Skip to content
The Well of Daliath
Menu
Menu

The Night Caravan

Posted on January 9, 2024

The Night Caravan (more commonly called the Night Train or the Argan Argar Chain) is the Argan Argar insect caravans that travel across Genertela at night. They bring goods, insects, and trolls from one troll stronghold to another. They RARELY stop to trade with humans or other Elder Races.

Night Caravans are feared by most humans. They travel at night, and are hidden during the day. A flock of giant insects fly and crawl across the landscape, accompanied by dark trolls and trollkin. Livestock in the way are killed and people who wander into the Night Caravan at night might never return.

It is possible to have peaceful interaction with the Night Caravan, and even make secret trades with the trolls. This is an important part of the Argan Argan cult – teaching humans how to peacefully negotiate with the dangerous trolls.

The main routes of Night Caravans are:

  • Shadow Plateau to Dagori Inkarth (via Troll Woods)
  • Shadow Plateau to Halikiv
  • Dagori Inkarth to Halikiv
  • Dagori Inkarth to Old Pavis (Big Rubble)
  • Dagori Inkarth to Elder Wilds
  • Halikiv to Yolp Mountains
  • Halikiv to Guhan (via Safelster)
  • Elder Wilds to Blue Moon Plateau

Imagine how terrifying this must be to local farmers, herders, and villagers though. Dozens, maybe hundreds of giant flying, hopping, and crawling insects, eating fields, destroying trees, killing animals and even sometimes humans. Trollkin work the caravan and sometimes feral trollkin follow it.

And I suspect the Yelmalio cult often gets called to protect communities when a caravan gets spotted.

And as always, remember that the trolls are perfectly willing to put up (and even appreciate) survival practices that would be near impossible for mortal humans. They might hollow out dens out of earth or in old ruined buildings so that they can sleep together in a huddle during the day, with the insects devouring whatever they can.

There might even be a few trollish “safe houses” where caravans might safely rest and trade with the local trolls.

Do the Sazdorf in Battle Valley host the Nigh Caravan (Shadow Plateau to Dagori Inkarth)? Most likely!

Now if we turn back the clock a thousand years to the time of the Only Old One, the Shadowlands, and the troll domination of Dragon Pass, the Night Caravans were a key way by which tribute and information flowed to the troll rulers. The volume of trade is much smaller than the Issaries caravans, but it was likely an important foundation for the Shadowlands.

Argan Argar has a bigger cult among Uz than is commonly assumed. For example in Dagori Inkarth less than 800 dark trolls are initiated into his cult. But almost 8000 trollkin follow Argan Argar (admittedly many are only lay members). Pretty much all warrior trollkin are at least lay members of Argan Argar.

Compare that to Zorak Zoran which has some 2500 initiates in Dagori Inkarth (including almost 700 great trolls). Now maybe every dark troll can take on at least 3 warrior trollkin but it is enough raw brute force that even the Death Lords don’t needlessly antagonise the Shadow priests. And when you remember that Argan Argar maintains a network of temples in every troll stronghold, the influence of the cult becomes clear. Sure Zorak Zoran is more important among the mistress race trolls and more feared, but Argan Argan is a key part of troll survival in a hostile world.

Why is trading with humans important to the trolls? Humans are better sources of bronze goods, they have lots of food (which is often easier to trade for than to simply take), they often have things that are of special interest to trolls – musical instruments, obscure songs, magic crystals, etc.

But the need for trade is obviously much lower than between human goods.

Jeff Richard

Next
Previous
Argan Argar, Argan Argar Chain, Big Rubble (ruin), Blue Moon Plateau, Cult demographics, Dagori Inkarth, Elder Wilds, Guhan, Halikiv, Night Caravan, Safelster, Shadow Plateau, Troll Woods, Trolls, Yolp Mountains, Zorak Zoran

Sections

  • Search Tips
  • Current RuneQuest Glorantha Publications
  • RuneQuest Glorantha Corrections and Q&A
  • Catalogue
  • References for Glorantha
    • Gloranthan Canon
  • Gloranthan Documents
  • RPG Systems & Versions
  • Gallery
  • About This Site
  • Get involved!

Latest Posts

  • The Grasslands of Prax

    Something to keep in mind about Prax. The grasslands of …
  • Praxian Kinship Groups

    Praxian tribes are divided into smaller kinship groups or clans, …
  • Lunar Resettlement of Tarsh after 1460 ST

    After 1460, large sections of Peloria (especially east of the …
  • The Spread of the Lunar Way

    In the Lunar Provinces, about 26% of the total population …
  • Gods of Fire and Sky and the Lunar Way

    The Gods of Fire and Sky co-exist alongside the Lunar …
  • How Much Land is a Hide?

    So in RQ, a “hide” is a unit of accounting …
  • Agricultural Data for RuneQuest

    Back in the late 70s and early 80s, Greg‘s only …
  • Farming in Dara Happa

    In anticipation of the Fire/Sky Book, here’s a few notes …
  • Farming in the Big Rubble

    There are some 1600 humans in the Big Rubble, with …

Links

  • Chaosium
  • Chaosium’s RuneQuest RPG Wiki
  • Glorantha on BRP Central
  • RuneQuest on BRP Central
  • RuneQuest on Discord
  • Prince of Sartar Webcomic
  • Glorantha G+ Archives on Tapatalk
  • Search mailing list archive

Latest from BRP Central

  • Thoughts on running an Animal Nomad/Praxian game
  • Fillable excel RQG character sheets?
  • Where is there a list of temples in Dragon Pass?
  • New on the Jonstown Compendium: Many Suns
  • control entity spirit spell question
  • Subcults vs Associated Cults
  • Gorgorma and Dendara's Chess Game
  • Merged deities
  • Elf plant ships and dwarf stone ships
  • Do Dwarves have souls?

Popular Tags

Boldhome (large city) Chaosium Colymar (Sartar tribe) Contents Cult demographics Cults of Runequest (preview) Ernalda Esrolia (homeland) FRA Furthest (large city) G+ post Gods Wall Greg Stafford Guide to Glorantha (preview) Humakt Jar-eel Lunar Empire Lunar Pantheon Magazine Malkioni pantheon Map Michael O’Brien Mongoose MRQ1 New Pavis (small city) Old Glorantha Q&A Orlanth Orlanthi pantheon Photo reference Population demographics Prax (homeland) RQ3 RQG Sandy Petersen Sartar (homeland) Spirit Cult Star Subcult Tapatalk post Tarsh (homeland & Lunar province) Troll Pantheon Yelm Yelmalio Yelm Pantheon Youtube

Recently added or updated

  • Spirit Magic by Cult and Associate Cult

  • ISS1102 Glorantha: Introduction to the Hero Wars (2000)

  • Dragon Pass – A brief outline (2013)

  • Some Fronelan Population And Cultural Details

  • Notes on Fronela III

  • Notes on Fronela II

  • Notes on Fronela I

  • Hon-eel Temples and Shrine

  • Seven Mothers Temples and Shrines

  • Ernalda Temples and Shrines

  • Barntar Temples and Shrines

  • Babeester Gor Temple and Shrines

  • Voria Shrines

  • Ty Kora Tek Temples and Shrines

  • Asrelia Temples and Shrines

  • Maran Gor Temple, Shrines and Site

  • Odayla Shrines

  • Humakt Temples, Shrines and Sites

  • Orlanth Rex Temples, Shrines and Sites

  • Hippoi Shrines

©2025 The Well of Daliath | Design: Newspaperly WordPress Theme