic emenationist genealogy... I wonder if that sheds light on how the Brithini might treat Britha the goddess.

Single-sentence, throwaway references are important, they lace settings with apparent contradictions or loose ends that get people's imaginations running, or at least makes it feel like a real, lived-in world. Like with Tolkien mentioning Were-worms or Varyags of Khand, or the Blue Wizards or most famously Tom Bombadil (although he's quite a bit more than a few sentences). I don't know what the technical term is, but I tend to think of it as "horizon-making". Giving people the impression that there is always something more than they can see (ie. know/understand). All that aside, I find the explanation above cool and interesting and exactly the kind of thing experimental sorcerers would get up to. The basic, fundamental, (ostensible) irreducible runes of Glorantha as "atoms" makes perfect sense, no need to involve RW particle physics. It's basically David Hume having a go at deconstructing Platonic ideals down to the most primitive forms. Maybe something like Aristotelian qualities (form, mass, expanse, etc.) but with the Gloranthan twist. Applied abstract philosophy! Maddening and VERY dangerous.

"Non-Fungible" in Glorantha just means "something that can't be mistaken for a fungus". It's an important concept for Uz.

You definitely know more about this than me, but the Paps is not in Sartar though?

I realize, but there was an ongoing look for primary surces there too.

There was quite a lot of discussion around Kaxtor for the Maniria project by another user here, apologies for not remembering who it was.

I believe most of the Uralda/Eiritha aspects fall under direct Ernalda worship in Sartar, though I could be wrong. It's worth considering that Prax is the outlier here, being pastoral nomads with a nuked-out land god(dess), so their cattle-goddess is kinda all they have, effectively. At least that's how I understand it.

Keep in mind that Alynxes are culturally analogous to dogs in many respects, so the SIZ variety doesn't necessarily reflect just wild Alynxes, but all the domesticated breeds there presumably are.

Could Delecti have one? Lunar Herqouesters possessing one? Maybe even the Red Emperor. Something surviving in Teshnos? Some ruin of the Six-Legged Empire? Something dug up by the third age colonists of the Jrusteli Isles?

I honestly would not put it past the GodLearners or Lunars to set up some kind of magically powered Otherworld blockchain with sorcerers or heroquesters acting as miners or something. The crypto to the EWF's MLM.