dumuzid

The old Dara Happan conflation of Darkness with Chaos really leaves them with serious gaps in their defenses against the real stuff.

So, this may be a shot in the dark but: does anyone know any sources regarding the sky trolls?  Trolls that invaded the sky dome in the God Time and stayed there, like the Celestial River?  I recall reading oblique references to them, but don't know if there are any actual myths about them.

I've been thinking about this a bit myself, and given the skull similarities I agree with giving dark trolls the same bite damage as an equivalently-sized bear or other large omnivorous mammal

The RQG campaign that prompted this thread featured the revival of an ancient tradition in its latest session: the full ceremonies of a human-troll marriage.  The player characters are the founders of a new settlement on the frontier between the Grazelands and Sartar, and the marriage is intended to sanctify the community's place as a non-tributary ally of the Grazelander queendom.  The marriage comes only after a courtship period where the prospective groom, my Esrolian Argan Argar dark troll, met the eligible daughters of their most prominent neighbor, the sunlord of the Four Gifts tribe, and preparations for the wedding began only after a contingent from the player settlement participated in a joint raid against Lunar Tarsh.  That raid featured a few audiences with, and one mission for, the Feathered Horse Queen; after the raid's success, the FHQ offered to come to the player community and bless the marriage herself.

There was very little precedent for a Grazelander marriage to a troll, so the Grazelanders hewed to their traditions while the groom's party used those from the story of Norinel and Kimantor, from Esrolia: Land of 10,000 Goddesses.  The bride arrived in the courtyard of the settlement's acropolis, a palace of magical obsidian raised by the community's first Sacred Time heroquest, veiled in the dress of a Grazelander earth priestess and accompanied by her father in his full sunlord regalia.  The groom stood with three dark trolls and a trollkin black badge, each of whom held spears that suspended a black canopy between their points.  The trollkin black badge represents trollkin on the town ring, and held the vessel of the community wyter, a bronze lance perpetually veiled by shadow.  The groom made a stir by using recently acquired powers of the Nightcult subcult of Argan Argar to appear in human form for the first time in public, with enough Extension to make the effect last the whole wedding day.

When the groom and bridal parties met the bride curtseyed, and the groom offered his hand to help her rise with Argan Argar's words from the Wooing of Esrola, telling her to "stand proud, for [he] would rather have her friendship than her fear."  The bride and groom processed through the settlement accompanied by their parties, to music that included a skeleton drummer animated by the town's foremost Zorak Zorani.  The groom's mother, a wealthy and hardened Argan Argar trader, was moved to tears by the scene.  They descended into the settlement's Earth temple where they exchanged vows before the Ernalda altar, witnessed and blessed by the Feathered Horse Queen.  The combined fertility magic of the temple and the FHQ's blessing ensure the happy couple is likely to have many children, regardless of the form the husband has during the, ahem, "Uleria moment."

There was some question of the legal basis for the marriage, but the synthesis of Shadow Plateau and Grazelander ideas on the subject was an equal husband and wife arrangement, with the wife moving to the husband's house and the children joining his clan.  It has been an uphill battle for the groom to convince many people he's met in Dragon Pass of connections between Argan Argar and the Earth goddesses that Esrolians take for granted, but with the Feathered Horse Queen's blessing local opinion seems to be turning in the Son of Night's favor.

5 minutes ago, DrGoth said:

What God do miners worship?

Asrelia, the elder earth goddess of treasure within the earth, is certainly one of them.

Come to think of it, the Orlanthi probably would've taken much better to a system where a picked band of ceremonially equipped warriors faces an equivalent Lunar force at a pre-arranged location, with the losers being sacrificed to the Bat, much better than the quota system.  As the ones to set the rules the Lunars would usually win, just like the Aztecs tended to in their Flower Wars, but the opportunity to fight for their lives and sacrifice themselves for their communities--i.e., going to the set-piece battle because without it the Lunars will resort to conventional war and all its horrors--might've mollified the Orlanthi tribes' wounded pride, rather than aggravate it as fixed quotas did.

13 minutes ago, Leingod said:

, the whole "imposing quotas of your own people that you have to feed to our horrific Chaos demon that eats their very souls"

How horrific this is rather depends on how much weight you place on an individual's soul heading to the afterlife at death, then getting recycled into a new life, and on what exactly it means for the souls of the Bat's victims to cease to exist.

A Lunar explanation could be that those sacrificed to the Bat are essentially getting the end point of the Lunar Way early: their individuality is dissolved away, while their full potential is returned to the formless pre-existence of Chaos.  One day the energy of their disintegrated soul will return to Glorantha through the Chaosium in an entirely new form, stripped and cleansed of the limitations and biases of its previous state as, well whatever a soul is.  Every person devoured by the Bat becomes a further step on the Goddess's road towards bringing rebirth to the whole cosmos.

Doesn't do anything about the basic, visceral horror of human beings getting devoured in their scores by a huge demonic bat, sure, but the ultimate ramifications can be spun positively within the Lunar Way, in the same way that, say, the real-world Flower Wars and human sacrificial exhibitions of the Aztec Empire had their theological justification in providing the necessary power for the hummingbird god Huitzilopotchli to make the sun rise each day.  Ugly means, limited by the fallen state of the world, towards a transcendental end.

This is why things operate best in Glorantha when there's a benevolent troll overlord getting all the different peoples to work together.

There's an Italian film that Amazon Prime picked up recently, The First King, about Romulus and Remus in Bronze Age Italy, that feels like it could've easily been set in early Dawn Age Tarsh.

As always with Pelanda at the end of the God Time, it's worth bearing in mind that other than the Spolites, they failed to establish mutually beneficial relationships with powers of Darkness.  Their nearest center of Darkness power was Alkoth, and the Shazodrings, as Shargash's hellspawn, had zero interest in the schemes of equal exchange and defense against Chaos set up by Ezkankekko in what's now the Holy Country and Dragon Pass.  Without Darkness+Harmony powers as intermediaries and protectors, most of Pelanda suffered terribly even by the standards of the age in the Greater Darkness.

My interpretation of the Hero Wars is that if your PCs aren't Argrath themselves, it's probably their job to stop or counsel him before he butterfly effects the Monster Empire into being

14 minutes ago, scott-martin said:

Maybe Argan Argar has many wives as a parallel to the Esrolian menu and as a subversion of normative troll family.

I have found direct descriptions of Argan Argar being married to Asrelia as well as Esrola in older materials, and every single one of his holidays coincides with one of Uleria's. I think it's a fair assumption that one of the many elements of the cult that's deterioriated since Belintar is recognition of those mythic relationships.

14 minutes ago, jajagappa said:

"Spirit Warriors

Ah, I've seen that term used rather than "The Loyal Household" in older versions of the AA cult write-up.  This does clarify things, and I'm pleased the Spirit Warriors are getting an update for RQG.  Is there any indication of how an entity joins the Spirit Warriors?  If more joined in the history of the Kingdom of Night, then clearly the Warriors/Household could expand within Time.  It's doubtful there have been any substantial additions to the roster since Belintar, but with him gone and the Hero Wars coming...

Sure, and I'm familiar with those figures, but if they're not normally associated with the Loyal Household then who or what is?

Another question for the tribe, regarding this from the Sartar Companion's Argan Argar cult write-up:

The Silver Age Heroes have come up before in this thread, and they may or may not be included among beings who joined the Household during the Kingdom of Night--they are probably no longer part of the Household, after Belintar heroquested to win them to his side in his war to depose Ezkankekko.

This was written for the 1600s version of the Argan Argar cult though, so presumably Belintar did not suborn all of the Loyal Household, and maybe some have returned since Belintar's dismemberment.  Does anyone know of other entities that might be included in the Loyal Household, or ways Argan Argar worshipers manifest this element of the cult in the world?

Echoing the endorsement of King of Dragon Pass, I'm trying to put together a RuneQuest game of mostly people unfamiliar with the setting and system, and KoDP does a great job of illustrating what it's like to live day by day and season by season in an Orlanthi community.

This is an illustration of the Shadow Plateau troll soldiers who marched with Arkat into the final campaigns of the Gbaji Wars:

that's what a First Age troll cohort from the Kingdom of Night looked like.  And look at troll hero Kwaratch Kang there in the foreground, he's so pleased with it all!

On 5/18/2020 at 9:36 AM, Darius West said:

Argan Argar is not primarily a war deity.  Argan Argar is a troll deity of mediation between the trolls and the surface folk.  His "mercenaries" are swarms of spear armed trollkin, and they are just fine at what they do i.e. be cheap disposable arrow fodder.

Just gonna dip my toe in on these points from the previous page.

1) As the troll god of mediation between Darkness (not just trolls themselves) and surface people/elements, Argan Argan was among the chief war gods of Kethaela in the Darkness, Grey and Dawn ages, with a brief resurgence in the second age.  In the Storm Age, as Esrola's husband, Argan Argar was the god-king of Kethaela and led its peoples in wars against the rise of chaos, using his Harmony influence to bridge the divides between them and allow them to fight together effectively.  After the gods departed and the Greater Darkness began Ezkankekko, aka Only Old One, Argan Argar's son and heir and chief priest on earth, gathered and commanded the Unity Army of the surviving peoples of Kethaela that destroyed the last chaos horde, led by Wakboth the Devil.  After the Unity Battle, and for many centuries after the Dawn, warrior-priests of Argan Argar dominated the officer corps of the Kimantorings, the professional army of the cities of Nochet, which was originally formed from Ezkankekko's household guard, and took its orders direct from his Palace of Black Glass atop the Shadow Plateau until the Bright Empire's invasion.  Even after Palangio's occupation the Lord Kimantor of Nochet, the high priest of Ezkankekko's hero cult among humans, continued as the commander of Esrolia's professional military right up until Belintar deposed Only Old One and founded the Holy Country.  In the military sphere the Argan Argar cult and Ezkankkeko's hero/subcult within it had a role similar to Polestar's in Peloria, as a god for officers and commanders of the Kingdom of Night and Unity Council's highly heterogenous forces.  It was a significant breach between Ezkankekko and Varzor Kitor, his human disciple in the early Dawn and the first supreme general (entitled "Lord Demon of Death") of the Unity Council, when Varzor embraced worshiping Zorak Zoran in preparation for the Unity Council's first war, against the Shazdorings of Alkoth.

This role as the primary officers' cult ended in Kethaela after Belintar deposed Ezkankekko, along with many other public functions of the Argan Argar cult in what became the Holy Country.    The cult we have rules for is a pale shadow of what it was before Belintar, much less what it was like at the height of Only Old One's power before the Gbaji Wars.  Most of this comes from Esrolia: Land of 10,000 Goddesses and Tradetalk #'s 4-6.

In short: I agree that AA is not primarily a war god, but the cult definitely had martial aspects that have been rendered dormant within Time by events in Kethaela.  I would not be surprised if the now mostly defunct subcult of Deresegar, "son of Argan Argar" and patron of Esrolian spear-trolls since the Dawn, offered Spear Trance, Thrust or other spear-mastery magic no longer widely practiced by the cult.

2) The spearkin are a step beyond what's described here.  Any fool can give a swarm of trollkin sticks with pointy ends, but they're as likely to eat them as shove them at people, and they won't stand sunlight, certainly not in ranks.  Argan Argar spearkin can form and hold a spearwall under the sun.  They can face a charge of human soldiers, even cavalry, with no greater chance of flinching than hard-bitten mercenaries of any other race.  Trollkin without Argan Argar spear-training have their military uses, but mainly as skirmishers and harassers and only at night, with dark trolls to bully them.  Enemies who underestimate a true spearkin cohort, on the other hand, are in at least as much danger as those who underestimate a durulz warband.  They have their own subcult within Argan Argar worship, with its own heroes--the dark and great troll officers of Argan Argar mercenary units were often originally trollkin who won adoption and rebirth as bigger forms of troll.

And that's just what an Argan Argar spear-troll cohort is like at the end of the Third Age, when there's seven trollkin for every three trolls in most uz populations.  Before the Curse of Kin, an Argan Argar mercenary unit meant a whole troop of phalanx-drilled dark trolls, with the full array of powers and servants won from the other five elements by Argan Argar and Ezkankekko at their command.

5 minutes ago, Stephen L said:

Not to mention that it comes with side order of a rather splendid soup!

you could try to suit trollkin in it too, but they would eat the soup and the armor!

probably something duck shamans with connections to some Great Turtle of the Creakstream River can make for the fighting drakes.

If i could choose any Gloranthan era to set a game in, it'd be Kethaela in the Greater Darkness

General question, because I may be GMing a Pavis Mostali player character in the near future:  I know the Flintnail cult is supposed to be contained in the forthcoming Gods & Goddesses book, but does anyone know of fan ports of its RQ2 or RQ3 versions?

based on the characters' backgrounds, I'm planning to open a forthcoming campaign with a caravan trek from Pavis to Tarsh.

oof

I'm thinking specifically of the enlo turned uzko trollkin hero Sticker, from Unspoken Word #04: Uz

1 minute ago, Brootse said:

Oh, I didn't know that trollkin could be trained out of it.

It's the chief differentiator of AA spear trollkin mercenaries, they can fight in the day when they have to, like dark trolls.

they didn't exist until a trollkin heroquested to make the connection with Argan Argar, I think during the Gbaji Wars.