Sir_Godspeed

I would of course never suggest that one search for alternative means of watching this material if you're from outside the US. I would *never* suggest that. I would merely state that it is... possible. Looking forward to seeing this episode. The others so far have been - in my personal opinion - delightful. Also always nice to get visual references for Pelorian stuff outside the major metropolises.

and 3) the tenacity and patience to get the details right so that the forumites do not behead you at first chance.

This being said, I do agree with @None that the impression I got from most of the introductory material on Trickster, or at least Eurmal, is that they tend towards violent and unpredictable behavior that one might consider psychopathic or sociopathic. It's a darker form of antisocial behaviour than I personally associated with the term before I started getting into Glorantha. Less "early-Heimskringla Loki" and more "late-Heimskringla Loki", less making people embarassed and engaging in wordplay fights and more murdering someone because they looked at them wrong. I want to stress that both varieties obviously exist (and everything inbetween), but the texts that I came across definitely tended to play up the "this person cannot exist normally in society and so must be bound or be driven off or killed"-perspective.

Wasn't there a theory here a while ago that the modern Yelm (or at least modern Yelm worship) wasn't even finished until Yelmgatha got together with Sedenya and worked it out or something? I forget.

I think the dislike of the dragon also has to be seen in a contextual light: the barbarians in the south were all goo-goo about dragons at the time, which obviously makes dragons A Bad Thing, because everyone knows southern barbarians are inferior and dumb and also smelly. Call it the "Scaley Scare" if you will. No way were they going to have some damn scalo in the presidency on the imperial throne.

I agree that the Stafford Library is not a good way to attract new enthusiasts (even if, arguably, I personally jumped from the Prince of Sartar comic right on over to the King of Sartar book, which I gather is... unconventional), but I have seen snippets of more conventional prose set in the Glorantha universe. The fictional account of Lokamaydon in the History of Heortling Peoples sticks out because it's actually written like a short story, as opposed to a historical account. If there is more of that kind of stuff hidden away in the vaults, whether it's Harmast or whoever, I'd love to see it. Don't get me wrong, I love the prose that's written as though it was recounting ancient sagas, but people tend to prefer their third-person past tense non-omniscient, non-present narration voice told in a linear fashion, and that's understandable. Bonus points if it's a "coming of age" story, where the main character can act as a surrogate for the audience, with both learning about Glorantha's quirks together (as many good fantasy novels work - eg. Frodo or Bilbo in Tolkien's works, or Conan in the eponymous stories, and so on.). Some Heortling free youth going off to be a warrior or getting sidetracked during a journey or any one of a dozen other fun story hooks that the very people playing the RQ and HQ games have used would do fine. Also bonus-bonus points if it's a story that does not have the earth-shattering impact of Argrath.

Kerofinela might be a mangled California, but I believe it's Kethaela that is based on lowland California. Mirrorsea is San Francisco Bay, I believe, rotated 90 degrees. And isn't Prax based on the terrain along the Californian-Baja Californian border? Also - yeah, Kralorela also closely mirrors California.

Presumably the climate, not the people. Which makes sense, since I gather than Kethaela is partially inspired by Californian sub-regions.

I believe Qizilbash has said that she lives pretty rurally before, but I could be wrong. Well, they're both very related. Rural norms color how cities are run, and finding out how property (or at the very least usage) rights are considered helps us consider how they would work out in a city. That's not to say we haven't veered off a bit though. There are some stories (possibly apocryphal) about people bankrupting themselves by trying to keep up gift-exchange relations with other rulers to avoid being forced into a tributary status. Sometimes submitting as a vassal/subject is easier (or at least cheaper). For more info on gift-based economies, there are a couple of very old (but still pretty interesting) classics: Mauss' The Gift (which is basically THE book on reciprocity), and the Argonauts of the Pacific by Bronislav Malinowski. They're both around 100 years old at this point, so expect some cultural norms to have shifted a bit on the writing (Malinowski infamously ignores women's roles almost entirey - though there is a follow up book on the same group that focuses more on them called The Trobrianders of Papua New Guinea by Anette B. Weiner). Neither of them focuses on the kind of pastoral, corporate groups that the Orlanthi have, but what they both do is that they show through both generalizations and concrete examples how sustained gift relations create both personal and communal relations that last generations. In the absence of a formalized state with written laws, police, courts, central bank, a welfare system, etc etc. this sort of "networking" (and in fairness, affection as well) is vital. There are probably equally good books written on the subject from Native American viewpoints, but unfortunately my knowledge there is very limited, barring some literature on the Potlatch practice, which is also a form of prestige-gifting, however it's within a very specific ritual context. It's interesting to consider how these sustained (and delayed) reciprocal relations fare when intersecting with urban Issaries markets though. It's too simplistic to assume that they would simply evaporate. Issaries, and therefore market trading, is an integral part of Orlanthi culture, and so would likely both share and no share some core values with intra-clan collective gifting. I expect the Orlanthi-specific books from Chaosium has material here that I haven't read yet, but that RQ players have. Obviously there is some reciprocity, but usually in markets this is instant (ie. paying for an item as you buy it, as opposed to implicitly being expected to give something back of roughly equal value at a later date like one would do with a gift). It's certainly possible that Orlanthi view intraclan gift relations and Issaries market relations as simply two different social spheres that do not, and cannot, intersect, but that seems a bit too easy of an answer, and is likely to create a good deal of friction between the two. Maybe I'm overthinking this. Maybe in urban environments, individuals are limited to mostly buying personal items at the market, whereas clan/tribe/guild representatives negotiate larger purchases on behalf of the group, so as to maintain some semblance of corporate collectivity even in an urban environment. I'm thinking out loud here. Most of all I'd prefer to avoid the easy way out of just saying "all social relations evaporate into atomistic individuality in cities lol" (Marx paraphrased).

Yup, hence me specifically using the term "moose" (Alces alces). The "also" in my paragraph was just to mean something like "in addition to how people do it in hunter-gatherer groups, we also practice similar methods in modern societies sometimes", not to imply that elks (ie. North American wapiti, although I didn't know it could also apply to red deer, apparently) and moose are the same animal, which we've been over a few times here before. Not that it really matters for the purposes of this discussion - any large prey is likely to be subject to prestige-sharing. Over here, each county has a "Game Board" which surveys game numbers and gives out licenses (or quotas, really) to each of the Hunting Teams, so each Hunting Team has to be registered with the government. This really only applies to protected game, there are some animals on which there are no limiting statutes beyond season, iirc. Anyway, it's a collective quota, hence the point on sharing between landowners/team members. It's also implicit in the way moose are hunted, with a team of "drivers" who hoot and holler to scare the moose towards a line of shooters. The only way moose can reliably be hunted alone is to set up towers or go out with dogs, but that can take a lot of time, and the moose hunting season is short. Plus, it's nice to get together for a coffee, a hotdog, and a chat with old friends between hunts. Odaylans do not strike me as equally gregarious, and I suspect cattle driving is a better parallel for this kind of "just out with the guys" practice.

This method of redistribution is *very* common among hunter-gatherer groups, as well as groups that practice hunting mostly as a side-gig to horticulture, etc. There can be a number of rationales for it, such as hunting grounds being collective property, or big game being collective property, or it might be something so simple as the meat needing to be eaten before it goes off, and a single family will struggle to do that alone (and might also struggle to preserve the rest). It's also an opportunity to gain personal prestige, placate people who've given you meat before, etc. Ultimately it's about reciprocity, the basis for most non-market social relations. It's also, incidentally, how we do moose-hunting where I'm from, due to the moose hunt being organized along the lones of multiple property owning families coming together as a team every fall. The animals killed during this period, regardless of who shot them or on whose property they were shot, need to be divided among the families.

Is literally all livestock the property of the clan, or just cattle? I can't imagine that every flock of sheep and fowl would be collectively owned. That seems very difficult to micro-manage for a Ring.

It's so cool to see all these publications made available. Cheers to their creators, and kudos to Chaosium for opening up revenue-sharing in this way. I know it's based on existing models, but always glad to see that model expanded as it's a very fan-friendly one.

Kralorela used to be a part of the larger Vithelan continent/cultural region, and a part of the Kingdom of Enlightenment (possibly a synonym for Vithela), but when the Seas invaded the surface, this realm was geographically split, and the cultures diverged. Most of former Vithela/the East has a mix of a Solar theistic ruling class and various forms of mysticism along with other forms of theism and presumably some shamanism. In the case of Kralorela, their ruling Solar classes eventually converted to a Draconic mysticism sometime during the Storm Age or Darkness (it's hard to tell when, because the East did not have a Darkness in the same sense that we are used to talking about it in Orlanthi terms). It's my impression that this conversion to Draconic thought was some form of "survival secret", or strategy. The Draconic mysticism has limited influence on practical day-to-day life of Kralorelans. While Draconic mysticism generally teaches one to avoid entanglement in material desires and ambition, so as to more easily attain the Void (for the purposes of this conversation, similar to the Buddhist or Hindu concepts of Nirvana/Nibbana - ie. a "blissful" non-existence detached from need and want and dissatisfaction), most Kralorelans are much like other humans. They farm the earth, they drink, they squabble, they take delight in their loved ones and they have ambitions and dreams. The ruling classes, the Mandarins and Exarchs draw on Solar traditions, with a very legalistic and hierarchical worldview, where everything is to be classified, ordered and legible. Every man his place. Every place his man. Easier said than done. They're also prone to the same flaws as Solar hierarchies often are. The Emperor and some others in the Empire - and in a more broad sense, through various cultural iconography, ideas and ideals - partake in the Draconic mystic pursuits of detachment. However they still, by their very nature as Emperors, must guide, control and protect their people. The reason or basis for this arrangement and solution to this apparent dilemma is not known to me, nor do I really think it's necessarily required to answer. Mysticism requires mystery. Most likely I imagine a kind of Bodhisattva deal going on: where people who've attained the Void (or equivalent mystic concepts mirroring RW Liberation/Enlightenment) stay behind to help guide others. This is a theme that does repeat elsewhere in the East too. As far as I understand, the Dragon Emperor of Kralorela has mystically ascended to dragonhood. They're a dragon in human form. The Dragonnewts of Kralorela acknowledge them as their leader, and is basically their equivalent of the Inhuman King of Dragon Pass - unless I'm mistaken. Why this is specifically, I don't know, but one assumes the Dragonnewts have their reasons. Perhaps if for nothing else than that by maintaining the Empire, he is keeping their nest-cities safe. The Dragons of Kralorela also seem to answer to the Dragon Emperor to some degree, though I suspect this is less about commanding and more about having mutual understanding. Real Dragons are immense, mind-bogglingly powerful entities that defy human classification. They can be elemental, as in taking the forms of mountain ranges or rivers or even stellar constellations, they can lie still for millennia, they can alter reality and the landscape almost to their whim, they can take interest in nobodies just because. Every Real Dragon is basically unique in some way. Usually they don't do much, though, preferring disentanglement and mystic contemplation. During their sleep they emanate Dream Dragons, which are what we usually think of as dragons, big scaley reptiles with wings that breathe fire and are greedy and monstrous. But these are a pale imitation of the real thing. To the best of my knowledge, Kralori dragons and dragonnewts are basically the same as their Kerofinelan counterparts. There are also popular "folk" Draconic traditions, like the Immanent Masters and others, that work with some kind of accelerated ascendance to dragonhood for their followers. It's a dangerous, and arguably ultimately corruptive path (at the very least from a draconic view), where people end up with a lot of power, but not necessarily the wisdom to maintain disentanglement. This short-cut mentality also took hold in the Empire of Wyrm's Friends. Where the early EWF sages were probably similar to orthodox Kralori dragon sages, they eventually fell to temptation and external pressure, and started using more and more of their powers to preserve material needs, and some eventually developed short-cut practices. The Kralori sages (including Godunya, who apparently visited Dragon Pass during this time), to the point they know much about the EWF, consider it to have fallen to this practice and therefore doomed itself. This is something that can be written dozens of pages about, with lots of names and dates, but I'm not sure if that'll help us much. Point is: EWF tried to go big and imploded. Kralorela has found a kind of balance to things (for the most part). This probably doesn't explain much about the rune itself, but hopefully there's something useful in here. Yup, see above.

For a fairly comprehensive (although still not very rules-focused) description, there's always Esrolia: Land of 10,000 Godesses. It has several sections of the architecture, history and urban layout of Nochet (including some great maps), with the different districts, temples, ethnic breakdown and so on. It doesn't go into specific detail about the management and administration, but you get a certain feel for it. It's undoubtedly outdated, but probably not to the point where it's a useless source.

Ah, the ooooooole' Gandhi.

I might've asked this question before, but were they really bans on slavery, or just state manumissions? Also I'm surprised no one has mentioned Christianity for an arguably revolutionary ethos that got entangled into existing power structures that arguably subverted it against its ideals.

Eh. The Egyptian pharaoh had a shortened shepherd's crook and a grain thresher as his main symbols of office. Didn't exactly make him very pro-democracy. Also, the Lunar nobility is based on blood-descent from the Goddess (or at least Takenegi and subsequent Masks), so again, I'm dubious on their symbolism or structure hinting at any particular idealized form of government.

To add to the wiktionary quote above - my impression was that "grognard" (grumbler, mutterer) was a term reserved for the Old Guard element of Napoleon's Imperial Guard (meaning that they were effectively veterans left over from older recruitment entries), who were known to complain and speak frankly around the Emperor. Napoleon was known to eat his food with his soldiers (being no doubt a calculated move - and possibly exaggerated in posterity, but appreciated nonetheless), and so his old-timers felt comfortable being honest with him. This shocked newbies and other visiting officials, but it's a very evocative image. Not that I consider Napoleon an ideal of rulership, but it would be nice if something like this became a norm. There are a few "emperors" out there who could need someone who spoke freely to them, but with a certain degree of mutual respect and trust. So whenever I see someone here tell Chaosium's staff that their new lore/material "is wrong gosh darn it and I don't like it one bit!" (very much my paraphrase here) I can't help but to summon the mental image of some loutish Breton or Alpinard telling the Emperor of France that his choice of marching route was a bloody nightmare. /aside

What Jeff posted above is directly from the book's script, as far as I gather. No link needed. The book will be out when it's out, no date is yet known.

This sounds very much in line with Max Weber's tripartite division of authority (or more specifically, authority legitimization). "Traditional" authority is based on family ties or ritualistic forms, "Charismatic" authority based on personal approval and abilities, and "Legal" authority is based on written (or arguably oral) law codes that are accessible to a significant amount of the population. Weber did not really intend to say that these categories exist undiluted in the real world per se, but rather they were what he called "ideal types", refined, crystallized mental models to make categorization and further analysis easier. As you rightfully note, the Orlanthi skip rope with all of these - and realistically, so have most societies across the world, although the "Legal" (or "state") category is arguably a more recent addition, or if nothing else, has been fairly marginal until recently in the RW. Of course, you can question the basis for the categories to begin with. Esrolia is an interesting case, because we sort of talk about it like it's this enduring polity, but Esrolia:10kGodesses makes it clear that it's more like a web of different city-states (with Nochet, and briefly other cities at times, as hegemon) and interlocked dynastic landowner dynamics. Arguably, then, "Esrolia" is in other words a country in the same way "Peloponnesos" was in Ancient Greece (although the Esrolians have been a lot better at maintaining some semblance of coherency it must be admitted). That's not to say that I disagree with the general observation that Heortling polities tend to be shorter-lived than the Dara Happan (or Esrolian) political-cultural-religious complex, it's just that in the case of the latter, what we arguably see is also a lot of "legacy"-usage. Dara Happa keeps reviving its empire with old forms and old titles, Nochet keeps getting rebuilt, but that doesn't necessarily imply political continuity, even if there is a demographic one (the degree to which there's been a religious/traditional continuity is the source of much discussion here). Compare and contrast China for example, which has some of the same thing going on through history - in the sense that we talk about "China" in the singular, even though there is both change and continuity going on (although in this case this is an externally imposed continuity, while the internal notion of continuity was expressed through different terms and ideas, eg. Mandate of Heaven, Bureaucratic Confucianism, Zhongguo, etc.). Or, hell, Ancient Sumer or Mesopotamia, which was by all acounts a highly dynamic region (politically, ethnically, etc.), but which we often gloss over as fairly static in casual speech. Anyway, this turned into something it wasn't intended to be (and I hope it didn't sound condescending or anything, I think we pretty much agree), so let me just end it by saying that I am not trying to be contrarian over calling the Orlanthi "barbarian". It's a catchy term, and we sort of all get the associations that come with it, even if the Orlanthi also have ranks and ranks of bronze-shined hoplites and heavy cavalry and massive walled citadels. They're a... rowdier bunch. More inclined to solve problems at a lower societal level, more inclined to involve the local community members in said problem solving, and value individual and small-scale group autonomy more. That's not to say a Lodrili village Headman probably can't work independently of Dara Happan overlords in some matters, but it's a difference in practice and in the cultural ideals, imho. Basically, "barbarian" is kitschy, but fun.

The different worlds models are a bit hazy, and have varied throughout Glorantha's different publications, iirc.

I just recalled a Sun deity that goes against type: Yamsur. He's portrayed as a pretty happy-go-lucky wastrel-esque guy in the Hyaloring myths in Six Ages. Whether his people (the Genertings? Tadaings? proto-Oasis Folk) saw him like that is a different matter entirely, of course, but the characterization is there. I'll consider it. Not sure what's "up with it", did you mean in any special sense, the origin, design, implication, function or something else? It's a diamond shape (a square askew) crossed out. It could imply something to do with the Void, in the sense that dragons and dragonnewts seek disentanglement and mystical ascension beyond the confinement of the material world/ordered cosmos (the diamond), but that's just my interpretation. I also think the Beast Rune (as well as, more obviously, the Dragonnewt Rune) is derived from it, due to the large presence of serpent/dragon-imagery in Beast-mythology and symbolism, but this is a bit more esoteric. Apparently it's a Condition Rune and not a Form Rune, which I find a bit weird, but oh well. The Guide says that Godunya "owns" the Dragon Rune, but as usual, I find the concept of Rune ownership more obfuscating and misleading than it is useful, so honestly that can mean anything. I'll take it to mean that the God Learners found the Kralori Emperor to be the most powerful/widely acknowledged authority using the Rune they came into contact with (and for a while usurped), but that's just my take on it.

Heortling society probably has more social mobility (although not as much as the "Noble Savage"-stereotype might imply) than Esrolians or Dara Happans, but it's really hard to define "civilizational level" in terms of specialists and generalists. Is a Heortling barley-cattle farmer a generalist and a Lodrili rice farmer a specialist for example? Hell, arguably Orlanthi society has more specialists than Dara Happa due to them having a more widespread personal-initiation cult system than Solar Pelorians, it's jut that, again, social stratification is on a smaller scale and less entrenched. So - in summary, I'd agree that Dara Happa (and arguably Esrolia) as mass-irrigation agriculture societies are more heavily stratified, which arguably can be called "civilized" (or at least urbanized, although the Heortlings are no strangers to cities/towns either, they're just less densely packed usually), or "despotic" if you want to be subversive about it. I'll admit, I've never been fond of the term "barbarian", but Gloranthan promotional material insists on using it for the Orlanthi to evoke certain fantasy/history tropes, so I get it.

No, but to make the discussion somewhat grounded, Jeff provided the entry of the forthcoming book, so that we know where things are going, and we know what to expect/consider.