Mirza

While it might be tempting to conflate the mother of Tolat/Shargash with the Xentha with that info in isolation, the Xeotam Dialogues in the Sourcebook are more explicit on that relationship "Tolat and Anehilla, twins of Ehilm and Nakala." -Page 74, near the end. And Xentha was certainly known by Xeotam as she's mentioned earlier in the Dialogues, so it isn't a mistake of just giving another name to the same deity though we can certainly get into the discussion of Night as an emanation of Primal Darkness. While Xeotam is giving us the perspective from a Malkioni perspective (Rokari or Old Hrestolist), he uses what seems to be a combination of Enerali (Fornaoli) theology, and some God Learner monomythics. If I had to say, the conflation of whatever the Enerali (Fornaoli) Red Planet Deity is (Zaval? Torif Vamale? Zolan?) with the Teshnan Tolat is the God Learnerism, but that deity probably is considered by the Fornaoli to be one of Ehilm and Nakala's twin children.

I mean there are probably limitations to the spell itself that make it work only against physical weapons, rather than being the all encompassing Death Dispel spell for things you can be attacked with, it's more interesting that way to me. I imagine Ward Against Attacks, is something that's many times harder if not impossible to cast, and also doesn't allow for philosophical arguments about what is the nature of a weapon.

@gochie I think it's intent, when someone intends to use a rock as a weapon, then it becomes one. Perhaps there is a myth from the Green Age of "How the first weapon was made", and that by picking up said rock you're repeating that myth unintentionally, and making the rock into a weapon. If we want to stick to an exclusively Sorcery perspective, maybe by picking up and intending to use a rock as a weapon, then the wielder's Death Rune imprints upon the rock temporarily making it a weapon. Or maybe the argument is that the Death Rune is latent in all things, just inactive, and usage activates it. Either of these sound like they make enough sense that a Sorcerer might argue them like a combination of the ancient Rabbis did about their own theories about God's Truth in the Talmud, and Greek philosophers. I like the idea that Malkioni Sorcerer's are constantly arguing about their own ideas of how the physics of their own Sorcery works, like it clearly works, but how. It's one part Talmudic scholarship, and one part Greek philosophical schools. And that there are long competing schools of physics, and bitter rivalries within each sect of Malkionism about this, never mind competing theories of physics from other sects of Malkionism.

You should actually quote the entire sentence, not merely a snippet Akhorahil. "This damage cannot be magically resisted because it is real physical damage from the heat of the fire." Like it's disingenuous to argue that a section out of context gives Fireblade carte blanche against all magic forever. Anyway it's clear that it's Countermagic that the game's talking about not providing resistance from Fireblade since it's physical fire and heat that's doing the damage, if you have a spell that provides protection from the flames and heat of the weapon like oh say Protection, then yes it applies. But again it isn't carte blanche against all magic forever, the description's just making it known that Fireblade creates actual flames to do the damage unlike say Disruption's damage which isn't from a physical medium such as fire, and can consequently be Countermagicked. As for Ward Against Weapons, even if it's read narrowly as Ward Against *Weapons* (my preference), then yes it still covers Fireblade's damage, as Fireblade replaces the damage of the weapon completely, it might be on fire but it's still a weapon. Fireblade however makes it more likely for the damage to get through Ward from the on average higher damage than the base weapon in most circumstances, if you're trying to kill an ancient Brithini Zzaburi with a Firebladed Dagger, then maybe you should be rethinking your approach there.

The tight deadline is important because the mirror is wanted for the Seasonal Holy Day, like yeah there are other Holy Days, but let's be clear the Sea Season Holy Day for Ernalda is very much focuses on ahem "the storm fertilizing the earth" as it were. That's why the holy day that plays out at the end of the adventure is about the marriage between Orlanth and Ernalda, it happens during this day on Clayday Fertility Week Sea Season to bless the planting of the crops for the year to come. The mirror specifically is an important artifact from the myth the Marriage of Orlanth and Ernalda, it's one of the gifts that Orlanth gives to Ernalda to prove his worth as potential husband. Why didn't people attempt to locate the mirror for previous Sea Season Holy Days for Ernalda? Well it comes down to a couple things, Daravala had found out the info for where the mirror is just recently, and is willing to fund it now that she thinks that she can use it to get some recognition for herself, also honestly, others *have* probably attempted to find the mirror before the PCs, they just became the victims of the Smoking Ruins, and their knowledge was lost along with them like many others before. Before the Dragonkill this wouldn't even have been a problem, the Smoking Ruins were populated and lived in then, the mirror only became lost post-Dragonkill. Also for the travel options, I don't know why you think Option 3 is the shortest, just looking at the map in the adventure, Option 2 is pretty much as straight a line as you can get from Duck Point to the Smoking Ruins. Whereas Option 3 has you following the river for a bit until centaur's ford, then crossing through the Ten Ridges separately than the Dragonspines to near Queen's Post, and then crossing the Dragonspines which has an even more roundabout path than Option 2's crossing. It's just not the shortest path by any mean.

I'm with Richard and Tindalos, when enchanted at normal thickness for the style of armor, enchanted copper armor provides the same defense and encumbrance as bronze armor, y'know the metal that is approximately 90% copper by composition. The option for a thinner, lighter, but weaker set of copper armor is precisely that, an option, it's a special circumstance that takes advantage of coppers unique properties, it's a very ductile metal that can be hammered thinner than bronze can be due to it's softness, and then enchanted to be stronger, but not as strong as it would be at normal enc. But if the redsmith is just hammering a normal thickness copper plate cuirass for a Babeester Gor cultist and enchanting it, then it's just the same defense and encumbrance as bronze with the added benefit of only taking damage to the armor when penetrated for over double the armor point value.

It's done by the Orlanthi through the worship of Ana Gor, the Goddess of Death and Human Sacrifice, because only through her does human sacrifice not damn or destroy the soul of the sacrificed, and is thus a non-Chaotic act. Those sacrificed through her worship go to the Beautiful Place, an afterlife that's considered the most pleasant in the underworld as a reward. Most worshipers of Ana Gor are temporary, only taking up her worship when their god demands that a life be taken, though I remember that there might be traveling holy people of Ana Gor that can be called upon for the performing of the sacrifice, and there is the Shaker Temple Ana Gor priestesshood. Yeah the Shaker Temple is a focal point of human sacrifice in Dragon Pass, it involved sacrifical Sacred Kings, and started up again once humans started returning to Dragon Pass in Tarsh since Arim the Pauper married the living incarnation of Ana Gor, Sorana Tor, which is eventually why Hon-eel found the Tarshites willing to accept blood rites. For the gods that call for human sacrifice, Orlanth and Ernalda expressly forbid such for their own rites, but Maran Gor, Babeester Gor, Humakt, Ty Kora Tek, and Esrola (Yeah, Esrola's not completely the warm and fuzzy type as it turns out) are Orlanthi gods that on rare occasions demand for human blood to flow to be appeased. Outside the Orlanthi gods there are some more I can think of that probably also desire human sacrifices, Shargash, for Hon-eel's cult blood flows like water, Natha, Mallia if you clan needs to propitiate to her to stop a disease, Magasta, and Wachaza. I excluded the Troll gods because well, human sacrifice is something they desire probably, but it isn't the same sort of taboo as when someone is sacrificing their own species, though Zorak Zoran, and Karrg definitely accept Troll sacrifice iirc.

They're presumably referring to the Dagger weapon, not the Dagger category in general. These are cultural weapons, something that everyone in said culture has some familiarity with, just through daily living. Everybody has a knife in Glorantha, even non-combatants such as children, or a healer of Chalana Arroy has a knife on them (though the healer wouldn't use it for defense, rather for cutting up bandages or gathering herbs); they're just sort of something that has practical everyday applications and with that comes the familiarity. The other forms of daggers such as throwing or parrying, they just don't have that "everybody has one, or is commonly used by us" factor to them that Culture Weapons implies. Throwing daggers or parrying daggers are weapons that take dedicated skill to use that isn't commonly found in Dragon Pass, rather than what you grew up using, or what one of your local thanes has on them when on patrol. Sickles come closest to replicating this everyday familiarity of the knife/dagger, but even then they aren't commonly used as weapons when compared to the knife.

Oh wow, that actually makes things click into place rather nicely, I hadn't really considered that by being Pure Horse People that had allowed for direct contact with Yelm at the Dawn, I just (incorrectly) assumed that the Yu-Kargzant cult "grew" out of the Kargzant cult at some later date. Thanks for the corrections and clarifications Jeff.

I actually have a question that this topic is somewhat related to, does Kargzant have a Hill of Gold style quest? Forgive my ignorance, but while I know Kargzant's mythic role to the Pentans, and Grazers as their Lightfore god, and thus probably has one, I'm not familiar with his myths themselves. I'm also wondering a bit about how in Grazer religion how much Kargzant is subsumed into Yu-Kargzant, are there still Kargzant cultists in Grazer society? Or is the subsuming of Kargzant so complete that he is only given praise to in worship for Yu-Kargzant? I know the Solar Pentans worship him still apart from the Sun as his own deity, but the Grazers it's more ambiguous to me.

I would point out for the second figure (as Jajagappa read them) of the Sixth Belt, the lower part of the symbol looks like the symbol of Alkoth, and that there are 4 participants that have a specific role from Belt One, Orlanth, Earth Axe, Spear, and Sword represented by the 4 dots. I would read this as warning that Shargash has continued to pursue the Heroquesters since the Underworld and now the Heroquesters must turn him away by some means. (I don't own Eleven Lights but I'm just cross referencing what I have from my copy of the Guide.)

From: Notes on the Many Suns and the Sun Gods of Prax, Page 5

I had to go and recheck RQG to make sure, but the usage of elemental runes for Inspiration isn't restricted to a specific skill category JAV, a character can totally use their Fire Rune to try Inspire their sword skills. I understand that the feeling to attempt to limit the elemental runes to the skill category that they are associated with, but that's never explicitly stated to be a thing in the rules, and for the purposes of fun, I wouldn't want it either. It's rather unfun when the game mechanics force a character to have the same personality archetype every time if you want to ever invoke an elemental Inspiration in combat, no? And as you point out, it leads to some seriously bad balance (oh no, the forbidden word!) issues, look at what a Darkness Rune character could inspire with the rune for a laugh under those rules. Anyway, I might imagine that Fire Rune Inspiration as something where the character is going back to the basics of swordplay, and using the sword style in the more pure, idealized form that they were taught, rather than the improvisations that they've made over their usage of the skill.

I am inclined to think that the NPCs besides Leika do make up the Colymar tribal inner ring, and that they do have some overlap with the Ernaldori ring, though this overlap is limited to only those who are part of the Ernaldori, so Hastur, Dunorl, Ereneva, and Erannina. This isn't a problem, if anything it's intentional. The Ernaldori were the royal clan of the Colymar before that bloodline was ended and continue to be among the most powerful of clans in Sartar, so it's unsurprising that so many of them are pulling double duty and being both clan and tribal ring members. Hareva , if I had to guess, is probably a member of the outer ring of the Colymar, she still advises Queen Leika, but she doesn't hold significant tribal power like inner ring members do. She might be a member of her clan ring as well, but I'm not even sure what clan that might be. If she isn't a part of the Ernaldoring, then it's unlikely that she is a member of the inner ring of her clan as she might be a several day journey from her clan's home.

We are given some indications of where the Xeotam Dialogues are from, S_G. They're specifically called out as using the "archaic Fornaorian titles for the Elementals, instead of the more widely God Learner titles." This means that they're using the same names of the gods as the Fornaoli, one of the tribes of the Enerali. The Fornaoli were a tribe located in Tanisor, up to the southwestern side of Guhan, but were either converted to Hrestolism or had their land taken by the Silver Empire in the Dawn Era, and forced east. Also helpful in locating the Xeotam Dialogues origins, we should consider what branch of Malkionism Xeotam proscribes to. Here's a quick quote from Jeff "The Rokari (who are strongly influenced by Brithini materialism) believe that this discussion of rebirth is meaningless – your ONLY chance at having an afterlife is by strict adherence to your caste duties and restrictions – the Solace of harmony with the Invisible God." As this conflicts directly with Xeotam's discussion of the afterlife and resurrection, I do not think that Xeotam was a Rokari. But considering how the Xeotam Dialogues are shown as presenting a rather conventional Malkioni school of thought (enough to be widely popular among more conventional Malkioni) I am not quite willing to say that Xeotam is an Arkati sorcerer. Taking into consideration all of this, I think Xeotam is probably a post-GL Hrestoli Zzaburi. All this evidence together leads me to think that the Xeotam Dialogues take place in most likely in western Safelster, or less likely eastern Seshnela. I forgot my link to Jeff's quote: https://wellofdaliath.chaosium.com/home/catalogue/websites/moondesign-com/archive-of-of-old-glorantha-discussions-on-moondesign-com/malkioni-culture/

I'm gonna keep the Hsunchen talk in the Western Hsunchen thread, we can debate about whether the Enerali are the Galanini there, but here's some interesting bits for this thread. Interestingly we can actually see the origin for the Galanini's matrilinearity, it comes from the Vustri of all people. https://wellofdaliath.chaosium.com/home/gloranthan-documents/glorantha-2/the-enerali-circa-130-st/ Check the Galin section of the document, it was at 130 ST the only location that used matrilinearity at the time, but by 265 ST (according to the maps in the Guide) it's conquered by the Dari, and not controlled by the Vustri. I could very much see a situation where the Queen of Galin was willing to surrender if the Dari accepted her hereditary rights to Galin, and converted from Humat (Storm) to Ehilm (Solar) in exchange, popularizing this kind of primogeniture among the Dangkae (later the Galanini).

I'm just gonna keep the debate here Joerg, sorry again about messing up the threads, but I just feel uncomfortable intruding into Women in Glorantha like that because of a mistake I made. Outside the guide, here are all the references that I ca find of the Galanini and the Enerali in what resources I got: https://wellofdaliath.chaosium.com/home/gloranthan-documents/glorantha-2/the-enerali-circa-130-st/ https://www.glorantha.com/docs/safelster-in-the-first-age/ Glorantha Classics 3: Cult Compendium, Page 250 "The Ralios Story There is a story in Ralios which is different from these. It concerns Galanin, the Horse God. Galanin was part of a fallacious “animal genealogy” which the Westerners created in order to organize (and overcome) the native hsunchen population, a very primitive people who had not yet received the word of the Dawning “Galanin is the son of Lofak, who is the god of Hoofed Animals, and is the son of Hykim and Mikyh, the dragon ancestors of all beasts.” The Galanini were actually a large confederation of pony‑riders who lived in Ralios before it was civilized. They were foes of the Basmoli, or lion‑men, who occupied Seshnela and Tanisor then." King of Sartar, Page 191 My thoughts are probably a bit simpler than you think, it's just that the Galinini and Enerali are consistently written as being the same culture with varying terminology for their name, that seems to have solidified with the Guide into Galanini as the modern and Enerali as the archaic. They seem to occupy the same places, worship the same primary gods, all without ever being mentioned in the same write-up as one another, like you'd think that one of the write-ups would mention that there is a split between the Horse Hsunchen, and those Theistic Horse people occupying the same space but there isn't. I'm just going with the most likely answer I can, which is that they are the same peoples over a period of time. Sorry if you wanted some decisive piece of evidence that connects them Joerg, but this is what I have available, and the conclusion it's lead me to.

Scott, Joerg you both hit on some solid gold here, it's a line of thinking that acknowledges the agency of the Hykimi rather than simply having them be acted upon. But I do have some disagreements with a couple minor things that Joerg said. The Galanini are the descendants of the Enerali, not a separate Hykimi equivalent, and they are still capable of the shape-changing Serpent Beast magic (or perhaps have innovated it again), if the sidebar on 382 of the Guide is correct. Specifically I think that the Galanini are descendants of two tribes of the Enerali: the Utoni, and what remains of the Fornaoli that didn't convert to Malkionism. They never rejected the ways of Galanin/Galana, they still acknowledge that they are kin to their horses. Their Solar identity is wrapped up into this, I've posited that the Horse Hykimi had a Solar identity from the very beginning before ever meeting Humat or the Kachisti, and I think it still rings true. I've been thinking that on top of the purity of the Fire/Sky rune, there seems to be a tendency towards hierarchy, and complexity from civilizations with a Solar identity, and I wonder if the Galanini's culture was compatible with urbanization due to this. Hopefully that doesn't throw a wrench in your thoughts Joerg, but it's weird how this one specific culture of Hykimi have managed to never reject their nature or their gods, and yet are a part of the most urbanized region in all of Glorantha, and have periods of dominance in the region instead of just surviving at the edges. The Galanini/Eneral continue to fascinate me. Perhaps this is just me, but if I were to write up the Galanini like SKoH, I think I'd have them reject the whole Man's God and Woman's God dichotomy. It's something that isn't from them, it's a Theyalan import. The chieftanesses of the Galanini are probably worshipers of Ehilm, which doesn't really square with him being the Galanini Man's God if all his highest rank and powerful worshipers are exclusively women. (The Galanini are matrilineal for determining who their chieftesses are, and perhaps matriarchal depending on your definition.) Addendum: Didn't see this thread when I made this post, and put this in Women in Glorantha, woops.

Woops, I didn't see the Western Hsunchen thread, my bad.

Sorry for causing further distraction from the focus on you thread Heart by derailing further from women in Glorantha, but I gotta say some queer stuff. I'm saying this as someone who is Bi, for a gay guy you sure seem hellbent on jamming heteronormativity into Glorantha. Two men with the Air Rune as their primary elemental rune can totally get married without this whole thing about hero questing to change your soul, that's just so unnecessary. I reject that there is some forced elemental runic portion to marriage where one must have the Earth Rune, I think we've had Vingans and Orlanth worshipers married before, and they'd both have the Air Rune. A gay marriage is probably no less likely to be one that involves a dowry, a "bride" price, and moving into their spouses clan, depending on which person's clan is of higher status, or a love-marriage than heterosexual people. As for Trans People in Glorantha, well the Orlanthi at least, I've just been having an idea knocking around in my head for a while now. Heler's water rune in the Sartar Companion allows magic for "Change Gender", and while this is most commonly interpreted as exclusively self focused, I don't think it has to be. I think that a Heler Initiate can change others sexes to match their genders, and do this as a part of their role in Orlanthi society (or at least do in My Glorantha). Sure the Heler Initiate and Trans Person might have to wait until the next holy day, but it can be done without heroquesting, and is an accepted part of Orlanthi society. Like if we're gonna have a sex changing cult, one that's notable for being beneficial in their society, why not allow them to help others that need help doing just that? This thought is the majority of the reason I prefer to treat Vingans and Nandani as their own separate enby genders, and so partly why I politely reject Qizil's elemental runes = genders. (Enby = N.B. = Non-Binary, for those of you not in the know on queer terminology.)

I think that Vasana's Saga is actually rather helpful in looking at what the roles of Initiates are within Orlanthi religious ceremonies, specifically the segment on page 245 of RQG. I'll quote a few excerpts about how the ceremony is laid out, the bits in parenthesis are my own commentary. "I (Vasana, an Initiate) was part of the outer circle of dancers, singers, and musicians." "Outside of the circle formed by our dance, others (Initiates) guarded the ceremony." "Yanioth and Harmast were outside the circle, along with the other lay members and those who wished to offer gifts to Orlanth but did not know his inner secrets." "Within the center of the dancing circle, the priests and lords made a smaller circle" "We rejoiced as we felt our lungs filled with Orlanth’s power." Vasana wasn't a leading officiant herself, but the narration makes it quite clear that she renewed her connection to Orlanth. So clearly we can see that while Initiates are an active part of a ceremony, they are not necessarily always the leading officiants when more capable holy people are present, though I certainly think that an Initiate is capable of officiating if the situation requires it. As for what defines what an Initiate is, this section of Vasana's Saga makes it rather clear, an Initiate is a person who knows a gods Inner Secrets, and in so knowing wields their gods powers (and becomes the god to an extent), that is what defines an Initiate. The Man's Breath, the Woman's True Self, the Starheart, these are just a few of the Inner Secrets of Orlanth and Ernalda that we have names for, there are more for these gods and others that have been yet to be named. I think that for the most part a temple giving the rank of Initiate is far more about recognizing that the worshiper knows the gods Inner Secrets than it is about a strict hierarchy, though I feel that some temples are certainly willing to make Initiates not from that temple work to earn that recognition. I don't think that 2 on your list of kinds of worshipers actually exists in Glorantha, @Tindalos. I think it's purely an artifact of the modern mindset that there is the idea of going to worship ceremonies, and then not worshiping outside said ceremonies. The whole Christians going to church on Christmas and Easter only would seem strange and foreign to the Orlanthi, it's a mindset that's a product of a specific kind of monotheism where the divine cannot be contacted outside a particular and exclusive theistic class. Not like Glorantha where the divine is here, can be felt, and lived by everyone so you give worship to where it is due, even if you do not know the Inner Secrets of that god. If anything the opposite is more likely to be true, there are worshipers that worship outside the context of ceremonies, and just never get around to going to the ceremonies. The Issaries lay person that pays their tithe to use the market, worship the god, but never actually head over to the temple during the ceremony. I feel that kind of Lay Member is a far likely than someone who goes to the gods ceremonies and doesn't worship outside of them.

I'd let it re-attach at heal 3. A heal 3 enhanced by a crystal works the exact same way as a non-enhanced heal 6 in terms of stuff like reattachment, I'd say.

I am inclined to think that they have normal passion roles, and here's why. Thinking of the example in the HQ:G book about how Samastina had to overcome her own Illumination to prevent herself from suggesting that Nochet ally with the Scorpion Queen against the Lunars might be a useful example. In that Samastina has the Ambitious characteristic with the specific desire of (wants to be Queen) that she uses as a opposed roll against her own Illumination which is tied to her Earth Rune. If we were to translate that to RQ terms Samastina's characteristic might be thought of as a Desire (wants to be Queen) Passion that she then uses to overcome her illumination. But leaves the minor problem of how then to model Illumination in RQ, is it tied to her highest elemental rune with an opposed roll? Or is it treated as a more basic percentile roll with negative modifiers on the passion or rune used to oppose it? In the matter of Honor for breaking oaths, it depends, does anyone else know? Humakt doesn't count in this matter since it's illumination. If no one does save the person themselves, I'd say no, if someone else does then yes.

The point of the Daysenerus part isn't what the Orlanthi know, though I feel as though this info isn't lost to time, it's how Daysenerus acted. It's that because of Monrogh's revelations, this is still something that Yelmalio did. The point is that Yelmalio still sucks on his own actions merits. Also in the case of Argrath and the Lunar garrison, that's a case of a professional army becoming prisoners of war being taken for slavery with many of the officers being ransomed back, to my knowledge the Ergeshi weren't just the soldiers but entire Kitori clans, non-combatants and children included, being taken as slaves for the rest of their lives as chattel as well as their descendants in permanent bondage. Like one group knew that this was a possible consequence to their actions when they signed up as a soldier, the other not quite so.

On the other hand Rodney, Yelmalions suck, they're Frontier Dara Happa. They're easily among the most prejudiced of the Dragon Pass area cultures, they're highly sexist and xenophobic in an explicitly "you are inferior" way. I'd rather say that Vingan is more likely to be knocking out a few teeth of the Yelmalion because he decided to talk down to her than ever giving him a free drink. They use disproportionately more slaves to cultivate their fields than the surrounding cultures of Dragon Pass with something like a 3-1 slave per Yelmalio initiates ratio. Like I've talked to Ellie about the Vendref of the Grazers, and how they fit into Grazer society, as a semi-free underclass yes, but as ultimately a member of their community, I get none of that impression from Yelmalions and that the Ergeshi are little more than chattel working the fields to the Yelmalions. The Yelmalions are scheming little back-biters, you might do something to try and get their favor like Tarkalor did, and get a whole lot of "we don't owe you anything" in return for your efforts. Even if the worshipers of Yelmalio didn't suck, you still have him being the first god to violate the Cosmic Compromise at the Battle of Night and Day as Daysenerus (while modern Yelmalio isn't precisely Daysenerus, Monrogh claimed him to be Yelmalio and Yelmalions treat him as another name for their god). Like what honor, what oaths can be held as meaningful from him as he was the first to go back on his oath when it suited him? Like this isn't even the case of Yelm and the Sunstop which had outside interference from the Unity Council to stop him, Daysenerus just went back on his oaths when it suited him. Not even to get into the hilarity of his myths which are essentially "I got my ass handed to me again and again, but that makes me so much purer than you" Yelmalio is entitlement incarnate, he is the essence of "I deserve this" while never even attempting to acknowledge the efforts or what he owes to others. He is the one "friend" you have that you have a one-sided relationship where you try to please him, but are never acknowledged, because of his abusive narcissism.