Jape_Vicho

35 minutes ago, Eff said:

And perhaps the Hon-eel Rites are not yet fully understood. And perhaps they should be explored deeper to see if there's some way to reconcile them with ruling an empire. And before you know it, you've got a whole town of vampires on your hand.

I'm not sure I get this, you are making an analogy with the Bright Empire and chaos sprouting everywhere right? 

43 minutes ago, Eff said:

The Lunar Empire, following the defeat of Sheng Seleris, proceeded to significantly reshape the Lunar Way. One of the ways they did this was to create a magical language that attempts to get you to think in a particular way.

This is New Pelorian? I thought those comparisons with Newspeak on The Guide to Glamour were more on the jokes side. 

And on a chaotic entity? There is an exemple in the Guide that says that tapping Stasis out of a rock turns it into dust, and tapping people results in making them servile apparently? So tapping a bro results in? It becomes a regular goat? A pre-greater darkness broo? It's just destroyed? A chaotic swamp lays next to Akem, that would be a good place to start digging. 

6 minutes ago, Eff said:

To add onto this, the Lunar Heartlands and Provinces officially don't practice the full Hon-eel Rites anymore. Since the Mask of Venerabilis, they ritually sacrifice an effigy made of cornstalks instead. Settlers out in the Redlands are somewhat more likely to practice said rites in full, which sounds like an opportunity for good times all around, especially for a full party of unsuspecting PCs! I suspect that, in Tarsh especially, the full rites get performed in secret or via plausible deniability as well, given the importance of human sacrifice in Tarshite history.

Maybe they are used for an explosive and fast increase of population? So Redlands and the repopulation of First Blessed after the ravage of the Pentans surely saw tons of it but now that the heartlands are pretty crowded it might no longer be necessary or even be dargerous. It would be surprising really, I would have expected an state like the Lunar Empire to have put those rites at maximum power forever and later deal with the excess population, there are always new lands to colonize. This would in turn create the question of how many children do average Pelorian families have and such, but that is surely overanalizing. 

19 hours ago, Leingod said:

And unlike the Lunars, the Sartarites aren't using blood-soaked corn rites

I've been reading this a lot on the forum and I'm really interested but I have never found where this is explained, could anyone point at something that I should look for or something of the sort? 

Also what is WBRM? 

Counting the "rural" and "urban" populations has always been a mess, mainly because regional variations and the impossibility to really make a objective distinction between rural and urban. Having read the comments, I would imagine Sartar not as "rural" but a place with a particularly dispersed pupulation pattern. Of course there are big cities in Sartar and a huge number of rural population in Darjinn, but also a lot of population in Quivinland lives in isolated steads with their extended family of 20 or so, and is hours away from the next stead, while the rural population of Darjinn probably lives in villages of about a hundred or more people and an hour next of another village of similar size. Both may be counted as rural, but the difference is huge. It kind of reminds me of what I heard about the demographics of medieval Russia. 

One question that comes with the explanations of the thread is: how can you have an extremely centralized country (Boldhome is the center to all roads, everything produced in sartar goes through it, etc.) at the same time as an extremely decentralized country (tribes with total autonomy of their affairs and each composed of clans that mostly play very local, have little contact with the exterior and are constantly quarreling)?

Between the Dragonrise and the Battle of Dangerford, presumably only the Kheldon and maybe other Swenstown tribes fully recognize and fully support Kallyr. She has not the best of reputations due to her failed revolt years ago, and most tribes simply allow it's coronation and are neutral towards her if she doesn't disrupt the particular tribe's interests. The relation of the Telmori with their surrounding tribes was soured during the lunar occupation, I think even to the point of existing an open war between them and the Cisina and Culbrea (and Wulfsland, loyal to the Empire), so gaining their support would mean to end this conflict. Wulfsland and Johnstown are still occupied by forces loyal to the Empire, as are the Alda-Churi and Alone. It's worthy to note that a lot of Tribal Kings are killed in the Dragonrise, so many tribes are leaderless and consumed in infighting to elect a new king, so not only they have greater problems, but also with no king they cannot really recognize Kallyr even if they wanted to. 

After Dangerford I would say all traditional tribes recognize Kallyr as Prince (even if some are not precisely excited about it, like Leika) and the lunar garrison of Jonstow is expelled. I think she lights the Flame that storm season or sacred time, but the victory can hardly be shorter lived, her LBQ goes horribly wrong and she soon dies at the Battle of the Queens next year's Fire Season. If KoS fonts are to be trusted (they are obviously pro-sartarites), the accumulation of lunar troops in Alda-Chur and the abuses they commit alienate it's people from their previous pro-lunar stance, and creates a perfect environment for Argrath to be hailed as a hero when he arrives. 

The Sun Domers never swear fealty to Kallyr, as they neither had done to any other Prince after Tarkalor. 

About the Pol-Joni I have no idea, they are probably closer to Argrath. 

About the Torkani I haven't read anything either but in MG they have grown closer to Dagori Inkarth due to their isolation with the other tribes, and the fact that the Uz there have remained free of lunar influence and also seem to be growing in power in recent years. 

All this talk about Tatius being the trigger of the dragonrise and his secret ambitions is making my head split in half. All those things I would have never imagined, they stir conflicting emotions. 

I always thought that "shadow from another sun" was a result of him being so doped up on solar magic that his body believed he was in the Sunstop, or something like that.

Also, the comments have made me remember something I thought about the Temple of the Reaching Moon of Sartar. RM temples seem to work as a beacon of magical energy, or perhaps a relay, being that all temples "bubbles" seem to overlap. Also, their bubbles seem to shrink in size as they stride further from Glamour. Knowing that, why would the lunars create a RM temple in Sambari lands, thousands of km from the temple of tarsh, that doesn't even pour it's red bliss into the neighboring Alda-Chur? I thought this a long time ago, but dismissed it as I thought it probs just was bc the designers thought it looked cooler there or something of the sort, or because this temple's shadow was supposed to be absulutely huge. Now I'm not so sure. 

Otoh, this kinda breaks my schemes for my campaigns, am I doing it wrong if I assumed the dragonrise was a plot engeneered by Kallyr and Orlaront? But to realize this you have to know a lot about the lore, you can't be supposed to know this much as an average player, IMO. And the worst is that it doesn't solve anything, it just creates more questions. 

37 minutes ago, Paid a bod yn dwp said:

This is all great, I think I’ve found my comfort zone. 2021 is going to be the year of the baboon. Thanks all

*hums to himself* “Hey hey we’re the Monkies! We keep monkeying around...”

Make sure to check this post if you haven't already, it talks about the baboons of the Elder Wilds, descendents of a group that migrated there some time ago. I don't really know if it's canon as I have not digged into the region yet but it's soo good it's definitely in MG. 

http://www.backtobalazar.com/baboons-of-the-elder-wilds/

35 minutes ago, Joerg said:

This makes a baboon initiating to Daka Fal extremely hard. What's the work-around for that?

They substitute all DF spells that use Man for Beast. So the beastier the better.

I get that there are other limitations for a baboon, but that enormous strength looks just absurd to me, I mean imagine if the party has to lift a rock and the only one who can is a 1'40m tall monkey. Also look at the pre-gens for exemple, Cousin Monkey is the strongest one of the whole squad, even more than Vasana and Vostor who are professional warriors, and it's just a sidekick for a guy that also has a huge riding animal!

Btw I would love to see the face of a Lhankor Mhy priest that gets asked by a baboon to be initiated. 

11 minutes ago, jajagappa said:

Well, you do have to go to the Underworld, so at least ritually someone has to die.  Whether or not you'd always face Humakt is another question.

Arcane Lore outlines a few different variations of the quest, particularly the Westfaring.  As it says in one version: "Humakt will appear after the mists clear. To pass him there must be a death: Humakt's or one of the questers'."

In another version it notes: "The particular death is not important. In the Lightbringers' Quest it is either one of the party, at the hands of Humakt, or the Humakti guardian. Whatever the case, only one person can engage the guardian. One of the two must die."

And, of course, to leave the Underworld you will have to defeat Humakt again because you have become part of the Dead and the Dead are supposed to stay dead.

Interesting, thanks! Curiously I don't remember it ever being mentioned neither in Orlanth's nor in Argrant's LBQ in KoS, though that may be just that, that I don't remember it.

5 hours ago, jajagappa said:

Humakt is ALWAYS a Threshold Guardian too.  Someone who you MUST fight if you want to reach the Underworld.  You can figure that for any given ceremony there is someone (considered "evil") who is trying to cross the Threshold to rob the Underworld of some treasure without paying the price to do so (i.e. Death).  This can be formalized into a relevant duel.

So in order to make a Lighbringers Quest you have to fight Humakt? 

If one of the players in my group had finally decided to play as a baboon, I would have nerfed it's strength. This may not be popular but baboons being as strong as a freaking Uzko while also being smaller than the average human? That's nuts. And I know that monkeys are generally stronger than humans for their size, but that doesn't mean they are as strong as a race of huge humanoids that are over 2m tall and weight over 200kg... That added to their also increased DEX makes baboons extremely OP, at first glance at least.

On the matter of Argrath being a "Mary Sue" (term that should leave the english vocabulary), do we really have any proof of the flame of Sartar not working on anyone that hasn't Sartar's blood? For all we know it could be an elaborate lie and it only needs some kind of ritual, or a strong will.

Kallyr is probably of Sartar's bloodline but if you see Argrath supposed family tree, it is hardly believable, also, it is suggested that all the "white bull" thing was an illusion too. On the historical side take the "world's first empire maker" Sargon of Accad, he elaborated a complex myth about his ancestry, when he was possibly just an usurper, that's what complex myths about one's ancestry and lineage are used for, justifying people that have taken power and are not of noble birth. 

So maybe he's not a super protagonist that has everything given to him, just a really good Trickster. 

2 minutes ago, EricW said:

And if you are unhappy that following their way your magics weaken every time the moon wanes, they're happy to teach you about their version of illumination, which will partly free you from this curse. And in time they will discuss the benefits of building a reaching moon temple, to ensure your new Lunar magics are always at full strength.

Doesn't the glowline actually make lunar magic always at half strength? Or is this just in game terms? I always took it as one of the "sins" of the empire that the white moonies would like to undo. Sedenya rises and wanes, that is their nature, and until the world is purified and the glorious white moon rises, trying to tie it up is going against it's very plan, and denotes yelmist objectives. Thus a true believer should rejoice and experience the rise and the wane to attain synergy with the Goddess. That's how I imagined it.

Well there have been several orlanthi cultures that have converted to lunarism more or less peacefully. Some tarshites did after the appearance of Hon-Eel at Heruvernalda, and Imther joined the Empire voluntarily, to name some exemples. Of course they didn't just convert all by the grace of the Goddess, there were more factors, and some of them violent, involved, but they still joined the lunar sphere peacefully, so I would not discard that if the Quvini were mass converted before the Empire arrived at DP they would willingly join it. 

But of course violence will happen anyway, because as we can tell by tarshite-written texts on KoS, there was a noticeable resentment in the provinces against Dara Happan monopoly of power. This is of course an inevitable consequence of the State, but maybe a strong and lunar quivinland would tip the scale towards the provincials, and a civil war between them and the Heartlands could ensue. 

1 hour ago, jajagappa said:

This was, of course, the approach Nysalor took in Ralios in the First Age, though in that case it was providing healing from spirits of disease.

Oh boy, repeating the errors of the First Age, what could go wrong?

1 hour ago, jajagappa said:

The challenge with this is that if not done carefully, you'll win over some clans, but immediately get their enemies as your enemies.  

Doesn't matter as long as they are smoten. 

I love this topic already. 

Let's see, a lunar priest in pre-sartar dragon pass. One of the first things that comes to mind is showing the power of my different magic that locals lack. I would choose a clan that is struggling against a certain enemy against whom I have knowledge or counters that they lack. For exemple, I could approach clans that are having a bad time against the Telmori, and show them my knowledge about controlling and destroying chaos. I would appear to them as a strong wizard from the north that has seen power in their clan and want to help them attain it, once and if a great victory is achieved, then it would come the explanations. "You can wield this power too, and smite those that have wronged you, and to obtain that power you have to..." and proceed to coat with red their lightbringer pantheon (Orlanth doesn't need to be abandoned yet, but it would be wise to orientate their worship away from his role of chief). Then I would show them the marvels of the new Pelorian language, they can all learn it! If the clan is indebted to me and ready to take revenge on their enemies, they will follow. I would then essentially be the shadow chief of a clan that is expanding, those who fall under its boot would adopt lunarism too, and the need for more magic would attract more lunar priests from peloria, with them a temple-city can be founded. 

This of course could also go terribly wrong but it's an approach. 

Edit: even more radical, play with the broos. Find a clan that is struggling against them and losing, present to them as one who wants to save them, if they are so desperate they believe you, go into the broos hiding place and strike a deal with them. Where Orlanth has failed, Sedenya is victorious, while years of doing what Orlanth does has yielded only death and misfortune, a moment of doing what Sedenya does has eliminated the problem (for a price, but that does not have to matter to them in that exact moment). The broos can then be ignored or even use them to bolster the conquests. Of course like all dealings with chaos it will eventually have terrible consequences, but if Sedenya is willing, that would be when lunarism is already rooted. 

4 hours ago, jajagappa said:

Not yet, though there are those who would like to.

Do you know where to look for names and specific situations of post-Broyan Heortland?

1 hour ago, Joerg said:

The administration of Heortland under Belintar and his governor kings is still quite hazy. The cities here apparently were administrated by mayors who would be in charge of the city militias, too. The surrounding rural clans may have not have tribal kings but may have looked to the city administration to take that role, or Belintar's officials in the cities.

I read in a post here somewhere that tribes in Belintar's Heortland were rare (or absent, or even forbidden), and that they mostly organized themselves by clans, so there would be no need for a Rex cult. In the cities my take based on the Guide is that they were administered mainly by esvulari officials appointed by Belintar, and that's why the kingdom of New Malkonwal was able to be formed, despite being a malkionist enterprise engineered by a bunch of merenaries, because they had the support of the factual rulers of the cities and the armies. Of course the fact that Heortland had been razed by lunars a few years ago, had lost its two major figures of government that year and were being raided by an army of bloodthirsty pirates led by a bear-skinned madman didn't help to make it easy for the heortlanders to throw themselves into an open rebellion to support the king of the barbarian rebels of the north.

1 hour ago, Joerg said:

Alakoring - the chief missionary and possibly creator of the Orlanth Rex cult - was a Ralian Orlanthi. The concept of these quite absolute powers may have come from influences of the more solar oriented Enerali.

Makes total sense, I just remembered to have read that galanini didn't practice it, I must have read wrong.

1 hour ago, Joerg said:

Jonating kingship appears to have a linealist approach, much like the Sartar dynasty, in this case leading back to Jonat Big Bear. The Command Priests magic certainly is attractive to their approach to kingship. Living just one mountain pass away from Alakoring's homelands, I am fairly certain that they had time to encounter and - if desired - adopt the concept of the Rex kingship.

Oranor I am less sure about. They are pretty isolated, and Harmast may have been pretty much their last contact with non-Malkionized Orlanthi.

Nice catch, I always mess up the names of Jonatela and Jrustela.

We know that Orlanth Rex is the official King cult in Sartar, but what about other orlanthi societies? 

-Broyan does not practice it because he derives his legitimacy from his vingkotling lineage, this we know, unless I'm terribly wrong. This suscites some questions. Did the Old Hendriki (as in the Kingdom of Hendrikiland of imperial and early modern age) practice Orlanth Rex? Once the kingdom was destroyed by Belintar it was succeeded by the Sixth of Heortland, and a confederation of clans and tribes around Whitewall, either called Volsaxi Conf. or New Hendrikiland. Did the Kings of Heortland under Belintar practice Orlanth Rex? Was the vingkotling kingship ritual of Broyan used by his predecessors or was he the first to use it? What about Heortland in 1625, has anybody called him/herself King after Broyan's death? 

-In Peloria the "free" orlanthi prob. practice it, but the lunarised ones don't despite that they emulate like they do, for exemple they make rituals and sacrifices to the lightbringers (forgetting Orlanth) and marry powerful Earth figures (at least the Tarshites do). 

-The Entruli (manirian orlanthi) either erect westerners as kings (in the Trader Princes controlled areas, that means the coast/Wenelia) or they have native kings (in the northern tribes like Nimistor, Solanthi...). Do those last orlanthi practice Orlanth Rex? 

-The Galanini (ralian orlanthi) don't practice Orlanth Rex according to what I have read here before but I'm not sure, also can't make it up from the Guide. 

-In Fronela the jrustelans definitively don't practice Orlanth Rex, they are too influenced by western culture, especially the ruling classes. I don't know how they justify their kingships but it's not with Orlanth Rex. The oranori may do it, IDK.

-Edit: I always forget that caladralanders are thechnically orlanthi, or at the very least theyalan, but if I'm not mistaken their kingship is pretty different from the rest; they are elected for a certain time and their legitimacy comes from the temple of the Vent.

Once the GGG comes out it would be great to make a program that aims to make those things easier. I might give it a try. 

1 hour ago, Eff said:

Th. 1) Lanbril feels very generically high-fantasy-conceit in comparison to most other gods. 

Yup, exactly my thought. One of the first things that appealed to me about Glorantha is how well done was Eurmal in comparison with other fantasy trickster/thief/outlaw dieties. I always thought "why would thieves in this world have a god of thieves? Are all thieves clerics of this diety? But clerics and rogues have clearly different roles! Do thieves and assassins say prayers to his god when they do their stuff? It seems absurd", but with Eurmal it all makes sense: his "church" is a mockery of churches themselves, their cultist are usually excentric and close to mad to others, and he is so polyfacetic, a Eurmal cultist can be a regular thief, but also a idealistic anarchyst, a person that roams the land looking only to troll people that make bad acts, and even a bloody and sadistic murderer... Meanwhile Lanbril returns me to my first thoughts. 

33 minutes ago, soltakss said:

Because he does.

Why are there several war gods or earth goddesses?

Glorantha doesn't just have one deity per function, most functions have multiple deities.

I would like to turn that last phrase. Most deities have multiple functions. Eurmal does, he is, among others, thief, Orlanth is thief too, but he is also many others, meanwhile Lanbril is only thief. In Sartar, the Elmal cult almost died out because there were more powerful cults that had similar magic and mythology, why would then have Lanbril survived when Eurmal is clearly more powerful and as native as he is? 

33 minutes ago, scott-martin said:

IMG Thief and Trickster emerged historically as overlapping monomyth constructs. Some God Learner schools were invested in aggregating the Trickster cults into something that survives within modern Eurmal. Most died in the devastation of Slontos, hoist on their own gigantic final petard. (To risk an especially eccentric personal joke, other sources say "canard.")

Others focused on expressions of the Thief. While we know a whole lot less about their role in the Empire, it's not hard to imagine them as magical saboteurs and subversives who infiltrated the criminal undergrounds of rival cultures in order to disrupt the "normal" local magical economy, steal secrets, support friendly resistance movements and probably smuggle contraband drugs, skills and spells for profit. You come into a village, find the local outlaws, "convince" them that you're a co-cultist and ultimately if all goes well they work for you. Then you go on to the next village. You do it again and again, collecting local magic along the way.

Once you achieve a critical mass of expertise, you can go into a culture and set up your own Thief network that can operate within the local mythic landscape without too much resistance. You can use this quasi-artificial cult for various purposes, as above or so below. Some are hero cults built around a mortal exemplar. Others are constructed from useful fragments.

I always forget how different the world must have been before the godlearners. They might have be jackasses sometimes but their pragmatism is to be admired. 

Reading the RBoM I have discovered a God that I didn't know before, Lanbril. It is, according to the wiki "The Thief God oh the Heortlings", and this strikes me as very odd, because the Heortlings already have a God dedicated to thievery, and he is a Lightbringer no less! I'm talking of course of Eurmal. 

I would get if Lanbril was the local variant of Eurmal, but according to recent sources, there is a significant presence of the Eurmal cult in Sartar (there are both NPCs and mentions of a priest in Clearwine). And I know that Eurmal isn't exactly a full time thief, he does plenty more, but it is clearly stated in the rulebook that eurmali follow a certain aspect of him, one of them being Eurmal the Thief. Besides I can't find any links between the cults in anything written, when Lanbril is described there is no mention of Eurmal. 

So what are your thoughts on the difference of the cults? Why do you think that Lanbril should exist? 

(Of course as @Godweyn said in the Dumbest theories thread, I'm positive that if Lanbril existed he was Eurmal in disguise) 

I don't get this brawl, no one is forcing anything on anyone here, let's please not make personal each and every Argrath related topic shall we? I don't know if that's just my reading (fueled by both my personality and misunderstandings from my limited english) or other people think that too but it looks like a real problem to me. Besides this has spiraled off-topic pages ago. 

15 minutes ago, Tindalos said:

As mentioned in RQ:G page 81, the Heortlings also recognise the sex of "neuter" and the gender of "none." It wouldn't surprise me if Humakt's magic is often viewed as "Neuter/None," despite their common masculine portrayals.

That would make much sense indeed, it's just that the "third gender" is rarely mentioned outside of those lines. 

Also, I think that having a high position in a temple might disqualify you from being chief or king, something that might be done to stop one person to hold top much power. From Ernaldori history in GMs pack we can see that while all positions of power in the clan are monopolized by the same family, on the death of a chief they seem to prefer to elect a younger and less experienced candidate than an older more experienced man that serves as a Orlanth priest. This may very well not be a hard rule, but it shows that younger, more adventurous (pun intended) men or women are usually preferred. 

A lot of those "rules" (more like customs) will be dependent on the particular clan or tribe.

For exemple, Enhyl Chieftains are "always" Elmal Rune Lords, so in normal circumstances that would be one requirement, but I'm sure it can be changed.

As for Ernalda and women in general, it gets tricky. AFAIK, there are no Ernalda chiefs or queens, and that makes sense because in Heortling society the chief job is linked to Orlanth; Ernalda has another important job, and as in the Ernaldori, Ernaldan high priestesses can be more powerful than the chief, but they cannot take his job. But even though Ernalda and Orlanth hold the basic notions of what is "male" and "female" in heortling society, there have been many female chiefs and queens, and not only Vingans, the Malani Queen is a Humakti, if I'm not mistaken. This raises the question of what is exactly "male" and "female" for the heortlings, is Humakti magic "masculine"? Just because the god is usually portrayed as a male? What about Gorites? They seem to be banned from temporal leadership too; they hold power in Tarsh and before and during its first civil war they tried to make a run to monopolize temporal power, but tarshites are not heortlings, it's traditions of leadership might vary wildy.

At the end it all comes to the personality of the deity I think, Orlanth and Elmal make for superb leaders. Humakt might look good at first, but you have only to watch the warmongering Malani to see it doesn't fit the job. Barntar might be good too for certain times, but in prolonged periods it might be too much peaceful. Gorites are definetly not good leaders, CA and LM are too busy with their things, Issaries maybe? And let's not comment on an Eurmali king.