Mirza

I think that all new adults in Orlanthi society go through a period of limbo, first testing out the waters of their genders cult, followed by other non-gendered cults, and in fact many new adults never cult initiate at all, and remain lay-members of their cult for their entire lifespan. It's made clear in Sartar Kingdom of Heroes that awakening your Man's Breath or Woman's True Self isn't cult initiation, it's just adulthood initiation along the lines of your genders god. Initiation into a cult isn't automatic, it's a deliberate step of devotion to a single god above what the majority of people do. Are you not aware of what agender people are? Agender doesn't mean asexual, it means a person who doesn't feel any attachment to any particular gender or identify as being neutral in gender. Some agender people deliberately make themselves look more androgynous, while others might still retain some of their assigned birth sex and merely prefer pronouns such as they. This contrasts with other Non-Binary genders in that the vast majority of the rest of them identify, at least in part, with some gender identity. For instance genderfluid people identify with multiple genders, and feel that their identity shifts over time. Anyway to bring this back to Glorantha, Humakt feels like the only god of the Orlanthi that has an agender identity. Humakt severed much to retain his purity, and gender seems like it's among them as it ties straight back to Orlanth as Man's God. So from the perspective of the Orlanthi the agender people are small-h humakti in that they have no gender much like how Humakt has no gender from his actions. I fully think that Orlanthi pronouns are just a matter of them referring to the person's physical sex, not necessarily their gender identity. I'm well aware Joerg, but that's implicit in the discussion, and my post is specifically about non-cisgender people in Orlanthi society.

I just assumed that when the pre-adult initiation vingan (gender) was in the woman's tent, she's taught the basics of womanhood but eventually things diverge and that instead of going through Ernaldic initiation, she finds herself pulled along the path of Vinga. I don't see why a vingan would go through the Ernaldic initiation and then afterwards somehow apply for being a vingan, it should be something that naturally occurs during the adulthood initiation as things click into place and who she is becomes apparent. From there the typical post-initiation cult trial phases occur, all vingans become at least lay-members of Vinga, with a majority of vingans who initiate becoming Vingans, but other vingans find themselves pulled along to other Orlanthi cults to initiate in (even potentially Ernalda initiation). This sort of pattern is perfectly normal to the Orlanthi and occurs similarly for helerings, nandani, and agender people (humakti).

There is a pretty reasonable connection well before the Dawn that can explain why both Zzabur and the Enerali use the name Ehilm for the Sun, even if they use them in different meanings, with Zzabur using it for a faceless construct, and the Enerali worshiping it. The Enerali learned it from an ancient people of Law, the Kachasti. The Kachasti went on their Speaking Tour during the early Storm Age, with what would become Ralios right at their doorstep, and met many different peoples and learned from them while also teaching them. The Horse Hykimi that would become the Enerali were probably one of those peoples that interacted with the Kachasti, and learned many things. Like my thoughts are that the Horse Hykimi would naturally have something of a Solar identity, with the Air being learned from Humat leading to the split between the Utoni/Fornaoli and the Vustri/Korioni. Then the Horse Hykimi meet these people from the west who teach them to be different than just Hykimi, and they learn new skills such as their goldsmithing, they learn some language like Krjalk, and the name the Kachasti use for the Sun, Ehilm.

That phrase was a rallying cry by the followers of Karvanyar to reject the Sun Dragon that ruled Dara Happa for a time, leading to Karvanyar slaying the Sun Dragon, and freeing it from EWF control with himself as Emperor. As you could probably tell the principle behind it is that the people of Dara Happa don't need a dragon to tell them how to live their lives since all people had the light of life within themselves. According to the Guide it seems to be Nysalorean in origin, but I always take that label with a fistful of salt.

Joerg is referencing Khordavu, the first Dara Happan Emperor post the Dawn during the First Age circa 250 S.T. whom with the aid of Plentonius the scholar, "resurrected" shall we say the true worship of Yelm and the Dara Happan empire from the scattered remnants of the Solar peoples. There is a theory in the forums here that Khordavu didn't actually resurrect Yelm's true worship, and that it was more a wholesale invention somewhat similar to Sedenya from various "Little Sun" myths and fragments. That makes it seem a bit more cynical than perhaps it was though, everyone in Peloria seemed to be aware that once they worshiped the Sun undivided and unmarred back during the Golden Age but that worship was lost with the Sun's death, and the subsequent dissolution of the ancient Solar Empire. But now the Sun's back but the "proper" worship isn't truly there, in steps Khordavu. Some of the people here have speculated that "Yelm" was previously an office to be held by the pre-eminent Sky Diety of that time, with various gods we know as "Yelm" such as Arraz (Perhaps the first Yelm), Ourania, Polestar (I think), and Murharazam (as the one Orlanth kills). There might be more that people have said, those are just the ones I remember hearing speculation about off the top of my head. So Khordavu wasn't purely cynical when he worked with Plentonius to "resurrect" the cult of Yelm, sure there was some cynicism in that it allowed Khordavu to achieve the greatest personal power, but it seems clear to some extent that Khordavu believed in the One Sun. There is also another small accompanying theory that goes along with this one, that during the Sunstop one of the Unity Councillors a descendant of Khordavu, the Emperor Khorzanelm imposed the truth of Yelm on the Sun, and that was the true moment of (re)birth for Yelm from an outsiders perspective.

There's maybe also Galana/Galanin the Sun Horse, whom seems to be Ralios' Little Sun/Kargzanti figure for the Enerali, the region where Yelorna originated, though there seems to be a disagreement there within the Enerali about the Sun Horse's gender with Utoni worshipping the male Galanin, and the Vustri worshipping the female Galana if we accept Greg's Safelster in the First Age work on top of the Guide. https://www.glorantha.com/docs/safelster-in-the-first-age/ While the Utoni or as they are more modernly called the Galanini worship the male Galanin, they're also the only matrilineal rulers (perhaps even matriarchal?) among the Enerali seemingly as far back as the Guide puts it "ancient times" (Lartuli Description) (Godtime is my guess, First Age at latest.) though the current Galin dynasty which Ingye belongs to only seems to have ruled for the past two centuries. I would go so far as to say that perhaps the woman role isn't dominated exclusively by the Earth rune like the Orlanthi but that the Fire/Sky rune night be just as accepted for a woman in the Galanini. The Utoni/Galanini fascinate me, while they've accepted some revelations such as Humat = Orlanth, or becoming more urbanized, they seem to have never actually lost their worship to these great big culture groups exerting their influence in Safelster like the Vustri or the Korioni did to the Theyalans (though I imagine they have some strange thoughts compared to Kerofinelans), or were absorbed into the Malkioni like majority of the Fornaoli were. They're still this tribe of people that have managed to retain their own separate identity, they embody their solar heritage and somehow remained pure though not particularly chaste. Looking at the Galanini, their matrilinearity, how they retained their identity, and the marriages and inheritance in Ralios, suddenly the orgies clicked into place. The festival orgies in Estali and Helby serve another function than just being religiously significant and fun for all involved, it allows the Galanini to have heiresses without the potential problem of the father claiming the child as their own. Think about it, both the Malkioni and the Orlanthi who married into the Galanini would claim patrilineal descent of the child in the majority of cases and desire to raise the child among their own cultures, slowly but surely chipping away at the Galanini, the orgies give the Galanini an out, a child that is theirs and theirs alone. It might not be chaste but it certainly is a way of maintaining the Galanini's own purity. Sorry to go off on a very weird tangent about the Galanini, with what might be some totally off-base theories and thoughts, but I feel like this might be the one chance for a while I get to mention some of this with it being tangentially related to the topic. Edit: Sorry I forgot to talk about how they're also seemingly the Horse Hsunchen at the same time, but that's wrapped up in their whole Solar identity as well, I feel.

Seriously Bill, give it a rest. Qizilbashwoman's explanation is perfectly reasonable, a couple sentences to discuss the nature of longhouses, which S_G mentioned in his post, nothing that should provoke that kind of reaction. I've read some of the previous threads that involve the longhouse discussion as well, and always found that Qizilbashwoman's arguments make sense, and I've always come away from each discussion with some new knowledge that I didn't have before, so I'd rather like her to continue. Longhouse society has a place in my Glorantha with the Kerofinelans, and elsewhere.

I've been thinking that Humakti were actually split roughly evenly sex wise. Note that I say sex there, I treat the Humakti as agender, as in they have severed themselves from gender as a part of their initiation (though the Humakti aren't the whole of agender people in Orlanthi society, same goes for Helerings and their genderfluidity). They might continue to use the pronouns associated with their sex (if the Theyalan languages even have pronouns), and they might choose to act in a particularly mannish or womanish way, but the Humakti are severed from those roles and genders alongside their family, clan and tribe. For Cults that aren't associated with a gender, I assume that the proportion of each gender is roughly in line with Orlanthi demographics with a weak lean towards the deities gender. For Chalana Arroy's unpopularity among men that's rather easy, that's the result of Orlanthi men holding high the teaching from Orlanth "Violence is always an option" which clashes quite obviously with Chalana Arroy's pacifism, I also imagine this unpopularity extends to people of the Vingan gender. Vingan gender? Yes I treat Vingans and Nandans as their own genders, alongside Helerings and Humakti they make up the non-binary genders that the Orlanthi recognize. Does this mean I think that there are Vingans who might not be initiated to Vinga but to a different deity? Yes, the Vingan might say that while she worships another deity, she still walks Vinga's path. A woman can still be a woman while being initiated to Issaries, the same goes for men, I see no reason to say that isn't true for other genders as well, sure the majority of a gender will still worship the god associated with their gender (save probably Humakti), but isn't that true for the binary genders as well? It's just a bit of linguistic laziness that the Orlanthi continue to refer to the Vingan, Nandan, Helering, and Humakti genders as such, it's messy and I like it when it's messy because then it feels true. As for the non-Orlanthi, I'm gonna say that I haven't thought as much outside the Orlanthi context, and I got some more thinking to do there. It's gonna come down to each individual culture's unique thoughts on gender, I don't think that you could apply my thoughts here directly to the Malkioni for example.

The one that immediately springs to my mind is the Windsword in Griffin Mountain, it has a spirit of Law bound to it that desires the wielder to fight Chaos. You have to overcome the spirit to use the sword, but isn't bound to the wielders will. If the wielder flinches at the chance to fight Chaos then the sword casts Face Chaos on them to try and make them fight.

Yeah it looks like it flows up. Since Halikiv is rough badlands I gotta ask what then an anti-waterfall (waterrise?) looks like. My thought is a waterfall in reverse, just with smallest stones and the splashing and froth at the top of it instead of the bottom, and any stone too heavy to just be carried by the river staying at the base of the waterrise itself and eroding.

So after doing some (not really) intensive research, I think I have the answers that we all desire. First off, during ancient Egypt circa 1400–1352 B.C. (During the Bronze Age) we have tomb art actually showing the branding of cattle by Egyptians akin to how we currently brand cattle (or did pre-electricity). Look in the far lower left, and you'll see workers heating up a metal brand in a fire, and then applying it to tied up cattle, showing that even during the Bronze Age this method of branding was still practiced. Larger Image: https://i.imgur.com/k5jLRcc.jpg From here: https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/30.4.57/ (This work is a replica of the tombs art, fyi, but the original from the tomb of Nebanum is still indicated) But that's not all I've found during my investigations, in northwestern Kenya, an ethnic group called the Turkana, and other African pastoralist societies, have preserved a kind of branding known as Pattern Branding, that evidence points towards existing since 4000 BCE or so (From my skimming of the paper). "This is achieved by using a cooler branding iron and applying it to the coat for a shorter time so as not to kill the hair growth cells of the branded area. Hair grows back, but because of the increased concentration of the local skin pigment, it grows with much more of the original coat pigment. Gray hair thus grows back black, yellow hair dark brown and roan hair dark red. " Pattern branding seems to only be done to specifically valued animals, not necessarily an entire herd, but this feels like exactly something that would be done for a Rune Lords horses. Since pattern branding actually requires even less heat that the Egyptians branding up above, it's pretty easy to say this is something that is definitely happening somewhere in Glorantha. Larger image: https://i.imgur.com/URohSEQ.gif Don't just take my word for it, from here: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s13570-017-0110-4 I know that my evidence is for Cattle branding (since it's much more widely available), but at some point we have to accept that while Horses are significantly more fragile than Cattle, they're still Ungulates of comparable size, and these practices seem like they could still be done to Horses (from my untrained perspective).

The forces that Torang put together after the Red Goddesses birth were not some greatly armed groups, they were mercenaries, local militias, and essentially whoever Torang could get to hold a weapon. This ramshackle army did win the day, but by no means was well equipped with weapons and armor, but under the Goddesses guidance they invested magic into their regiments (if you could call them that) to try and make up for it, and in doing so won. But by investing their magic in such a way the battle magic of the regiment was well formed, and to most it was formed to a paupers regiment. For the specific regiment in the drawing, pteruges weren't allowed on the line peltast/infantrys armor since the original regiments needed to save costs around the edge, and so too was the line leaders pteruges restricted to a short length, and their battle magic formed around this and made these restrictions necessary for them to use their regimental magic. Some of the Lunar Regiments that formed their magic during this victory have managed to lessen burdens of their original restrictions for regimental magic, some have disbanded their original regiment to create a new more effective one once they could. But this is not the way of our pteruges lessened regiment, they would never scorn the magic that was given to them by the Goddess, and such momentous magic it is that perhaps they are right, shortened/no pteruges might be worth it for they are the First Victors, and there is magic from such a title.

Having had some time this weekend, I have updated my Sorcery changes to version 1.1, and have credited Crel with a special thanks on the front page. Changes to RuneQuest Roleplaying in Glorantha Sorcery by Mirza v1_1.pdf

Thanks for the feedback, since you addressed my work point by point, I'll try and do the same. To be clear I did read every part of the post, I'm just truncating sections so we don't get double the wall of text. For sacrificing the POW for a Rune or Technique, this is honestly a holdover from the original rules in RQG for gaining a Rune and Technique, I didn't want to completely throw it out, and while it isn't the best way to spend your POW, it isn't meant to be. I view it as something that honestly only the Malkioni are going to be doing in any significant amount, it functions as a way for a Zzaburi to get a baseline skill in the Rune or Technique, and also doubles as something of an initiation into that specific area of sorcery. (I added this part in later) Thinking about cost benefit of POW sacrifice from this and my later point about Magic Skill Bonus, and the whole 00% casting example, then I think it's a reasonable rule that the character cannot learn Sorcery R/Ts from 00% without having POW Sacrificed for a Rune or Technique previously. So for instance a LM or a Philosopher can learn a R/T from 00% + Magic Skill bonus%, without needing to go through the whole POW sacrifice deal again, since they've done it already, they understand Sorcery, but a non-Sorcerer has to make that sacrifice of a POW for a Rune or a Technique to be able to do Sorcery. While technically these rules would mean a LM and a Philosopher must have sacrificed POW to be able to do Sorcery, it's a waived cost (they did it in the past, and just regained the POW somewhere over time, a bit of a handwave but whatever, don't want to discourage this cult/occupation.) For getting a Rune and Technique both at the same time for each point of INT above 12, this is going to be an odd perspective, but we have to think about how in RQG that the normal max INT for a character without rune affinity bonuses to their stats is 18, and INT above that's distinctly a heroic stat. So for there to be a society of Malkioni running around, not all of whom are 60%+ Fire rune affinity characters with max d6 rolls, it makes a certain sense to me that the max non-rune affinity INT can just squeak by and learn all 6 techniques. As for learning Runes, I felt that the current rules are just too restrictive, I imagine that the spells in the future supplements are going to be a whole lot less Truth rune focused, and there will probably be even more spells with multiple runes and such, so this is something of a "Sorcery needs to have a broader base" to me. Yeah I don't have a better solution for Free INT without completely rewriting Spell Intensity to a significant degree, and I wanted to keep this as a quick few pages homebrew supplement. I debated myself whether half percentiles should be Unmastered for spell costs, that's perhaps the singular part where I wavered the most back and forth. I realize that as written it might be a bit overpowered, but I was attempting to not hobble Sorcery with this homebrew from the start. I thought that the half-percentile chance to cast would itself be enough of a downside for casting a Sorcery spell without a period of Meditation or Ritual Preparations, and thus having some narrative cost/making it unreliable for battle. Yeah I just think it's a bit too ambiguous about spell costs and Unmastered in the original RQG rules, made sure to nip that in the bud. For memorizing spells with the Spirit Magic rules, there is actually a point cost associated with each Sorcery spell in the RQG rules, the number of points is the same as the number of Runes and Techniques that the spell calls for, so that's what I was referring to/implying as the points. This makes it so that the character doesn't have a frankly ridiculous amount of memorized spells since even the simplest of sorcery spells are 2 points. There's still a decent amount of spells a Sorcerer can know, but it still becomes a "is this one worth keeping around when I could memorize this instead?" deal. Certainly a LM Philosopher can add in say 10% to a fifth R/T during creation, and then add the Magic Skill bonus%. When it comes to non-LM and non-Philosophers learning a R/T in creation, I'd rule they'd have to do the POW sacrifice, and mark it off their POW to gain the R/T. From there it'd be fine to add points to a new one as a regular old 00% skill with Magic Skill bonus%. I love your idea of half-INT intensity for Unmastered, and half-percentiles. I feel this is a better way of balancing half-percentiles than them being Unmastered for costs. So that example with 4 percentiles was from an older iteration of casting% where it involved an average% of the R/Ts that the spell calls for, that clearly needs a fix and a ruling. I would not allow for a spell to be cast where there is 00% in all the Runes and Techniques involved, it should require at least some kind of percentile (even a half-percentile) in one of the R/Ts that the spell calls for. I'll admit I was a bit of a dum-dum, and forgot about Magic Skill bonus, but yeah it should probably be added after the 30% base skill is applied to get your actual % for that R/T (so it gets grouped in with the R/T% on the equation). But if your Magic Skill bonus (Impossible for a human but just hedging my bets here) is enough to bring the initial percentile over 30% then POW sacrifice only allows you to know the R/T. My intent that was outside being usable by non-Sorcerers, and the casting percentile ruling, that Inscriptions would be utterly unchanged, the only reason that I included these rules for non-sorcerers using inscriptions is because I had a hilarious thought of a Sorcerer doing a tool rental business on the side or providing inscribed gear to warriors. (Bit of an Openhanded Mostali thought there, imo). I know that this post will probably be a bit scattershot, I did some rewriting after thinking about later parts, hopefully you can forgive that. (Specifically I wrote everything up to the Magic Skill Bonus section and then started rewrites, oof.) Thanks again for the input, Crel, you've certainly given me stuff to think on here.

After reading the "How to play a pure sorcerer" thread, I decided to modify the rules for Sorcery. This is just an effort to write down what felt like the obvious alternative rules for Sorcery from what was already there, though I did use a couple minor suggestions from people in that thread. I would gladly hear peoples thoughts and critiques about this modified ruleset, or if you need clarifications feel free to ask. I didn't really keep track of who suggested what, and I'm not going to trawl through the walls of text in that thread, so if you see one of your ideas in here, then feel free to say something so I can properly attribute you. Edit: Now with version 1.1 of the rules. Changes to RuneQuest Roleplaying in Glorantha Sorcery by Mirza v1_1.pdf

Eh, Bill's poking me in the correct direction did the trick though, sure it wasn't in depth but it was enough to shift my thinking along the lines of what you and Sir_Godspeed would afterwards talk about Qizilbashwoman. But then again going into depth is good since there might be people that maybe are lurking and reading this thread, for whom that poke wouldn't be enough.

This makes sense to me, I was perhaps over the course of reading this topic getting a bit too focused on it as a simple transaction of magic and worship between the Wyter and community, rather than thinking of the Wyter as symbiotically a part of the community. And for the Black Spear and Colymar, I think what's more than likely happened there is that the Clan Wyters picked up the slack for the Black Spear for keeping people safe and working magic for their clans, but since the Black Spear was still the Tribal Wyter, even at a distance, there was still a sense of community for the Colymar, though it would have faded over time as the Black Spear was away.

Thanks for the replies and the welcome, and I wouldn't be too worried about being humorous Bill. So looking at the responses it seems like there isn't really any minimum for Wyter save that it needs to be enough people for there to be a sense of community (I'm not convinced by the Shaman example), and that it looks like it's more an element of being capable and willing to dedicate the magic and worship towards the Wyter that determines if a community has one. This is sort of implying to me that the community is the part that comes first, which leads me to wonder how does the community then dissolve if the Wyter is lost? Or is that even before the Wyter is summoned/quested for there's some amorphous spirit of the community that the Wyter takes the place of?

I know that's what the rules of RQ:G say for a number of people to sustain a Wyter but is that actually how many people it takes or is it just a contrivance for the sake of smoother gameplay? That's why I choose a family (not a particularly large one) or Apple Lane, as they're examples under 50 iirc, though in retrospect a neighborhood is probably well over 50 people. Sorry if that came across as a bit umm brusque, your Malkioni examples of Wyters are helpful, thank you for them.

I have a decent understanding (I think) of what a Wyter is in the context of Orlanthi hill clan society, but I have questions about Wyters if someone is willing to humor me. How large of a community does it take to maintain a Wyter? While we have examples of tribes and clans with Wyters, can smaller communities have a Wyter, such as a family, or a small town such as Apple Lane and the surrounding area, or a neighborhood within a city? I don't expect them to be anywhere near powerful but since they are communities, it stands that they might have a Wyter. Do non-Orlanthi have Wyters? Do for instance the Malkioni have Wyters? I think it'd be a complete non-issue for the Arkati but It would seem at odds with Rokari or Brinthini attitudes with regards to worshiping to empower their Wyter, but then again it might not be framed that way in their society and instead as a servant of the community way. How would Dara Happans differ in their treatment and worship of their Wyters? Is the act of creating the Wyter the foundation of a community, or is it that as a community forms then the Wyter is created? Is sacrificing to the Wyter the defining act of being a part of the community, or do you become a part of the community and then sacrifice to the Wyter? Or is following this line of thought pointless, and really just nitpicky? While Leika took her tribal Wyter, the Black Spear, with her to Whitewall to keep it outside of Kangharls and the Lunars grip, she continued to sacrifice to empower it, was it still continuing to aid the Colymar from hostile spirits and providing the tribe with magic? I don't think so since there's the whole rule about ranges and POW for the Wyter in the RQ:G book but I just want to make sure.

I'm no expert at Pamaltela but I'll give it a shot. I would say that the only part of Afadjanni, Banamban, and Kareeshtu are intelligible with each other is the ancient parts of Firespeech and Earthtongue that remain in the language, and some Vadeli, and Seshnegi that was borrowed from interactions with the Vadeli, and God Learners, otherwise they cannot natively understand each other. So I would have Firespeech, Earthtongue, and Vadeli/Seshnegi as your language equivalencies, assigning 1/2, 1/5, 1/10 based upon the history of each region (probably don't use 1/2 for any of this, stick to 1/5, and 1/10). Maybe Afadjanni would have 1/5 with Vadeli, but again I am no expert so feel free to change it. As for the Malki question, I would lean either 1/2 or 1/5, I could see the language equivalence drifting towards 1/5 but with the advent of Rokarism in Seshnela, there being a push for an older style of Seshnegi, and it being closer to 1/2.