dumuzid

I seem to recall reading here on the forums that you only count as 'descended from Yelm' through the paternal line, but I don't have any textual sources to back that up, and indeed would like to see the point clarified.

I hope Only Old One gets a nice portrait too.  Fair's fair.

13 hours ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

What is wrong then ?

The trolls earned their right to the surface world by being the greatest and most successful foes of Chaos.  They saved the world, or at least Genertela.  They should have a share in it.  The Great Compromise and the cosmos as such would not exist without them--it is their world too.

And as others have pointed out, the Underworld is still bedeviled by Yelm for half of each day.  Death takes them to the current Underworld, not Wonderhome proper, which can only now be reached by heroquesting to the Golden Age and earlier.  Trolls want to go to the afterlives prepared by their gods and cults as much as any other theistic people, but like most people, they don't want to get there too fast.  You never really run out of new things to eat on the surface, after all.

46 minutes ago, Martin said:

Yes i already took account that some of those came from her, what i am wondering is are there more or ones she never gave out or gave to other people?

I've read that in Kethaela, Asrelia is considered one of Argan Argar's wives (which I always imagined as a case of a bold young suitor gaining the favors of a rich old widow).  There could be many 'lost' riches of Asrelia that are simply hidden by Darkness, waiting for those who know their resting places (or for whom Darkness is no obstacle) to retrieve them

18 hours ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

What alternate Moon cults are around that could be Orlanthied?

IMG this is the role of the White Moon Movement, at least in the Zola Fel region after the Liberation, but from that position it seems likely to spread with Argrath's direct influence.

In my version of the Liberation of Pavis a significant component of the White Bull Society's winning coalition was White Moon exiles and renegades from the empire; post-Liberation they've received the king's approval to take over the Seven Mothers temple in New Pavis.  They paid a tithe in secrets to the White Bull, and will likely prove key to establishing the first Temples of the Reaching Storm as the Hero Wars progress.

On 6/27/2021 at 6:33 PM, Squaredeal Sten said:

Summoned darkness elementals in choke points, right on top of the enemy.

I once used this to great effect against the Tusk Riders.  Met their charge with some hard Gorian war women, unleashed a dehori into their midst, held them in place so Grazelander allies could cycle charge into the back of the pig formation.  Caught between fire and darkness, they didn't stick around long.

There is a Bad Place in Old Pavis.  The scourings of trolls and Praxian beast riders have not cleansed it.  It casts an ugly shadow across the back of Argrath White Bull's  regime in New Pavis.

Technically there's at least two Bad Places, but the one I want to talk about is Ogre Island.  What was this place originally in Old Pavis, or before in Robcradle-that-was?  What's Argrath going to do about this weeping Chaotic sore in his backyard, if anything?  What's the deal with Judge Dahak, the albino 'mediator' among unscrupulous sorts in the Zola Fel area (aside from being a thinly veiled Cormac McCarthy reference)?

I'm curious.  The place is likely to feature in Sacred Time 1626 of my RQG campaign.  As a party favor, attached is my RQG interpretation of Dahak, equipped for a journey down the river.  My player characters, junior Eaglebrown Warlocks, encountered him haranguing an elder, revered Agimori shaman.  Two of them opposed Dahak in debate under magically charged circumstances, and thereby gained their first points of Illumination.  One of those two entered into a wager with Dahak over the outcome of the pending Battle of Corflu, placing his soul in the balance against Dahak releasing one of his thralls into the player character's custody.  After the successful battle the character kept his life, and freed the soul of a Kralorelan illuminated monk traded to Dahak by Sheng Seleris--to the Judge's enduring chagrin, but secret joy at being on the losing end of a game, and having new cause to compete.  The ghost monk has signed on as that character's contractual allied spirit, and is their tutor in martial arts.

So, to the tribe: what can you tell me about Ogre Island?

Judge Dahak.txt

To go back to the original question of the thread: p. 556 if the Guide to Glorantha has an excerpt from a Hero Wars Prophecy composed by someone called Acac the Revivifier, who claimed to be a broo.  Their prophecy claims that the cosmic doom of the Gods War is repeating itself in reverse, and that this reversion ends with the Void devouring all existence.  Several attempts to kill Acac after they pomulgated their prophecy in 1472 "failed utterly."

25 minutes ago, Joerg said:

or the Vadeli who might hold them in reverence or whose crooked ways might lead them to not do so.

At least in My Glorantha, from the Vadeli perspective a dead Vadeli is a failed Vadeli, worthy only of exploitation.

This is more a Glorantha than Runequest answer, but the kings of Jonatela are supposed to be priests of a whole bundle of cults, with shrines and temples there in the palace.  Would seem to mostly depend on CHA limits, overcoming them, and maneuvering the relationships of the different cults and temples a character participates in.

I've been interested in those grim, ostensibly vendref Humakti who've guarded all the Feathered Horse Queens ever since I first read of them.  The suggestion of a sort of sword-guerilla movement within the vendref populace that stepped into the open when the first FHQ's struggle presented an opportunity is terribly intriguing.

On 5/18/2021 at 2:36 PM, Joerg said:

The uz solution to the Curse of Kin

On 5/18/2021 at 12:44 PM, jajagappa said:

Norinel and Kimantor

The last time I was on the player side of RQG I tried to work the problem in the first quote from the position of the second quote.  While playing an Argan Argar dark troll who was more or less consciously emulating OOO from the end of Dark Season 1626 onward (pulled together a Unity Army to drive Chaos from a ruined settlement, married a human Earth priestess, became the founding king of a Darkness+Earth+Harmony-centered society, etc.), I began a side project of attempting to fight the Curse of Kin using the intercession of Earth powers.  I tried this in two ways, with two separate results.

The character's human wife was a Gamari priestess from the Grazelands.  Their wedding was officiated by the Feathered Horse Queen, in a Great Temple to Ernalda, in the presence of an Ernaldan artifact from the God Time--essentially, stacking Fertility blessing upon Fertility blessing, in the hopes of making an uz-human union reproductively viable even in the full light of the Third Age.  The result was rather more than he could've anticipated: the priestess bore twins, one a human boy, and the other a female uzuz.  You can imagine the impact that had on the troll element of his community, to say nothing of the Grazelander in-laws.

He was emboldened by that success to attempt something more long-term, with the collaboration of a Xiola Umbar nurse.  He worked out a plan for the most senior enlo black badge of the settlement to choose a single, permanent mate, to be married in the same major Earth Temple under the Ernaldan rites, in the presence of the same artifact, with the expectation that both enlo would abide strictly by the conditions and obligations agreed to in the ceremony.  The couple successfully abided by all of it, and though their union did not produce dark trolls, it did uniformly and healthily produce superior trollkin.  While not the intended result, this too was considered a success, for the following reason:

As a condition of accepting the kingship of his new settlement, this troll had extracted a particular promise from the Kyger Litor establishment of its founding trolls.  Enlo worshiping Argan Argar and Humakt played a crucial role in triumphing over Chaos and founding the settlement.  To repay them, my character got the Kyger Litor females to swear that they would recognize the enlo of the settlement as trolls.  They did not make the oath without some grumbling, and would not have sworn if my character had not recently performed great pieties on behalf of the Hellmother--but he had, so they did, and each enlo who settled in the new town was reckoned an uz magically and socially.  If the enlo of the community could reliably reproduce healthily, and each was both an uz and a full member of the community (i.e., not a downtrodden slave), then the community's number of hale, capable uz citizens was bound to balloon over the years.

The game concluded before it could explore these possibilities too deply, in Fire Season 1628 I think, but at its close my character's long-term hope was to call on the intercession of Ernalda as a sort of cosmic midwife to allow both dark trolls and trollkin to reliably reproduce healthy offspring, of their own or other kinds of troll.  I haven't played out his adventures in the later years of the Hero Wars, but I'd like to think that in some far off Glorantha he sees some further success in the struggle with the Curse.

3 hours ago, Eff said:

 

Or, alternately, Shargash also has a green sword he gave to Phargentes the Younger. That also works. 

Well that's the rub: with the Red Sword(s), we're dealing with a lineage of parthenogenic magical sword reproduction.  My understanding of it is this: 

in the Gods War, Tolat fought what is termed a Chaos horror in the Sky and was nearly destroyed; this may or may not be his fight with Umath.  At some crucial point in the battle Artmal saved his uncle from defeat.  Afterwards Tolat gifted Artmal a sword, the offspring of his original Red Sword.  Much later in the Gods War, when the Artmali people first descended from the Blue Moon, Artmal repeated Tolat's act and offered the offspring of his own sword to the first mortal emperor of the Artmali.

At some point after Artmal's defeat by Baraku/Orlanth the king of the Zaranistangi gained a sword from the Artmali emperor.  Accounts of this are contradictory: some imply that the Zaranistangi took the sword by force, others imply a repetition of the Tolat gifting, where the emperor offered the sword to the king after the Zaranistangi saved him in battle.  This is the Red Sword that the Zaranistangi took to Sechkaul when they left Pamaltela and the wreck of the second Artmali Empire, and which King Dengbalu of the Zaranistangi used to save Melib from the Flood.  Whether it is the same sword the Artmali emperors carried, or another parthenogenic offspring of the Red Sword line, I don't know.  I would assume that the Red Sword carried by Artmal is with him in the Sea of Fire, where Orlanth drowned and dismembered him, but it might have been scattered across the worlds with his bones.

It's possible the sword carried by Phargentes is a new offspring of the Red Sword line, or an earlier entry--maybe he quests for and wins the original in the Gods Realm as part of subduing Alkoth, for instance.

Given how the Third Age Flood is supposed to effect Fronela, and the several opportunities in the region for sword-carrying leaders to be nearly defeated only to be rescued by plucky young go-getters in Fronela, I can see plenty of ways for the Red Sword lineage's mythology to inflect the Western Hero Wars.  Phargentes could get his Red Sword by leading the surgical Moonboat strike that saves whoever's wielding the Spada sword from Lord Death on a Horse.  Gebel and Gabaryanga could gain their Red Sword by helping avert some disaster for the Loskalmi and a Sword-wielding Meriatan.  There's all sorts of possibilities--especially since King Congern, as the king of Jonatela, is a high priest of Vorthan, the Fronelan cult to the Red Planet.

On 5/10/2021 at 10:00 PM, jajagappa said:

Sounds like something the Fronelans would bring out in the War against War.

I've thought the same; specifically, that Meriatan might try to resort to the God Learner techniques used in the Second Age to partially master the sword (see accounts of Ordanal and the founding of Eest) should the first serious confrontations between Loskalm and the KoW go poorly.

I'm curious what role you all think the Red Sword of the Artmali Emperors, housed in the (apparently long disused) Temple of War at Spada in Loskalm circa 1618, will play in the Western hero wars.

Given Hero Wars prophecies about other regions of the globe it seems that the Teshnan hero-sailor Gebel and the Veldang hero Gabaryanga are supposed to visit the area on their joint quest to recover the sword and restore Artmal, but I don't recall reading any reference to what events transpire in Fronela that see sword leave its current resting place. 

The sword was stored in that old barbarian temple well before the Ban.  Its last recorded use that I know of is when a 'foreign hero named Avlor' wielded it in the revolt that freed Fronela from the post-Closing God Learners.  Avlor may or may not be Avalor, the only Jrusteli ruler of Melib who could both draw and sheathe the sword from its previous resting place, Tolat's great temple there.  Avalor abdicated his throne late in the Middle Sea Empire to chase the kidnappers of his wife into the west, and took the sword with him.  I've never read any detailed account of Avlor's participation in the expulsion of the God Learners.

It strikes me that the Red Sword may have a role to play in relation to the Kingdom of War before the foreign heroes take it out to sea.

Ahem, I believe that if you consult the learned preceptors of the Word you'll find that the Abiding Book was written by the very hand of Malkion, to the astonished reverence of the Jrusteli church fathers

4 hours ago, metcalph said:

Be thankful that the God Learners didn't create a combat version called Janissaries.  

Definitely stealing this idea for my version of Fonrit though.

e: the Jann-Issaries

For Argan Argar's associated spell, I recommend Safe.

15 hours ago, svensson said:

Obviously some opponents wouldn't observe such niceties, such as...trolls,

Argan Argar and Issaries are great friends and business partners in the myths.  A Zorak Zoran warband might not care, but more disciplined troll forces with higher proportions of Argan Argar speartrolls, like Shadow Plateau forces, would actually be quite likely to respect heralds carrying the Harmony or Communication runes. such heralds do need to make sure that their peace-signs are legible to Darksense though, to avoid any misinterpretations of intent.

9 hours ago, Hijabg said:

Plains of the Apes 

Forests and mountains of the Apes.  If Genert survives the Gods War without being turned into a Chaos horror, central Genertela would probably be as lushly forested as north-central Pamaltela

if somehow the Earthfall were circumvented, and Genert's Garden was not laid waste in the Lesser Darkness, then the prospects for survival rise significantly for the dominant civilization of the Garden: the baboons.  I would assume that a Glorantha where Genert survives would include a much more powerful and numerous baboon culture in central Genertela.

  i'm lovin it

When we founded a settlement at the Smoking Ruin in the campaign I played in we were helped regarding the Grazers by their participation in the battle that made settling the ruins possible to begin with--warriors from the Four Gifts tribe came unasked, because their maternal ancestors told them to.  We further cemented relations through my character, the settlement's first king, marrying one of the daughters of the Four Gifts' chief, a Gamari priestess.  The Feathered Horse Queen officiated the wedding herself.  Our political relationship with the Grazelander Queendom as of the end of the campaign was non-tributary allies--we became an important trade link between the Grazelands and Sartar.

At my table we don't use the fail penalties for augments, only the normal rules for fumbles.  At first it was just because we were all first-time RuneQuest players, but we never adopted the penalties once we knew better.  Now that I'm the one GMing I've decided to keep omitting despite knowing the rules much better, though hardly completely.  I want to encourage my players to use their more marginal passions and runes; the ever-present fumble chance keeps the element of risk without the potential to put a player character into a failure spiral during a scene.

On 3/15/2021 at 4:06 AM, Jeff said:

This includes an obligation to protect the weak (especially women and children) from the strong, but generally excludes barbarians and the Elder Races; indeed this obligation is often celebrated by fighting monsters or Krjalk.

As this is ostensibly a thread about the Holy Country: has there ever been a Malkioni sect or society that sought co-existence with the Elder Races, rather than supremacy?  I'm not sure whether the Autarchy counts as one, given how many permutations of belief Arkat went through before founding it.