Western religion?

[Jeff Richard]

Maniria is something of a Silk Road, a region where ideas from Esrolia travel to Ralios and vice versa. Given the richness of Esrolia and the Holy Country, I suspect that it has tremendous artistic and cultural sway over the Trader Princes (even if they are not matriarchical). Merge that with eastern Safelster (particularly Estali, Helby, and Sentanos), have them revere Issaries as their patron (remember, the great temple to Issaries in the world is at one end of the Manirian Road in Nochet) and give them sorcerers, and you have the look and feel of the Trader Princes.
BTW, most people in Maniria (outside of Ramalia and the Pralori) worship Orlanth, Ernalda, Barntar, and Esrola. Handra Liv is the goddess of Handra, Heler is an important ancestor and fertility god, and the children of Veskarthan are worshiped in the West Hills and by the Pelushi. Aldrya is also far more important as the goddess of the Arstola than she is in places like Dragon Pass or the Holy Country. The Ditali are practically indistinguishable from the folk of South Esrolia or Thomble, except for their Trader Prince aristocracy at Staton.

[Ufnal]

Thank you very much for those answers! I myself don’t like the idea of simply substituting Ashara with Issaries all that much. I quite liked the idea I picked up at the World of Glorantha mailing list archive that Wenelians didn’t much like Issaries as he was a god promoted by the God Learners, who aren’t remembered too fondly, and therefore Trader Princes with their Ashara Church had the only serious trade and communication magic around. Also I wanted the locals to be more complicated and scarred than just being plain Orlanthi, just as they are according to Blood and Gold. So in my Glorantha it will probably more like the Princes seeing Issaries as theistis mistaking Ashara for a (not THE) god. Although making them more henotheistic and Esrolia-influenced than in BoG is probably a good idea. Now only to figure out how does all this work on a metaphysicial level (with there being no such thing as misapplied worship anymore, as far as I remember)…

[Mankcam]

So I assume that the content in Blood Over Gold is still valid, even if the Malkioni are now visually presented very differently. Although I see Jeff has made a point stating that Ashara is not mentioned in the Guide. Does this mean that there is no Ashara at all now, or is it just that Ashara is not mentioned at all?

I intend resuming running my troupe through Blood Over Gold (its currently in hiatus while we play another campaign), and I would like to present the setting with all the trappings and flavour of the Malkioni as they are portrayed in the Guide. If the content itself is now inaccurate then it would be good to know beforehand.

BTW I really enjoy how Malkioni are presented in the Guide, they seem so much more in flavour with the rest of Glorantha now.

[Mankcam]

I agree with Ufnal about not substituting Ashara with Issaries, at least as cults. Perhaps Ashara was actually Issaries, or vice versa, but as far as cults go I would think that the two would be viewed separately. That way my Blood Over Gold book hasn’t become totally obsolete 🙂

[Peter Metcalfe]

Blood Over Gold is no longer canon, according to Moon Design. Although if it works for you, feel free to continue using it.

I’m mildly surprised at the unmentioning of Ashara although I must confess finding its description in the Middle Sea Empire to be a bit bland.

[Mankcam]

I’m not surprised that Blood Over Gold is no longer canon. For a start the Malkioni are illustrated as visual anologies of Venetian Empire types, which simply clashes with the ancient flavour of Malkioni in the Guide.

It’s a very rish setting for ideas however, and one I would hate to dismiss. I can easily portray the Trader Princes there more in keeping with the descriptions from the Guide, and the setting is quite easy to salvage for a campaign.

Hopefully if it is no longer canon then it would be nice for Moon Design NOT to bring out a supplement covering the region, or only do it with broad brush strokes. This way individual GMs have the freedom to portray the region their way.

I would love, however, to see Moon Design bring out Malkioni supplements on a par with the excellent Sartar and Pavis resources that they currently produce (amazing level of rich detail in these books).

I would love to see Handra done in this way, and Safelster, Seshnela, Castle Coast etc. Having definitive resources on these settings would be great, and I could easily fit my own version of the Trader Princes of Maniria into the setting knowing that my own creation is kinda consistent with the setting itself.

[Ufnal]

Oh yes, definately, a Safelster book would be wonderful! [yeah, so I prefer non-orthodox, not purely monotheistic West, so sue me. ;P]

[Mankcam]

I would love to see Nolos/Castle Coast, Sesnela, Arolant all detailed, at least a touch more than in the Guide, but the Guide is reasonable.

Safelster, on the other hand, offers so much possibilities for player-characters, and definitely deserves a regional source book of it’s own.

My Malkioni wish list of sourcebooks would be:

1. Safesltster
2. Janube City States
3. Handra and The New Coast (although if this is left too long I will probably homebrew it, and thus would want another sourcebook, non-Malkioni, like Esrolia perhaps…maybe even Teshnos)

[Jeff Richard]

There’s now a lot of information on Safelster, and once the Gods Book is finished some of the weirdness of its combination of Malkioni philosophy with Orlanthi and Darkness cults, plus bits and pieces of old Enerali religion should be apparent. The Chariot of Lightning is definitely one of my favorite sorcerous sects with its use of breath, magic speech, sacrifice, and creation to command the elements and powers. And the endless claims to be Arkat’s heir, know Arkat’s secrets, and resurrect Arkat’s dominion has got MGF written all over it.

[Mankcam]

That sounds great Jeff, I really am looking forward to the upcoming Gods Book, for many reasons!

PS: Just requesting for you to possibly consider a Safelster campaign setting book down the track, you know, in all that free time you guys have in between The Guide, The Gods Book, the Hendreiki book, etc heh heh – just putting it out there 🙂

[Mankcam]

I absolutely love my hard copy of The Guide To Glorantha, the book is beautiful, and the content is something I have wanted for the last 25 years. An absolute masterpiece!

But that I have my hardcopy of G2G its much clearer to see that the Blood Over Gold campaign is going to be hard to salvage.
I can deal with the previously Venetian-style Malkioni Trader Princes now being portrayed more along the lines of early Byzantine Empire types (or something closer to that), but its a bit of a bitter pill to swallow when the actual geography itself has radically changed with some regions.

The Manirian coastline differs somewhat – there are now much less Wenelian Islands, and Jubal Town has a very different description, its no lawless ‘free town’ anymore, but it appears to be a Trader Prince holding, to name a few changes. In some places entire towns have disappeared, and new ones added – the town of Bastis replaced by the town of Yolanda, for instance, or the fact that Highwater is no longer a ruined city, but a thriving current settlement.

I’m a little unsure now if the native population of Fay Jee is even the same. In the setting they are the Pure Citizens, which are a mainland variant (and more urbanised version) of the same people that live in the islands. Now I’m unsure if they are Theylans like the Solanthi or the Ditali, as there is no mention of another type of culture still existing in pockets along the coastline. Although they are easily written back in for the sake of consistency with the previous setting.

Perhaps one of the biggest issues in regards to the Blood Over Gold campaign is the complete absence of the city of Joral, seat of House Jhoraz. Given that the villain of the campaign is Prince Barthol of House Jhoraz, the absence of the city on the map is somewhat disheartening.

Again, nothing that can’t be salvaged somewhat, I guess its now very much YGWV. I will just have to keep the city of Joral where it is in order to maintain some consistencies with the campaign.

Its great to finally have a resource that is considered canon, its just a bit of a disappointment that so much of the content of Blood Over Gold is now obsolete. A bit hard to recommend it to newcomers now unfortunately

[Mankcam]

Just out of interest, I’m wondering how there was such a disparity with the content from Blood Over Gold and the content from the G2G. I understand that G2G is in keeping with Greg Stafford’s vision of Glorantha, but I also see his name as a contributor for Blood Over Gold as well, although its unclear how much direct involvement he had with that project.

I’m just wondering if in recent years Greg changed his view of Malkioni (and some Western geography), or if the G2G is more like his original views, and somehow the Malkioni were misinterpreted by other writers (and illustrators) along the way.

I do very much prefer the flavour of Malkioni in the G2G, as they feel much more unique and Gloranthan than some previous interpretations. I’m certainly not criticizing anything here, I’m just interested to know how these things eventuated.

[Roko Joko]

“But that I have my hardcopy of G2G its much clearer to see that the Blood Over Gold campaign is going to be hard to salvage.”

What’s hard about just continuing to use it?

[Mankcam]

Well, the things I listed above make it hard to continue to use it as written, and also be consistent with the setting described in G2G.

I have that game in hiatus however, we have been doing other settings for the past twelve months and I was wanting to return to the Trader Prince setting for a few sessions. I have prepared the players for some changes in Malkioni trappings and they are on board with that. I was not prepared for the drastic changes in geography, having a city disappear was unexpected.

I guess I am just curious how a product was published that was so different to the visions of Greg Stafford. Blood Over Gold is quite a rich campaign, but I just didn’t think so much of it would be at a disparity with what is now canon Glorantha.

But its nothing I can’t salvage however. I’ll just homebrew a mix between the book and G2G to come up with something that works. I doubt Moon Design will reboot Maniria with a new regional book or campaign, so I figure whatever I come up with will be gospel for my troupe in any case.

[Peter Metcalfe]

I guess I am just curious how a product was published that was so different to the visions of Greg Stafford. Blood Over Gold is quite a rich campaign, but I just didn’t think so much of it would be at a disparity with what is now canon Glorantha.

At that particular point in time, Issaries had a rather tolerant attitude to allowing people to make up stuff for various parts of glorantha even when there existed unused material by Greg. I am not saying the material in Blood Over Gold is bad, I am saying that better editorial control could have been exercised then. Other supplements of the period had the same problem to a much greater degree (and even worse, the invented material wasn’t that great)

Although FWIW in one key area, Blood Over Gold was reflecting Greg’s actual material (the Church of Ashara) at the time and thinking has changed away from this.

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