Squaredeal Sten

As for Kralorelan cash, they are pictured here on the Chaosium web site: https://www.chaosium.com/blognew-runequest-glorantha-coins-from-our-friends-at-campaign-coins/

And the inter-universal exchange rate with your RW money is very good! 😀

Just speaking as an elf that is a sap-curdling idea.  Planting an irrigated forest with the intention that it will become timber  is an atrocity.  It is essentially enslaving trees to be domesticated instead of a free wild forest, and to be slaughtered in the same manner as the Praxians slaughter their herd beasts.  What a terrible fate for what might otherwise be a noble forest!

On 5/16/2023 at 5:39 AM, Shiningbrow said:

......I would suggest that each clan have their own, individual, clearly demarked Trickster, as they would be necessary for the Lightbringer rituals (as well as someone to mock the clan council).

Each clan should have such an official Trickster.  But they may not, because one of: driven out and scapegoated; or the clan chief doesn't want to Bond one,  maybe got burned by the last one, and no one else in authority has volunteered to Bond one.  "Should" is a big word.

So you will have periods without one.  And yes the clan's magic may be weaker without a Trickster and their policy may be less imaginative, but how are you as a clan member going to prove that?  Tradition will be a powerful incentive to get one, but it's not automatic.

As I understand it it is very desirable to have a good fit with the characters in the myth.  Among other reasons is that means knowledge of appropriate cult lore, so the questers have a good chance to do the right thing  when they encounter the unexpected.  Also so they have the right cult magic when reenacting the situation that gave the cult that magic.

You can have people who are not a perfect fit vs. the legend.  But the worse fit, the higher the chance of screwing it up.

Now the players may not have the grasp of cult lore that their characters do, just as a player with a stutter can play someone with Orate 90%.  So you should allow or prompt appropriate Cult Lore rolls.  But the Yelmalian playing the role of  Orlanth on an Orlanth legend won't have that lore, so they will have no basis from which  to make the right moves.

This answer is not official. I have almost no insight into the expected heroquesting rules.  In one approach the players should write or at least outline the quest so they'll should '- should- have a crib sheet.  What could go wrong?

9 hours ago, zoomzoombug said:

Hi, 

To my understanding, Dawn Age Orlanthi thought Elmal was the Sun, but now in the Third Age, everyone agrees Yelm is the Sun, and Elmal is a narrow view of Yelmalio the Lightfore.

In the Dawn Age, did worshipping Elmal grant fire powers? If not, wouldn’t it have seemed weird that the fiery Sun Disk didn’t grant fire magic? 
Did the worship “go” to Elmal, who is Lightfore, or to the Sun Disk, associated with Yelm?

Thanks in advance for the clarification.

 

 

It Is pretty clear now that Elmal is not the sun, but was associated with it.  At some point in the godtime as Orlanthi myth has it,  Elmal  became subordinate to Orlanth.  Pelorian myth is different, but is also different regarding Orlanth.  All myths are true and they don't have to agree.

Incidentally when Gloranthan myth was under looser control Elmal was more significant in the King of Dragon Pass computer game.  This, however, was around 400 Gloranthan years ago and the priests' stories have evolved.  Elmal's magic never was very strong, he was always a subordinate god.  That's what my priest says anyway.  There are hard core Elmali on the board but they are heretics.

 Yelm was and is the sun. Killed in the godtime and his return  marks the start of the Dawn Age.  The important thing for us is that Orlanth ended his imperial pretensions.  

Elmal's status has varied and was previously a god  and religion on its  way to extinction.  Monrogh the prophet merged him into what is now Yelmalio, who is subtly different from Yelmalio before Monrogh.  The added worshippers make him a mid rank god.  

All clear now? 😅

If you want how it is built, as far as i know no one has published  the construction -slave-labor-camp story.  But your speculations seem to me to be right on.  Write it up and publish it in JC!

I would add importation of decorative stone from long distances, along the lines indicated in the much less significant Lunar temple construction in Griffin Mountain.

If you want a building plan, blueprint style- I know of one source: It's not canon - but very popular and does not contradict canon: look at Andrew Logan Montgomery's The Company of the Dragon, pages 243-245.

On 5/11/2023 at 11:52 AM, mfbrandi said:

 ........ Just because Trickster himself is crazy and has destroyer and murderer aspects is no reason to make his worshippers like that. (Or give them magic like that if people are worried about power gamers.)

If modern Eurmali are professional performers, rather than those so damaged that they cannot assume a “normal” rôle in society, are “crazy” people nonetheless still touched by Trickster? What becomes of them, now?

I don't think of ztrickdters as crazy.  Unconventional. Disrespectful, even intermittently amoral, yes.  But not crazy.  Obsessed is not insane either by current definitions., no matter that we clearly see the breaks in logic that underly obsessions.

And we should always fall back on the old Trickster legends.

So after all the prep, the Adventurers paid  the usual Grazer protection racket; got to Queen;s post and got my description and talked to some folks.  The Adventurers didn't stay in Queen's Post long after they realized how long it was until most of their cult seasonal holy days, and that the Lhankor Mhy presence was just a shrine and various clerks: vastly inferior to that at Jonstown.. My Grazelands work is definitely not wasted though; it goes into the Locality binder.

They strategized -

-

and decided to

1) Go to Clearwine to ask for reinforcements- Yes they are going to try to clear Korolstead!  (They are getting this help: What they found has whetted the appetite of Leika and the Ernalda Temple group in Clearwine.)

And

2) go to Duck Point for help with

3) the LM  will go to Jonstown for scholarly analysis of things they found.  .

So I am going to prepare a big list of NPCs   for the next Korolstead expedition, and I am glad to have Duckpack to help me with Duck Point and Durulz NPCs.

It will be a little while until I return to this or another Grazers thread.  Thanks everyone for the help and the thought.   If we work on it the Grazelands can be a good updated area for flexible adventuring during the Hero Wars..

3 minutes ago, jajagappa said:

Merchant caravans heading between Esrolia and Tarsh. These posts are the main caravan stops between and there will be a host of muleteers, wagon drivers, guards, scribes, scouts, etc. Won't be all seasons, but when they arrive, the place will seem busy.

Yes, perhaps i should add an official caravanserai to Queesn's Post, and the other two Grazeland towns too.

1 hour ago, AlexS said:

The Ernalda temple should probably be a Major (or even Great) one given the magical role of the FHQ (Queen's Post is presumably her main base). Maybe a fairly modest upper level in the Grazer style (think Yurt-influenced architecture) as a nod to her La-Ungariant side, with a massive set of underground chambers in the more classic Sartar/Tarshite Ernaldan style (with echoes of Maran Gor, given that Sorana Tor's original home was in the Shaker Temple)?

The Seven Mothers temple may have been destroyed under the rule of Vistera, the Lunar-hating FHQ who took over when her predecessor was killed fighting for the Lunars in Esrolia in 1623. However, I think her successor (whose father was the King of Tarsh) may well have allowed the 7M missionaries back in.

Don't forget to include a sizeable Humakti barracks-temple, as this is probably the main centre of the Cult of Hiaa Swordsman.

With the Grazers' emphasis on nomadic, I would not expect the FHQ to locate her main temple in a ground man town.  This raises the question of what earth worship looks Iike to the Grazers.  They have their own mythology for the earth goddess and she (La-Ungariant)  is depicted with a horse's head.  She is a herd mother and should have a Praxian quairlty, as the Grazers were originally Praxians.

That doesn't mean she can't have an underground temple.  Look at the Paps.

But I am thinking it is a natural cavern, and not much improved by masonry since the Grazers do not practise that craft. It might be near Queen's post or not.  And a medium temple, because Maran Gor's great temple is nearby, so is Kero Fin - how many great temples to Earth can you have in that vicinity?

As for the Humakti -  I am thinking a small barracks.  The FHQ has a bodyguard of Hiia Humakti, not an army of them.  The barracks trains them, most guard the town(s)  perhaps working for the governors.  That way an elderly Grazer Elder-priest  governor doesn't have to fight some young rowdy.  The most talented are promoted to bodyguard. And accompany the FHQ as she journeys around the Grazelands. 

Queen's Post is not the FHQ's capital. Making a capital in a town would discredit her politically.  The Grazer style as I understand it  would be not to have a fixed capital.  Did Gehgis Khan have a fixed capital? Did the Sioux?  Commanches? Praxian tribes?   Where are the inspirations for the Grazers coming from?

Just now, David Scott said:

The Guide gives each of the towns 1000 each. I'd use the excess for the transient populations (300 each)

I am not sure who thst additional transient population would be.  The traders? No. Traders have been there since Sartar's original founding.  Recent war refugees?  I am in 1629 so any new refugees might be from Tarsh.  Problem is the Grazers dont want a horde of groundmen plowing up their grazing land, that is not the model of prosperity in their heads.  Grazekland would not welcome refugees.  And the Lunar Tarshites who are those  most likely to flee Argrzth would flee north not south.

 I was serious about excess births.  The new FHQ's fertility magic may just have been laid on a little thick.

But we may also have creeping urbanization. The towns having grown as a result of the boost in trade generated when war closed the Heortland road and shifted trade west to the Grazelands. ( Now it is shifting back, though. )   A mix of Vendref coming to work, and traders.

Queen's Post is supposed to be a "fortified settlement" according to the Guide.  So what will that look like?  The usual Orlanthi earthworks won't do, it won't feel fortified to any Grazer because their horses may gallop up the glacis, which like other earthworks will be at the natural angle of repose.  

To me this indicates the outer wall will be vertical: A brick. stone, or palisade wall. With the earthwork behind it to produce  a walkway and parapet,  and also to provide thickness.  Not tremendously tall, just tall enough that a horse will not jump it.  3 meters is more than any modern horse can jump.  So the shell wall 3m high, about a 5m thick earthwork at the base, 2m tall, allowing a 2m walkway on top. Making a 1m parapet.This will also reduce earthwork maintenance.  Maybe it will also have a ditch around it, probably the source of the earth in the earthwork.

You won't be able to see the footing benearh the wall.  I'd say thst is about a meter deep.

How big will Queen's Post be?  I am thinking of something compact.  If the residents use two story houses, maybe 10 square meters per person or less.  Plus the market and temples.  Consider that the vendref are heavily taxed so will seldom live sumptuously.  So 1300-1400 people means about 16 000 to '20,000 square meters   A  rectangle 150x140 meters  to account for the wall itself.  Its perimeter of 580 meters will be defensible by the 500 adult male population.  

Will that seem cramped to tbe Grazers? Yes.

Will that stop a real army with scaling ladders? No.  For that I want 6 m walls at a minimum.

Towers projecting to cover the face of the wall with arrow shots? No. 

4 hours ago, metcalph said:

My theory on why the Telmori are chaotic.  Nysalor taught them how to change at will through breaking the Cosmic Compromise in a specific way (he has form as can be seen at the Battle of Night and Day).  But breaking the Compromise causes chaos.  Ergo by changing at will (and later changing without will), the Telmori repeatedly break the Compromise and are chaotic.

But the Compromise is a pact among gods.  The Telmori are not parties to it, just like other mortals.  Not being parties to it. How can they break it?

Now it is time fir me to get specific about Queen's Post.  What is there?

Per Jeff the three Grazelands towns have a total population of abut 4000.  So Queen's Post has about 1300-1400..

Of that 1/3 are children.  Say 400 because foreign traders and retired Grazers bias the age profile upward.

900-1000 adults.  Say 100'-200 retired Grazers, 100 + foreign traders, 700 or fewer  Vendref most of whom are "freed" whatever that means under the circumstances.  These figures are  computed by rectal extraction.🙂

There are: a market.  Crafters.  Shops.  Temples and shrines..  Some sort of town administration, maybe a retired Grazer is the FHQ's governor.  

Cults... High % of Issaries and Etyries. 40 each.   Lhankor Mhy - the necessary minimum, say 40 for traders and town and FHQ admin.  Humakt 50; The FHQ needs someone from whom to draw bodyguard, this is where they train newbies.  Chalana Arroy - maybe 10?  Other Seven Mothers. 300 because the historical Tarsh influence.  Orlanth and Barntar 300. Ernalda 300.  Gustbran 20: the Grazers need redsmiths.  That's 1000 so all these figures may be a shade high.

 Temples and shrines this implies: 

Minor temples Orlanth/ Barntar.  Ernalda, and Seven Mothereasonable?

The market has LM and Etyries shines at its ends but qualifies as a minor temple because of all the lay customers.  

A Yelm shrine for the retired Grazers, prosperous because support from the LSK and city governor.  Shrines for Humakt. IIssaries, Etyries, Sites for Lhankor Mhy, Chalana Arroy. Gustbran.

Does that look reasonable?

Moderators, please feel free to move this thread to Glorantha as Jeff suggested. 

meanwhile i want to maintain it as a separate thread from the clans thread.  There is a lot more going on there than clans.

I found another fairly big difference between the new Grazeland material and old.  It is the Golden Bow:

RQiG page 308 in the Yelm section;  Note that Yelm in this book is a lot more Grazeland than Dara Happan- anyway, it presents Golden Bow as shamans only:  "Golden Bow {Shaman): . Requirements: any Yelm initiate who becomes a shaman qualifies for this status."  To summarize it, it gives Golden Bow members special Grazer oriented shamanic taboos (presumably instead of the standard taboos), and also gives access to one Rune spell (dismiss fire elemental).

Contrast this with Golden Bow in older material:

Heroquest Voices  / What the War chief told me; A good bow shooter is told someday he may qualify for the Brotherhood of the Golden Bow.  This sounds like a shooting club to me, not shamans.  Clearly there is a difference!  And in the second 'voice',  "What the Grazer Shaman Says", the Jardan the Warrior subcult  says "Jardan is also the patron of the Golden Bow society..." with no reference to shamanic business.

And  David Dunham's material on shamans does not have Golden Bow in it.  But his The Yu-kargazent pantheon entry for Jarden the warrior does refer to Golden bow: "The Brotherhood of the Golden Bow is an elite group of wariors.  among its twquiremtns are 90% with Bow and Ride Horse.

This seems to me to be a strong indication that David Dunham's material and Heroquest Voices material on the Grazers  is not going to be official / canon, and canon is going in a different direction.

:

I'm glad to know I'm not alone in seeing the ambiguity.

To me the Cults of Terror version which leans toward rolling scorp man stats, but many skills and memories carry over, Is preferable. 

(1) because: It does not prevent me as GM from having the scorpion man call out in the night "Hey Joe  it's your brother Bill, yes really me.  Come out and talk.*  That is enough horror show.  All it needs is some memories and language skill.

(2) And because  I don't have to deal with the question of why. If everything carries over, the reborn soul now has scorpion man loyalties and fights so wholeheartedly on the scorpion man side.  If the cults. Runes, and personality carried over then isn't it a challenge to account for the overriding scorpion man loyalty?

1 hour ago, Jeff said:

The "vendref" number about 20-22,000 people (depends on what you want to call the townspeople). They are farmers who worship Ernalda, Orlanth Thunderous-Barntar, Maran Gor, Humakt, and the Seven Mothers. They provide fodder and food for the Pure Horse People, make craft goods, and handle trade with outsiders, in exchange for protection, magical blessings, and trade goods from other lands.

I had that.  I'm currently unsure whether I even need vendref clans located for the coming game session, when I expect the party to go to Queen's Postlooking for Lightbringer temples and shrines at which to recharge their Rune magic and Heal wounds and general hit points.   

Korolstead was rougher than they expected. 2d time they visited the Smoing Ruins too.  

It seems to me they will be intercepted by Grazers who will want to be hired as guides...and I'll need to plan fir the contingency that they don't understand the protection racket

But they do have a second mission of feeling out the reaction to a proposal to put a Coymar colony in IF the ruins can be cleared.  A big if.

1 hour ago, Runeblogger said:

Where does the tribal king live?

My current guess is that the Luminous Stallion King travels around with his entourage in the warm seasons, visiting all PHP clans and all parts of the Grazelands.  In winter he would be found with his own clan.  I'm not sure which that would be in 1625-1630ST.

Which means diplomacy has to be done by appointment. Your Esrolian or Lunar ambassador had better be prepared to spend time in the saddle. And will spend extra weeks trying to catch up with the king.

Among the things I don't have a good handle on. Is whether ambassadors usually see both the king and the FHQ. And on what matters the two must agree.  But it's pretty clear to me that with Argrath courting the FHQ in early 1629. the two must come to agreement on foreign policy.  Otherwise we will see some Grazer mercenaries for the Lunar Empire fighting other Grazers and the FHQ on Argrsth"s side.  That sounds like kinstrife to me.  Same with both sides in tbe Tarsh civil war wanting Grazer cavalry.

2 minutes ago, mfbrandi said:

“I brought them fire and death. What more do they want, the ungrateful curs? Not play the next trick on them, my arse!”

Well yes such prayers may not be answered in quite the spirit in which they were prayed.  Though i suppose it might depend on the generosity of the sacrifice.  I mean, if the person left a beer on the altar, there's a chance.  An amphora of beer, there's a much better chance.  Even Eurmal's worship is transactional.

9 minutes ago, Rodney Dangerduck said:

With our Eurmali PC, whenever he visits a new town or city I (the GM) call for a Eurmali Lore, or perhaps Devotion, to locate a shrine and ask about rune spells.

Each one could be a little role-play opportunity. making contact with the local Eurmali.

But back to the last part of my post, what do you think of Long John Silver as Eurmali?  To me, it explains some things in the story.

25 minutes ago, Jeff said:

I don't believe the Pure Horse People have such defined geographical boundaries. I am pretty sure the herds move around from year to year based on local conditions. The tribal king, aided by the Yelm Elders, allocate grazing lands to the various clans or bands, based on status, prestige, numbers, magical contests, dance competitions, whatever.

 

Thanks! That's  consistent with the more recent stuff printed by Chaosium in Smoking Ruins. Grazer clans moving around, perhaps seasonally, covering half the north-south length of the Grazelands in a year.

Which leads to the question of Vendref clans and croplands, which by their nature won't move around.  It appears that in the 1990s everyone focused on the Grazers and not on the Vendref.

What we need - or at least what I'd like to use -   is a comprehensive resource that defines canon for the Grazelands.  I am writing to the appropriate person here...

But for Friday I'm going to put together what seems cool and exotic to Sartarites,  AND is consistent with that canon as I perceive it hazily and in the distance.

53 minutes ago, mfbrandi said:

In RQ3 Gods of Glorantha, the Trickster organisation was almost completely flat: everyone was an initiate–acolyte, but (a) there might be a nominal “priest” who led worship (and scooped the annual POW gain), and (b) the local priest (i.e. “priest”) would think up something humiliating to put a wannabe initiate through in lieu of a formalised initiation.

Informal co-operation between shrines. It was stressed that all Trickster cults were different, but I got the feeling — perhaps I generate such feelings spontaneously — that one could say that every Trickster shrine, every little cluster of acolytes, was different, even when the trickster-god name was the same. No rules for how things are done. That seems right, doesn’t it?

For whose benefit? So the respectable folk can see an image of Trickster in a gimp suit and chains? Surely any self-(dis)respecting follower of the disorderly fellow would piss on such a mannequin instead of praying at it. Better to make one’s devotions before a cobweb, a fallen raven feather, or a coyote turd, no?

But I ramble. Good luck.

For completeness.  Why would they leave one of the lightbringers out?

And for non-initiates who want to pray for Eurmal to... not play the next trick on them?  For the local bonded Eurmali to use?  For the clown troupe to use in conjunction with other clan level worship at the same temple - after all they are an adjunct to a lot of other Orlanth worship and myths ?  Accepted by Eurmal because sac of MPs is sac of MPs.

But i didn't say the Eurmalis would go there to get their own magic.  Not them.

20 minutes ago, David Scott said:

Just for the record, David Dunham's site (@alakoring) still exists and hosts the original map on his Grazers page. (the Godearners link is to a web archive via via.) The link to the Glorantha site version of the map is here: https://wellofdaliath.chaosium.com/david-dunham-grazelands-map-2005/

 

Many thanks for the link.  The written material is great and useful.

Writing up a hidden Eurmali NPC has led me to think about the cult::

It strikes me that with its famous disrespect for authority the cult of Eurmal will have neither priests nor rune lords.  As for who initiates new initiates and teaches the magic, it's god talkers.  Who are either self nominated, or forced to do it by their fellow cultists.  ? Perhaps they succeed to the shrine by killing the previous incumbent?  Or something less bloody? Perhaps at Sacred Time the shrine's wyter picks its priest?  I

If I recall correctly there are  hidden  Eurmal shrines which a Eurmal Initiate would have to tour to accumulate Rune magic.  There should? also be overt Eurmal shrines in Orlanth temples that are big enough that they don't just have a shrine to "all the Lightbringers". But there are no Eurmal temples, because temples would require a concentration of tricksters so large that it would break up out of its own contrariness and anarchy,  if they weren't first lynched or run out if town.

Presumably we will get a big revelation on this subject when the Cults of Runequest books are published.  For now please just give me an up or down check on these ideas.

 Public Eurmali should dress as clowns and be generally safe from being killed. But be driven out if town frequently. At this point they are canon.

I also  believe that there are secret Eurmalis. Who use their Trickster inclinations and magic for nefarious purposes such as robbery. piracy, and general greed and gain.  With lies. deception, a mix of good and bad deeds, and great swings in their fortunes.  A non Gloranthan model might be Long John Silver who is charming, friendly and helpful while he lies, schemes. leads a mutiny; and yet befriends and protects an honest boy (the protagonist in Treasure Island).  And who ends the story by being caught, then  escaping with considerable money.  

What do you think?