The horse cultures of Dragon PassThe horse cultures of Dragon PassThe horse cultures of Dragon PassThe horse cultures of Dragon Pass

Matters of geography Dragon Pass is the crucible for the Hero Wars, when the Heortlings (sort of a cross between Finns and Pashtun) astoundingly manage to resist occupation by the Lunar Empire (sort of a cross between Romans and Persians). The wars will ultimately encompass every major conflict in Glorantha and bring this world to its end and transformation, less than a century from now, which is, let’s say, about 1615. Before either Heortlings or Lunars came to Dragon Pass, the land was empty of men and women for centuries, inhabited instead mainly by Dragonewts, the surviving remnants of trolls and elves, and the Beast folk, the latter most common in Beast Valley. Today, although Dragon Pass now includes the Lunar-dominated kingdom of Tarsh and the Lunar-occupied kingdom of Sartar and is effectively overrun wth humans, Beast Valley still remains clear of them … well, almost. In the Grazelands, which happen to be both secluded and of key military importance to the upcoming clashes, the Grazer people live in such harmony with their horses that the Beast folk accept them as their own kind; and within the Grazelands, Black Horse County is home to relatively new interlopers, foreigners both to this place and this time.

Island peoples The Grazers are the descendants of the Pure Horse Tribe from Pent; they have lived in Beast Valley for about three and a half centuries, the only humans tolerated in the Beast lands. They are hunters and nomads, riding beautiful and intelligent horses, seeking harmony with nature and spirits, culturally entirely separate from the surrounding Heortling people, although ritually linked with them as well through marriage, and some of whom they have enslaved. The Black Horse Troop culture has lived on an appropriated sector of the Grazelands for about a century; they are descended from a mercenary company which was displaced half a continent away and five hundred years before that. They are stern foreign fundamentalisms, practicing strict regimens in a theocratic dictatorship; the backbone of the culture is the mercenary Troop itself, mounted on black horse-demons and wielding hell-forged iron arms. Both cultures are or have:

• significantly isolated from their cultures of origin • extreme fundamentalist manifestations of those cultures • conservative and isolationist • reached an accord with their location and have adjusted in a variety of ways • deeply ritualized regarding marriage and cultural purity (but the fact is, neither could have

survived without some addition from the local populace, probably ongoing) • absurdly horse-centric (well, sort-of horses, in both cases) • deeply socially-integrated but also personally-alienating and weird magical practices

As I see it, the two have lots of room for contact and connections. They are right in one another’s laps; both hire out as mercenaries and could easily have fought against and with one another in the past; both have tacit cultural loopholes to offset their orthodox extremism; oddly enough, neither’s metaphysical system automatically targets the other as enemy; both rely on towns which are somewhat looser than core values would suggest, possibly the same towns in some cases; and there’s significant cultural overlap between their underclasses.

Instabilities It’s sort of funny that we’re playing literally right under Dragon Pass proper, but on the other side from where most of the roiling and gaudy action is occurring. Still, some current details hint at the troubles which will soon overwhelm the whole region.

• Ironhoof the Centaur reincarnates again, in 1616 – what might he make, not only of Black Horse County, but of the general human presence all over the region?

• Grazer clan leadership is currently split regarding Jarsandron Tenherds’ accommodation with the Lunars, affecting plans and disputes concerning who will become the next Sun Chief.

• The current Feathered Horse Queen, “Single Matron Woman,” is unmarried and favors frequent militant aid to the Emperor.

• The hundred-year contract between the Emperor and Sir Ethilrist soon comes to an end. • Unrest among the rebellious Heortlings of Sartar bleeds to the under-population here through ties

of kin. In canonical Glorantha, when the Hero Wars erupt barely a decade from now, the Grazers will first suffer great losses in service to the Emperor, and then they will accept the Heortling hero Argrath as the husband of the Feathered Horse Queen as they once did for Sartar, which is a significant step in uniting Dragon Pass against the Lunars; whereas Black Horse County will be plundered by Argrath’s sometime ally Harrek the Berserk, but the Black Horse Troop will survive in even more terrible form and fight for the Lunars. But for us, none of this is yet written and this Glorantha is our own, with its own conflicts and insights to be gained at this precise moment and place.

Vision for play It’s not necessarily the best choice to showcase the nascent Hero Wars, in which hundreds of hero bands worldwide find their own ways to complete the phrase The Old World is over …. According to these cultures, that would be The Old World is over – ha! Not if we stay just the way we are! Neither is flexible enough to tolerate eclectic hero bands who would destabilize the existing traditions and values, as witness the entirely conservative and subservient Golden Bowmen. Furthermore, both cultures regard the topics in most published Gloranthan material as irrelevant and wrongheaded, including Lightbringer lore (!!), and neither has a specific mythic history with Chaos or routinely heroquests. So tons of significant content isn’t immediately available like it would be for a Heortling/Lunar game set just a little ways away in Bilini or Tarsh, for example. But I think the nature of the setting and game will serve us well anyway, in that we can get into these mutated-strain isolated cultures and perhaps less-played sides of the magic system, looking for more personal drama. So let’s keep the initial scope quite local. I want to take time to enjoy the Color, get close to the characters’ ordinary lives, and not push too much for epic in a way which overrides the basics. Toward that end, although obviously Hero Wars characters need to be interesting people, for God’s sake don’t make an “adventurer.” I plan to put some pressure on characters based on inherent social tensions, with larger politics only as backdrop, to provide and foster some distinctively Gloranthan content so we can say “we’ve been there” with pride, and to give the metaphysics underlying the magic a solid run.

What are we playing, again? I’m keeping it simple. I know the 2000 version of Hero Wars and like it, I have its corrected Quick-Start file for most of the rules you’ll need to know, and that’s what we’re going to do.

Black Horse CountyBlack Horse CountyBlack Horse CountyBlack Horse County

A bit of history Far, far to the west, people see things very differently. They conceive an invisible, all-powerful, ineffable, and unreachable deity, so all-encompassing that it’s not “a” god, but simply “God.” Despite this God’s alleged clarity in providing a book to explain what to do, they’ve been slaughtering each other for centuries over which sainted individual’s interpretation should be considered correct, especially concerning someone who seems like a god but they say isn’t, named Malkion. Their magic is cold and soulless, totally severed from spirits or gods, merely the application of thought and reasoning, or so their wizards and sorcerers say. That’s about all that anyone in Dragon Pass or nearby areas knows, if that. Five centuries ago, in some war across some forsaken mountain ranges out there in the west, Sir Ethilrist was a mercenary leader of what was then called his White Horse Troop, and apparently a significant enough individual to achieve immortality … and then he vanished. He re-appeared about a century ago, here in Dragon Pass, completely foreign to this place and time, with his men now mounted on jet-black diokos demons, resembling fanged horses. He says he went to his people’s Hell, and certainly every detail seems to confirm it, including what he himself rides, of which it is better not to speak. He re-appeared during a battle during the initial Lunar invasion into Dragon Pass, threw his lot with the Lunars apparently on a whim, won that battle in what is still remembered as the Night of Horrors, and served the Emperor so well afterwards in Pent that he was awarded a land grant in Beast Valley, slicing away a chunk of Grazer territory. This is now Black Horse County, where a community based on supporting the Black Horse Troop has drawn upon the local Heortling population and thrived for a century, and where, in his citadel Muse Roost, Sir Ethilrist works on his beloved manuscript, A History of My Black Horse Troop … which has become a terrifying sorcerous grimoire.

Culture and lifestyle Sir Ethilrist was a follower of Saint Atrox, a particularly stern and unforgiving interpreter of the betrayal of Malkion. Atroxi are committed to penance for the death of Malkion, as outlined in The Book of Betrayal and Murder, which in today’s west would be considered a deviant interpretation of the Abiding Book. However, the Atroxi sect did not survive the wars and cultural upheavals of five centuries ago, and it’s likely that no one in the west remembers it very well. It exists today therefore only in Black Horse County. Atroxic doctrine is all about penitence, so, cropped hair, no beards, no colorful clothing, no alcohol, and no music except for approved liturgical hymns. Self-mortification is considered ordinary and laudable. They’re grim, mean, puritanic, obedient, masochistic, obsessively observant, militarist, righteous, intolerant, suspicious, lethally sincere fundamentalists, armed with a blasphemous form of the feared metal iron, and either binding or bound to terrifying demons. That said, no one has ever accused them of being dishonest, incompetent, unfair, or stupid, and Sir Ethilrist is at least respected throughout Dragon Pass. His soldiers have earned acceptance mainly through force of arms and their willingness to fight for anyone who pays, and have offered no aggression or breach of their territorial boundary agreements. In their century of living in the Grazelands, the Black Horse culture has gone through some generational turnover and refined both its doctrines and its practices. They’ve expanded to about 5,500 men-at-arms with a corresponding large stable community of what they call “noncombatants:” peasants, merchants, craftsmen, administrators, and basically ordinary people scattered across many villages.

Character concepts Curelan: Camp Servant, Curelan Liturgist of the Atroxic Church, Merchant Ridderan: Footman, Liturgist of the Order of the Black Horse Troop, Rider, Steed, Knight (adv), Senior Steed (adv) Zoberan: Zoberan Liturgist of the Atroxic Church, Wizard of the Order of Black Iron, Wizard of the Order of Damnation, Bishop (adv) Some thoughts:

• Chances for slightly sinful characters do exist, most obviously among the camp servants and merchants, in whom I perceive the vulgar possibility of prostitution. There does appear to be some scope for shriving and recovering those who stray, so perhaps a certain cyclicity thereof has become a pragmatic reality for some sectors of the community.

• Note the interesting option of playing either a human rider or his demon-horse; doing so entails an eventual dominance-duel to see which becomes the leading partner, i.e., either Knight or Senior Steed.

• Also consider the role of conversion, as I conceive the Black Horse County culture to be adding members minimally but steadily from the Heortling population.

Magic Atroxic Church (high and low liturgists)

o The Book of Betrayal & Murder § Blessings: Name Child, Call Teen to Church, Bless Marriage, Bless Corpse,

Prayer of Perseverance, Punish Disobedience, Shrive Sins • The Low Order of the Black Horse Troop (liturgists)

o A History of My Black Horse Troop § Blessings: Axe of Retribution, Armor of the Faithful, Iron Fang, Iron Hoof, Iron

Hide, Lance of Agony, Resist Pagan God, Resist Heathen Spirit, Sword of Righteousness

• The High Order of Damnation (wizards) o The Book to Lash the Weak (part of Betrayal & Murder)

§ Denature Alcohol, Determine Guilt, Encourage Fasting, Harrow the Soul, Purge Sinner, Remove Lust, Repudiate Sin

o The Book of Ethilrist in Hell (chapter 6 in A History of My Black Horse Troop) § Breed Demon Horse, Combat God, Combat Spirit, Exorcism, Shield the Faithful,

Travel the Spiritworld • The High Order of Black Iron (wizards)

o The Book of Black Iron § Alloy Metals, Enchant Bronze, Enchant Copper, Enchant Iron, Enchant Black

Hellfire Lance, Enchant Black Hellfire Sword, Enchant Indomitable Shield, Enchant Helm of Command, Enchant Unconquerable Armor, Enchant Visor of Terror

o The Book of Iron Chastisement (part of Betrayal & Murder) § Blinding Pain, Brand of Lust, Burn the Unrighteous, Mark of Sin, Shrive the

Guilty C’mon, what’s not to love? Here are some considerations for playing sorcerous magic in Glorantha.

First, sorcery is profoundly rational and engineering-oriented; there’s no personal or emotional aspect to casting it whatsoever – totally different from the mythic, symbolic, and semi-ecstatic magic most often seen in this setting. The Other Side is called the Invisible Measure, sliced into infinite Planes, and clusters of concepts there are called Nodes; one does not travel there quite so much as venerate the concepts to a nigh-insane degree, although the effects and consequences are the same. Accordingly, sorcery is very limited to precisely-phrased “spells” (a term not observed in any other context), which if specific cannot be improvised to other uses, and if general, can only be improvised to specific uses at a penalty. Also, since spells are intellectual tools, the same ones can be used by wizards and sorcerers who do not agree in any metaphysical way, which is unheard of regarding theistic, animist, or mystic magic. Sorcerers in particular are notorious for mixing and matching spells from various grimoires, i.e., stealing them from one another. Second, sorcery differs quite a bit depending on who is doing it. Liturgists don’t even really cast spells, but invoke textual versions of them called blessings or curses through ritualized mass prayer sessions. The flock never casts the magic and has no idea how, but without them, the liturgist is helpless. To acquire a spell, a wizard (in-church practitioner strictly limited to the right saints’ Nodes) or sorcerer (an explorer of Nodes, usually loosely allied with a church or else not long for this world) must connect to the Otherworld through a portal of power; most churches maintain such things in protected rooms or chambers. Once connected, he or she can cast that spell. Doing so is augmented by such abilities as Concentrate or Master Self, but impaired by abilities that reflect passions, if they apply to the situation. According to the character creation rules, a wizard character begins with twelve spells in addition to the listed abilities, and the twelve can include spells invented by the player or GM which are not listed in the rules, but are now designated as so listed. Improvement provides the same opportunity as well. It would appear that the ordinary member of Malkioni society is remarkably non-magical for Glorantha, but note that any worshipper of a given church may pray for a miracle, which is as flexible as you might imagine, and that any member of a distinct order can venerate its saint and temporarily gain the benefits of his keyword, in this case Obedience, Penitence, and Perseverance, which are effectively like the affinities of theistic magic and notably adaptable to immediate situations. Other details for our purposes:

• Black Horse County includes no sorcerers, unless you count Ethilrist himself (and I advise you not to), or unless you posit that some contact with the Lunar Makabaean Order has led to some clandestine bleed-over of spells.

• This part of Dragon Pass is positively lousy with spirits of all sizes, associated with features of the landscape or otherwise floating around. Members of the Black Horse County community conceivably live in some fear of being infected by these “demons.”

• Atroxic portals of power are permanent fixtures in designated buildings, and creating a new one would be a desperate and rare act indeed.

• The sorcerous ability called Tapping, so notorious in the west, is unknown to the Atroxic tradition and is not observed in Black Horse County magical practices.

• According to Genertela: Crucible of the Hero Wars, Muse Roost includes a shrine to Arkat, which strikes me as insanely important if true, possibly a major game-changer. I am currently unsure whether to treat this reference as canonical.

The GrazelandsThe GrazelandsThe GrazelandsThe Grazelands

The history of the People Half a millennium ago, the Pure Horse Tribe was brought from Pent to Prax by the Empire of the Wyrm Friends to rule over the nomads there. We all know what happened to the EWF, and about 350 years ago, the small horse tribe was lucky to escape Prax and make it to Beast Valley in Dragon Pass, where humans were better known as “food.” However, Ironhoof the Centaur deemed them honorary Beastmen, to be called Grazers and to dwell in the area that came to be called the Grazelands. Heortlings gradually settled in Dragon Pass, and when Sartar founded the kingdom that bore his name, he prevented a rift between man and beast by marrying the Grazers’ Feathered Horse Queen. In the long term, though, Beast Valley has been generally marginalized and the Grazelands keep getting nibbled away. The Grazers changed a little over the generations, most significantly in the increased power of the female La-Ungariant shaman tradition, and in the acquisition of the spirit-gifted horses called the hyal, or Goldeneye. They have adjusted to local conditions in part by keeping Heortling serfs, or vendref (“standing ones”), to conduct the farming that sustains them. But in most ways, they have preserved the patriarchal, rigid traditions of their Pentan nomad origins, and they continue to isolate themselves from other cultures as much as they can, assured of the perfection of their lineage and way of life. As is their way with powerful invaders and settlers, the Grazers have generally accomodated the Lunar presence in Dragon Pass, although the chieftainship has never established a permanent client relationship with them, and the historical Sartar connection poses certain spiritual difficulties in doing so. They provided mercenary cavalry for the Lunar conquest of Tarsh, for instance. They lost yet more territory when the Emperor granted some of it to Sir Ethilrist as Black Horse County a century ago, but outright conflict with the strange occupants has not arisen.

Culture and lifestyle The Grazers practice a pure shaman tradition, almost beautiful in its precise organization of the stages and status of every single person’s life. Male and female, by age group, by leadership status, by specific tasks to be undertaken for the tribe, it’s all carefully coordinated with the appropriate spirits and public rituals. Men follow the Yu-Kargzant tradition, associated with fire and the stars; women follow the La-Ungariant tradition, associated with earth and fertility. All their horses are treated as full tribe members, but the Goldeneye are especially revered and privileged. You can’t get more romantic: handsome, scantily-dressed people with gorgeous feathered vestments, treating their beautiful intelligent horses as equals, hunting and gathering, living in harmony with hundreds of nature spirits. You could almost overlook that they’re blatant racists, traditional to the point of studied ignorance, casually cruel, prone to bloodthirsty purges of foreign practices, dependent on a subjugated ethnic group, and almost certainly without hope of surviving large-scale imperial developments. The Grazers are defined as a single tribe, ruled by Luminous Stallion King, also called the Sun Chief; it includes about forty clans, each supporting one or more vendref farmsteads. Tribe and clan politics are tempestuous. Villages have also sprung up, inhabited by vendref and Grazers who have fallen from approved status due to actions, injury, age, or illness. Vendref significantly outnumber observant Grazers. They are nominally Orlanthi but rather neutered, worshipping Barntar and Ernalda in the Tarsh tradition; some of them assimilate enough with Grazer culture to receive spirits. Interestingly, the Feathered Horse Queen’s personal guard is composed of vendref devoted to Hiia Swordsman, a subcult of Humakt.

Character concepts Male: Herdsman/Rider, Warrior, War Captain (adv), Clan Chief (adv), Yu-Kargzant Shaman, Entertainer Female: Healer, Rider, La-Ungariant Shaman, Entertainer Some thoughts

• Playing vendref should certainly be possible, using Thunder Rebels and focusing on agrarian occupations, as well as less glamorous forms of worshipping Barntar and Ernalda (although a Hiia fighter would be no joke; and those guys have to have a functioning priesthood, right?)

• Clan membership and history is a big deal – feel free to boost a back-story right into existence with Relationship and Personality abilities.

• Relationships with and for shamans will be a big deal; it’s central to the culture and the system. • I am a bit dubious about the recently-published Entertainers and the associated Folorene tradition,

as they are almost certainly shoehorned in to let people play Grazers while dodging the social constraints of the culture. I’m including them because I speculated about the Black Horse County subculture needing to blow off steam, and this provides us with a similar phenomenon for the Grazers – but they shouldn’t be a way to gimmick an “adventurer” or a modern outlook into the setting, and the personal costs to followers of this tradition should be high.

Magic Yu-Kargzant Tradition Shamans (men); fetishes: bones and feathers, integration: paint

• Hawk or Stallion fetches • Ancestor, Fire, and Stallion spirits • Special: Cloudchaser (fetish), Polestar (either), Starsight (integrated) spirits

Bestow according to rank of receiving man

• Dastal the Hunter or Youth: Hunter spirits (fetish), Rider spirits (fetish) • Jardan the Warrior: Bow spirits (fetish), Battle spirits (fetish), Bravery spirits (integrated) • Henird the Leader: Community spirits (fetish), Good Reign spirits (integrated) • Josad the Elder: Stellar spirits (fetish)

La-Ungariant Tradition Shamans (women); fetishes: braided horsehair; integration: paint

• Mare or Snake fetches • Ancestor, Earth, and Mare spirits • Special: Absorption (fetish), Milk (integrated), and Stoneskin (integrated) spirits

Bestow according to rank of receiving woman

• Charai the Rider: Maiden spirits (fetish) • Arandayla the Horse Mother: Healing Horses spirits (fetish), Milk spirits (integrated) • Lereen the Mother: Family Blessing spirits (fetish), Health Blessing spirits (integrated) • (Estei the Firstwife and Henedra the Elder are not included in the rules)

Folorene Tradition I’m not sure the followers of this tradition qualify as genuine shamans, as training seems to be socially unconstructed and they don’t have fetches. We might have to invent some details to work with. Fetishes: animal bits strung on red cord

• Contrariness (fetish) and Wanderlore (fetish) spirits

This is a deeply animist tradition based on tribal shamanism. Everyone in the community gets spirits as fetishes or integrated spirits routinely throughout life, typically captured and bestowed by the appropriate shaman. Interacting with spirits is as normal and consequential as interacting with humans, and sometimes it’ll be hard to see the difference. Doing so is also necessarily socially stabilizing, reinforcing every power-arrangement and social role. The social roles of shamans also provide a rarely-seen but significant counterbalance to the male-biased cultural practices which dictate that women never hunt or fight and typically defer to men. For significant spiritual decisions, which by definition are also policy-making, high-status La-Ungariant shamans ultimately rule over Yu-Kargzant ones. Rules for animist magic are slightly tricky and layered compared to the other types. You’re encouraged to play it out: traveling in the Spirit World, seeking and finding spirits at some risk, binding them to various degrees, and determining the ability score and terms of use for a captured spirit (fetish, service, integration) as a function of its original Might and how thoroughly you beat it. Or as a non-shaman, acquiring fetishes and integrated services is a direct result of interacting with shamans and getting embroiled in their schemes and priorities. Alternately you could just buy spirits as fixed abilities with Hero Points like anything else and leave the justification to between-session events. The advantage of the complicated way, though, is that you can rack up seriously effective and diverse servitors through spirit-wrangling adventures, independently of your Hero Points earnings. Other details for our purposes:

• How many Goldeneye horses are there, anyway? Enough for every warrior and senior hunter, I’m thinking.

• I’ll provide a fair summary of the current Feathered Horse Queen and Sun Chief issues. • HeroQuest includes a male shaman tradition called Denbitos, but I can’t figure out how it relates

so I left it out. • Hero Wars is one of the few RPGs which actually uses the term “clan” correctly. It refers to

nominal (in this case patriarchal) family extended just to the point of confusion about exactly how my second cousin is or isn’t related to your mom’s half-brother. Clan membership is very much a wave-front issue of the moment, as in-clan marriage is strongly discouraged and women typically join the clans of their husbands – so by definition, one may have strong family ties across at least two clans if not more.

• If the clan rules for Orlanthi are any indication, clans in the Grazers will have specific origin myths, Other Side rituals, and probably sacred/magical objects.

• I’m thinking that justice and punishment among the clans are pretty harsh. And certainly no less for the vendref, who I imagine are run by the most obedient and ruthless among them.

• What accomodations and shared rituals with the Beast folk do Grazers have – do they attend the Wild Temple rites, for example? Do they have to worry about getting eaten by a hungry minotaur?

• It seems likely to me that the Seven Mothers cult has crept into the vendref population to some extent, because they sure seem ripe for it.