A new Torkani Canpaign

[Bill the barbarian]

Well I have my Core Rules now, all my RQ 2 and 3 modules and tons of notes, got a player (one is a start). Now with the player I have has the good fortune/curse of being interesting". Said player has decided to play an Issaries Merchant and as I am running him as a solo I asked him to create a second character as well. Hmm God of Surface Darkness says he, well his brother will be an Argan Argar cultist and they willl both be Torkani.

Well, the tons of notes combined with some great reference materiel alleviated some of the panic I felt of having very few notes on the good Torkani folk. A month later, between all the materials out there (old and new) and what I have as well, I now have a bit of a Torkani sandbox to play in. Next step is to populate it and then place adventures.

That is the point of this missive, does anyone have suggestions of modules of any flavour (Questworld, Judges Guild, WD, DW, any variety of RQ or HW or HQ) that are Torkani centered of that could be adopted to that very misunderstood of Sartar Tribes, The Torkani. I have decided to start him with Greenbrass from RQ3's GM book. Not a very sophisticated adventure but one that gives a great variety of encounters including one that

{Small Spoiler Alert!!!}

... should be avoided at all costs—demonstrating a key fact of RQ gaming. There are no levels or warnings that this part of the dungeon is the deep end that is the shallow. Game balance is just not as important in this game as in others.

So again I am asking for adventure suggestions, published or otherwise. And I suppose I should ask if anyone knows of prominent Torkani I should note,

Cheers all.

[jeffjerwin]

The Torkani live near some sacred areas belonging to Asrelia. You could adapt Asrelian heroquests like the Vanak Spear... There's also significant overlap into the Maboder lands now taken over by the Telmori and the Wulflanders - for which the Coming Storm campaign is pretty in depth.

A great deal of info on the Alone region is in Zin Letters #3 (plus a lovely map) and of course at https://myth-o-logic.org/glorantha/.

Kyger Litor is probably worshipped as Deloradella by the Torkani, like among their Kitori ancestors. 

In fact, there's possibly a masked cult among the Torkani mirroring the Shadowlords. 

There's always the old trading caravan to Crabtown adventure, to start things off.

[Bill the barbarian]

Yes to all the above jeffjerwin,.

Though I am operating on most of the assumptions you mention I have until now overlooked the Lizardwood Asrelia aspect... good call. Might be some fun there,. So, on that note where might I find mention of the Vanak Spear HeroQuest?

The Coming Storm has been invaluable, as a resource for a fellow member tribe and clan of the Jonstown Confederacy, the Cinsina and the RedCow as well as their neighbors. Of course John Hugh's work on the Far Point fills in many details on the northeast borders of the Torkani. The Zin letters you say, I will have to have a look see. The Haunted Lands and Into the Troll Realms from RQ 3 or Troll Pack from RQ 2 seems to have a fair amount of material that could help fill in details in the Battle Valley and Stagland areas as well as provide the caravan you mention.

Now,  you also mention something that I have not come across. The masked cult and the Shadowlords. Both Kitori or OOO affiliations from the old country?

 

Cheers

[Oracle]

The Quest of Eringulf Vanak Spear is an example in HeroQuest Glorantha (p.194).

 

[Joerg]

6 hours ago, Bill the barbarian said:

Now,  you also mention something that I have not come across. The masked cult and the Shadowlords. Both Kitori or OOO affiliations from the old country?

Some info on the Kitori lead masks, spears and cloaks comes from History of the Heortling Peoples and Esrolia - Land of Ten Thousand Goddesses, with the additional term "Kimantoring" for the Nochet city militia available for missions away from the city that uses such gear, too.

Wearing the lead mask and the cloak while wielding the spear is a low level of Only Old One heroforming, and might be interesting for that Argan Argar brother. The Shadow Tribute was an Equal Exchange that included martial service as well as emergency feeding, and the Kitori Shadowlords who collected the tribute and who provided martial protection in cases of trouble were always wearing these masks and cloaks, which obscured their current shape (human, troll, dehori).

Carrying such a lead mask into Sun Dome County will create quite a bit of reaction among the Ergeshi slaves, and therefore also from the Yelmalian slave-owner overlords. Emissaries from Nochet can do little better to insult the count but bringing a bodyguard of a few Kimantorings in full regalia.

There are no such spells in RQG (yet), but there might be some magics affecting all the fighters in a unit wearing these items. Possibly some Black Arkati sorcery makes use of this to identify the recipients of certain spells.

[jeffjerwin]

Also there's a picture and information on a Kitori Shadowlord in the Sartar Companion, in I think the chapter on Argan Argar. The Torkani probably settled in Dragon Pass originally with the full support of their Kitori relations, unlike the 'pure' Heortlings. I think the Torkani would also have old grudges against the tribes that drove them from Caroman Pass.

[Bill the barbarian]

Thanks guys,

Sartar Companion's Argan Argar HQ cult write-up cleared up the masks and rituals of the Troll Woods/Kitori nicely. Now I just have to decide how much came north with the Torkani. Good pic jeffjerwin, a little terrifying, no? Now two items I cannot find are; The Zin Letters, I have a post on another thread asking if it still lives. Does anyone have a current address for contacting the management there?

The next query is about the Vanak Spear HeroQuest? Is there a public domain telling of this myth. Buying a copy of HQG to include this in my game might be a bit extravagant, but a bit of knowledge that could open up the Lizardwoods to adventure would be nice. Hmm

Cheers

[Jeff]

A few notes on the Torkani:

Argan Argar is the tribal patron god. He is worshiped as a consort of Ernalda, as is Orlanth. Humakt is the most important war god, although Storm Bull is also popular. All the Lightbringers are worshiped. 

Their Rex cult is unique - as the tribal leaders need to worship Argan Argar in conjunction with Orlanth Rex.

[Bill the barbarian]

1 hour ago, Jeff said:

A few notes on the Torkani:

Argan Argar is the tribal patron god. He is worshiped as a consort of Ernalda, as is Orlanth. Humakt is the most important war god, although Storm Bull is also popular. All the Lightbringers are worshiped. 

Their Rex cult is unique - as the tribal leaders need to worship Argan Argar in conjunction with Orlanth Rex.

Intriguingly different. Orlanthi but with a dark twist.

Throw in werewolves, trolls that can either be hard to win allies or deadly foes depending on ones actions (according to S KoH, despite other tribes prejudices, being Torkani does not assure troll friendship), Undead Woods. Yes indeed, good neighbours, all! On the political front the Torkani areas host a devastated city confederacy (in the troubled years one tribe ceased to exist, one left the confederacy to join the rival Alda-chur Confederacy, and the remaining tribes all suffered trauma of one form or another—the Culbrea are half the size they were in 1602). Occupying former Maboder and Torkani lands are potentially hostile (seriously surrounded) Lunars. Across the Lizardwoods and over the River are definitely hostile Dinacoli sun worshippers. And that's only a fraction of the story as far as I can see,

Hmm. It has potential. Yeah, I think we can have fun with this.

Cheers

[Bill the barbarian]

On 2/16/2019 at 5:33 AM, jeffjerwin said:

The Torkani probably settled in Dragon Pass originally with the full support of their Kitori relations, unlike the 'pure' Heortlings. I think the Torkani would also have old grudges against the tribes that drove them from Caroman Pass.

When you say the  Caroman Pass, do you have any more details on this area's history as relates to The Torkani (or was it just Torkan—assuming Torkan was the founder's name—at this point and his family/clan/followers)?

 

Cheers

[Joerg]

That would have been the Sambari and Balmyr tribes. The Torkani displacement was one of the earliest conflicts of the Resettlement phase in Quiviniland.

They would have been at least a clan, so about 200 adults.

Caroman village is an important battle site of the 1602 conquest of Sartar, the last field battle fought by Prince Salinarg, and the one that allowed an orderly retreat into Boldhome, giving the Lunar invaders an extra tough nut to crack.

The Torkani occupied their corner of Old Sartar before the arrivals of all their neighbors. Dinacoli and Telmori  arrived significantly later, and the Maboder, Aranwyth, Kheldon and Sanchali came at best around the same time, but possibly a generation later. We don't have many migration details for the tribes east of the Highways.

Both the light worshipping Dinacoli and the Telmori werewolves would have been uncomfortable new neighbors, nibbling away at what modest wealth the Torkani had managed to build up after their displacement. They did join the anti-werewolf alliance against the Telmori and became a member of the Jonstown confederation, but didn't contribute much due to their distance.

The Coming Storm has the best published info on the werewolf wars, with King of Sartar's CHDP providing some migration detail, and a couple of rather short mentions mainly for their worship of Deloradella and Argan Argar in other publications dealing with Sartar. The best detail map would be the Trollpak map.

Little is known about their relationship with the Sazdorf troll clan. At the very least, they should have some trade relations, sitting on the access routes to the Indigo Mountains. Some trade relations to Adari are highly probable, too.

2 hours ago, Jeff said:

A few notes on the Torkani:

Argan Argar is the tribal patron god. He is worshiped as a consort of Ernalda, as is Orlanth. Humakt is the most important war god, although Storm Bull is also popular. All the Lightbringers are worshiped. 

Their Rex cult is unique - as the tribal leaders need to worship Argan Argar in conjunction with Orlanth Rex.

What about Torkani queens? How does the Rex cult deal with tribal queens (other than Vingans) in general?