Sheliak

My first thought is Asrelia (though I'm definitely influenced by the scene in King of Dragon Pass where a lost heroquester can gamble with her).

A demo for Windows & Mac is now available on the game's Steam page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2278010/Six_Ages_2_Lights_Going_Out/

No, it's a separate game. Has its own Steam page and everything! https://store.steampowered.com/app/2278010/Six_Ages_2_Lights_Going_Out/

I can see a powerful Uralda priestess wearing something like this.

The current iteration of Argrath (one Argrath, his companions are only his instruments) is intensely boring to me. There are major NPCs that I actually like—Kallyr, Cragspider, Broyan, I'd love to know more about Inkarne. But Argrath for me is in an awkward middle ground between the interesting big-deal characters and forces of nature like Harrek and Jar-Eel. In general, I found the Argrath situation in King of Sartar—where he was multiple historical figures who got confused with each other, or possibly multiple members of a player party that suffered a lot of attrition—really interesting. (I also really liked Annstad of Dunstop.) And coming at it already bored by "modern" Argrath, I was surprised by how much I liked that whole situation! I'm sad that it's been abandoned. (My favorite Argrath is Argrath Venharlson of the Karandoli—that was a lovely numinous fairytale, if kind of disconnected from any, well, Argrathing.)

That's the name of the easter egg clan! (Sorry, should've put that in parentheses or something.)

I am, ah, no longer qualified to speculate about the sequel--but for this game I think I can still do so! The Ergeshites do consider Uryarda the same as their Mother Goat--the ones who join you say that Sidar sent them to you because you also worship his wife, Mother Goat. But "Uryarda" doesn't seem to be a name they use at all themselves. For random names, the full player clan list is: Blazing Axe, Blue Arrow, Golden Hand, Night Shield, Star Dancer, Swift Mare. (And Six Stars, but that's a special case.) The split clan names are Sunflower, Golden Colt, Sapphire Arrow, Fire Dancer, White Hoof, and Cloud Breaker. Relandar... Elmal is specifically Shargash's half-brother: their father is Yelm, but they have different mothers. Perhaps Relandar shares Elmal's unknown mother? But he's definitely a solar god, which implies relation to Yelm, so that theory has holes in it... I suppose he could have been the god of a lesser city near Nivorah, one that was absorbed into it? But that also seems rather unlikely. (But his splitting and recombining himself in his myth does rather put me in mind of the Golden Men--maybe he is a wiser solar fragment! One who chose to support Elmal rather than becoming another Small Sun out for himself.) (I tend to wonder if Lokarnos = Rogoros, based on Lokarnos's cult minting coins with a wheel on them...) One thing I've been wondering--does anyone have a guess as to the identity of the City of Chimes, from the Chaos ancestral enemy backstory? I can't figure out which Dara Happan city that would be.

One of my theories for a while has been that Gamari is one of the gods who die temporarily during the Great Darkness, and that the reason that she doesn't stick around as Horse Mother in the Orlanthi pantheon is that a deified Redalda kind of takes over her job, so that after the Dawn they don't restore their connection to Gamari. But the Riders who don't become Elmali-Orlanthi don't have Redalda, so they'll have to maintain horse magic differently. Maybe they assign it directly to Elmal/Kargzant, and that's where the "Sun Horse" comes from?

Autronos's story can go in a few different directions! ... some of which I only know about because I looked at the source code. I think the furthest the rivalry storyline can go is about like this (I copied this from the source code scenes file and may have guessed wrong about how some of the text actually displays). "The <otherClan> hero Autronos is engaged in a bitter rivalry with another Wheel hero, Usumatus, of the <foilClan> clan." "Autronos of the <otherClan> clan slew his rival, the Wheel hero, Usumatus, in a duel. It is said they fought over the love of a woman." "Autronos of the <otherClan> clan married the daughter of the <foilClan.plural>, as part of a peace arrangement between the two clans. You may recall that he slew their champion, Usumatus. The way I hear it, Autronos' bride is not the woman the two heroes fought over. So this story ends in woe for all." I don't think he ever gets caught up in the Wheel Kingdom story arc; one of the possible snippets you can hear about him has him refusing to be chieftain of his clan even though they want him to do it. No word on if they also wanted him to be king! (Though it would have been fun to have Beren offering to go talk to his old friend the Wheel King to resolve some of those issues.) And sometimes Autronos will randomly die instead (anything from fighting Rams while exploring to the south or to rescuing a kidnapped priestess). There are also a few different random heroic deeds you can hear of (fighting the Alkothi, finding his way back from the Gods War after getting lost from a ritual, killing a dwarf made of iron, meeting Elmal, making a perfect chariot etc.) The duel event has a few different variants too—if it's not to the death (either one can win), they make friends and all subsequent Autronos updates are delivered by Beren talking about his "old sparring partner." It's kind of endearing. "I am back from my duel against Autronos. The pup wasn't so tough as they said. I banged him up good. Despite his lordly bloodline, he took his defeat with good grace. We drank kumis together, and I showed him a few tricks. The next time someone comes at him like I did, they'll regret it." "I'm back from my duel against Autronos, with some bruises and scrapes to teach me humility. That boy sure can fight! You should have seen the older nobles' stuffy faces when, in his victory, he said he wanted to drink kumis with me! He'll go far in the valley, you can bet on that."

I think I found the source myth (mythlet?) for the Threat to Crops and Forests heroquest, in the Book of Heortling Mythology: "Ernalda’s protectors were often successful. Orlanth defeated the ravaging dragon for her. Elmal destroyed the Iron Plants that were poisoning her children." Dwarves aren't mentioned, but who else would make iron plants? They're the obvious suspects. Also: the Gods War event with the warring plant and water gods is called Hell Crack in the debug log. Which gives an idea of the scale of the battle, if nothing else... Also finally found a "modern" Glorantha map of the area and Boulderwood is still there. So much for Elmal turning it into glass, I suppose... (And realized that Alkoth is technically in the upper left hand corner of the map, under the glacier from the beginning. But on the map! Kind of scary to realize...)

Definitely a different beastie, then!

Definitely a different beastie, then! Thanks.

Shouldn't Bagog have a scorpion tail? Although Krarsht's forelimbs do look less like pincers than I originally thought, so I'm less sure that that monster is related to her...

Going through the debugs again, and according to the scene names it looks like the Chaos monster in the endgame ritual with the trolls has a name: Krarsht, Chaos goddess of intrigue and assassins, and leader of the Chaos army that unsuccessfully besieged the trolls of the Castle of Lead as well as a member of the one that killed Genert and Yamsur. Will kill them. Probably. Time is weird! She was "driven underground" according to the Glorantha wiki, which would be another reason why the trolls dislike her--that's their territory! She is the mother of a bunch of nasty Chaos critters called Krarshtkids and Krarshtides; I presume that the very similar monster in the Issaries and Lhankor Mhy rituals back in KODP is one of those. (None of the other endgame chaos monsters have names, though I'm still holding onto my theory that the antler monster could be Mogjorbor.)

Another theory about Yonesh: he might be Valind, god of cold and winter, son to Vadrus, probably Freeze-Everything from "Zarlen's First Wander". Not sure why Yonesh would want to be the sun (other than ambition!), but it fits with the glacier being a site of Yonesh's power.