radmonger

On 9/29/2023 at 10:55 PM, JohnK said:

In a Folly campaign, not all case interviews should be supervised by a practitioner, until magic (Falcon-ry?) definitely is found to be associated with the case.

What's the Folly doing investigating cases where magic is not suspected?

In real-life London, a murder investigation team is 30 or so people performing hundreds of interviews.  No matter how many PCs you have amongst your PCs, it's not remotely practical to have all those interviews happen 'on camera'. 

https://www.london.gov.uk/who-we-are/what-london-assembly-does/questions-mayor/find-an-answer/murder-investigation-teams#:~:text=There are around 26 officers,2 Detective Inspectors (DI)

Sometimes all those off-screen interviews will show up a clue that is relevant to the folly. Sometimes all the off-screen cutting up of bodies will.  

Either way, the important stuff happens on-screen, and most PCs are going to be present for it, most of the time. Your job as a gm is to justify and explain that, not say it is statistically unlikely and so doesn't happen. Players need to be able to play the game.

I mean, having a starship captain beam down with an away team is way harder to justify than the ship's doctor being there...

4 hours ago, Squaredeal Sten said:

I can see at least three possibilities:

There's a 4th; be immortal, so childbirth is rare enough that enabling it isn't a full time occupation 

The Brithini Zzaburi  claim to provide  full magical support for all 4 caste roles, and so have no need to resort to uncontrolled runic personifications. Asking them about 5th caste, the Menena, is inadvisable. Asking them why the Mostali have at least another 3 castes is positively unwise....

29 minutes ago, davecake said:

You do need a live horse to actually use it. And when you do have one of those rare and valuable horses, you are probably going to want to give it to one of the people that actually knows how to ride it. 

it's not necessarily a horse; it could be a griffon, llama or rhino. Especially in the Praxian context, the beasts your nomad allies supply you with are probably going to be the ones they don't know how to ride. 

The problem here is the rules making them both skills, each no easier or harder to train than any other. It's just one part of the general RQ:G skill proliferation issue.

Make KHA, peaceful cut, prepare corpse,  and the ~5 skills per volume introduced by the cult book _secrets_ that use the value of the applicable _cult lore_ skill., and you have a far less bloated character sheet. 

A house rule I use is that in the case of a respectful transfer between cults, if a spell is available reusably to both cults, it 'transfers' to the  rune pool of the new cult. So the old run pool only contains the spells unavailable to the new cult.

For example an Orlanthi clansman might learn  Analyse Magic, Wind Words and Shield as their first three spells. Then they head off to the Jonstown library to become a full-time apprentice of  Lhankor Mhy. They drop their explicit Orlanth initiation status, not caring to keep up with double-tithing, and attending twice as many holy days. Shield becomes one-use, from  a 1 point Orlanth rune pool that will go away once used. But they now have a 3 point Lhankhor Mhy rune pool from which they can cast  Analyse Magic, Wind Words and Truespeak.

My take is that if you tried to use the pc-facing sorcery rules to play an orthodox PC Horali who had full Talar backing, then you would wear out several spreadsheets trying to how many MPs the local Dronars were donating, and which of the rota Zzaburi were available when to cast which spells with what intensity and duration.

But if the sorcery rules do represent what Zzaburi can actually do, then they absolutely would be doing things like that. Not being concerned with playability, any organised society that could organize itself to do so would, Or else lose a war to those who did.

The key to this issue is that presumably much of the same stuff is happening behind the scenes at any theist shrine, as indicated by the temple size rules. But no-one is playing a wyter; they are playing those supported by that wyter. So the player-facing rules are the rune and spirit magic systems. These don't attempt to model the whole magical economy, merely the players interaction with it. So sometimes a worship roll fails, because circumstances outside the player's control means that there aren't the resources available to renew that rune spell this week

This approach means that, to cover say the Brithini, there would be 4 cult writeups, one for each caste. These would provide caste magic, gifts and geases on much the same terms as rune cults. The magic would originate from the sorcerer, not any abstract deity. In the case of active magic apparently cast by the PC, this would just mean the sorcerer used some additional technique to suspend the spell, and transfer control over when it would be unsuspended. Presumably, this can end up being more efficient than using an extended duration.

The thing with all non-immortal sorcery-using societies is that they don't have enough Zzaburi to fully support everyone else. The Brithini and Mostali might have a full range of magic-teaching specialists. One will know 12 spells a leatherworker would find useful, another 13 needed by a glassblower, a third the fifteen blessings required to raise goats. But everyone else is lucky if they have enough Zzaburi to support the basics of sovereignty and defense.

So everyone else is forced to resort to shamanism, ancestor worship and outright theism to fill in the gaps, There are a variety of approaches to how openly this is done, which compromises cause the smallest deviation from the ideal. That variety of approaches drives much of the theological divisions between Malkioni.

Run 20 rounds of combat on a pc. For each, print out the results, cut them up, and put them into a bag.

PC's draw from the bag and read out what happens that round.

Alternatively, use permanent tokens, and randomly populate the bag according to math e.g.. players get to add 8 tiles to the bag, the opponent 12, each drawn from another appropriately populated bag.

4 hours ago, StephenMcG said:

A valid opinion, I have come to the opinion that, as GM, I want combats to go faster and to take the dice out of my hands, focus more on the game management.

A full round of one on one RQ combat takes ~6 rolls (opposed attack, opposed parry, location, damage).

• Call of Cthulhu  drops hit locations
• Pendragon also combines attack and parry into a single opposed roll
• Questworlds just uses a single opposed roll.

if i was going to create another system, it would be a mix of these approach. A single contest for combat, to see what happens. Then roll  hit locations and damage, to see who survives and who can still walk.

28 minutes ago, Joerg said:

By that outcome, the Lunar invasion that leads to the Battle of Queens should be an uncontested victory, but somehow that fails to materialize.

The Lunars always planned to keep Sartar as a client  kingdom. if they had won, some new member of Temertain's line would have eventually been given the throne.

Their defeat is a precondition for the Sartarite establishment to be fully replaced by Argrath, with his Praxian and Colymar allies.

https://wellofdaliath.chaosium.com/argraths-story/

30 minutes ago, mfbrandi said:

So if I do an experimental heroquest to retcon something in the Gods War, it’ll all be wiped out in time for next year? Argrath’s feeding the gods to the Devil achieved nothing?

The only event all the Gods were at was I Fought We Won, right at the end of the  Gods War and so corresponding to sacred time. 

So it seems what happened was what happens if you fail [1] the sacred time rituals that recreate the world. This likely happens fairly regularly at the clan or kingdom level. Once that community loses access to magic, it loses conflicts with its neighbors, and its people drift away to other communities that can offer more.

Argrath is remembered because he created a world-spanning empire to set the stage for his failure. 

[1] Perhaps deliberately, probably not. Even his hagiographers were reduced to claiming he was playing some kind of 11 dimensional chess when he brought about the Gloranthan version of the bronze age collapse...

A related point is cyclic time. 

As i understand it, that refers to the fact that on a given day every year, the right ritual in the right place will take you to a specific event in the Gods War. With, mostly, things in early seasons being in early ages, and things in later seasons later ages.

What can happen is that if you screw up a ritual early on in  the year, that can have downstream consequences that makes a later one harder, or even impossible. Which can have corresponding effect on later rituals. If you fail to keep Flamal alive until you plant your crops, don't expect much of a harvest this year.

Then, sacred time happens, and the God's World is recreated, like a video game getting a server reset. Flamal is reborn, and once again you can learn his magic. And so can the elves, and so can the spirits of the wild paces.

I suspect the key thing about 0ST is that after that date, Darra Happan and Kralorean records of celestial phenomenon would agree, in much the same way say Chinese and Byzantine records of eclipses do in the real world.

Before that, they really don't. Even if they both described the same pair of events, they would very likely disagree about the number of years between them, and might about the order. No doubt both cultures would say 'those foreigners can't be trusted to keep accurate records'. It's the Lightbringers and Malkioni who make the philosophical claim that such accuracy was impossible or meaningless.

i guess what you want is something like the 'combat tables' i came up with when reviewing questworlds?

Your skill on left, opposing skill on top, percentage of getting one success in the middle..

Except that you would need 5 numbers in each cell  (critical, special, success, failure, fumble).

Easy enough to calculate using code or a spreadsheet, but probably impractibaly big at d100 resolution.

if the PC assumes they are the only PC that knows about magic, they would have to run the investigation 'off-the-books'. Which means relying on whoever it is they trust, regardless of their skills.

Alternatively, in a more standard campaign, have Folly procedure is that all interviews in Falcon-related cases should be supervised by a practicioner, as nobody has yet invented a machine that can record vestigia. And right now they are a lot shorter of those than they are of forensic specialists.

Sure, they spend their time offscreen cutting up corpses, but they will be onscreen for everything important that happens.

3 hours ago, JohnK said:

I'm really at a loss how to handle the character, given the only other player in the group is playing a police constable who may gain magic later.  The only saving grace of the forensic specialist character is that she's a practitioner. 

There's a us TV show called _I, zombie_ that has pretty much that exact setup. The main character is a forensic specialist who (due to being a zombie) has what is more or less sense vestigia. For most of the show her partner is a beat cop, who is the only authority who knows of her powers.

Being a forensic specialist provides just enough plausible deniability that he can drag her along to a crime scene to use her powers, solving cases and winning him commendations. This works even better if most of the higher ups in the police are aware of magic. For maximum fun, have the PCs not know that.

At a suitable point, have DCI Seawoll say 'what, you expected us to believe that you were bringing a lab assistant out into the field to look at _forensic_ evidence?'

The standard 13A wizard class works reasonably well as a baseline.

Using  hand crossbows would probably require some kind of 'friend of the dwarves' feat. No multiclassing, and maybe no weapon use, for non-Hrestoli.

Note that by the time you hit something like 7th level, you probably count as a god learner, and the universe and/or Zzabur may start conspiring to destroy you. 

In the age of darkness, when the world was ending, gods died and magic failed. Our ancestors endured and adapted.

But, in the time where Orlanth was away in hell, there came a change they could not see how to adapt to. No plants would flower, and so no seeds could be made. The stored grain there was was all there ever would be, until the end of the world..

Our ancestors asked Lord Yelmalio[1], who Orlanth had placed in charge, what was to be done.

'if the world is fixed but we are dead, we will have no descendants. What is to be done?

Yelmalio asked the grain what was wrong, but it could not answer. So he traveled to the forest where the talking plants gather. They said the darkness demon Zorak Zoran has slain Flamal. The prayers of the plants for children were going unanswered.

Yelmalio swore a mighty oath of vengeance against Zorak Zoran, and left to hunt him down. In return the elves gifted our ancestors some fruit trees, which would supply fruit without having to be replanted each year. By this means the stored grain would last another few years. 

But Orlanth did not return within that time. So the people went to Ernalda, who now ruled directly. They said.

if vengeance strikes true but we are dead, none will be alive to call it justice. what is to be done?

So Ernalda traveled to the land of the dark men, and took one for a lover. In return he told her of the secrets of the dark plants, the mushrooms that grow without light or seed.  By this means the stored grain would last another few years.

But still Orlanth did not return, and now then grain store was all but empty. 

Ernalda's youngest daughter was now the only god left. So when the people asked for her aid, she had none to give. She had no skills to fight, no kin to call on. But she knew what must be done.

i will seek restitution for the death of Flamal, as is custom.

And Narlen[3] went to Zorak Zoran's domain, and made camp outside his fortress. Countless days she waited there, in rags for clothes and wailing her story. Passing troll lords would beat her and laugh at her complaints.

And then one day Zorak Zoran's terrible sister was visiting her kin. She did not beat her; she did not laugh; instead she listened. And so she said:

Zorak Zoran is my brother, but he is an idiot. Once again i must fix what he has broken.

And so Zorak Zoran's sister travelled to hell, where the maggot king Yelm held court. With her she brought three creatures of darkness, kin of Gorakkiki. When she presented these to Yelm, one burst into flames and was consumed entirely, one flew away and was lost. But the third absorbed some of his light. Its dark body became winged with bands of golden yellow.

Dead Flamal was imprisoned far from Yelm's court, in eternal darkness. So when Xiola visited him, she showed him the Yelm-touched creature. He was delighted to see even such light, and in return, he imbued the creature with some small fragment of his magic. And so the honey bee can cause plants to flower that otherwise wouldn't.

With the gift of the honey bee, the grain silos were restored[2]. With the restitution for the death of Flamal, justice was restored.

And so the world was ready for Orlanth to fix it.

[1] this word is smudged, as if overwritten by a later hand.

[2] Gloranthan magic bees can pollinate wheat, or any other plant. Since the Dawn they are no longer the only way to do so so, and so normally are reserved for luxury crops. But some speak of the possibilities of winter wheat...

[3] Narlen is also known to the elves, where she provides the same magic. However, the elven myths do no go into any great detail about how exactly the bees came into their possession; what she does with them is more important

On 8/29/2023 at 12:55 AM, MOB said:

Praise Yelmalio, you don't actually need a live horse to learn and practice your Kuschile Archery skill. 

Note that a standard Orlanthi clan gets by with less than 20 mounted warriors. And those thanes are mostly used as scouts, diplomats and champions more than as a military cavalry force. Having more than that means that the resources required to maintain the extra are coming out of some clan member's mouth.

in real-world medieval Europe, some estimates are that it took 300 peasants to support a single armoured and mounted knight.

The Yelmic horselords of  the grazelands rule an at best semi-free population of Vendrefi. The Praxian beast rider treat the oasis people as non-mobile slaves. We don't know much about how the Yelmic Pentan horselords treated the Pelorians, but they counted the creation of Yara Aranis as an appropriate response.

Monrogh's introduction of Kuschile Archery from Prax to Sartar was required to break that mythic and ecological pattern.

Orlanthi have 6 gender roles. Add in the child being born, and  that's enough for  a clan ring, or a lightbringer's quest

Parents with ambitions of having a heroic child strive to make sure that all roles are present at the birthing ceremony.

i guess the crux of the issue is that if there is a true myth 'Waha razes the city', then sooner or later someone will try and reenact it. if that was the only relevant myth, the cults would be hostile.

So the fact that they are neutral, while fully aware of each other, pretty much implies there is some equally true myth like 'Eiritha persuades Waha the city is a place where you can get nice things'.

4 hours ago, Yazurkial said:

Humbug. You'd summon a flying spirit and have it carry you. Just like you have a sharp spirit inhabit the edge of your sword. But the best flying spirits are air spirits, which is why you see flying Kolatings.

Are you calling humbug on the current presentation of Glorantha, or my understanding of it? Unless i am missing something, there is no flight spirit magic spell in the red book of magic.

A shaman could make a deal with a griffon or wind spirit to be flown somewhere. But it seems to me that that negotiation would be either a one-off exchange of favours, or an explicit summoning and binding (literally objectifying the spirit). i don't think either is what is represented in rules terms by learning a spirit spell.

YGMV of course.

5 hours ago, Yazurkial said:

Bird spirits are a good second, but there aren't many bird cults (other than ones that don't fly, like Ostrich).

The need for a cult is a restriction of theism, not animism. You don't need to organize your whole society around people who want to be a bird in order to use the magical equivalent of a messenger pigeon. Instead, you acknowledge the agency and needs of the pigeon, and teach it that it will get its needs met if it does what you need it to.

2 hours ago, g33k said:

Rune Magic is faith & sacrifice -- nobody "knows" their Rune-Magic spells, they're channeling their deity.

i don't think anything reasonably called faith is involved. Orlanth initiates have just as much faith in the existence of Ernalda as they do in Orlanth, but that doesn't grant them magic. 

initiates sacrifice to establish a connection to their deity, which knows (i.e. has the capability to perform)  the feat in question. I can't think offhand of any examples of rune magic that correspond to something the deity that grants it couldn't do. Wind Children can fly by their nature (i.e. they 'know' how to fly, though know is a bit of a weak word here, it is not something you could read in a book). Wind Lords can fly because flying is part of Orlanth's nature.

Returning to animism, a sword spirit knows how to cut, and humans know how make use of that. So Bladesharp is a thing.

On the other hand, a bird spirit knows how to fly, but wouldn't know how to fly in a human body. It seems there are no common spirits with that capability,  so there is no widespread  spirit magic flight spell. 

However, by some accounts Sartar has a kite-making tradition, something like that of Afghanistan. The ability to speak to bird spirits, to gain the knowledge of how to fly could then be highly useful. This might well take the form of a currently-undocumented spirit magic spell.

As a one-line sketch, magic is power plus knowledge.

• Sorcerors take knowledge from books and combine it with raw power from any available source.
• A theist picks one entity that has useful quantities of both and organizes a cult around it.
• Animism recognizes that entities with little power can still have useful knowledge.

Worshipping the god of a river might allow you to build a city on it,. But  you don't want to found a city, you just want to find some water. So you contact the ghost of a stream and find out where to dig.

Almost all gloranthan societies have some level of hybridisation between at least two of these approaches. Hsunchen cultures have 1 cult plus shamanism, tribal cultures one per gender plus shamanism, urban cultures a wide variety of cults plus shamanism and sometimes sorcery

Contrary to the 3 worlds model of HQ, these days there isn't a strong metaphysical distinction between the Waha worshiped at a tribal temple and the Waha met on the spirit plane.

If there remains any, it would be that the latter is the Waha of now, who may know the current strength, position and plans of all the tribes, but rarely plays favorites. Wheras the divine Waha is that of some point pre-time.. They will tell you everything you ask about the flamingo tribe; it is just they were wiped out 700 years ago

1 hour ago, metcalph said:

As for why they didn't conquer the whole world, there were other Empires with their own goals and secrets. 

And as knowledge of God Learner military magic spread faster than explicit Seshnelan/Jrustelan political  control, those empires were peers of the Empire. 

in fact. sometimes when later chroniclers talk about the 'god learners' doing something,  it would be strictly more accurate to say it was one of the god learner's _enemies_  who actually did it. Nevertheless, the requirement of being able to militarily compete with the god learners imposed its own logic on local mythology.

in real world terms, if you look at the inscriptions a North Korean NCO wears, you might posit the existence of a 'sergeant' rune....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_ranks_of_North_Korea

In the rq2 era, there was Cults of Prax, a anthropological study of the religiously-themed Rune Magic-granting organisations of one local region.

In rq3 there was Gods of Glorantha, which echoed the Godlearners eponymous claim; that study of successful local magical practices could be used to infer globally-usable truths.

Now we have Cults of RuneQuest. This has the wider scope of the second, covering anywhere you might plausibly want to set a gloranthan campaign. But it avoids making the claim that sufficient study of cults will tell you everything you need to know about gods.

2 minutes ago, mfbrandi said:

If the sun only goes out — with all that means to plant life — if one perceives it as going out,

Perhaps the subjectivity cuts the other way. If you die without sun, you can never experience a world without sunlight. So can never form a myth about it.

Perhaps there are some immortal beings who know the truth about how the Great Trees and surrounding jungles were replanted from grafts and seedlings in the early years ST. Perhaps some of them are even the same beings who plan the current Hero Wars reforestation projects.

But it would be virtually impossible to learn that from heroquesting in elf myth. because elf myth does not contain things outside elf experience.  You would have to hit a level of abstraction where you were identifying with a seed abandoned on the surface, struggling to maintain life.

For which, see my previous post.