#horselords

[thewatcher0nthewall]

Sun and stars

[theworldsoftolkein]

Palace of King Theoden - by Breath-Art

[innervoiceartblog]

[serpentface]

A young drake and new bride of the Moonfall Steppe Horselords (a pastoralist people with great wealth in trade) at the Great Shrine of the Earthmother, where they may pray for the fertility of their union and of their horses.

The Moonfall Steppe is a region of grassland in southern Cynozepal, whose peoples are culturally distinct from the northwestern Singing Steppe. It is home to the Great Shrine of the Earthmother, an unusual and out of place rock carved in the form of the World-Serpent and the egg of the earth. 

The World-Serpent takes on a venerated role in the religion of the Moonfall Steppes, (while she is cast in a more antagonistic role in Crown and Singing Steppe Cynozepali Dualism). Here she is the god of death, decay, rebirth, fertility, the waters, the grass, and the underworld.  She is known by the epithet Earthmother in addition to World-Serpent, as she is honored for laying the egg that is the earth and hatched all living beings.

Most peoples of the Moonfall Steppe bury their dead in great barrows, thus committing their dead to the Earthmother (instead of the Sun-Dragon's distant lunar lands, as is custom to the Crowns and the Singing Shepherds). The spirits of the buried dead rest in the underworld, where they are close to the living world and can continue to interact with their relatives. People here experience a landscape filled with the spirits of ancestors and legendary figures, who may help or hinder the living and must be honored and appeased.

The giant stone that forms the Shrine is highly unusual amid the flat grasslands. Tales of its origin varies, with some stories claiming it was carried there by giants, others claiming it is a piece of the Broken Moon (the smallest of the moons and asymmetrical in shape) having been torn apart in a fight between the deities.

Either way, no one knows for sure who first carved the stone, nor its cousins, the monuments of serpents marking the Five Daughters of the World-Serpent (five great rivers of the steppe). Master stonecarvers are periodically dispatched to retouch details worn away by the erosion of wind and time.

Summary of Cynozepali Cosmic Dualism + the story of the moon theft here 

[asoiafreadthru]

A Game of Thrones, Eddard II

“Jorah aside, what do you make of his report?”

“Daenerys Targaryen has wed some Dothraki horselord. What of it? Shall we send her a wedding gift?”

The king frowned. “A knife, perhaps. A good sharp one, and a bold man to wield it.”

Ned did not feign surprise; Robert’s hatred of the Targaryens was a madness in him.

[vintagerpg]

Horselords! I know next to nothing about it, aside of the fact that it spins out of a series of post-apocalyptic novels by Robert Adams. It sort of reminds me of Michael Moorcock’s Hawkwind stuff — far future, our world long gone in an atomic war, the world largely medieval with some lingering super science providing “magic” for the setting. There are lots of psionics too. Oh, and, obviously, sabertooth tigers (who can communicate telepathically?). There is a big dose of Robert E. Howard-style “civilization is corrupting,” a romanticizing of nomadic warriors and heaps of scorn for the dirtmen who do boring stuff like farm and stay in one place. The novels ran from 1975 through 1989, so it was still a going concern in 1987, when Steve Jackson licensed it as a setting for GURPS, though just barely.

I have no particular investment in the source material per se. The series is something I recognize from the shelves of bookstores in my youth, ones that also held the Clan of the Cave Bear books. I was aware they existed but never had a desire to check them out, really, though I did always enjoy Ken Kelly’s cover art (Kelly, if you didn’t know, is primarily known for Kiss album art, particularly Destroyer and Love Gun, as well as a string of Manowar covers). Sabertooth tigers are cool, but it feels like an odd thing to snatch up for GURPS — it was one of the first licenses Jackson ever worked with! Was Horselords massively popular and I just missed it? Or is it like Thundarr the Barbarian, a flash in the pan beloved by a select few? Either way, it feels very, very on point for GURPS, an RPG line that revels in niches.

[ladyoflaketownimagines]

Imagine being able to live in Rohan

gif by me

[northern-westeros]

Vaes Dothrak