Ladygolem

I mean, everyone in Prax is always raiding each other for herdbeasts to eat anyway, it doesn't set them apart all that much from their neighbours.

I'm assuming also that the Unicorn Riders aren't part of Waha's covenant, so they can eat and herd whatever they want.

Essay structure would help here. Introduction, outline of thesis, one paragraph per argument, conclusion and summary, that sort of thing. I think I grasp the overall argument (Gerlant is descended from men-of-all in exile, not the Seshnegi royal line as he claimed, possibly?) but I cannot follow the path you followed to reach that conclusion.

On 1/15/2022 at 11:48 AM, Brian Duguid said:

I'm also thinking: what *kind* of Heroquest would the Hsunchen want to undertake?

"All right, that's it!" *undomesticates your alynxes*

2 hours ago, Ironwall said:

What would they look like?

Presumably very similar to minotaurs, but with goat parts instead of cattle.

2 hours ago, Ironwall said:

would this also means they would breed like a normal creature?

Probably, yeah. Their whole deal is a direct result of the whole Thed myth, after all.

58 minutes ago, Baron Wulfraed said:

Except the various "ur-") words in the manuals are not "Gloranthan". In English (derived from Germanic roots), the "ur-" prefix indicates "primitive" ("primordial") or "proto". "ur-bronze" => primordial-bronze.

Not quite, I think they're referring to Gloranthan metal names like ul-metal (silver), ga-metal (copper), hu-metal (bronze) etc. which are named after their associated deity (eg. hu-metal = Humakt's metal).

3 minutes ago, Richard S. said:

The Talar don't use sorcery themselves though. Their biggest compensation for limited Rune magic is instead the power they get from their caste, which allows them to compel other Malkioni castes to obey them.

If it's not sorcery or rune magic, what is it?

I've probably missed something but why is Open Seas a sorcery in RQ:G? Every reference I find to it implies it should be a Rune Spell of the Dormal cult. There's overlap between the two magic systems of course, but Open Seas isn't present in the Red Book of Magic either afaict. Presumably the sorcery is how Malkioni ships leave harbor (or not? the recent threads on Malkionism imply that perhaps sailors would still use theist magic anyway). Come to think of it, there's an awful lot of ship related sorcery in the book. What's the context for this?

I ask because a Lhankor Mhy sage in the campaign I'm running selected it as one of the free Sorceries they get from being a philosopher. It's possible they shouldn't have been allowed to take it, whether because of lore reasons or because I misread the rules. If so, I'll consider this a "YGMV" moment just so I'm not taking my player's toys away after allowing them.

I believe the surreal, otherworldly vibe of Gloranthan magic myth and legend is best represented on film not by live action but with animation. Especially (not exclusively) if it was made in some obscure Soviet client state in the early 80's. Here are some examples.

Suur Tõll (1980) - Available in its entirety on Youtube! A unsettling, surreal, at times hyperviolent tale of an Estonian Giant beset by a weird forest Chaos thing with multi-pupilled eyes (like that one dude in In The Mouth of Madness)

Grendel Grendel Grendel (1981) - A very loose adaptation of the John Gardner novel with a great vocal performance by Peter Ustinov in the titular role. Don't be put off by the musical numbers and cute characters; it's quite melancholy is full of great mythic imagery. The Shaper in particular is clearly spreading some kind of EWF draconic conciousness...

Son of the White Mare (1981) - Based on Hungarian mythology, this is basically a direct window into Grazelander cosmology as far as I'm aware. Not on Youtube, sadly, but the trailer should hopefully whet your appetite:

Peleda (2012) - Not a full movie but more Baltic mythology goodness. Nature spirits, owl queens, runes everywhere you see. A short series - definitely worth sparing 18 minutes for. Here's the first episode.

I swear I've recommended these before but Cartoon Saloon's Irish Folklore trilogy: The Secret of Kells (2009), Song of the Sea (2014) and Wolfwalkers (2020) are so good at portraying the Spirit World it's unreal. The last of these has some really good Hsunchen.

The Monkey King: Havoc In Heaven (1961) - You know the story well, needs no introduction. Look how beautiful this rendition is, though!

I was already beyond hyped for Elden Ring, I'm not sure my heart will be able to take even more reason to be excited!

I assume the intended reading is "female Praxians [as opposed to male Praxians]" not "those who are both female and Praxians".

That reminds me though. In the Pegasus Plateau adventure "The Pairing Stones" there's the following NPCs:

What's up with that?

16 minutes ago, PhilHibbs said:

I haven't come across that. Where is it from?

HeroQuest / Questworlds, iirc.

4 hours ago, Jeff said:

Eiritha is in Sartar. Her cult is pretty small, probably less than 3000 people in total, but it is there.

How does this compare to the Uralda cult? How linked are they?

Spoilers for published RQ:G scenarios:

This place might be a good place to look, about halfway between Kimantor's Plaza and the Donandar temple, by the western wall. It's not Black Arkat, but it's somewhere to start.

Let me know if you ever decide to put out a Polish translation, I'd be willing to help! I'm not sure why you would, but you never know...

That is some seriously cool art. What a great cast! Sounds like an amazing campaign. Please keep us updated!

6 hours ago, Joerg said:

Stuff you carry along is buoyant to the medium it comes from - even an air-filled barrel or amphora needs to be carried, while a strand of kelp will keep being pulled by the current or your motion if you carry it from the water side to the land side.

You can tell you're near a Fish Road terminus by the occasional very confused minnow or carp swimming through the air ...

Also, if you haven't seen it, a good reference for the Fish Road would be the movie Sadko (1953, dir. Aleksandr Ptushko), specifically the scenes in the Underwater Kingdom. Great special effects that still hold up nearly 70 years later! The movie was released in the US as "Sinbad's Magical Voyage" for some bizarre reason (there's a very funny MST3K episode of it).

I can't find the clip on YouTube, so I'll attach a painting of the same scene by Ilya Repin. One of my favorites.

(PS. The Novgorod in that movie is also what the Malkioni West looks like IMG 🙂 )

5 hours ago, Erol of Backford said:

So if a short tunnel transports you into the bay it would be like traveling 15 if not 30 miles and so I assume it would be almost like a portal or your travel speed is drastically increased, which I like as if you are walking it'd take you a long time to get to the City of Wonders which is about 75 miles away from Backford?

Sorry, I missed the part where the shrine was on the river. Substitute "bottom of the bay" with "riverbed". The distance is perfectly normative, only the experience of entering the water is supernatural.

34 minutes ago, Erol of Backford said:

So its like teleportation or a portal of sorts?

Not really, you're still moving through space normally, downward towards the sea floor. It's more like where normally you'd have the water's surface, here you have sort of a gradient.

Remember that walking along the Fish Roads you don't feel  like you're underwater. You breathe and move like on solid land even while the fish swim past your ear. It's not a big air bubble.

Maybe there's no hard transition. You enter the shrine from the land, walk through a short tunnel, and upon exiting you find yourself at the bottom of the bay, never having noticed the exact point one became the other. And vice versa coming up, of course.

1 hour ago, svensson said:

So it might have something to do with shamans generally and not Daka Fal specifically.

That would make sense if the cult wasn't hostile to Waha's, which is also heavily shaman-focused.

29 minutes ago, Alex said:

This post may also be relevant to your interests:  

As usual, I am rendered a fool and a clown for not searching the forums before posting. Thanks!

I guess with this in mind it's not so much weird that they're so hostile, but rather that the justification for this isn't mentioned anywhere in Daka Fal's writeup in the rulebook. That seems like a pretty significant aspect of the cult to leave out when most players and GMs most likely won't have access to those older publications.

Pink looks cooler, in my opinion.

It could also be some other, magically significant color if you want to spice things up a bit. Blue in honor of Larnste and their footprint; grey or purple due to chaos taint; iridescent like mother-of-pearl from flowing over the Fish Roads...

Looking through the cult compatibility table on p.311 of RQG, I noticed that Daka Fal's cult is marked as hostile to twelve different cults - far and away the most out of any of the cults listed. Even the Seven Mothers cult is only hostile to half as many, and he's got Eurmal beat by one! Daka Fal's cult is even hostile to Waha and Storm Bull, which you'd think would at least tolerate each other since they exist mostly within the same social groups. What gives? I don't see anything in their cult description that would explain this.

7 hours ago, Baron Wulfraed said:

Check the Starter Set corrections thread, pinned at the top of the subforum page.

My bad completely, I'll delete my post.