Sir_Godspeed

Ooh, I like those. Quite a nice change from seeing the same Runes everywhere.

English phonetics are nuts, I agree. (EDIT: Technically I guess I was referring to the orthography, not the phonetics, but you get what I mean.) In reference to your point about "Sartarite", I see it as a kind of compound of in-universe-Theyelan, and out-of-universe English. If I were ever to tell a Norwegian friend of mine about it, I would've used "Sartaritt", which is the direct equivalent over here. In German it might be... Sartariter? (loosely based on German "Hethiter" for "Hittite", my German is rusty, premature apologies to Joerg).

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I got the impression that the Dragons left Delecti alone on a technicality: he was already dead.

I just realized that there is a fine line with realizing the Minoan influences of Esrolia without making them seem too primitive next to the Alexandrine hoplites.

Maybe involve a priestess/initiate of Ty Kora Tek?

Banners? Masks? Some other creative symbol just to fill some space?

I think it's more than that. The cities and other landmarks just seem too large compared to the terrain inbetween. If we're to take this at face value, then a significant portion of the actual physical terrain of Esrolia would be densely built urban construction, which just seems unfeasible. Either Nochet is TITANIC, or the Shadow Plateau is kinda small - in extent, not elevation. As I said, I see it more as a stylized representation, but my impression of the scale of Esrolia might be incorrect.

That illustration always makes me scratch my head about the scale. I assume it's more of a representation rather than a fixed scale, right?

Honestly, this sounds like a really classic adventure. Good luck!

"The Chapparal Cock and the Coyote" is an old story that is by some believed to represent the conflict between the malicious and the whimsical sides of the Trickster. Mostly the stories where the whimsical side wins have survived, possibly as some kind of moral lesson, or perhaps more likely because they are funnier to most.

Would Alkoth Runelords be Shargashi Runelords, since Alkoth is treated as a subcult of Shargash? (If I remember correctly from the thread on the upcoming Gods of Glorantha thread - I might be wrong).

Well, basic geometry makes horizons inevitable even on a flat world. If you stand in a valley and look at a mountain, the angle of your position makes it so that the mountain in front of you will hide even taller mountains behind it. The sea is a bit iffier though. The bulge idea is neat, and I don't mind it. It can also fit mythically, since the Waters that "invaded" the Cube might've bulged as they met it the middle, or even shaved off the sides more so than the middle. Who knows. Then Magasta's Pool creates a dimple in the middle, like the interesting pics here show. Works for me.

My impression has been that these distinctions between spirits and gods and other forms of entities are A) subject to a good deal of ethnocentric bias (as much as terms like "krjalki" and so forth), but perhaps equally importantly, it's a bit like how you measure light in physics. If you measure it like a wave, it's a wave. If you measure it like a stream of particles, it's a stream of particles (this is *VERY* simplified, but I hope you get the gist). I'm not necessarily saying that every minor hearth spirit is a god unto itself, but maybe there a possibility of either approaching the same entity as an individual in its own right, or whether you approach it as an instance of something larger. I don't know, I think I prefer the implied ambiguity of perceived* categories rather than the gaming-friendly, clear-cut as-is categories. (*Which doesn't mean they're false, per se.)

This is really neither here nor there, but Kadiev's illustration in the Glorantha Sourcebook features an illustration of the Celestial Court that includes Glorantha, and she appears as a Lotus-positioned ascetic with hair radiating out above the Spike. I believe the flavor text of that illustration says something about it being from the City of Wonders or something, so make if it what you will. Maybe Belintar's view is an outlier. Gata, however, is both represented as (iconographically) square and (anthropomorphically) *very* curvaceous.

There's definitely stuff to love about them. Their sort-of-pantheist worldview of the world-as-machine, their castes, their view of themselves as constructed, their isolationism (small-i) from millennia of bad relations with other species, etc. But I am not a huge fan of the whole "every other being is raw materials for construction" and "if everything works well we'll never have to have contact with the other races" attitudes that gets a good deal of space in the Guide. The virtual total absence of dwarves out and about as active social agents just feels a like a bit of waste to me. Texts on what dwarves EAT even makes it clear that they're almost completely incompatible with human society - arguably moreso than aldryami, and certainly moreso than trolls. Hell, the portion on Teshnos goes to the trouble of pointing out that there's a Dwarf stronghold in the mountains there, but then immediately almost shoots down avenues for interesting ideas by basically saying it's essentially completely closed off due to them being the most isolationist dwarfs around. Bummer. (EDIT: I know there are plenty of reasons to justify this from an in-universe point of view, just in case someone takes this as an opportunity to pontificate on Mostali lore. I'm more talking about it from a design perspective and moore specifically my personal subjective desire to have small bands of wandering dwarf masons lightly bantering with humans or hiring people to retrieve stolen treasure, rectify a grudge and such tropes.) If Greatway gets more coverage, my impression might change.

"Original" threw me off.

I can never make my mind on a favorite. I'm the same with Lord of the Rings, or Warhammer, or Warcraft. I tend to jump from culture ot culture, race to race, and find really cool stuff with each. Some have more detail than others, but that's a different issue. Sometimes the incredible detail of miniscule Sartarite stuff even puts me off a bit. I think I know my least favorite though. Mostali are interesting as a phenomenon out there in the world, but when I've read official stuff about their internal workings they lack the je ne sais quoi that most other cultures have. They seem to be intentionally created as an NPC race, and that makes me sad, as someone who loves the cliched Tolkienesque drinker-brawler-miner stereotype.

Huh, interesting. That's different from what we've heard before, I think.

Seems pretty plausible that the Hsunchen "language family" (if such a thing exists) branches along the same places as the totems branch out. In Glorantha we get an additional element: hero- and spirit-quests. Ancestral visions, possession, etc. Might explain some "unrealistic" linguistic conservatism.

All the more reason to be wary of even minor cases of Lokamaydonism.

I was going to say that there might be some gallery forest along the Creek, and probably some copses on the side of Old Top that's opposite of the prevailing winds at least - but you've filled in the map pretty nicely now. How about some minor stuff: - A wayshrine or milestone/boundary stone along the road. Can be active or a relic of a bygone era. - Mention of a sacred clearing somewhere. - Maybe a disused quarry in the side of old top. Potential for some beasties to make their home there or something. - You could always draw in some outlying farmsteads or cottages as well. Potentially not even ones that are permanently inhabited, but used by shepherd/cowherd boys. Tried to keep it minimal here. The quarry is a bit on the bigger side, but implying that it's a relic from the EWF era or something might be a decent reason for why it's there.

My personal best guess is that it's a slight variation of "wight" (OE: wiht), which has has a wide range of applications, but at least in some forms seems to have been used for "genus loci"-type creatures (cognate to Icelandic "landvettur" - "land spirit"). I have no evidence for it thought. I'll agree that it's a very satisfying word. It *feels* ancient and real, which is perhaps the most important things, regardless of its real life origin. EDIT: Given Gloranthan texts' tendency to be written from an in-universe pov, I like the idea of some instances of terms being a result of that pov. For example, in the History of the Heortling Peoples, the king's list if compiled by a Western traveler, and he refers to Umath and Orlanth as "demons", because that's essentially what they look like to him. Presumably, a text written from a Theyalan/Orlanthi pov about, say, an Ascended Master or, egregore, or (*looks at Joerg's post*) the "Urban Principle Architectural Matrix", would just slap the "wyter" term onto them because it's convenient and not too far off.

I don't inherently disagree with this perspective, but I also highly suspect that since the word itself seems to be of Orlanthi/Heortling origin, and that it in Orlanthi society seems to be closely associated with their idea of group communality - that it as a concept also has a number of cultural associations endemic first and foremost to the Orlanthi. As a comparison, Japanese "oni" are sometimes called "ogres" or "demons", because that's roughly what they look and function like to westerners, but this ignores the different cultural associations that, for example oni have in Japanese culture and language. Similarly, westerners commonly use the term "soul" to refer to the non-material aspect of personhood, and it is frequently applied to roughly analogous concepts in other cultures, however, it doesn't take too long to see that for example, some Papuan indigenous cultures have arguably both material and non-material "souls" (like the shadow, which can live on after death, and goes to a different afterlife than the Name, which will only stay ofter death if someone breaks the taboo of using a dead person's name - and neither of these represent the all-encompassing imperishable essence that the Judaeo-Christian concept of soul usually is understood as). Anyway, I am fine with it being a case of the same concept of "gestalt group/place patron spirit with different names in different cultures", but I was also interested in whether these aren't just the same thing everywhere, but whether it's a case of different cultures shaping different kinds of patron entities.

Yeah, for whatever reason I didn't just say it outright. Probably because Glorantha blurs the idea of both.