> I have just been thinking about Black Horse County. I don't have access
> to "The History of My Black Horse Troop", and I'm wondering if there is
> any info in that piece about a couple of items.
The section of the "History" that was printed (in an early Wyrms Footnotes and in the RuneQuest Companion) is about one of Ethilrist's early adventures killing Hungry Jack the Chaos Pumpkin; the only material relevant to his later career is contained in the introductory notes about the full contents of the manuscript:
: Volume IX includes his sketches for the groundplans for Muse Roost, both : the town and the palace. There are also several pages of details on the : Inner Court, with notations. There follows a list of rituals and prayers : he wrote before taking the ground. Most of the book, however, is an : inventory of the treasures from across the world which he took into his : new home. : : Volume X is a census of the settlers who followed him to settle in Black : Horse Country, including notes as to where particular individuals had : distinguished themselves in service of the Company.
> A. What flavor of Malkonism do Ethilrist and his Knights follow?
IMG, they are Safelstran (i.e. Italian Renaissance) Arkati (i.e. Stygian Heretic) Humaktish types. There's a pointer to this in the Genertela Book (description of Muse Roost: "A temple to Arkat and the Invisible God is prominent in the city"). They look like men who have been through Hell. Literally.
Muse Roost is like a dream of an Italian city-state in minuscule, superbly fortified and *streets* ahead of most Dragon Pass cities (other than the planned Lunar colonies). The walls of the palace are covered with murals and frescoes, which would look to our eyes like Last Judgements or Harrowings of Hell, some of which are still being painted: members of the Black Horse Troop can proudly point to their own deeds, picked out amid the infernal scenes...
> B. Who are the regular people of the County? Are they Orlanthi? Do they
> worship the Invisible God? What is their region of origin?
The description of Volume X (the census of settlers) suggests that the population of Muse Roost includes a significant number of immigrants, presumably members, allies and supporters of the White and Black Horse Troops. Probably they come from all the regions where Ethilrist was active: mostly Westerners, many Pelorians, and some real exotics. Unlikely to be many Orlanthi, if you ask me. It may be that this land was barren and uninhabited when the Red Emperor granted it to Sir Ethilrist: remember that this gift is explicitly compared to the grant of forested and inhospitible Erigia to the Char-Un -- see endquote (1).
If not, the fact that the nearest land is the western region around the Ormsgone Valley (backward, primitive, tribal barbarians) suggests that aboriginal natives still pass through occasionally. My own assumption has always been that most of Black Horse County is still a bleak, windswept moor, swept by hunting parties on demon steeds, and ever in the distance a sound like the baying of some gigantic Hound...
Oh, and Ethilrist almost certainly looks like Alan Rickman's Sherriff of Nottingham, from the Kevin Costner Robin Hood film. There's a Dan Barker picture of him armed and mounted on the cover of "The World's Greatest Tournament" (the *excellent* Ralios sourcebook, by the German RQ Society).
(1): "The Char-Un legends state that their Khan, Panishi, was cheated in a game by the Red Emperor, and robbed of his inheritance. When Panishi complained, and proved his complaint, the Emperor compensated him with "more land than you came from, more richness than your spirits could count." The Hero accepted, then learned that the Emperor had given him the realm of Erigia (the Emperor later used this method to rid himself of Ethilrist). Erigia was, at that time, a dense conifer forest..."
(2) The Note from Notchet I quoted before is almost certainly from Greg Stafford's notes to the then-current draft of "Harmast's Saga". Who else would have known all those weird names, back in '92?
End of Glorantha Digest V4 #331
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