Aldryami appearance

[Jape_Vicho]

Which kind of aldryami is the one depicted on the Glorantha Bestiary cover? It looks a lot more "human" than any of the depictions of the race in the book and none of the sub-species are described to be more human-like than the other.

[allenowen]

I take their appearance as being "Your Glorantha Will VAry". Which one do you prefer? I don't think their is a "canon" apprearance.

[Mankcam]

Wow!!! 

I never even noticed that archer had pointed ears until this thread indicated that there was an Elf on the from cover of the Gloranthan Bestiary! 

It reminds me of the original RQ2 art before the Aldryami for more uniquely detailed. They were illustrated as standard high fantasy Elves in much the same way as Mostali were depicted as standard high fantasy Dwarves back then. My old RQ2 homebrew days definately had high fantasy Elves and Dwarves, but all I had was the RQ2 corebook and the RQ2 Companion. It wasn't until late RQ3 and HW era before I realised how different the Aldryami and Mostali were to classic high fantasy Elves and Dwarves.

That archer on the cover of the Gloranthan Bestiary is definately inconsistent with most contemporary portrayals of Aldryami.

I do remember reading somewhere that the Aldryami sometimes bred/grew particular individuals to be their liasion and diplomats with other races, and these ones were the most humanoid looking. I don't think it meant they looked like Tolkien Elves however, but they just had more skin than bark, hands instead of roots, stuff like that.That way you could have PCs who were journeying throughout the region alongside human adventuring parties, basically were doing  general exploration and learning about the wider world, with an aim to one day return to their forests with the knowledge they had learnt. They could blend in a bit more under hooded cloaks and such, not looking like Groot. I think they still were meant to be very much like 'plant people' however, but were meant to be perceived a bit more humanoid than what intelligent plants would be. Not sure where I read that, or if it is still canon.

Anyway, that still doesn't fit the depiction of the elven archer on the front cover of the Gloranthan Bestiary.

Once it has been seen it cannot be unseen!

Same goes for the Mostali, which just looks like a high fantasy Dwarf on the Gloranthan Bestiary cover. It's not as wrong as the Elf, but it isn't the most consistent with other depictions either.

The cover artwork, despite this, is great. Feels very much like something from a European graphic novel or something like that. Certainly very visually pleasing and distinctive for cover art.

I'm definately sticking with the Aldryami and Mostali portrayals from the G2G, and the internal artwork depictions within the Gloranthan Bestiary. They just have so much more flavour and uniqueness to them, and tell me that this is Glorantha.

Edited May 8, 2020 by Mankcam

[soltakss]

15 hours ago, Jape_Vicho said:

Which kind of aldryami is the one depicted on the Glorantha Bestiary cover?

It looks like an Elf to me.

15 hours ago, Jape_Vicho said:

It looks a lot more "human" than any of the depictions of the race in the book and none of the sub-species are described to be more human-like than the other.

In my opinion, Elves have the man rune and this is what a young elf looks like. As they get older or more tied to the Plant Rune, they get more tree-like, with leafy hair and bark-like skin. But, it is a continuum, so there are some at each end and some at all points along the line.

[Blindhamster]

3 hours ago, soltakss said:

It looks like an Elf to me.

In my opinion, Elves have the man rune and this is what a young elf looks like. As they get older or more tied to the Plant Rune, they get more tree-like, with leafy hair and bark-like skin. But, it is a continuum, so there are some at each end and some at all points along the line.

I LOVE that as the logic to follow. young elves potentially having a stronger affinity to the man rune is clever... or maybe you could say that the elves that arent tied to a forest (the ones that actually go adventuring) tend to have higher man than plant in their runes and as such also tend to look more "human".

The elf section does also note that some specifically grow looking more human like as it makes them better diplomats/embassadors as it puts humans at ease.

[Tanzier]

On 5/8/2020 at 10:08 AM, soltakss said:

It looks like an Elf to me.

In my opinion, Elves have the man rune and this is what a young elf looks like. As they get older or more tied to the Plant Rune, they get more tree-like, with leafy hair and bark-like skin. But, it is a continuum, so there are some at each end and some at all points along the line.

Love this explanation!