Sir_Godspeed

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

Made me think of the two Dronari living in that town somewhere along the Janube (I forget the name), who are famous craftsmen. Would make sense of Leonardo to be a really skilled Dronar as well. As a bit of a sidenote, I like to view the Brithini castes as all having some unimaginably powerful members who can do things that outsider would gasp at - not just the Zzaburi. It reminds me of Lord of the Rings, where the elves of Lothlorien give the Hobbits their "magical cloaks", but insist that it's just a product of elven craftsmanship. In both cases, we might be dealing with craftsmen who are so skilled that their works are indistinguishable from magically derived items (and in Glorantha the distinction might ultimately be meaningless, since everything is, at its heart, "magical".)

The discrepancy between Trollpak and tHotHP Sounds a bit like the Biblical Gospels covering the same events slightly differently, but among the 4 canonical ones, there's generally room for the mentioned events in one to fit in with the mentioned events of another. Not that outright contradictions are alien to either Glorantha nor the Bible, however. On the topic of Gbaji, Nysalor, Arkat - I was always of the impression that this was very much one of the "unsolved" cases of Glorantha - its answer would depend on the cultural viewpoint of characters.

As far as I understand, wyters are a Orlanthi- or Theyalan-specific cultural concept, and not a "Glorantha-wide" concept (like, say, Runes). This made me wonder: plenty of other groups have spirits, demigods, deities, genus loci, ancestors, etc. that maintain active obligations with respect to a specific group of people. Are there any known specific terms for these in cultures beside the Orlanthi? "City God" seems like a fairly generic term that can be found pretty much everywhere, for example, but I don't know enough about RQ game mechanics (and the weird intersection of mechanics and lore that subtly vary between game systems like HQ, RQ & 13th Age, if I understand it correctly) to really see whether all of these deities ACT like an Orlanthi wyter would. Non-human examples are also welcome. I suppose the Aldryami in particular would have some almost-but-not-quite similarities, but that's just speculation on my part.

They look A LOT like the surveyor's maps we used to use in school for orientation practice. Well done.

If there is anything that roleplayers should take from this thread, it's that board games (or similar games not requiring an actual board) have been incredibly widespread throughout history, even among poor people, and especially fine sets have been status symbols - so feel free to incorporate these as natural and commonplace social activities to pass the time or just good fun pretty much everywhere. This is more medieval, but still pretty plausible: the Tafl family of games. They're perhaps best described as a kind of asymmetric chess or checkers. I have a set home that I bought at the Jorvik Viking Museum in York. It's a reconstruction, so probably not 100% historically correct, but hey, that's how it goes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tafl_games

Man, I hope smalahove is a Sartarite delicacy now too.

He's Illuminated, isn't he? Difficult to put him in a box.

Glorantha could need an actual novel or two to act as entrypoints. King of Sartar is a fascinating read, but obviously incredibly niche. The Prince of Sartar webcomic is the closest to this atm. I know Greg worked on some stuff - would be a shame to see it never finished. 😕 Problem with working with an ever-evolving world like Glorantha is the fear of publishing something that might become "outdated" a decade or so down the line.

I mean... at some point all projects reach their completion, right? Is there anything in particular you're waiting for before you consider it done?

There's a ton of grasses & flowering plants that are usually only seen as weeds that are edible. The common nettle is a good example, as is sorrel, thistles, dandelion, and a whole slew of other stuff. It's not going to be anyone's staple food, but it's nutritious and good to have alongside vitamin, and mineral-poor cereals and dairy. Additionally, considering they often come in early summer, they are probably going to be useful for supplementing the diet in the time when winter stocks are running low and the first harvest is not yet in. There are also mushrooms of course. Some cultures have seen them as taboo IRL due to the difficulty at time of identifying poisonous variants from edible ones, but many others have used a lot of mushrooms. Dragon pass might be good plum or cherry country for all I know. Good for drinks or pies (or whatever the Bronze Age equivalent of pies are).

Does Notchet's surroundings have Mediterranean-style citrus and olive groves, or is it too humid for that?

It's an idea that's been floating about. Not sure about the canonicity, but it does make some sense for me, to better set them opposed to the pastoral Orlanthi Barbarian belt. Then again, Six Ages has the myth of Yelm herding his cattle, so who knows.* (*Granted, herding cattle does not necessarily mean lactose tolerance is prevalent, as evidenced by South- and East-Asia, who, while majority intolerant, still use cattle widely, and produce naturally lactose-reduced products like butter, cheese (to some extent) and ghee).

A few thoughts when reading this thread: When I designed dwarves for my own personal fantasy setting, I borrowed heavily from Sikh ideas of body-purity, which has the idea that the body is as God intended it to be, so therefore tattooing, scarification, etc. are prohibited, but so are clipping nails and cutting the hair or beard too. Part of this was to simewhat cheekily explain all the long beards around, and part of it was due to some phenomenological non-dualistic body-mind stuff I saddled the dwarves with (simply put: the soul and body are the same thing. You can't grammatically say "MY arm" in dwarven, since the arm isn't something you HAVE, but something you ARE. This translated to a mental unease with cutting off parts of yourself, I figured. A bit convoluted, but there ya go) Anyway, the reason I mention that is because it might be something similar to what the Brithini materialists think, I don't know. Hrestoli also seem to have that "purity/ideal" thing going on, but then on the other hand, tattooing might allegorically represent the active mind taking control over the "passive/passionate) physical body. Honestly, you can spin this stuff either way, cultural behaviors like these are very non-deterministic. In Polynesia, according to one analysis on tattooing I've read, the practice is part of replicating the differentiated state of the cosmos on the individual body. Basically, as far as I know, most polynesian mythologies have the world originate from some kind of primordial, undifferentiated Ur-being that is either cut apart, or internally differentiates itself into the universe. Without going into too much details, the tattoos on men are intended to both support this cosmic differentiation so that the universe does not catastrophically collapse back in on itself (this is also the basis for many tapus/taboos, which in a sense are acts of transgressing cosmically justified borders/differentiations, eg. incest, etc.). The other part is an extrapolation of this, and is that it helps mark the specific tattooed individual as eminently invidivualized by expressively emphasizing his context. By listing his entire lineage and his achievements, for example, you are essentially making sure he cannot ever be mistaken for anyone else, thus preventing him from being undifferentiated. This is all mixing indigenous ideas with some more abstract academic analysis, but I thought it was interesting to note. I'm not sure if this is something East Islander theists might do, being understandably wary of the more transcendental "disappear into the blissful nothing"-attitude of Eastern mystics. Scarification is often practiced as a testament of someone willingness an ability to overcome great pain. This definitely seems pretty trollish, but can really be attributed to any culture that sees overcoming hardship as a positive. Orlanthi certainly. Alkothi, Pentans, Praxians, etc. Of course, pain is also a path to ecstacy and and transcendentalism, so shamans, shaman-mystics and what have you might also have it. Both tattooing and scarification might be ways to emulate natural animal patterns, so might be something various Hsunchen practice. Or, hell, it might be something they just naturally end up with after a certain amount of transformations. Or maybe they need to undergo scarification/adult-rites (might be one and the same thing) in order to gain the ability to shift. Lots of potential with these sorts of practices.

glor-ANTH-uh with the "ANTH" being similar to"ant".

I prefer a hard G, partly because of my mother tongue biases of course (we don't really have the "soft-G"/"dzh" sound over here), but also because I feel like a hard-G "Genert" sounds more... Earthy... primordial...? Gat, Gata, Genert, Geo (it's pronounced with a hard G over here), Geb (Egyptian), Gaia... etc.

Wasn't literally Heort in the Unity council initially?

Or she might be the original inhabitant that made the EWF set up an experimental site there in the first place.

So, to take the pronounciation issue away from Anglophone biases (English vowels are notoriously unpredictable), how would Gloranthans pronounce the "i" in Pavis? Pa-VIS? Pa-VIIS? Pa-VYS? Pa-VIYS? (I'm mostly joking, just imagining if the main audience of RQ/HQ came from a language where the letter "i" was extremely ambiguous in any context - which, theoretically, at least, in-universe Gloranthans might be).

So here's a question: Are all Vingans (cult) vingans (gender?). I'd assume, knowing Glorantha, that the two would be inseparable, as one provides the raison d'etre for the other, as it were, but just wanted to make sure.

Remnants of Cyclopean architecture of the Green or Golden Age in the Choralinthor bay. Alternatively, something off the coast of Old Seshnela, a remnant of the Silver Empire, although not sure how clear those waters would be. Then there's always something in the East Isles. (Really beautiful geology, btw).

If you insist on Elem being a celestial title, she could be some kind of forgotten Feminine Sun, as opposed to the mainstream Sun Patriarch going around since (at least) Time. Not sure what the earth connection would be then, though, nor why they'd be offering wish granting.

For non-fiction sources I would heartily recommend some anthropological classics (don't overly worry about some of the outdated terminology or theory, the empiricism is still sound): - Turnbull, "Forest People", about the Mbuti Pygmies in Belgian Congo. The ethnographer lived with them, and provides an rich look into a band-based hunter-gatherer culture entering into a specific niche in relation to a more dominant agricultural neighbor, including the ways the Mbuti rationalize their own way of life as superior. It reads very much like a treatise on a Hsunchen people who live next to Orlanthi or Doraddi or something. - Malinowski, "The Argonauts of the Western Pacific". This is the granddaddy of long-term deliberate fieldwork, the coiner of the phrase "participant observation" and whole slew of other things. It's a monograph on the Melanesian Trobriander people living on islands off Papua New Guinea during WW1. As a matrilineal and patriarchal horticulture society, they have a good deal in common with the Doraddi, and possibly some Pelorian cultures. East Islanders possibly also, with their complex system of reciprocal gift-giving which increases the prestige of a gift the farther it has traveled, prompting ambitious men to travel as far as possible to gain distant friends. Also a lot about yams. So much yams. Yams is basically to these people what cows are to the Orlanthi. - Barth, "Ecological Relations among Ethnic Groups in the Swat Valley, North Pakistan" (off the top of my head). The Pathans, more commonly known as the Pashtuns are cattle herders and agriculturalists with tightly-knit clans and a tendency to wager long-lasting feuds, while entering into patron-client relations with member of other ethnic groups in the area that exploit other ecological niches (such as the transhumance mountain herder people who I've forgotten the name of). Basically, these guys aren't too far off from Orlanthi, if not in material culture, then in a general outlook. Worth a read, not too long. https://www.uio.no/studier/emner/sv/sai/SOSANT1600/v12/Barth_Ecologic_relationships.pdf I've got more, but obviously a lot of this is significantly drier and less adventurous (with some exceptions) than fantasy or historical fiction. They provide some insights for Game Masters and hobbyists though, I wager.

I go with PAH-vis. Admittedly, an open-mouthed AH is a bias from my mother tongue.

If the illness of an individual can be tied to, say, passing by a source of miasma or spiritual impurity, breach of a taboo, mood imbalance, someone else casting the evil eye and so forth and so on, then the illness of a large group of people (ie. an epidemic) can reasonably be extrapolated from there, in my opinion. Some spot on the tula has been infected. The tribe broke a spirit treaty. A high-ranking member did something that backfired on everyone. Enemy clan did it. Nearby hostile entity (trolls, wild witch, elves, etc.) did it. It doesn't have to be made very complicated.