Squaredeal Sten

Actually your answer is good and contains a Greg Stafford world design insight that informs us all. Unsatisfying? Tempting of course, it's a variation on "don't eat the fruit of that tree". My advocacy of mercy is from a GM viewpoint, not a Gloranthan lore viewpoint.

Heroquesters only ever have second hand accounta, whether from the Elder Races or from human priests. Of course your Adventurer may be a member of an elder race: Uz are very playable. And Uleria is not just a human cult, she is a principle, was there for the second wave of gods to descend from the first. But I can see what you are saying, the farther back you go the less accurate and complete the myths will be. This would be one of the reasons it is more dangerous / full of surprises / full of opportunities to get dead or just not come back. I also like the idea that your quester may like the Green Age so much that he stays there. Fill out this new character sheet! It may disrupt your campaign though. I sort of like the idea that an Uz would go back to the Green Age and try to eat the first of those pesky Aldryami, or eat Flamal before Flamal gets that ball rolling. But how to get there? His or her legends will lead to Wonderhome, not to the plants basking in the (shudder) sun. Sure you can deviate from the path but that is such a big deviation.

One possibllity: Other than worshiping the clan wyter one day out of the 14 in Sacred time, maybe they don't attend the rest of the "all clan" rituals. They hold their own, at their own shrine and not the clan Ernalda & Orlanth temples. This produces a split in the clan, yes - but just like Yelmalians in a majority Orlanthi clan, there is going to be some discomfort there. It's a problem for the clan Ring. It divides families. It's a soap,opera in the making.

Good point. .Though I am unclear between Green Age and Golden Age, Green Age looks to me like the Aldtyami version of Golden Age. And I don't know exactly when Eurmal began messing with Death. And I'm pretty sure Orlanth's stead exists in Golden Age, he had to have some place to go to and from in the legend. But if you don't like these, make up your own. Pick a god and interact. Maybe any member of the Celestial court? Get to know Uleria and gain a gift or geas or boon from her? I can see the GM having some very humorous opportunities there. A, um, boon from Uleria - and then dump him out of the heroquest. This is still more merciful than everyone blaming you in accord with Phil Hibbs' suggestion.

As I understand it - and the GM book isn't out yet, so there is a good chance I have it wrong- You don't heroquest to "The Green Age', you heroquest to a myth you know about the Green Age. So you can come back with things related to that myth. Now if you use advanced God Learner techniques you can step outside that myth, into associated Green Age stuff.. Then you are in uncharted territory, the GM's mind. How do you do that? I don't know, I'm not a God Learner. Maybe you have to find a crumbling God Learner scroll to do that, and then read it using your knowledge of ancient Brithini. Of course there is a high risk of getting hurt or killed, or just dumped out of the heroquest, especially if the GM draws a blank. But if you picque his interest: -you may get a novel Rune spell, or a Rune spell you ordinarily couldn't get, because in the quest you got in on the ground floor with the Aldryami. - You many get a new attribute, good or bad, from interacting with X. Maybe your skin and/or hair turns a different color, maybe a Rune affinity changes, maybe a gift or geas. Maybe a new or enhanced Worship skill. - Maybe Eurmal lets you borrow the sword Death, just for a little while. Think of the implications of that. Or maybe he plays a practical joke on you and you grow donkey's ears. - Maybe you visit Orlanth's stead and help build the brand new benches for Orlanthi souls to sit and feast on and carve your initials in one if you are literate, or you travel with Issaries as his muleteer if you have a good animal; handling skill. -or you may get a new myth, which is an opportunity to start a new subcult or cult... -you may resurrect the new equivalent to the Red Goddess, who won't be bound by the Great Compromise either . ...

Oh, it fits here. I think Mary Rensult's books are one of my own inspirations for imagining the Bronze Age and my view of legends in general. I read my mother's copy of The King Must Die when I was pretty young.

So is a reincarnated person short part of their soul?

As I understand it, the summoned dead are just around until your summoning spell ends. Unless you cast a lot of Extension that is probably not enough time for them to do sorcery. And I don't know that a pact with the dead is a thing on Glorantha. There are pacts with allied cult spirits, based on your POW + CHA, but will those be sorcerors? The god is dealing them out. But I don't understand how summoning the dead and getting anything from them fits in with their having crossed the Styx and forgotten their previous life. Wouldn't they have forgotten both their descendants, the events of their past, and their skills like sorcery? Why should they care to help you or recall any answer to your questions? This just requires us to believe two contradictory things at once. Which people are good at, but I'm just pointing it out.

In my opinion / impression of Glorantha yes, he is not available if reborn. But in game terms there is no criterion for judging reincarnation other than the GM's whim. Unless you know he has come back like Jaldon Goldentooth: once he has been summoned and reincarnated you can't summon him to a different place until he dies again. Otherwise any shaman of Ty Kora Tek would be able to jerk his chain any time, which makes for weird story lines and nerfs the culture hero This is in no way an official canon opinion, it's just me and logic.

As I recall it took me a 2-2.5 hour session to set the story hook, another to get them to the Smoking Ruin (encounters are built into the book, read through it), a third session for them to carefully recon it, and on the fourth and maybe 5th sessions they got in, had the interaction with Bugleg, got the prize from the Earth temple, and got out just ahead of Vanargic, and got back to Clearwine. Then there is a wrap up and reward in Clearwine, again with choices that affect the outcome. Time is of the essence once inside: if they dither you will have at least one more session for them to actually slug it out with Vamargic and then maybe have to roll up some new characters. The way the Adventurers get in makes a difference. There are choices presented, and my players found yet another way. Yes do your prep. You can't just read it in page number sequence. What you need skips around. The pages read well but the sequence of presentation needs to be prepped before you GM it, or you will miss presenting vital clues and plot elements and/or stall looking through pages for what you need. Annotate it, maybe flow chart it, or copy and paste into your own script.

In my own very unofficial opinion the practise of reciting long lineages indicates that who is a blood ancestor counts. However when it comes to Sartarite ancient tribal heroes, almost everyone in the tribe may be related to them. We are discussing a relatively small population that immigrated to Sartar and multiplied Post Dragonkill. It is a situation in which your parents or grandparents may have been 4th cousins even though their clans practise exogamy (but mostly with the same two or three parter clans.) Go back another couple of hundred years and a lot of people are related.

Thanks for confirming the paucity of canon urban economic onformation. I think our two visions are fairly close to each other. Perhaps a similar vision of Sartarite cities can be published in conjunction with an adventure or three. Of course other systems are possible in other regions of Glorantha. Re. Meat, I am aware of aging meat in a refrigerated facility before selling it in our culture and time. However this is not universal in the RW even in modern times.. For examples: (1) From ages 9 to 17 I lived within a few miles of the border with Mexico. My parents would occasionally go across and buy beef at favorsble prices. It was not aged, tasted a little more "wild" which I realize is actually not-aged. Good steaks nevertheless. (2) While reading American Civil War history I learned that when possible armies would keep herds of cattle and slaughter daily. That meat was immediately issued to units. Remember this was before artificial refrigeration. (Fresh is much better for your circulatory system health than salted meat which was the alternative. Not that they knew that at the time. Canned food was a new thing and not part of the ration system, though available for private purchase.)

Outside of Pavis, as far as I know city distribution of food rations to citizens is a relatively recent addition to Sartar literature, however ancient it may be in lore. So whatever we project from the few canon references has to be moderated by other canon information. Such as the high incidence of shops with goods for sale and manufacturing guIlds, both selling for coined money. Rather than craft production beig centralized in temples and palaces with the product being distributed as royal favors. So it appears to me that in Sartar we are not operating in a palace centered command economy reminiscent of Mycenae or Sumer. How do I reconcile these things? IMG the central control is the taxation of the grain crop. Not meat (except under the Lunar occupation) , not vegetables. Maybe cheese. One way or another, this taxation feeds the non farmer classes. In cities that means commerce while in the countryside and in the villages it means the clan takes care of the nobles and also keeps a reserve against famine. The farmer and the country noble may both barter either grain or other ag products or may pay the clan's crafters with coins. Or alternatively the clan's few crafters may count as part of the chief's extended household: They would be clients in the Roman sense, not living under the chief's roof but still dependent on him. IMG the city Ernalda temples may provide weekly or seasonal household grain rations but also sell and trade grain. The brewer buys this grain, either trading beer for it or using money. The baker sells bread for cash or takes your ration of grain, keeps a share, and returns bread. The potter and redsmith deal with the temple and nobles using barter or cash but mostly cash, but they get their grain rations and swap them with the baker like everyone else. The wealthy household or rooming house or the average citizen's household probably grind their grain themselves and make flatbread on the hearth which is more economical than dealing with a baker. IMG a baked risen bread loaf is a city luxury and is comoarable to a pastry. There is no oven in the average kitchen, just as there was no oven in most RW kitchens until recently. Your wandering Adventurer or Issaries trader doesn't get a grain ration but pays the baker for bread, or pays the innkeeper for bread. They are in a mostly cash economy. The baker? He or she has his retained share of the grain or flour. Eats some as bread. Sells the rest as bread to your Adventuer or to anyone who wants extra bread, a luxiry. Buys fuel, vegetables, pays rent etc cetera with a mix of money and bread. He is in a mixed cash and barter economy. What about vegetables? Country folks have gardens. They give some vegetables as favors. Sell some in a weekly market. City people buy them in the city market. Places like Apple Lane are special cases. There the Earth temple gets a share from the apple orchards just like grain. What about meat? Most people don't eat much, mostly they eat it when a co- religionist sacrifices. In the countryside they may trade with a hunter or may get it as an exchange of favors. At slaughter time in early Dark Season the clan may feast on meat, may also smoke some and make sausage. Cities will have a butcher, but he may only have fresh meat on some days. Inns will buy a meat animal or cuts thereof every couple of days, and any not eaten fresh will be in the stew pot. The soup pot may be kept going for decades.

Two thoughts: First,The populace does have another option: They may choose to keep their new point of POW, which will make them more powerful spell casters and less vulnerable to magic or possession. So I would imagine a lower rate of RP and Rune spell acquisition. Second, I do not see a limit to the points of POW that a wyter can have. Where do you see that?

Agree about the comparison to Esrolia. But what do you have in mind regarding the "malign Earth cults"? What comes to my mind is less manipulation and devousness, more overt threats. But I am not sure that is what you meant.

A Mostali toy:

I got my Durulz books 1&2 hard copy today, Apr. 8th.. It's great! Good cover, nice and readable. Great content! I am a hard copy type of guy.

You asked about the benefit of binding a spirit to an item: That lets you keep the spirit. If it is not bound to something then it will probably not stay around when the control spell wears off. You also asked about bindimg to an animal. One benefit of binding a spirit to an animal is that it can use the animal's senses, so the spirit can operate more autonomously. Allied spirits can use the priest's senses - but an allied spirit in an animal can use spells on targets its owner cannot see. If it does not have senses and is not an allied spirit, then according to page 250, as I read it a non-allied bound spirit can communicate with the binder only when it (its object) is in contact with the binder. So if it is out of physical contact, in that case although you can command it to do things, it can't use the binder's senses so if it does not have its own senses then what it can do is very limited. You would not be able to use it for a second spell (counting the owner's own spell as the first spell). This makes it just a MP and spell storage reservoir.

And in today's news... not a picture, but an archaeological finding; someone tested 3,000 year old hair and concluded that they had a shaman who used psychedelic drugs. (National Geographic) https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/psychedelic-drugs-ancient-europe-evidence-menorca?rid=AFC521EB4B1A385744B4D10D28E2E7FD&cmpid=org=ngp::mc=crm-email::src=ngp::cmp=editorial::add=Daily_NL_Thursday_Science_20230406

Same here. You have an initiation connection with both gods. In general I do not favor requiring rune point accounting that requires Iinformation that is not on the character sheet.

It seems to me as a general interpretation, tell me now if this is wrong: All rune spells listed under the short form for a cult, not only subcults but even those from other associated and even opposed cults, use the short form cult's rune points. It is one RP pool. As an example see Orlanth's Darkwalk. It is derived from an Uz (troll if you must use the pejorative term) Darkness cult. But it does not require joining the trolls to use the spell. In this case the spell was gotten by Orlanth through the legendary theft of the Sandals of Darkness. Orlanth initiates can take and use the spell as a power of Orlanth, and so they use Orlanth rune points.

Wind and water mills look to me like Mostali work. They involve more complex assemblies than the simple wheel.

Rammed triremes, being mostly wood, appear to have floated. The victors evidently routinely salvaged them, at least if the tow to a friendly port or beach was not too far. (I suspect they might capsize and so lose their ballast, which would make both floating and salvage easier.) At any rate, men might cling to the wreck for a considerable time, even in the water since the Mediterranean is relatively warm, not like the Atlantic. So the failure to rescue friendly sailors was gross negligence.

My personal experience after serious injury requiring surgery, and earlier when i had double pneumonia, is that once i was asleep, and I really really needed sleep, I slept for several hours before I woke up. Your sleeping habits may vary - but "light sleep" doesn't mean they awaken instantly.

I received my hard copy of Edge of Empire today (Apr. 3) and it looks great! Reads easily too. 223 pages of immersion in Imther.