Minlister

I would say that the importance/power of Ernalda PC/NPC is directly linked to the form of the play. In "mission-based" scenario or "one-shot", they would decidedly be secondary, but as soon as you play a campaign, especially the clan-based campaign, Ernaldan characters take the fore very quickly. So I am not sure that the problem is "mechanic". And for long-term campaign, it could be good to keep it that way because it would unbalance the game if Ernaldan were also as powerful as other character on the "mission-based episodes" inserted in the campaign.

It is a dirty job but someone has to do it... yes, no problem, of course you can have it. I will appreciate any opinion or remarks to improve it but no pressure! It still WIP for the second scenario. I also have a quite long scenario in Prax (which benefited from advice by @7Tigers), you are also welcome to it if you intend to play in this area. Just keep in mind that I am not a "grognard" so dramatic blasphemy against the canon is a possibility!

@7Tigers Damned, I had hoped to be able to cannibalize other ideas! "Bonne année" by the way and thanks again for having infected me with the Glorantha virus!!

Could you tell me where to find it as I am precisely playing in this area? Or maybe you are referring to my own document? In this case it has grown further and I am happy to share the new version if you want. There is also a small introductory scenario (only interesting if you intend to run a local caampaign). It is still in French* although I intend to translate it when it is finished (probably by next summer). I will have a map made by a friend of mine who is a cartographer by trade. To answer your question, I like precise map as it gives a creative boost through constraints. * my syntax is not very complex so any translation tool should give good results and all the NPC names are in English anyway.

@JonL But this is the very cornerstone of any game between adults, I don't see the point in spelling it out. When I meet someone new, I say "hello", not "hello, please note that I will offer you all due courtesy and that I will respect you rights and opinions and try to do my best not to trigger traumatic memories". And spelling it out doesn't offer any guarantee that it will be the case.

X-card to that. @g33k Ok, I took some time in order not to answer on the same tune. My only point is that I think that developing formal tools to regulate interactions between people will be detrimental in the long run. No more, no less. There are a lot of things with different effects on the short and long run. @Sir_Godspeed I did not have the American culture wars in mind, please do not read more in my posts than what I write.

I absolutely agree, all this paraphernalia is useless as gamers are adults able to talk. Or we will end up playing with our lawyers in backseats and helmet in case of nasty dice bounces... I play since 1982 and I have never encountered any real problem.

Although it was very interesting to read (my own position is aligned on Atgxtg in the end) and much more civil than usually when this kind of topic is discussed. It is good to see that it can be discussed without ending in the intervention of the moderators. So thanks to everyone.

Congrats! Once more very exciting!!

To derail the thread even further from marriage practices, here a picture I use for a sector of the Big Rubble, it is a reconstruction by archaeologists of the Roman forum in the Middle Ages.

Personally, for "darkness" house I used Pictish brorch, both impressive and impervious to light!!

Thanks Jeff, the number offer quick insight into the social structure. I think something as useful would be to give standard names to these social groups for various societies. It will add immediately flavour to any game.

@styopa there is also a ritual to reinstate kin ties for Humakti called the Resheathing (should be in Storm tribes, p. 92 and Thunder rebels, p. 215). We discussed a similar issue in another thread on the Glorantha forum, search for "Severe Severing" Hope it helps!

Could these "short worlds" be potential realities/evolutions exiled in the Underworld under the yoke of Yelm? This god (at least in the Orlanthi's vision) always struck me as some kind of bonsai gardener, keeping growth under control to preserve and perpetuate an initial perfection. In this case, the dreams could have crept back to the surface during the Great Darkness and thrived in a world where/when Humakt had still not divided things clearly, possibly finding homes in the hearth of survivors by giving them hope. The advent of the Dawn would have forced them to flee before the Emperor, going back to the Underworld during the Day and exiting at night. But as they always flee before him and as his course embodies time, dreams actually exist ahead of the present, i.e. in the future, hence prophetic dreams. That's the kind of things I can imagine a shaman explaining to his apprentice for example (independently, obviously, of any Truth). Ok, I confess, I have been bitten by an Eurmali. Poor guy had not enough rune points to swallow me whole... EDIT: @Akhôrahil Great topic!! Thanks!

Indeed! Expectation is killing us! Go on your writer's LBQ and bring us back!!

Sorry Bill, you answered as I was posting! I don't know any myth about the Sea Eagle, could you tell me more?

Thanks again, the Glorantha Hotline is definitely more efficient than even the Glowline! I am happy with the “blood ties vs legal ties” kin-slaying ambiguity, with lawspeakers arguing in trail, makes for good plots! If you kill your Orlanthi brother after he has undergone the Severing, you are definitely not legally culprit of slaying a fellow clan member but the blood ties here are very strong. Should we have here a Antigone style tragedy with “human” and “divine” law clashing (even if I understand that every laws come from the gods)? The Orlanthi as the trickster’s sidekick is a little bit too munchkinny for my tastes, I confess, I will go figure out some “mythical” explanation for the bon with another character, there is a Odayla hunter, maybe something like hunting the trickster down in the first place. Or an Erlnaldan binding him through bondless desire? Or let them go without bond, facing the risks. For the Salmon feat, obviously I thought about something on a grander scale than real river ,waterfalls some HQ feat, but the solution seems more original than yet another magic boat. I used one in the Prax scenario I posted here and envisioned they could still reuse it later on the campaign, but it is always better to devise more than one solution. I like very much the idea of a hidden cave behind the Skyfall: a cave is an Earth thing, full of Darkness, in the middle of Air, behind water, giving access to the Sky, that’s fantastic! And such a cave is a perfect nap place for a Sky Bear! The Salmon Quest is superb: I always thought to explain the salmon ecology by the fact that these fishes remembe the original flow of the rivers, going upland. And I have already decided to use Delecti heavily, I would like to replace the Dragonrise with a re-enactment of the Skyfall by the PC over Tatius’s temple as a way to destroy the Lunar army, in order to surprise the players, some of which know a little about the official storyline. And the Styx-grotto episode has a lot of appeal! Obviously the mustache-curling Lunar villan opposing the Salmon man shoudl be called Lord Gravlax...Thanks @soltakss , @jajagappa and @Joerg !! And good point for the problem with feeding the ticks! Poor dinosaurs!! I think I will slightly dodge the problem by having them surviving on the chaotic sludge filling the Chaos Ground (which I envision swamp-like). That would explain that they do not range too far. But then a quakebeast comes along, gnak!, they latch unto it and “drive it” towards inhabited places! I play in 1615, so yes, most thing would have been scoured by the Storm Bull, but I still want to make the Chaos Ground active. If you have a look to the doc, I play the Lysang in the Arfritha Vale and the Lunars are building a “Bat perch” in one of the clan’s village. The players will have to understand the nature of the structure and block the construction, ultimately explaining the “official” itinerary of Crimsie.

@Kloster Thanks! Do you consider him not part of the clan because he hasn't been initiated by the clan? So blood ties are not sufficient? Do I get your point right? I may have to YGWV on that in order to keep one point of my campaign working (the Blood Weaver, p. 56-57), but thanks nonetheless for the intel!

Thanks everybody for the input! And apologies for answering so late, my internet went done in my country house! I could finally catch up with readings!! Yes, I also think that the ritual (Severing, Resheathing) does't impact human feeling, but legal rights. Even, if obviously, a man dedicated to the Death rune is probably not the jolliest fellow and will end up quite alone after a while. I was aware of examples of Humakti kings like Malan, just wondering how it worked, but, yes, in a way, a Humakti king can be the incarnation of the perfect king, above all parties. And stiff, virtuous leader leading their community towards catastrophe for the sake of purity, make for great stories. Even if I derail my own thread I would like to ask a couple other questions, quite unrelated. First, one of my player would like to play a trickster, which is fine by me, but I have no Orlanth initiate in the group. Can the trickster be bound only to an Orlanth initiate (or Vinga obviously) or to any initiate of an Orlanthi god? Second, I am working on a heroquest, with the players entering the Sky world. I would like them to use Enjossi magic to leap the Skyfall, which is basically a huge waterfall. Do you know any publication exploring this possibility? Third, do the giant ticks of Crimsie survive if they fall from the bat? Would it be conceivable that some of them haunt the Gejay Hill as a strange chaoticc pack after the bat landed near Runegate and created the Chaos Ground (GM pack, p. 37) Fourth, what is the limit of kin-slaying? Let's say that my uncle was captured at Grizzli Peak, he went to live as a slave in Tarsh, but had a son. This son enters the Luanr army, I meet him on a battlefield and I kill him. Do I commit kin-slaying? Finally, I attach the current state of the doc, if someone is interested, unfortunately, google translate will have to be your friend! https://www.dropbox.com/s/jqr6rm01ezd7sw1/Clan Lysang 25 VIII 19.pdf?dl=0 An a praxian episode, locusts and White Bull https://www.dropbox.com/s/j2gsgjzh771p3e7/A les voir%2C on dirait des chevaux.pdf?dl=0

Thanks O Mighty Living Index! I understand how the Humakti can work inside a clan, it is just how they can relate to the "ruling" function that puzzles me. I understand the readoption, in a way it is the Resheathing, linked probably with the new compact between Humakt and Orlanth when the former became champion. It is just the capacity of someone who deliberately discarded kin ties to rule a kin-based group that troubles me. You drive a hard bargain. I will go up to three clacks. And a gold wheel.

I would like to benefit form your (god)learned opinions on the matter of Humakti kings, like the Malani tribe's ones. As far as I understand the humakti cult, the initiate undergoes the Severing rite, thus cutting his ties to former kin and becoming unable to ask for community magic. As such it seems to me a little bit weird that a Humakti could be king, that is the linchpin of kinship politics and the intermediary with clan's wyter. Is it based on the claimed of perfectly impartial justice, free of "nepotism"? But still it seems quite problematic! A clack for your thought on the matter!

@Shiningbrow do you think about the blue boar quest?

I have checked the material I have, Storm tribe, p. 173 mentions henna ; TT5, p. 32, in the write-up pf the cult that they use a dye which last one year, dying their hair during the high holy day, so difficult to think it is henna. I would go for something blood or rust/iron related considering the cult's orientation. Initially Vinga's hait were not red, they turn red when she flared in anger for being sent back from a fight by Elmal.

well, there is even a kizilbashdurulz on the right...

Yes, I know this but I think it is all the more interesting. Sovereignity is not residing in the fanciful, most obvious part of the plant, the golden flowers, but in the non-assuming, humble part, the leaves. It is perfetly reminiscent of Ernalda's share of Asrelia's inheritance: "Maran Gor received The Great, Esrola received The Most and Ernalda received The Least". For the colour, you certainly have a point there, but Orlanth entered the Bath of Nelat, after it became king, so after it received Ernalda's love. So maybe the bath of Nelat only made this blessing manifest? Because what would be the bath of Nelat if not some vat where Ernalda would have washed the shaggy woold she sheared from Nelat's sheeps, revealing the clear sky with this shearing (BoHM, p. 21)? Which should be another way of saying giving legitimacy to Orlanth? woad vats would be a nice surrogate/mythical equivalent for the Bath of Nelat. Especially if the blue color of the woad only reveals itself after, with exposure to air (if I remember well how tinctorial process works). Not sure of any of that just wondering.