Then close your eyes when you see the nice big illustrations of Ralian Orlanthi in the Guide to Glorantha!
Seriously <wearing my line editor hat>, I try to keep such obvious transplanting of Real World cultures out of published Glorantha, especially when Greg's source material makes no such inclusion. As for the active use of chariots, after working on the historical atlas of Glorantha (again for the Guide) I really do not see that making any sense. A lot of this anachronistic material is the result of David's old Ralios Pendragon Pass game (which I was a player in) and we used both the Pagan Shore and Beyond the Wall Pendragon supplements for that game. Now I strongly doubt I would use those books at all.
Ralios is not a backwater of Orlanthi culture - it is one of the two major centers (the other being Dragon Pass itself) with almost 2 million Orlanthi and a proud history (the Ralians were the first to embrace Harmast after the Lightbringers Quest, they followed Arkat and were a major foundation of his Autarchy, they successfully fought off the MSE, and, more than anyone, they broke the EWF. And they have a lot more to accomplish in the Hero Wars).
Jeff
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