Lordabdul

Sorry, bad wording -- I meant this specific migration of Sartarite tribes not getting much mention in any Gloranthan books. Still hard to say if Joerg is correct or not. Right now I'm just continuing exploring what this whole thing would have looked liked, at least until Jeff gives the final word on the matter.

A few sources mentioned that the Amad and Bachad tribes lost their tribal ring in Harvar's purge (supposedly before their "exile"). The city of Alone however was founded by Terasarin who was close to Sartar royalty at the time, so I wouldn't be surprised if the city had at least one or two sturdy stone walls or tower -- or otherwise cleverly placed based on the surrounding terrain. But I suppose the majority of it is probably just a big wood fence and a bunch of mixed, simple stone/wood buildings. Yeah I started thinking about how that could ever work, and.... I'm not sure Mass migrations around times of trouble don't seem to be uncommon in the Bronze Age, but you'd think a few thousand people relocating over a short period would have had more coverage in books. Even if I'm generous with the number of kids born in the 7 years between the migration and the "classic era" of Gloranthan gameplay, I figure that's still about 5000 people in total moving to the wilderness. I'm not sure if it would have been a supervised exile (with Lunar troops to escort the refugees), as I don't know what Harvar would have had to gain, moving enslaved people up the Hidden Valley (maybe he really likes giant bee honey?). My first idea was simply a mass disorganized migration over the course of a few weeks, with families and villages basically fleeing the area while Harvar and his Yelmalio soldiers were busy riding left and right (including all the way to Gamla's Leap) to crush the Righteous Wind rebellion. At this point, I don't think there was much Lunar presence around Alda-Chur yet? As a result, the 5000 refugees hiking along a whole bunch of varied paths (possibly avoiding the Sartar/Pavis roads) might have flooded the Dinacoli lands bits at a time, over a few weeks. Any given Dinacoli village might have only seen a hundred exiles walk by in total over that period. Knowing the Dinacoli, they probably asked for a buck or two to keep their mouth shut (they were still with the Jonstown Confederation at the time, so probably cautiously friendly to the refugees' plight), but the Dinacoli tribe leaders were probably equally quick to point Harvar the way they went when he came and "asked politely". The only reference I've found about life after the sack of Alone seems to indicate that Harvar's idea of "enslaved wilderness tribes" basically includes some Yelmalio/Lunar delegation going to Alone on a regular basis and taking 75% of whatever the local tribes declare. I'm not sure if there would be a local Yelmalio/Lunar "governor" (or whatever the title might be) living in a nearby villa, or if they would just come and go every season? So I also started looking into this, too. Until a couple days ago, I was 100% ignorant about everything regarding Bronze Age economics and demographics. As of today, I'm confidently 99% ignorant, so feel free to point me to good references! From what I found in terms of data on known Bronze Age cities, and if I scale that up/down to match Alone's size (which was around 1000 people before Harvar cut that in half), I end up with a city that's about 3 hectares big (8 acres), with 200 hectares of land (500 acres) around it to support it. The land size of course varies widely based on what they do with it -- supposedly the Hidden Valley's narrow corridor is super fertile so it might be a bit smaller than that. This seems to be in the ballpark of that map of Alone that the Zin Letters people did. This also means that the farmlands wouldn't need to extend very far, and so almost everybody would be living in Alone, with even the farthest fields at 1 hour's walk at most.... unless of course I got the wrong references or there's a flaw in my logic.

Mmmh.... in The Coming Storm's chapter on the Woods of the Dead, there's an entry on the Hidden Valley (p118) where it says: "The Bachad tribe clung to their isolation in this territory for many years, sheltering from the Tarshite Civil War." ...this is even more confusing since, AFAIK, the Tarshite Civil War happened in the mid-1450s, well before Alone was built. Unless the text was referring to the unstability in Tarsh circa 1624, with the rivalry between Pharandros and Fazzur? (it would be borderline confusing to mention this in a campaign that only goes up to 1625)

I've been reading several campaign logs recently, and there are 2 in particular that I've found were really good and really useful to get my head into a Gloranthan mindset. In both cases I thought the authors did a great job coming up with adventure ideas that make use of the history and locations of Glorantha. I figured I'd share: 1. The Bardori Saga, here on BRP by @Gallowglass : a 1625 RQG campaign centered around a Dundealos clan. It deals with rebuilding a tribe that was destroyed by the Lunars, and includes cool stuff like exploring Lunar ruins after the Dragonrise, and expeditions to Prax, in addition to traditional Sartarite politics. It will be interesting to see how it compares to the upcoming "Children of the Flame" sourcebook on the same tribe, written by Studio Deadcrows for the French version of RQG (I'll post some info about it as soon as it goes out to backers). 2. Apple Lane, at last, on RPG.net : a 1613 campaign starting in Apple Lane, and featuring a few classic RQ adventures (the titular Apple Lane, Rainbow Mounds, etc.) mixed with a bunch of "day in the life"-type encounters and events (especially a few holy day ceremonies featuring limited heroquesting). It later goes into ghost stories, but sadly stops around the time things get interesting with Sartarite politics. I started listening to a couple actual-play podcasts, too, but, although I'm grateful that the authors did record their games and put it out there, I haven't found one yet where the sound quality and pacing is good enough to be worth the huge time sink (in comparison, write-ups are much shorter to consume and only give you the good bits, plus sometimes a helpful GM commentary). Got any good HQG/RQG/13AG campaign logs or actual plays to share? Please do!

Hey Puck, thanks for the campaign write-ups. I'm curious about this Kanka website... what can you do with it, and how do you use it in reality?

Interesting. Where is this from?

Thanks! Any reason it can't be a yearly occurrence?

Thanks for the clarifications! Oh wow that's... very infrequent. I would have gone for "once a year" at worst. I imagine there must be a whole bunch of kids getting really impatient -- I wonder if, in the mean time, they manage to convince adults to include them in various adult activities. Can kids be lay members of a cult?

Oh, I always pictured adulthood rites as something that happens only, say, once every season or so. Like, "OK let's do the rituals for all the kids that became ready for it this past season". It sounds however like you're saying this is more of a "do it as soon as we see the necessary signs in the kid". A girl menstruating one night would mean that a whole bunch of women have to drop what they were supposed to do the next day, and spend that time initiating the girl into womanhood instead. That sounds pretty disruptive and less productive to me.

Thanks for the suggestions! Having the Bachad only move a bit east from a previous location would probably work -- they could have been further down in the valley, in lands that became Dinacoli later. It would be weird for the Amad, though, since there's not much land to have come from (west of their current location is what the Tres occupy now, and AFAICT it's a worse location than where the Amad are now). Maybe what the authors meant, then, was that the tribes were much more concentrated around Alone (take their existing lands, and shrink them closer to Alone), and after the troubles began, they moved further back into the wilderness? Maybe it's time to invoke the grand priest. @Jeff, where were the Amad and Bachad lands prior to 1611? And what about the Tres tribe: did it exist in any way before that date? Was it formed by a loose collection of people fleeing oppression, or by already formed clans? Thanks!

So does that mean the boys or girls start their adulthood rite together, but, consciously or unconsciously, some of the kids end up in a different place on the God Plane, or start in a similar place as the other kids but somehow don't go into Orlanth's hall or whatever, and walk away to meet with some Babeester Gor or Storm Bull or any other deity's place/representative/etc.? In that case, if kids having an adulthood ritual together can actually end up having vastly different experiences, coming out as lay members/initiates of very different cults, then what's the point of boys and girls having different adulthood rites? The clan could run a ritual for all kids, regardless of gender, and they would all be sorted out, some going to Orlanth, others to Ernalda, and other to all the other places, according to their innate Runes and desires and such, no?

For the first one, there's a thead about this here. For the second, I assume you're talking about new Homelands? For the third one, yes, Jason confirmed there will be full elder race character creation in an upcoming book.

Reading DP:AGoKF (Dragon Pass Gazetteer), it seems like it’s the only text I’ve seen so far whose wording strongly points towards the other version where Amad and Bachad tribes were indeed around Alone already before 1611. Since that’s also the oldest book of all my references, I’m inclined to think the authors changed their mind of the topic...

Yep I mentioned it already -- AFAICT all the material from the Questlines book is available on John's website, so I read it there. Thanks!

I thought that the adulthood rites were just about awakening your Runes and getting recognized as lay members of the main cult(s)? I imagine that most adults in a tribe are actually lay members of Orlanth or/and Ernalda. Everybody who is a young adult is probably not an initiate of anybody (so not Rune Magic) for a little while until they figure out what they want to do -- after all, they just had their Runes awakened and tattooed, so you gotta give them a bit of time to mull it over. I don't see how they could have decided on their cult before that anyway.

Yeah Dragonewts and Giants and Chaos incursions and all that are planned in the campaign of course (that's kinda why I chose that spot, it's got lots of cool stuff!). The unsupervised insects are a good idea though, I'll steal that, thanks Are you sure? I haven't been able to find any source mentioning what the Amad and Bachad tribes have been doing, and where, prior to 1611. I doubt that the Tres tribe even existed back when Alone was founded -- AFAICT it's pretty clear that the Tres tribe was created around 1611 as a loose collection of people uprooted by the ethnic cleansing of Harvar Ironfist against all Orlanthi worship (so most likely people leaving the Princeros/Vantaros/Tovtaros tribes). I've also seen some people say that some ducks might have joined the Tres later during the Duck Hunt. S:KoH has the following to say about the Tres: A new tribe, the Tres formed out in the wilderness, made up of dissidents from the other Aldachuri tribes who went into exile with the Amad and Bachad. This is what leads me to believe that the Amad and Bachad tribes were in a different place prior to 1611. It's also consistent with the older HeroWars Dragon Pass book which specifically mentions they moved to the wilderness. At the very least, having tribes forcibly relocate is a good thematic start point for a campaign, so I'll probably stick to that unless there's strong evidence that this isn't what happened. Ah, feral trollkin, another good idea, thanks Huh, didn't know about this book. Fairly unavailable though, I'm afraid. Did you mean that to say that the Dinacoli always had these vast lands ever since the time of Sartar? If that's the case, it might mean that the Amad and Bachad tribes would have be relocated from somewhere else... like from the other side of the River from the Princeros and Vantaros, but I don't know if it was ever possible for Sartarite tribes to live there, there's the Dwarf Mine there... Thankfully, the Woods of the Dead are described at length in The Coming Storm, so that's all fine. I might just have to change a couple details here and there, especially geography-wise (TCS changed the spatial relation between Herongreen/the Woods/Alone in a way I don't like too much, and it doesn't even seem to match GtG). Why do you not trust those conclusions? My interpretation is that: There was no tribal support around Alone because they really were just a small group of exiles/war veterans. They probably operated out of Alone itself, with some limited lands around it for hunting/herding. The Amad, Bachad, and other miscellaneous people (later to form the Tres) fled the Alda-Churi area, in the hope of getting away from Harvar Ironfist. But he obviously didn't like that, and they didn't go very far anyway, so he rode over to Alone with his buddies, burned and killed half the people he found, and told the rest "you fuckers can live like hillbillies if you want, enjoy life in the asshole of the world for all I care, but by Yelmalio you ARE going to pay me your fucking tribute, otherwise I'll kill the other half or make slaves of you". I think it's in Wyrms Footnotes that it says they accepted to pay tribute in order to escape slavery. I imagine the people of Alone who survived this ordeal were NOT happy that the Amad/Bachad brought their drama to their doorstep... But yes, this is all half conjecture, since the existing texts are either confusing or contradictory or just vague. And I'm more than happy to come up with brand new backstories for these people (that's the joy of writing RPG campaigns), but I just want to make sure it's vaguely plausible and doesn't blatantly contradict canon. I can live with "a little contradictory" though By the way, thanks, I hadn't checked that book, it seems it has a couple extra bits of information indeed -- although I suppose I'm free to use or discard them since it's not considered canon anymore. Yep, I'm looking at character creation right now, and besides a new "Far Place" homeland with a tweaked family history, I'm also specifying that characters would speak a Tarshite dialect with a few Sartarite (Heortling) words and phrases. I think it was mentioned in some books that the lands weren't super fertile, though. But I assume there's a bit of farming at least... Thanks!

Yeah, and my understanding is that once you've followed the red haired woman to some God Talker or Rune Priest, the following happens (as per S:KoH): The priests conduct rites to determine his suitability and commitment, and summon otherworld entities to explore his hidden magic and secret thoughts. They test the applicant’s knowledge of the pantheon and deity, his relationship to the temple, and his dedication to the deity. It feels like there's a bit of wriggle room if necessary.

Thanks Bill! I'll probably wait to see if you get the book and consider it worth tracking down. I've setup some alerts on the usual second-hand book websites. One last thing about the Bachad tribe: Wyrms Footnotes 15 says they're Dark Orlanthi but that looks like an obvious mistake in the tribe table -- they're most definitely originally Earth Tarsh.

Good question... but I mean, how do you actually become a Vingan? I assume you have to go somewhere and talk to somebody about it, so they can teach you the cool spells, the secret handshake, and the henna recipe, no? Well, I guess it might be someone sitting in the corner of an Orlanth temple, as opposed to a dedicated Vingan temple.. but that's what I meant: you walk up to that person, wherever they are, and declare your intention of becoming Vingan. That's where they would, ahem, "check the plumbing". And unless there's any divine restriction that strikes you down if you have anything resembling testicles, I would assume it's that person's subjective decision to accept or reject you.

Hey there Gloranthophiles, I'm working on a clan-based campaign in the style of the excellent Red Cow books, and the focus is the Bachad tribe starting around 1611 (I hope to publish it on the Jonstown Compendium at some point, fingers crossed). I have a few basic facts and questions I'd like checked/answered about the Far Place. Alone was founded in late 1582 for a bunch of people that were a mix of veterans from the Battle of Grizzly Hill, and a bunch of exiles/refugees from those regions affected by the war. I assume that, at the time, the area was completely unsettled? I mean, you'd have to be fairly desperate (which was the case here!) to settle in between ghouls and trolls, right? At the time, only the Torkani were living there, at a respectful distance from the troll lands, and with amicable relations to them (as they're called the "troll lovers" and many worship Argan Agrar). After 1611, when Harvar Ironfist took over Alda-Chur, it seems like the Bachad and Amad tribes actually moved to the area around Alone (i.e. like I said, Alone was... alone prior to that). Where did they come from? When I look at the tribes map, I imagine that they were living in lands that later became Vantaros and Dinacoli territory. Based on the fact that the Dinacoli have more lands than most Sartarite tribes, I even imagine that they were actually granted former Bachad/Amad lands as a way to sweeten the deal of their move from the the Jonstown Confederation to the Alda-Chur Confederation a couple years later. Does that sound plausible? The one thing that doesn't seem to fit is that Gamla's Leap, where Harvar supposedly crushed the Alda-Churi Orlanthi priest order, is all the way out there, north of Alone, near Amadhall (which wouldn't have really existed much, or at all, at the time?). I don't know why there would be a holy place that far if all the tribes were previously closer to Aldar-Chur? My explanation so far is that Gamla's Leap was a wilderness holy place, and you would go on a pilgrimage there for yearly holy rites or something. When shit hit in the fan in Alda-Chur, the Orlanthi of the Righteous Wind tried to gather there in secret to arrange a last resort plan to take back Alda-Chur, but somehow Harvar's spies tipped him off and he rode there and crushed everybody. Assuming I'm mostly correct, I imagine that the exile particularly difficult for the Bachad and Amad -- they went from fertile, temperate lands where they might have lived mostly from farming, to harsher, higher lands where farming is impractical, and had to switch over to hunting. That might have included not only learning a bunch of new skills, but possibly looking at new central myths, a change of wyter, etc... to adopt more hunting-related cults? Although maybe not too much, I'm not sure, since the Barntar's Lodge myth happened nearby, and they probably were worshiping Barntar a lot before, being farmers. I also assume that, because they arrived from the west, they immediately adopted a hostile attitude towards trolls, because they had to make room for themselves. How did that go with their southern troll-loving neighbours? Again, when you look at the tribes map, the Bachad land extends a bit to the south, and I'm wondering if they might have stolen a few lands from the Torkani there, as it's curious to me how the Torkani wouldn't have crossed over the Creek. Last, I'm curious about what kind of canonical and non-canonical material I can use. So far, apart from the usual suspects like Guide To Glorantha, the Sartar HQG books, the Red Cow books, etc... I know that there's relevant information in: Wyrms Footnotes 15 (general information about the Far Place, along with a more detailed region map which, sadly, doesn't quite line up with the maps in GtG, or in the Red Cow books) Questlines (from the old RQ Down Under Con books), whose materials are thankfully available on John Hughes' website (thanks @Bill the barbarian for the info!). They mostly focus on the Bluefoot Orlanthi clan of the nearby Tovtaros, right on the edge of Snakepipe Hollow. The Zin Letters supposedly have something around Alone but I don't have access to those. There's also a map of Alone around here which, as I understand it, might actually be from the Zin Letters' authors notes. Anything else I'm missing? Thanks!

I wouldn't say "cannot", and instead say "mostly not". After all, Jeff said "Orlanthi would understand most Vinga cultists as "biological female"" (emphasis mine). I take this as a hint that these are all strong guidelines rather than unbreakable laws. I assume some temples are more strict than others. As always, player fun always trumps everything, so if a player has a good reason to be a male Vingan, with a good backstory, I would allow it. Similarly, if the story warrants it, a similarly rare NPC might make an appearance. Of course, in these cases, I would assume that the exploration of gender and societal roles would be a theme/story arc of the campaign, and would try to write the appropriate adventures to explore this. If the player just wants Vinga for some pure munchkinery, that's another story... I read Jeff's statement as "they had male lovers in the past", as in, before their marriage. But I suppose open marriage arrangements happen too. Maybe some of them actually include things like "I'm the only woman in your life, if you want to have sex with other people, they can't be women"! Depends what you mean by "neither role"? I would say that some of the very common clan occupations are "neither role" in the sense that they don't really have any strong male or female bias. Trading and commerce, services (inns) and stuff like that don't strike me as very gendered. Maybe even scholar positions, as Lankhor Mhy doesn't seem to care either way as long as you have a cool beard-like thing around the chin. But maybe that's more like "either role" and not "neither role". I'm not sure what actual "neither role" would be?

Well I probably would, too -- I've got so many obvious questions that probably everybody would be asking already, but I'm really mostly wondering what happens in the head of someone having an unexpected childbirth. Between the pain and the unknown thing coming out of you, that must be fucking terrifying. Yeah like many other sensitive topics involved in RPGs. Gotta add it to the list of things to ask players at the beginning of the campaign... If the year-end roll comes positive, I would probably first figure out if there was any way the PC could have been pregnant at any point during the year. If nothing fits (e.g. if it was, indeed, all crazy adventuring and Tusk-Rider-slaying with absolutely no way to fit a pregnancy), or if the player wants to, it could mean that the pregnancy started recently, and the next adventure could involve an X-month pregnant PC (and then you might waive next year's roll). If, after giving a sneak preview of the next adventure to the player, you both realize it won't work, then either change the next adventure, move it further down the timeline, make the player play a different character for a couple sessions, or whatever sounds the most fun to them... although I would assume that if the player is OK rolling for pregnancy, they should be OK playing a pregnant character once or twice.

Speaking of, I realized that wyters have a special kind of spell extension: if you cast the spell through the wyter, it can spend 1 extra POW to cast a spell on an additional 5 members of the community simultaneously (RQG p287). So for 9 points, a Telmori priest could use the wyter to transform 6 people into wolves.

You could actually play it like that -- whether the shaman's body is unconscious, protected by his fetch in spirit form, and his discorporated mind is wandering the Spirit World, or if the shaman's body is in a trance (dancing and mumbling), protected by his own mind's limited abilities during a trance, and it's the fetch doing the work in the Spirit World... well... it's almost identical in terms of game mechanics I guess? The only difference is that the player would switch over to the fetch's stats (current POW/magic points, etc.) instead of carrying on with their shaman's stats.

Talking with Jeff about the map was... the... furthest it got. 😎