Jump to content

radmonger

Member
  • Posts

    651
  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    1

Posts posted by radmonger

  1. 1 hour ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

    ah.. for me, it is different. Subcults are, for me, temple organisation (group of secrets teached to initiate who perform some things and obey some leaders), there is a  hierarchy of adventurous, there is a hierarchy of thunderous.

    As I understand it, a cult is best thought of as a template for a temple. Every actual temple is subtly different, and quite a few have myths, stories and magics available nowhere else. But they have obvious patterns of similarities. It is these patterns, or write-ups, that the cults book contain. After all, 'the complete book of all temples in Glorantha' would be completly impractical to write and publish. So it says Orlanth Adventurous temples are like this, Orlanth Thunderous ones like that.

    Both Rune Cults and Subcults are such patterns, or write-ups. This includes details of whether they do, or do not, tend to have inter-temple hierarchy or coordination. The difference between a rune cult and subcult writeup is that in the latter, being initiated in one temple and worshiping in another works. Between two different top-level Rune cults,  this is not so.

    Note this is a thing that Gloranthan experts would generally know, and only be wrong about in unusual cases.You can still have a metaphysical debate about what the rune magic functionally working really means, just as in the real world you can debate the boundaries between Europe and Asia. But such a debate won't cause you to need a ship to get from Paris to Moscow.

     

    1 hour ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

    Basmol is dead in Prax, Basmol is not known as dead in Pamaltela.

    God time is timeless. So if a god dies, or changes in any other way[1], before time, you can chose to worship them before or after the change. And you can found a temple that supports worship in that fashion.

    More specifically, God time is cyclic. A temple, based on its demographics and economics, can support a certain number of holy day ceremonies per year. Each is mapped to a particular God Time event or myth, generally in order corresponding to the seasons and mythic ages. Almost all gods did more things than almost all temples can afford to support shrines or ceremonies for. And many gods did things that are apparently pointless, or culturally irrelevant. So a temple has to select which myths it is going to magically invest in. Those are the spells it offers. A Great Temple has better economics and demographics than a smaller one, and so can support more myths, including those from multiple subcults.

    If a god died in a later age in the God Time, but you know enough good stories about what he did before they died, you can establish a fully viable temple from just the pre-Death stories. Or maybe you hold that the stories about, or after, his death are the most important[4].

    If there are two such sets of temples, each with their own particular cultural heritage and context, then it either is or isn't possible to learn a spell at one and renew it at the other. One case corresponds to a single deity with a story that both subcults know part of, the other to two deities worshipped by two rune cults.

    If you have a RQ:G writeup of both cults, you will have canon as to which is which. 

     

    [1] except, I suspect, being annihilated by Chaos

    [2] unless you do the magical equivalent of building the Panama canal.

    [3] Note that, confusingly,  a subordinate cult is an entirely different thing to a subcult, and in some way the logical opposite. It is a cult to a different god that is entirely supported by a Rune Cult.

    [4] I suspect classical Dara Happa worships Yelm solely between the time he became emperor and his death. What happens before or after is either denied or downplayed. hence they have no magic of conquest or mortality.

     

  2. 9 hours ago, PhilHibbs said:

    The problem with that is, Glorantha was not invented to be a game

    WWII wasn't designed to be a game either; that doesn't prevent Axis and Allies from existing. 

    Quote

    I ask for a "cartesian" canon on any divinity not based on ~1624 gloranthan cults

    Unless I am misunderstanding you, that is exactly what the RQ:G cults book currently do provide. 

    A few Gloranthans still believe Elmal to be different from Yelmalio, and they are wrong. Or least will be once the Solar cult book comes out. A larger number believe yu Kargzant to be non-identifiable with Yelm, and they are wrong too. However, they are right about Dendara and Ernalda.

    The rules term subcult is a bit misleading, as it is nothing to do with temple organisation, or what priests do. Instead, it is a statement on the nature of the deity, or at the very least their magic. For more details, see the 'rules as written' section of this.

     

     

    PlantUML diagram

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  3. 38 minutes ago, Ynneadwraith said:

    Dara Happans are more closely related to keets than Orlanthi

    This seems related to the theory that the Praxian  Ostrich rider 'subcult' of Yelmalio has the mythic and social role that Eiritha plays in the other tribes. Ancestor of the herds, not their protector.

    Presumably, some Dara Happan avilry were in Prax when the Wakbocalypse happened...

     

    • Like 2
    • Helpful 1
  4. 10 minutes ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

    so it means that, if any Mastakos Heroes visit Pamaltela and, studying the Jmijie cult, conclude that Mastakos = Jmijie, they may come back in Dragon Pass and "open" the option to learn any Jmijie spells Mastakos does not have (yet) ?

    There is a similar case in the Earth Godesses book, between Asrelia and Aleshmara, who is listed specifically as a subservient cult (and not subcult or associate, as you might expect),. My personal canon is that this is explained by the cults book only covering Genertela, where all worship of her is via Pamaltelan priestesses imported at the expense of another Earth cult.

    Great Storm temples doing the same to movement and storm gods from around the world seems entirely plausible. The oceans have been open for long enough that for something as easy as showing up at a widespread temple and seeing an obvious affinity, it has perhaps already been done.

     

     

  5. The non-canon way I run it is slightly different; it is by default possible to directly mentally communicate with a disembodied spirit while you yourself are disembodied. A rating in spiritspeech simply allows you to control what you are communicating. And so lie, omit information, or use communication skills like orate.

    It also allows communicating with a visible spirit while embodied.

    The other elemental languages like firespeech work the same way; they are less natural languages than restrictions placed on top of the innate ability of any two otherside entities to communicate, if the myth they are sharing requires them to do so. If you meet Orlanth at a High Holy day ceremony, you will find yourself speaking apparently fluent Stormspech. But if you skill rating is poor,  you will have little control over what you say.

     

     

     

    • Like 1
  6. There's a rule on P253 of RQ:G that I suspect a lot of people ignore:

    Certain spirit magic spells may be offered to initiates as part of the ceremonies on holy days.

    Outside that, it takes a week of time from a shaman or priest. So if you lead a warband of 30 or more, it will be impractical to teach them all a spirit magic spell; you would need a magic teacher dedicated full time for each spell you want your dudes to know. But it seems instead you can hold a big ceremony on an auspicious day, and just say 'everyone come and get your Speedart'. Even if it takes you a months preparation, it's a clear win.

    While the rules aren't trying to be a large-scale sim Glorantha, it's reasonable to say that there is some relationship between effective worship skill, the number rolled, and the number of people who can learn a given spell in one ceremony.

    As far as I can tell, RAW this only applies to spirit magic, but it would make sense for Rune Magic too.

    • Like 2
  7. 9 hours ago, Squaredeal Sten said:

    Seems to me that the Lunars killing Orlanth and Ernakda. however temporary it may be, is proof that a god CAN be killed in Time and not just in the Godtime. 

    One thing you often find in scenarios is an old temple that is mythically intact and functional, but has no congregation. In fact, I can't think offhand if any scenarios were there is an old temple that is magically inert. There is also the example of the Maran Gor Shaker Temple near Wintertop that is the bastion of the Tarsh Exiles. And so holding out against the Lunar occupation of Tarsh for decades. I think Old Wind in Sartar was similar.

    This all suggests that deconsecrating a major or great temple is seriously difficult, even if you have complete military control of the surrounding lands. One way of expressing that level of difficulty it to have it require success at a major heroquest, defeating an opposition with a POW in the hundreds. It seems plausible that that was the Lunar goal, taking down not just King Broyan, but his magical backing in the form of the Whitewall temple wyter.

    They Lunars could have plausibly expected this to only take down Orlanth Adventerous, the spirit of rebellion, raiding and murder. Instead, they got Orlanth Thunderous , who is not only a weather god, but Ernalda's husband. And the one who resurrects her each Sacred Time.

    So all the Orlanth and Ernalda temples across Dragon Pass stop working. If you conduct a worship ceremony there, your Worship roll automatically fails,  As far as you are concerned, Orlanth and Ernalda are dead.

    Reactivating any given temple by rebuilding, resurrecting or finding an alternative to the dead wyter are all achievable heroquests. And ones that PCs of that ere canonically did achieve.

    For  truly dead God, such a heroquest would be impossible, as would founding a new temple.

     

     

  8. 5 hours ago, Ynneadwraith said:

    Or, potentially more accurately, the thing that old-school palaeontologists did when they were stitching together old skeletons: sometimes connecting the bones of one creature together to see some of its whole, but other times connecting together the bones of completely different creatures and getting a false vision of what the reality is.

    I think that is pretty exactly it. A shaman goes near a temple, discorporates. At one level of remove from the mundane world, they can see the temple wyter. This has properties as described in the RQ:G rules, including a large but, for a minor temple, potentially defeatable POW. 

    If they were to beat that Guardian, without accepting initiation. they could head deeper into both the spirit realm and into  the temple. Likely they come to whatever Great Temple the local temple defers to. If so, they would get to see how the local wyter is just a part of the bigger one. And _that_ Great Temple wyter is probably not beatable by anyone who wouldn't have their own counter in the Dragon Pass wargame.

    But still, they can theorize that if they could, thet could go further. And there they would find a Cult Wyter. or God, who collected together all the different strands. Even from Great Temples widely separated by geography and culture.

    At no point are you actually imposing your assumptions or decisions on the world. It is just that the process of determing the truth is an inherently destructive one. 

    • Like 1
  9. 3 hours ago, Tolen1 said:

    So get, for example loyalty. You know you need to flee in the face of superior numbers, but the chieftan stands strong, and so you succeed at a loyalty check and stand with him. If you fail, your nerve breaks and you flee.

    I generally use fear as the other side of an opposed passion roll. So you roll loyalty against fear. Sometimes fear is good, in that someone with no fear passion is going to end up getting themselves killed faster than the average Humakti.

    Note that this is with the quickstart version of the rules, which have working opposed rolls.

  10. 1 minute ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

    You need one boss not twenty

    But you do specifically need 20 thanes. Few clans will have 20 rune lords available, so not all thanes are rune lords. But a position as a thane mean having a profession of noble, i.e. supported by tenant farmers. As such, it is the end goal for many martial cults unsuitable for leading a clan or higher.

    Tribal temples likely don't appoint an Orlanthi tribe member as a Rune Lord if they are happy with the current choice. But I suspect an independent Great temple like Old Wind cares more about mythic suitability than current tribal political stability.

     

  11. 17 hours ago, Zalain said:

    But to recover Lanbrils Rune Points, doesnt the thief need a consecrate place to Lanbril himself?

    Any associated cult would work. Unfortunately, Lanbril has none.

    I think in some of the Lunar provinces Orlanth is mostly a cult of thieves and bandits, who occasionally claim to be rebels. So the idea of stealing access to a worship site is more suited to that version of Orlanth, given his many associates.

     

     

  12. 1 hour ago, Shiningbrow said:

    Imagine a 14 year old having to limp home bleeding down the leg to mummy & daddy because a dog bit them...

    The Valley of Plenty campaign starts with children stick fighting, partly to teach the combat rules.

    It's not a lesson you want to learn for the fight time when fighting one on one, to the death.

    There is nothing in-setting that indicates that adulthood initiation, even the hardcore backwoods version the Haraborn use, normally has something like a 25% fatality rate. If  it actually is always this bad, the Haraborn are a crazy death cult, and the Lunars are arguably right to destroy them. 

    So I think you need to pick one or more of:

    • you are really not supposed to continue on beyond the pits. You get plenty of warnings not to. If you do, it's ok to have some PCs die to show the warnings were justified. This is the default approach recommended in the text.
    • omens are bad this year, for plot reasons. This ordeal is going to be a lot more for-real than normal. It's ok for some PCs to die, just to show how bad things are,
    • on death, you awake in Orlanth's stead with a headache and a 'fear chaos' passion
    • after the ritual of the pits, you have 1 Rune spell available. Perhaps of your choice, perhaps chosen by GM, perhaps chosen when used.
    • Due to the mythic state of the world at this point in the quest, there is no death. So you can do things normally impossible. Such as cast healing magic after the broo wanders off after they get bored of stabbing you while you lie on the floor bleeding. 

    Any of these is valid if you set expectations beforehand.

     

     

     

    • Like 2
  13. 5 hours ago, Akhôrahil said:

    This isn’t the case - the spirit hangs around for seven days.

    7 days is the limit for resurrection, presumably because the soul has not merely left the area, but passed through the Courts of Silence and been sent by Daka Fal to their just fate.

    1 hour ago, Shiningbrow said:

    I allow a PC to get off a Rune Spell at the moment of death

    If you do that, then you presumably also have to allow it for unconsciousness or incapacitation. This leads to PCs who, once they have a few extra RP, essentially can never lose any reasonable fight, because they can always instantly heal any incoming damage. You end up just rolling to see how long their victory takes. If you counter this by allowing NPCs the same, then fights are long grinding affairs.

    I much prefer the situation where you can go into a fight with two possible outcomes, the PCs win, or lose but survive. This offers a wealth of meaningful storytelling possibilities; abandonment, capture, escape, ransom, etc. Perhaps more importantly, it keeps the fight itself exciting, because there are stakes. Tactics and luck matter. 

    Realism, mythological and gameplay arguments seem to all align to say the current RQ:G rules in this area are a bad fit for Glorantha. They would be fine for a gritty Bronze Age wargame. One where you you have no reason to care about the difference between 'dead now', and 'unconscious now, dead in 5 minutes'. But in one with either modern medicine or the common healing magic of Glorantha, you do. Note that Chaosium themselves do not use them, as indicated by the RQ:G FAQ answer here.

    Of course, YGWV. I could see the argument for abandoning realism and keeping beheading, specifically, as an instant kill, for symbolic reasons. Maybe there could be other ways of getting an instant kill. Like stabbing someone through the heart with a cold iron dagger in the shape of a death rune.

     

     

  14. Personally I rule that 0 hp, or head severed, is merely clinical death, and is just as reversible as it is in the real world.

    Quote

    The brain, however, appears to accumulate ischemic injury faster than any other organ. Without special treatment after circulation is restarted, full recovery of the brain after more than 3 minutes of clinical death at normal body temperature is rare.

    Actual death, requiring resurrection, happens 3 minutes after clinical death. This  is the time for the spirit to leave the area. That time can be extended by shamanic practices, which will involve talking to the dead person and persuading them to stick around.

    Fully healing some wounds within that time frame may be challenging, and for a single healer may well involve more rune points then a Resurrection spell. So unless a fight happens directly outside the doors of the Nochet great  hospital, this make little difference to battle casualty figures.

    • Like 1
  15. One thing is that I think there is a practical distinction between actually being a thane, warband leader, clan chieftan, or tribal king, and qualifying as a Rune Lord that isn't always made clear in the rules. You could be either as easily as both.

    As I understand it, a Rune Lord is examined and anointed by a High or Chief Priest. As most clan temples are to small to have anyone with that cult rank, that means either from a tribal temple, or one of the independent Great Temples. As such, it is something like a public statement saying that that part of the cult hierarchy feels you have the necessary qualities to be a good Orlanthi chieftain. But Orlanthi society is not a clerical theocracy, leadership roles are chosen by those led.

    Usually cult recommendation is enough; if only one potential candidate for a leadership role is a Rune Lord, they very likely get the job. Other times it comes to choosing between one or more under or over-qualified alternatives. So being a Rune Lord is kind of like being a presidential candidate; you have to spend a lot of money. But noone is actually forcing you to do so. It is just that you will never be President unless you demonstrate the willingness and ability to flash the cash.

    I guess if you are not seen as pursuing such a role energetically, you implicitly and gradually lose credibility. Bu once you have done such a job, the title sticks around, exactly like it does for former US Presidents. You may even get to keep a retinue of bodyguards.

     

     

  16. The details of the way I run combat are here. It's more or less compliant with the rules-as-written, except where noted.

    I think the key difference with what you describe is that any unengaged enemies get to make their own statement of intent. So someone can stand at the back and cast healing or buff spells without getting into an engagement. But, unless every enemy is engaged, or otherwise dealt with, this is a bad idea. Any enemies with any grasp of tactics will very likely run up and hit them. At which point they are very strongly advised to change their statement of intent to 'I try to dodge/parry/block'.

    it's normally just 'PC privilege' to get to make statements of intent first, and so pick what engagements happen. But in the case of an explicit ambush, the opposition picks first. It is very easy to be surprised by just how deadly this will be for the typical group of PCs, so use with care.

  17. 3 hours ago, Nick Brooke said:

    OK, I’ll see if we can delete all mention of the SRD from both the Guidelines and the FAQ. Thanks for your input.

    Obviously that is not a great policy for Questworld fans, including me. But if that really is the policy, it is better it be made clear now, rather than after someone has spent hundreds of hours writing something in contravention of it.

  18. 2 hours ago, David Scott said:

    The Cannibal Cult doesn't follow the Survival Covenant as they eat sentient creatures.

    Well, the things they eat start off as sentient, and end up as dead. But I suspect there may be a magical intermediate step which, in their minds, makes it ok. Almost everyone else disagrees.

    This could even be a reenactment of the survival covenant between two initiates. This decides who is Eater and who is Eaten.

    Of course, even if this is sometimes true, other times they are just ogres with a cover story.

     

  19. 1 hour ago, Nick Brooke said:

    Do you need me to use shorter words?

    No, just ones that stay consistent from post to post, and with what is in the FAQ.

    Currently, the FAQ clearly states that Questworlds, shortly to be published by Chaosium, is an allowed system, distinct from Heroquest:Glorantha.

    Quote

    Your work can use any rules and setting materials from the books and materials published by Chaosium

    • RuneQuest Roleplaying in Glorantha
    • RuneQuest Classic
    • HeroQuest Glorantha (but references in your work to this rules system and
      game line should call it “QuestWorlds,” as Chaosium no longer holds the
      trademark for “HeroQuest”)
    • QuestWorlds SRD
    • 13th Age Glorantha

    But you here are saying you will 'remove from sale' any supplement that makes use of it.

     

     

     

  20. If you are engaged with multiple enemies, attacking one rather than another is not really a change of statement of intent. Bob kills the broo on the left at SR6, you attack the one on the right at SR7.

    If you change engagement during the round, the unengaged movement rules do not apply. So you must pay SR to move, starting from at best the SR on which the guy dies (adding DEX SR to that wouldn't be unreasonable). So it would be rare to be able to move and get a different attack in, or switch to a bow. This is where attack spells and thrown spears can come in handy.

    The way I play it, the statement of intent is not a commitment, it is about deciding who is engaged with who. Something like 'we hold the line against whoever comes to us' can mean you are engaged with all of a horde of broo. If you choose a solid defensive position, not all will end up in position to attack, and you may even survive.

  21. 1 hour ago, Super Thunder Bros. said:

    As I'm very much a beginner at running the game wanted to ask if anyone had any mechanical input to pad this out. What Rune, passion or skill checks make the most sense? I could certainly make use of some of Rites of Passage from Six Seasons

    My take is that the normal progression would be to undergo the Ernaldan adulthood ordeal, either on-screen or just as something that happened before play begins. After all, the female adulthood ordeal starts as young as 13, and is not batched up into age groups like the male one.  So if PCs are 16/17, some will have undergone it years ago,

    Either way, in it, they meet the figure representing Zorak Zoran. Maybe they are a courtier, perhaps representing Shargash rather than Zorak Zoran. Or they are an ambassador from the Kingdom of Night. Maybe they even take Orlanth's role, but call themselves Ragnaglar. Either way, the PC is prevented by the rules of Yelm's court from fighting them then and there. They may or may not go further through the standard Ernaldan path after that meeting.

    Either way, after due confirmation and consideration, the PC decides that fighting that enemy  is more important to them than love or motherhood. Copperaxe knows the ritual described, and eventually agrees to go through with it. This might be after the first few episodes of the campaign. So it is what I call a cult confirmation, the completion oi the initiation process, not the start of it.

    I would guess there other ways to end up in Babeestor Gor. One is being an orphan raised by a dedicated major temple, so having limited other options. Another is being the subject of someone making a political statement, like Harsaltar's Household of Death. Neither seems likely to come up in SSiS, but the ritual would still apply.

     

    2 hours ago, Super Thunder Bros. said:

    What Rune, passion or skill checks make the most sense? I could certainly make use of some of Rites of Passage from Six Seasons

    If this is the first actual adventure, be careful of adding too many tests. As the linked post says: I haven't put a standard Fail condition considering that this is probably the first session for the character, they don't have much power and the narrative possibilities are really not pleasant.

    The thing with dice rolls is you need to have a plan for what happens when they go wrong. Normally their is a group of PCs, and so that plan can be as simple as 'well, someone else will probably succeed'. For a solo PC, passing three successive 75% checks is nearly 60% likely to fail.

    One such plan could be that failures give Fear or Hatred passions for some specific group, such as trolls. Wheras the true BG ideal is that vengeance and justice are for individuals who did wrong, not their kin.

    • Like 1
  22. 16 minutes ago, Ynneadwraith said:

    The way I see it, 'fundamental truth' in Glorantha is editable. We don't really have a word for 'a reality that may not have been the same reality a generation ago, but is every bit as real now as that different reality used to be then', because real world physics don't function like Gloranthan metaphysics do.

    The real world is actually comparably editable. For example, the 'earth is round' is a well-accepted scientific truth, but smash a sufficiently large moon into it and it would no longer be so.

    The are larger abstractions, like gravity, that are less mutable. But they are not the things that form the foundation of human existence.

     

    • Like 1
  23. 18 minutes ago, Ynneadwraith said:

    I think the best possibly 'judge' would have been Chalana Arroy.

    I suspect Chalana would have said 'this is not a wound, I can not heal it'. 

    But  she didn't go to the White Lady, but to a different healing Goddess, Malia. The one who lives in the woods, and everyone publicly scorns but many secretly visit. The one who said something like  'I cannot heal your wound, but I can make it not exist'.  Or 'become non-existence'; texts vary.

    Spoiler

    Yes, the problem with the standard story of Thed is that it is not controversial enough.

     

     

     

     

    • Like 1
  24. 2 hours ago, Geoff R Evil said:

    The zebra tribe does not subscribe to the Praxian  patriarchal matriarchal role split…

    Is there actually a Zebra Tribe as such to have that role split in the first place? I thought there was just the Pavis Royal Guard? If so, they are not a functionally complete society, one that produces its own food and brings up its own children. But  a warband that defends and is supported by the city. Most of the members of the guard marry Pavis residents, and eat grain from the city granary. So there is no need a mass membership of Eirithat initiates, of any sex. Instead there are just a  few specialist priests, to keep their mounts healthy.

    If there is an actual Zebra tribe somewhere, in the past, deep Wastes or (my guess) Pamaltela, I suspect they would have a lot of knowledge of use to any ally or enemy of Pavis.

  25. 5 hours ago, hipsterinspace said:

    also, Nandani are just regular Ernaldans in terms of cult

    Having checked, you are right; in the Cults books there is an asymmetry between Nanda and Vinga. Vinga is a subcult, Nanda a subservient cult. Six Paths has them both as subcults. 

    Not sure if there is any deep mythical  or anthropological difference implied by that fine rules distinction. Perhaps Chaosium just didn't want the flak for calling Vinga subservient...

     

     

     

×
×
  • Create New...