John Biles

I'm sure that mental contact with the lunatics who control the Crimson Bat is both easy and safe.

The official position of the last 10 years seems to be that Ompalam *is* chaotic.

You left out how the dwarves are eaten by undead when they try to do this and how the water mysteriously refuses to flow into the canal.

Since Europeans didn't originally live in America and flee it due to a bloody apocalypse, it doesn't really come off similar to me.

Why would Babeester Gor, who is focused on stacking corpses, teach the Food Song?

So why didn't Ompalam die with the other gods?

What happens when Orlanth and Ernalda die due to the Lunars shows this is wrong - cut off from the divine magics of Orlanth and Ernalda, starvation and death ensue; society totters on the verge of collapse. If Argath does end up killing the gods, then the Fourth Age will start with another hideous Glorantha apocalypse even if the destruction of the Red Moon doesn't basically obliterate Peloria. The current edition of Runequest tells us: A central theme of Glorantha is the relationship between mortals and the gods, between the mythical and Mundane Worlds. Gloranthan religion and magic are basic to existence, and accepted by everyone. The gods are acknowledged, experienced, and exert powerful influence upon the world. The most prevalent religious practice in Glorantha is polytheism (Page 7) In Glorantha, magic plays a decisive, even primary, role in warfare (Page 8 ) Despite its similarities with the Bronze Age, Glorantha is very much a magical and fantastic world. (Page 11) Magic isn't gravy and showing off. Intertwined with religion and philosophy, it's part of life all the time. That being said, arguing from the Runequest rules does have the problem that it's mainly oriented around the adventuring life. Which is even more blatantly magical than normal life. Yeah, exactly. Given you don't actually roll until harvest time, given how the rules for it work, it seems to me like you could apply it at any point, within the rules of the game.

Trolls left the Underworld when Yelm burned his way through Wonderland. A place no doubt home to dead fire spirits, still burning things and looking for Troll souls to burn. Now if you know how to find the escape routes, and can fight or dodge the spirits, and you can dodge or eat everything else in the underworld that wants a piece of you before you get to the ruins of Wonderhome... then sure. Of course, some of those old escape routes are clogged and others got repaired by Dwarves and some are now flooded, etc etc.

It is well known that Godunya is not a dragon, he is a giant chicken. Well known outside Krlaorela, whose survival depends on continuing to be fooled.

Infinity + Fertility = Uleria. This is used to tap Uleria's power, mostly for reproduction. Not that Dwarves want to talk about it, but it's worn by Dwarves doing that duty and increases the chances of getting a better breed of dwarf out of it.

The infamous Goddess Switch of the God-Learners revolved around goddesses in different lands of different grains; I have the impression every grain has its own goddess.

As the goddess of the crops, she seems pretty strongly linked to time to me, and she functions as a midwife among other things for everything else, so...

Ernalda dies after Orlanth goes on the Lightbringer Quest, then is alive again by the time he returns.

Satyrs are more or less a nature spirit in mythology, exist in Glorantha, and are male.

Tell us about the heroquests; I'm always interested in those.

Perhaps this is where the Ban was enacted by the death of the God of Silver Feet.

The easy way to cut Argath is to leave him as King of Pavis, the way he is when the campaign begins according to the assumptions of the current incarnation of Runequest. (And while the core rules do indicate Argath ends up King of Sartar, it basically leaves the future open-ended.). And let Kallyr lead Sartar. This means eventually, she's going to have to face Jar-Eel trying to either subvert or kill her and Harrek probably just trashes the Holy Country and sails off unless you need him. The big issue to resolve is how you want the inevitable Lunar revenge to go and how it can be stopped. IE, what is your campaign building towards. Kallyr also is going to need an heir and that means marriage shenanigans, especially since even if she marries the Feathered Horse Queen, how do you get an heir out of that?

To the believer, the story is true. This is very much a situation where only illuminates know the truth of the matter, but knowing the truth of the matter generally makes you a terrible person because you see through everything that holds you back from your worst impulses. The Gods aren't imaginary, but they can't act in the world on their own and the Godtime is sustained by mortals. What precisely actually happened before the start of Time can't be known, but there were Gods, they made the Great Compromise, and changed their very nature; they now sustain Glorantha and it sustains them. This is Glorantha, where history's greatest monsters are largely all illuminates. The first age went down in fire because people created an illuminated god who could spread illumination like a disease. The second age went down because dragon mystics wanted to turn everyone in central Genertla into a dragon, the Godlearners treated the godtime as a toy, and Errinoru went full Elf Hitler. And the third age ends in a crazed mystic vs an empire of illuminates who want to play with Chaos. Orlanth is a minor danger compared to what people with illumination do in Glorantha. Trump would definitely be an illuminate - he doesn't believe in anything. Unless you can worship yourself. I wouldn't say it has personhood, but the Compromise exists to sustain the world and so it influences fate. Eventually, one of those agents will likely fail and the world will go down in flames and some other solution will have to be found. There's always some people who want to destroy the world - that's Chaos. But some people may have horrrible beliefs that don't go so far as actual world destroying. What makes people moral is that myths always have a moral lesson; if your religion involves around acting out morality plays, it's going to tend to infuse you with those morals. Myths have power, but myths also have ethics imbedded in them. But since Glornatha doesn't actually have an objective code of morality, what is moral in one place may not be moral in another, so that cannibalism is sometimes Chaos and sometimes not. If that doesn't work, it probably means you're illuminated. Hopefully, you'll go contemplate your navel and try to unite with higher forces instead of deciding that your shoes are telling you to make everyone in Seshnela into a giant shoe, but...

If it has to be an NPC, then it should be a Duck.

There's a huge, huge amount of fan stuff published for Call of Cthulhu; mostly adventures, but some time period/setting books too.

If you flush Argath down the toilet of life, a PC ought to light the flame.

So what is the Compromise? 1. All stories are true in the Godtime. This allows every worship group to have its own versions of the myths, though there will be overlap in adjacent areas and those more visited myths will have more power. Myths can freely contradict each other. Eurmal can be the son of Kylera and a fish, and he can explode out of Ratslaff's head, and he can be found on a garbage dump by Orlanth. Yelm and Orlanth can both be top dog. (And so can Pamalt.) 2. But only one story at a time can be true in the waking *at a given location*. If a given story dominates an area, then it gets much harder to go against it. But this is always waxing and waning as cultures grow, flourish, and die horribly. Normal worshippers *believe* the stories they tell and that belief empowers the appropriate mythic patterns. This is worship. Normal heroquesting feeds the power of worshippers into the other planes, sustaining them, then a portion of that power returns, focused into the Heroquest benefits. 3. Because all stories are true, new gods can be made by enough accumulation of spiritual power. But once you get enough power, you have to permanently enter the Godtime and become the subject of myths instead of a distinct person. If you don't do that, you are violating the Compromise and something will happen to remove you from the material world, one way or another. New Gods are most easily made by tying them into pre-extant myths, like the Only Old One being the kid of Argan Argar and Asrelia. Zistor broke the compromise by staying in the material world. So did Nysalor. The Red Goddess, once integrated into the Compromise, had to leave. 4. What about the God Learners? Here's the thing. If you don't actually believe in what you're doing, you drain energy from the planes without putting any in. This weakens the Great Compromise and eventually led to a giant backlash. You can discover new myths, but if you go as far as massive rewrites without really establishing a new network of believers to sustain it, eventually, you get splatted. 5. What would happen if you drained the planes to the point of collapse? Chaos would rush in through the breach in reality and it's Great Darkness II: Chaos Boogaloo time. 6. Monkeying around with Chaos, which is supposed to be mostly locked out of the system save for the force of entropy which is part of time and certain Chaos creatures the world is stuck with, also damages the Compromise by blowing holes in reality. 7. Illumination is another problem - If you can see through the game, it's a lot easier to do things which damage the Hero Plane and reality, especially if you decide that, hey, Chaos is a useful tool and morality is for losers and cocaine addicts, as many Illuminates do. Arkat and Argath are both examples of how the Great Compromise raises up forces to enforce itself - while the Red Goddess herself was integrated, her followers are monkeying around with Chaos AND Illumination. The same problem as with Nysalor. Illuminates either have to be taught to sit on their ass and do nothing, or be like late Arkat, using their cheaty powers to reinforce the sacred status quo and protect the compromise, or else they become a source of destruction. So how does the gods all getting killed not destroy the Fourth Age? Basically the giant cult of Argath takes their place and his myths become dominant in the planes, ensuring worship continues, along with his allies taking the place of various gods. (Also, there's not really any evidence the gods of the southern continent got killed off.)

We know that in the Great Compromise, part of it was that all pasts were now true (in the mystical world; the physical world only has one past). That's how you can discover new myths, ie, myths *you did not know about*.

Ernalda goes into her coma after Orlanth leaves on the Lightbringer Quest. He goes to find how to stop the world breaking, then eventually ends up having to repent his own mistake of killing Yelm. Orlanth repents for his mistakes after basically undergoing a deadly test he only survives due to the support of others. Heroquests generally are not about learning nothing and not changing. But of course, the Lightbringer Quest is the end of Orlanth's story; to me, that says, this has to resolve all his screwups and it does. He learns and becomes less of a dumbass. The Great Compromise isn't his personal act of restitution - he undergoes a trial, then undergoes a formal apology and atonement while still in the Underworld with dead Yelm. (Though he does put forward the central idea that all contradictory pasts will be true, a key part of the Great Compromise.)

The thing is that Argath isn't breaking the cycle. The gods mostly died in the wars with Chaos that led to the Great Darkness. Killing them all just re-enacts that and furthers the process of Glorantha declining into Chaos. But the real problem is that wiping out the gods wipes out the divine magic that central Genertla depends on in order to have a functional society. What Argath has done is equivalent to a luddite declaring we're too dependent on technology, so it's time to destroy all technology then somehow wiping it out. Illiteracy because your writing system is magical is only the tip of the iceberg - every aspect of life just got wrecked. Just look at what happened when only Orlanth died - it was hideous. Now imagine if all the gods were dead and everyone in central Genertla stripped of their chief tool for dealing with problems. *With* magic, they couldn't actually live better than the real bronze age. Without it, it's going to be a disaster. (It probablly means the people who still have sorcery and spirit magic are going to roll over them like a tide.) So I can't help but see it as being the same as if someone somehow wiped science and technology out of existence, because that's one of the roles their religion serves for them.