John Biles

Ahh!

Looking at the issue, the cover is not explained inside it.

Ernalda slept through the period in which Orlanth was on the Lightbringer Quest, and sleeps through the period of the Windstop, so killing a sleeping Ernalda makes sense.

In Prax, I expect that a Stormbull isn't much worse than the average male clansman anyway. But also, they're good at FIGHTING Chaos.

Glorantha is a place where even common farmers are knee-deep in magic and religion - it just isn't the dangerous adventuring kind as G33k pointed out. Even the most mundane things have attached deities and myths which act as models. (The Babylonians had a lion god who guards you while you're on the toilet, fighting off an evil lion god who likes to make people die on the toilet. His biggest kill is probably Elvis.) The prosperity gospel is, in fact, real in Glorantha, where worship provides demonstrable material benefits. But a housewife is learning stories like how Ernalda learned to cook and how to make the grain goddess happy. So I can't agree with the idea that the average Gloranthan avoids priests and religion - they just avoid the adventuring stuff.

Here's the thing about the trolls. The original, primal trolls were quite intelligent, the so called 'Mistress Race Trolls'. Unfortunately, since they had to leave Wonderhome thanks to Yelm, they've been going downhill, which got worse after The Battle of Night and Day so that now half their births are trollkin, who are extra dumb with cheese. But Dark Trolls aren't geniuses either. Also, while Trolls can eat anything... that doesn't mean they want to. Imagine if you could live off tar and gravel and it still tasted like tar and gravel. Elves, humans, etc, OTOH, are pretty tasty. Why are the Elves still mad at the trolls? Imagine if a group of beings ate your hometown and half your neighbors. And your pets. Would you care that they needed to eat to live? The Elves dislike Mostali, because Mostali look at them and their forests and think 'I can burn all that and use it to fuel my smoke spewing forges'.

What egg is that? So, Chaos and how I see it. Chaos is basically everything and nothing at once, infinite potential - but most of the potentials are disasters for an orderly universe. Chaos is nothingness as well, because if you can be anything, all at once, then you're not any specific thing and that makes you nothing. The Great Compromise shields the world from the Chaos that surrounds it. Violating the Compromise can let Chaos in, and once inside, it makes a mess. The Chaos rune is reality trying to impose a specific, pinned-down identity on Chaos, which by definition, has no identity. The core problem is that some of those myths which define the world also include Chaos and the struggle against it. This effort to pin Chaos down is why Chaos Features happen in those infected with Chaos. Chaos eats a hole and reality tries to fix the hole and the result is Chaos features. It also means the battle is not winnable permanently on the current grounds on which it is fought - the existence of Chaos inside reality is programmed into the Great Compromise itself. But it also means that Chaos has a connection to morality as well as the physical world, as is appropriate for a world sustained by myths. In Glorantha, people mystically link themselves to these myths as part of their religion and culture. Any given myth-system which remembers Chaos condemns some actions as Chaotic. Doing those actions risks inviting Chaos into you, and because myths can affect the physical world (rune spells, heroquesting, etc), you can be not just morally, but physically corrupted by Chaos in this way. Chaos can do impossible things and this is why illuminates are tempted to monkey with it, especially since they've basically severed themselves from being afraid of Chaos. It's just a tool. A tool which can destroy reality, but when you're high on illumination, you may not care about that.

Is there "art" for pleasure, or mostly just for religious purposes? Dance, music, poetry, theater, literature? In a world of Heroquesting, theater for fun seems like a bit of a risk. But the rest, yes. Some places, with more money and literacy, will have a lot more literature, but dance, music, and poetry are ubiquitous. But given the nature of Glorantha, lots of things are going to be for fun AND have a religious purpose. The Harvest Festival worships Ernalda and it's a huge party. Do people decorate their personal/everyday items just for beauty & pleasure of use? Or is it all functional, with Cultic/Runic markings to fulfill ritual obligations, or elevate magical functionality, or suchlike purposes? Even a stickpicker will have a little bit of art because things made for use are also decorated, even if only with simple repeating patterns. The split between 'art' and 'functionality' is largely the result of industrialization, where machines can make things, but are usually not so good at decorating. (But even then, think about a Cereal Box. That is industrially produced and it's a piece of art) The higher your wealth, the prettier your functional objects. Does it follow "class," with the wealthy & powerful having lots of beauty-for-the-sake-of-beauty, while the "ordinary joe" has much-less (or none; or maybe one set of "sunday best")? As above - everything is decorated at least a little, but the wealthier you are, the more likely you have things which are art for its own sake like paintings and tapestries or murals and the prettier your functional items are. Do people have hobbies, avocations, activities pursued for pleasure/fun (rather than for survival/sustenance, or cultural/cultic obligation)? The richer you are, the more time/wealth you have for fun. Even a stickpicker might enjoy gambling in his rare time off or dancing or a corn shucking party (well, if corn gets shucked where he lives). We know the Red Emperor has lavish parties & entertainments, often very decadent. Do many/most other courts have these, to one degree or another? Is Moonson merely the biggest party-animal, or is he nearly-unique in this? Nobles, wealthy merchants, and the like have some degree of parties and the like. But even clan chief will probably throw at least one feast a year if he can to show off his power and wealth. Do the "common folk" hold parties "just for fun," or are they entirely the various "harvest fest" & "trade fair" & "religious event" sorts of festivals? (noting that "harvest" and "trade" festivals offer quite a bit of scope for "everyman" busting-loose sorts of fun!) It depends on your definition of 'common'. The less wealth, the more likely the only parties you have are those thrown by your local leader or by your city guild or whatever. Does Glorantha merely follow the real-world in these regards? Should I just take my answers from ancient Sumeria, Mycenae, Hallstatt, Minoa, & other source-cultures? Don't we presume some Gloranthan variation from pure historicity? The real world is a good general guide, but you have to adapt to the specifics of a society. Some parts of Glorantha are a lot more wealthy and organized than others. Ivar the Carl in the Blue Quartz Clan and Ivar the Master Barrelmaker in Jonstown are going to have different opportunities for 'fun' and a different rythm in their lives even if they both worship Orlanth and live in the same country. Ivar the Carl spends much of his time plowing, tending crops, and looking after his cattle, pigs, and sheep, but he has silver armbands decorated with scenes of rural life he got as his cut of the loot on a raid, a beautiful carved drinking horn to show off to guests, and he has a little feast in the harvest season for his cottars and stickpickers who hang around his hall. With very good beef. He likes to go fishing in his spare time; he does eat the fish, but it's for fun, not survival. Ivar the Master Barrelmaker has an apartment over his shop instead of a wooden home, with a tapestry showing one of his ancestors, nice furniture, and his hobby is wood carving, turning the leftover wodden bits from his work into pretty things.

Glorantha is a place with relativistic morality in which different societies can have different moral codes, complicated by the existence of Chaos. I'm going to deal only with the theistic societies here. Your society defines what is Chaos because you are born into a society of people metaphysically linked to said society by their religious initiations and the one you choose will further bind you to the specific moral code of your cult. If you initiate to a Chaos God or if you violate the corresponding taboos, then you invite Chaos into yourself by rejecting the protection against Chaos which every cult offers and every society since the Great Compromise. Chaos taint is a moral failure if it comes by your actions, but because Chaos is a force of its own, you can also be tainted by it despite not wanting to be, just like if someone throws radioactive waste on you, you may get cancer. This is because Chaos has both physical and moral components. And physical things can interact with you in ways you don't like. You didn't want Owen to cut your arm off, but he did anyway. Glorantha has no laid back, easy going societies. But also, far more people get affected by physical than moral chaos. Don't think of it as 'being evil = being thought evil by your fellows', but more 'if you don't obey the signs which tell you to not go dive in nuclear waste, you end up radioactive' and if you're radioactive, you're exposing others to radiation too'.

Anstad? A dragon once passed the Ten Tests, and Sheng does come from a Solar culture.

I see young Phargentes as basically the creepiest thing you will ever meet that didn't come from Chaos. If you've read the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, it's depiction of Young Jesus is exactly on the nose. He knows things he should not know, does casual magics without being initiated into anything, and weird things happen around him, for his soul is older than his body, in part because his mother pretty much disassembled his father's soul and gave him as much of it as possible.\ This also enables the integration of what's left of Moonson into him instead of him being integrated into the Moonson. The downside of this was that once he went down... all of him went down. It took someone like Sheng to do it. (Though Argath probably had enough mystical mojo, he didn't want to risk being disassembled himself.,)

Orlanth is dead during it, so you can't really advance or be initiated.

Harrek is very much someone who would annoy the Esrolians just by being alive. But using someone you hate against someone you also hate feels Esrolian to me.

Water is the element which will rock you like a Hurricane.

Aether would be a fire on the earth until pushed away - air needs space and heated air expands, so his own power pushed him away from the Earth.

The Troll Queen didn't show up at all for me - I assume either your background choices or it was random. I got a chaos horde who offered to initiate us all to worship Malia and were very offended when I killed them instead.

It seems to me that one easy way to add in the importance of temple worship into Heroquest, etc without adding new kinds of fiddly bits or just trying to simulate Runequest is to establish that regular temple worship gives augments to appropriate magical abilities. So if you miss a holy day, that ability drops back to base level (or maybe even has a penalty) due to your not keeping up your relationship with the gods or spirits or not doing enough study time for your sorcery, etc. This gives the Lunars an edge during the Occupation of Sartar as they run around fat with power while rebels have it harder.

I played the Demo and had a lot of fun; I am really looking forwards to this.,

Didn't Darkness break out of Chaos, then we get Water? Darkness is the primal ME ME ME I EXIST.

Unspoken Word 2 has a lot of stuff on thieves and some adventures on that theme. Overall, it's about putting together a collection of gutterscum to help Argath liberate Sartar. Heroquests: The Taming of Valind The Sandals of Darkness Also, I agree with mfbrandi - in my own games, a lot of Lanbril heroquesting is about basically infiltrating other religions to steal holy power, heroquests, etc. To quote my ongoing Blue Moon Empire project: Imperial scholars have often wondered how the cult of Lanbril could muster enough power to do anything before it became an Imperial cult, how gangs of a few dozen can generate enough power to do miracles of Lanbril. The correct answer is, of course, that they *steal* it. Anyone initiated to Shadow Lanbril can attend any religious ceremony and steal some of the power for Lanbril. If a sacrifice is made, Lanbril gets a cut. If you do this right, the spirits of retaliation won't find you. Of course, if you've irritated Lanbril and you blow this trick, you are going to be in trouble. So don't blow it! Perhaps Lanbril's most annoying (to non-Lanbrili) power is the power to steal other Gods' miracles. This requires a heroquest and can backfire. The most common Shadow Lanbril quest is 'Lanbril Steals Orlanth's Sandals of Flight'. The one which makes outsiders the most nervous is 'Lanbril Steals Eurmal's Pants'. Even most Lanbrili aren't sure what that one does and they don't want to find out, really.

And I acted as editor to help clean it up! It's a great read.

He accidentally snapped his fingers at himself.

If they're in Ralios, there's a bunch of pretenders to the throne of Arkat running about. Have two show up and try to sway Foyalfine to follow their individual roads.

The Monster Empire is hard to judge because we barely know anything and what we do know comes from Argath worshippers. You could probably make a decent case for 'The lunar empire is basically a flaming wreck after Sheng Seleris II Boogaloo and Ralkazark marches out of Dorastor and just conquers everything'. Once he's in charge, it's chaos sandwiches for everyone.

Nysalor is an illumination salesman rather than the source of illumination. Though really not so much a salesman as someone basically created a way to use memes the way the creator of the idea of memes imagined them - an invasive thought-complex that pushes out other ideas and takes over a chunk of your brain., then uses you to spread to others. Which is why Nysalorean illumination produces people who create plagues; so above, so below.