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GMKen

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  1. Since we’re bringing up trickster canids and mentioning Watership Down, I’d like to add Brer Fox to the mix, from the Uncle Remus Tales, as well as Renart, the French trickster fox from Le Roman de Renart, both of which are excellent reads. (Can’t vouch for an English language translation of the Tale of Renard, as I read it in French. I’m not too hip on most translations, so prefer the original source language). Brother Dog is the best, as any Balazaring can tell you. Here’s a rare gift that they will sometimes give: Good Boy Totem When imbued with 1 point of POW, this small dog skull will “guard” an area 5m in radius for a period of 8 hours. All creatures within the area of effect at the time of casting are recognized as “friendly” and may pass in and out of the area of protection. Any other creature SIZ 3+ which enters the area will trigger a vigorous barking audible only to “friendlies”. The activator, only, can reset the “guard” function with an audible “chirp, chirp”. As Balazarings -always- travel with their dogs, they don’t need these themselves, though sometimes solitary hunters in rough country may have one as backup protection. These are rarely gifted to outsiders, usually as the result of some extraordinary contribution by the giftee to the tribe or hunter.
  2. Don’t know about big battles, but there is a very nice blow-by-blow description of “How Runequest Combat Works” by Rudy Kraft in The Dungeoneer Journal #23. Not too long ago I would have suggested looking it up in The Trove, but unfortunately that’s been taken down. Since Judge’s Guild is out of favor, used copies can be had for not too ridiculous a price on EBay. Me, I just like dungeon and hex crawling and Paladinning on the bad guys. Don’t need Hero Wars or any of that, which is why I like Balazar and the Elder Wilds from the Griffin Mountain (GM) supplement. A big giant sandbox where you can go do your own thing. Not entirely sure, but I don’t think you -need- Cults of Prax to run GM, as all or almost all of the spells are described in the base rule book. I like the RQ combat mechanics and the skills system, as well as the lack of classing and alignmenting. IMNSHO, I feel that RQ (2) wasn’t broken and didn’t need fixing (much), so I haven’t made the move to adopting the latest iteration. My wish list is not for more monsters, but more adventures. I’m still waiting with bated breath for the “Expedition to Miskander’s Tower” possibly promised in the “Sea Cave” adventure (which I’ve parked on the Elf Sea) as well as “The Howling Tower” and “Illyssia’s Grove”. I’m pretty sure the Expedition adventure is what leads to the current state of the tower in the Grey Crane adventure in Pegasus Plateau & Other Stories, but I would park it somewhere in the Elder Wilds. Don’t need more backgrounders, need more adventures. While the Jonstown Compendium is nice, few of the the publications make it to print status. I’m not a big fan of PDFs, as there is no aftermarket for them and I don’t trust electrons. Too much of my stuff over the years has gone poof into the aether and I’ve got a stack of old hard drives with stuff I can’t get to. So...print. Just my two cents.
  3. If you have the big hex map from the original edition of Griffin Mountain, you can find Vivamort’s Castle at hex 4502 on the Elder Wilds side of the map. If you only have the PoD edition, look at the map on page 89. In the upper right corner is the label Er’oring Wilds. If you look north from the first “i”, you’ll see a zig zag in the river. That’s where it is. Supposed to be a big and old treasure there from Vivamort’s salad days as a young vampire, or perhaps even the time before he made his deal with the Devil. Maybe there are more details in the “Tower of Night” campaign supplement promised in RQ3’s Lords of Terror? Details on Vivamort’s history are a bit tough to come by. Not as bad as Shanassee, but still less than one might hope. Why is the castle there in the depths of hardcore Aldryami territory? Is it still guarded by one of Vivamort’s undying lieutenants? Does he ever stop by from Dorastor to visit? Is it the source of the vampires plaguing Gork’s Hills to the west? So few details; so much license for GMs to go nuts. Why Griffin Mountain remains one of the definitive game supplements in the hobby.
  4. Yes, RQ3 Dorastor. As I noted, I have the French-language edition, so don’t know if the same info is in the English-language version, which I don’t have as copies are stupid expensive. Probably the same, but I make no assumptions.
  5. Dorastor would be a place to look for Rainbow Snakes, at least in the French-language version (which was way cheaper than an English-language one). Assuming these are the same beasties as in Anaxial’s Roster, the stats would be: STR: 1d6+6 CON: 2d6+2 SIZ: 1d6+3 INT: 3 POW: 1d6+6 DEX: 3d6 So a little bit different from the RQ2 stats. The attack is POW v POW, success results in victim being immobile/harmonized for 1d6 rounds, even if attacked by snake. SR 1, costs 1 POW.
  6. We know that when Arkat defeated Gbaji, he divided it into pieces to be hidden around Glorantha. One of those pieces ended up somewhere in the Elder Wilds. I’m guessing that Gonn Orta is one of the few beings alive who knows where that piece is hidden. In my Glorantha, it’s Gbaji’s spleen that is hidden in a secret valley in the mountains behind the Troll Hills, in a Mostali-constructed death-trap laden dungeon.
  7. If you want to have some fun, you could send them into the Elder Wilds of the Griffin Mountain supplement, there to search for the “Treetop Mountains” where is found the “peak where Shanassee was first planted, before he walked down slope and resettled himself and began his forest uncounted ages before. So the Treetop Mountains could be considered the place of Shanassee’s youth, where he, uhm, discovered himself before venturing into the wide world. A considerable amount of...pollen was left behind, something that the Aldryami consider to be of great power in their magicks. Part of the fun is that the Treetop Mountains are not actually named on any map of the Gloranthaverse AFAIK, nor are the Treetop Mountains mentioned anywhere besides in Griffin Mountain. Details on Shanassee are hard to come by as well. So the GM has a lot of flexibility in where exactly to place their location (I’m thinking back behind Vivamort’s Castle in the Er’oring Wilds), as well as in what kind of things you could do with potent plant god pollen (like maybe grow or craft a self-healing, POW-dealing, matrix-weaving superbow). Perhaps the Treetop Mountains are beyond the veil of time, so have to be heroquested to once their mundane world equivalent location is found. Though frankly the journey there would itself have been a heroic quest. Not sure how that might fit in with the Hero Wars, but could be a fun adventure
  8. My assumption is that the hearths are gathering places not settlements, a place for meetings and festivals not mundane living. But you’re still going to run into the issue of clans wanting to exercise a “superior” claim over a holy site versus other nearby clans. I had also forgotten about the massive increase in population. Now I need to rethink the military capabilities of the citadels, currently shown as: Elkoi - 30 warriors/50 hunters Trilus - 160 warriors/100 hunters Dykene - 30 warriors/100 hunters Kind of anemic given the new population figures.
  9. I noticed while going through the clan lists (which I’ve divvied up by their ‘allied’ citadels) that there are a number of clan names which bear some similarities to hsunchen tribes. What got me started was the Black Lion clan, associated with Dykene. It got me thinking of the Basmoli, and an old RQ2 adventure “The Hide of the Ancestor” from White Dwarf #74, which notes that “there are a total of twenty-six tribes of Ithilian-Fane, of both plains and mountain variety, scattered around Prax, Dragon Pass, Balazar, the Elder Wilds, Dorastor and Talastar”. So I got to wondering if there might be some kind of association between the Basmoli/Ithilian-Fane and the Black Lion clan. (Which would conveniently allow me to drop the scenario in near the Troll Hills north of Dykene) Then I noted the Blue Bear clan, of which the Well of Daliath notes there is a Blue Bear hsunchen, the Orenrar. Then I got to wondering about Grey Wolf clan and the Telmori. Then there’s the Tiger clan. Could there be Hsa hanging around in Balazar/Elder Wilds with the Aldryami? The Hsunchen aren’t really explored in the original Griffin Mountain, but I have to wonder if from a Gloranthan standpoint there might be some deeper association between the clans and their hsunchen namesakes. Prior peregrinations preceding permanent presence? Also, what’s the deal with 20 clans and 10 hearths? There’s no association noted between clans (or citadels) and particular hearths, so there’s a fair amount of winging it. I get that the clan names came from an old magazine article, Pegasus IIRC, and taking a closer look I see that most of the clan names are for creatures found in the Encounters table. But a couple, like those I noted and River Snake (elasmosaur?), Tree Ghost (linked to the great tree that was destroyed?) and White Goat (?, something non-broo-y?) just aren’t as intuitive as Crocodile clan or Barking Deer clan. Any insight would be appreciated.
  10. For me the worst was where the series Vikings went. I tried to watch the sixth season, but had to give up after a Macaw in a Silk Road market, and a -leather- montgolfier. some other recent viewings: In the Spine of Night - rotoscoped like Ice & Fire, which would be my closest comparison. Huntress: Rune of Death - a reeaallllly slow burn, but not a terrible movie. Could certainly be used to invoke a Sartar look. Krod Mandoon and the Flaming Sword of Fire - dumb and stupid, but fun. Dreamkeeper - a really impressive movie of an American Indian storyteller passing the torch to his grandson. Lots of great Native American myths are incorporated into this one. Rising Hawk: Battle for the Carpathians - a small village against the Pentan (Mongol) hordes. and I’m going to mention Primal again as it is an amazingly well told animated story with effectively zero dialogue. Season 2 should be arriving in the not too distant future...
  11. Looks like enfants are back on the flamme, boys! Philibert sent a notice that Enfants de la Flamme is available for order, or at least pre-order. https://www.philibertnet.com/fr/runequest-aventures-dans-gorantha/106719-runequest-les-enfants-de-la-flamme-9782490197378.html Says it will be available in early April. Just got my copy of Dorastor in French (so not so ridiculously expensive) and it has been a fun exercise in new vocabulary. Vomieuvre, heh. So definitely looking forward to getting a copy of this.
  12. If you want to go old school, there is a lovely William Church illustration of the Shaker Temple in Wyrm’s Footprints on p. 23. If you want to go non-canon, Dragon Pass: A Gazetteer of Kerofinela has some interesting notes. In the index it notes to refer to Maranaba, and under that listing it notes: -Is the Shaker Temple. -Is sacred to Ana Gor and Maran. -Is where blood of Havan Vor, ancestor of all humans, was spilled. Havan Vor is not found in the GtG. -Was called De Gavarum before Dragonkill. Also not in GtG. -Is located in a series of caverns deep beneath the earth, surrounded by a jumbled wall of megalithic rocks. -King Varstapoor’s shade guards the temple. Varstapoor is mentioned in the GtG as half of the Twins Dynasty, the brother-king who tended to temporal affairs (p. 179). Also notable for the battle of Quintus’ Vale (p. 187). -Palashee Longaxe is entombed within its rock. Also mentioned in GtG, as a rebel king who overthrew the Lunar Tarsh dynasty for a generation (p. 169). This was in 1538 during the reign of Philigos, who died in 1555 trying to regain his throne. The butcher Phargentes was crowned in 1555, and is noted as slaying Palashee, though the date of death is not specified (pp. 175, 177). Interestingly, Maranaba is noted in the GtG as a temple to Maran Gor, but at the foot of Kero Fin (p. 710). Hard to tell from the map on p. 709. I’m not sure why the gazetteer is not considered canon, but there should be a few good tidbits in there that are useful.
  13. I picked up a copy to mine for ideas for campaigns in Balazar and the Elder Wilds. Especially for Votanki north of the Elf Sea. It is certainly a rich resource.
  14. I think the real question is what is the nature of the damage inflicted by the spell? While more recent editions of Runequest merely note that the spell does damage, RQ 2nd edition notes that it is “[a] spell designed to speed up random molecular motion in the target’s body”. In a POWvPOW damage is inflicted, but that could be considered as life force trying to overcome life force. Such life force is absent in the case of a skeleton, a magical construct merely given animation, not animus. So I would rule there is no POWvPOW contest to be made. The question then becomes what is the nature of the damage inflicted by sped up random molecular motion in a skeleton, or more specifically a bone? Would it cause crumbling in an old bone? Ehhh, probably? At worse I’d consider that the damage would heat up the bone, causing it to lose its integrity. So I’d allow the direct 1d3 roll on the location from the spell without a POWvPOW. Then again, magic missiling off an arm or leg of a skeleton doesn’t necessarily cause it to stop. You need a hit to the head for that...
  15. Mr. Smylie’s “The Last Barrow” over on DriveThruRPG has a lot of cool stuff in it, including conversion notes for adapting it to a Gloranthan setting. I’ve been mining it for ideas for an adventure I’m putting together. Very atmospheric illustrations as well.
  16. Put my order in at my FLGS this afternoon. Hopefully the distributors have them in hand already. Fingers crossed...
  17. Totally picked up the Classic POD, mainly so that I could put my original copy aside to not damage it further. I did keep the map out for current use. 100% worth the investment.
  18. Yeah, nah, not really. Having a hard drive die recently has renewed my distrust in electrons. My physical copy of the Cults Compendium is -always- at hand right there on the the bookshelf.
  19. Not sure how relevant you might find this, but Genndy Tartakovsky’s “Primal” is about a caveman who bonds with an allosaurus. There’s not really any ritual, but they do have to learn to trust each other. I see it as a kind of a Votanki and his dinosaur in the Elder Wilds kind of thing. Quite enjoyable and thoroughly Gloranthan.
  20. I wish I had the Gloranthan Classics Griffin Mountain. I’ve got the other three Classics and mine them regularly for ideas and info. I’m just not going to pay the stupid prices that the internet speculators/arbitrageurs want. I’d rather spend that money on the Jonstown Compendium printed books (most of which I already have) or the upcoming Starter Set. And I agree with wanting to see the Back to Balazar content compiled into a JC publication. I’d buy a print version of that in a heartbeat. I wish I was smart enough to say something like that.
  21. I think you’re reading too much into that s. The context for that comment comes from my current reading of Eleven Lights, which I just found at my new local FLGS, as well as the RQG adventure supplements. So. Much. Narrative. Pages and pages of narrative. My personal opinion and feelings are that it seems to create a sense of the characters participating in someone else’s story, versus creating their own. As an example, I’m working on an adventure where the characters would be participants in a heroquest to plug the chaos portal at Festering Island. I’m creating the narrative, as Griffin Mountain doesn’t say what ends up happening with Festering Island, only that it is there and a problem. So the solution can be open ended and I get to flex my creative thinking. The Dragonrise? That happens. Period.
  22. What I like about Griffin Mountain is that while it is Glorantha, it’s not really tied to the meta-narratives that have taken over the more recent iterations. It’s just a place to go exploring and have adventures. It’s easy to slot in miscellaneous small adventures from a variety of sources, like the Judges Guild adventures. So Duck Tower and Duck Pond could be located in a swampy area on the north shore of the Elf Sea, or the Hellpits of Nightfang up by the Gork Hills. Broken Tree Inn can be slotted in somewhere west of Elkoi. Lair of the White Wyrm could be part of the mysterious Dragonewt activity in the region. The list goes on. Jon Hunter’s “Back to Balazar” website offers many interesting encounters, like Blueface’s Green Age cabin, where I intend to hide a pair of 7-league moccasins. So the narrative potential is much more open, while still allowing for easy linkage to the stuff going on in Dragon Pass and Prax.
  23. Just stumbled across an animated series that is giving me a strong Gloranthan vibe, specifically Votanki hunter in the Elder Wilds. By the guy that did Samurai Jack, it is called Primal, and features a Neolithic hunter who loses his family to a brutal T. rex attack, and ends up bonding with an allosaurus who lost his family to a brutal T. Rex attack. They learn to hunt together (a la the movie Alpha) and eventually become a team in the brutal struggle to survive. And I mean brutal. It is full-on Nature is Red in Tooth and Claw and look, here’s another example: chomp! It gives me Wurm vibes, while the mix of allosaurs and mammoths and giant crocodiles has an Elder Wilds feel to it. Quite fun. Also, for anyone looking for some Viking action, the manga series The Vinland Saga is pretty good, if a bit graphically gory. Eyeballs popping out from massive blows, that sort of thing. But includes one of my ancestors, Eric the Red, so I do have that bias.
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