radmonger

31 minutes ago, Akhôrahil said:

think this is a misstep in a simulationist game (the PCs have different rules than everyone else, which isn't very sim), but the alternative (applying these rules to NPCs) is worse

i would tweak things so that it is symmetrical to pcs/npcs, but only applies to people who had an 'adventure' that season. Which might be rare for pure farmers, but would probably pretty common for thanes and nobles, if a cattle raid counts.

If a PC really proposed staying at home and doing nothing for 5 years until they got their pow up to species max, then that rule would apply to them to. 

It seems pretty self-evident to me that potatoes are not the staple food of any mainstream Gloranthan culture, and so don't have the kind of deep mythic roots that grain goddesses do. This leaves them open to be a Lunar innovation, transplanted or resurrected from some obscure or distant location and promoted by the imperial bureaucracy for mytho-strategic reasons.

if you take the  contrary position, you might as well say there is no reliable canonical record of a species of 400m wingspan bat being native to Peloria.

19 hours ago, Rodney Dangerduck said:

I agree.  It's just punitive.  Everybody has ignored or hand waved ("of course, going to XXX is a cult duty, just like your last 24 random adventures were, by strange coincidence, also cult duty") this rule for 40 years.  Nor do the NPCs seem to follow it. 

i think the right way to approach this is similar to the discussion in the taxation thread. In game, what you actually owe the obligation to is a clan, tribe, nation, land, warband, ships's crew, regiment, secret society, gang, guild or hero. A 'cult' is just a generic rules term that means 'any of the above'. Think of how 'weapon' means any of sword or bow or spear, not a distinct thing that you can learn how to wield.

If, at rune level, you are not dealing with, or indeed running, one of the above things, then perhaps the game is being run contrary to the intended design. Or perhaps the character is being played as falling short of the normal moral expectation of the position they hold. The latter is a perfectly valid story hook, which might lead to them being challenged for that position by someone who promises to do better.

But the former is usually a mistake, one which can come from projecting modern ideas of monotheism and separation of church and state onto Glorantha. Adventures at this level are about politics, war, myth, glory and/or economics. All of which are inherently 'cult' business, for there is no other type of business for them to be.

29 minutes ago, Rodney Dangerduck said:

I agree that it is not practical.  But isn't the tithe, as described, exactly that, an income tax?

Religious tithing/taxation long precedes mass literacy, and may precede coinage. 

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/history-taxation-ancient-egypt-digital-tax-technologies/

Though, as Jeff points out, Sartar does actually have both coinage and a large class of professional scribes. Though IMG that kind of formal, ledger-driven taxation is solely a things for clans, tribes, cities and guilds. For individuals, it's more commonly a matter of community obligation, organised via temples and enforced by peer pressure, sometimes magic (i.e. spirits of retribution), and ultimately the threat of exile.

What you might find is a particularly rich trader deciding to declare their immediate family as a clan for tax purposes. This cuts off their obligations to all their poorer relatives, making the official levy a lot easier to bear. 

i doubt the lunars as such would waste good bat-food. All gladiators, including those participating in the hon-eel rites, are volunteers. Professional gladiators generally try to avoid the Hon-Eel rites, in which the loser dies and is not resurrected. But that is an honorable and respected death, if you live long enough to start to get slow.

Note that as i understand it, the city of Alkoth, run by the cult of shargash, is legally part of the underworld. if so, it may not be technically part of the lunar empire. Which in any case is not going to unwisely interfere in what it's denizens get up to.

12 minutes ago, jajagappa said:

Much of that then goes as tithe to the clan

I agree in reality the surplus goes to the clan. It's slightly open-ended, and likely varies between clans, whether that is explicitly routed through the chief, or the chief just shows up and says 'you know, Hedkor's stead got hit pretty hard by that last raid. Do you think you do me a favor and help them out until we raid them back?' [1]

The earth temple owns the land, not the herds or tools. The way that comes into it is the temple will, in a well-run clan, grant that land to the people who will agree to such requests for aid[2].

And as the situation we are likely talking about is not a Barntar-led clan, that means the donation is not made to a 'cult of Barntar' that exists as a discrete thing taking 50% of the earth's bounty and spending it on massive elaborate ivory plinths[3]. A God Talker spends 10% of their time maintaining the shrine or site, and the rest farming, or training farmers. Which is why they have occupation farmer and not priest, and don't quite qualify for noble status.

[1] Meanwhile, the chief is going to a full Orlanth Thunderous stead and saying 'next windsday is the raid to get those bastards for what they did to Hedkor. You in?'

[2] I suspect a Lodrili farmer would be more 'i have done my assigned tasks, so i am taking the rest of the day off. Please move away, you are blocking my sunlight'.

[3] they won't make that mistake again.

The Barntar writeup does explicitly say that they are not financially supported  by the cult. They do provide 'room and board', but that is surely of very limited use to to a farmer, who has to live where their herds and fields are, not where the temple is. I assume it applies only when they go visit the city, to save the cost of an inn.

Otherwise you get the very strange picture of junior farmers running their own steads. But once they get good enough they move into shared cult accomodation. Which, in the absence of any higher authority in the cult, they pay for out of their own pocket, and run themselves. Where do their wives and children live?

It makes far more sense to say that the 50% obligation is something than can only be taken on by a rich farmer with several hundred L of nominal income, and a ~60L 'free' SoL. Though this is somewhat of a chicken and egg situation; in a well-run clan, the good farmers will be the ones who are allocated the five hides. They will use it to grow more food than their household can eat, and pass it along to their neighbors. Each year they will breed more cattle than are eaten or die. And so they gift each new couple getting married with a wedding gift of a starter herd. They will cough up when their idiot nephew needs ransoming, and also when the tribe needs to keep its military in the field for another few weeks. They will answer the questions other farmers have, and sometimes go out to their fields and show them how to do things better.

in a badly run clan, the good land is given to the idiot nephew. They can use it to support themselves at the 200L 'noble' level, but they contribute nothing to the clan but a bad example.

Barntar is the good son, not the idiot nephew. So those who follow him aspire to being the former, and not the latter. They will suffer the disdain of their peers if they do not live up to that.

Someone over on rpgnet did a 'let's read' of the lightbringers book, and they pointed out that a GodTalker of Barntar is paying 50% of their income as cult tithes. But they are the highest authority in the cult; there are no true rune levels, and few elaborate temples. So who are they paying that tithe _to_?

Part of the answer is that presumably the 'cult' of Barntar in Sartar is largely a lie told to the Lunars. Whatever the religious status of Barntar as distinct form Orlatnh, organisationally is was an integrated part of the clan and tribe system.  During the occupation those resources actually went, via that system, to supporting the deer folk rebels. Right now it is mostly going to the Free Sartar Army that is supposed to stop them coming back. As it is an army that is capable of fighting them on equal terms,  presumably this involves more or less the same amount as taxation as the Lunars themselves levied.

But the other half is that clans are a family, and you don't pay tax on non-cash transactions within a family. Some people, including the prosperous farmers represented by Barntar GodTalkers are expected to contribute more, but all full adults are expected to contribute something. The net result is that there should be sufficient surplus to pay for the the clan nobles, and also any formal taxes levied by empires, tribes or nations.

So if you give you chieftan a magical sword you found. He awards you 10 cows, and has a word with one of the thanes and the clan shaman to give you private lessons. No tax applies because everything stays within the clan. If you took that sword and sold it to a lunar, then it certainly would.

1 hour ago, g33k said:

At one of those events, one noble "accidentally" hit a rival, and killed him. 

And the name of that competitor was Orlanth...

One way to run things that is both reasonably gameable and makes sense in-world is that 'spending' money on training and spells is just a simplified mechanical representation of what actually happens. Which is that you gift treasure to someone significant, and they are impressed and bump you up the priority list for being taught the good stuff. And as you never really owned anything, there is no tax to pay.

Actually paying 10% taxes on received (or gifted) treasure is a implicit claim that you are worthy enough to keep it yourself. Which means you would need to already have 10% of the value of that treasure available to pay. Using a treasure to pay for itself would be seen as fundamentally illegitimate, the kind of thing a Eurmali would be laughed at for trying to get away with.

This makes professional income important as it is the only reasonable way of gaining the starting capital you need to make more.

1 hour ago, Atgxtg said:

For example, someone at 90% would then have a 5% (01,11,33,55,77) of a crtical, plus a 18% (05,10,15,20,25,30,35,40,45,50,55,60,65,70,75,80,80,90) chance of a special, which is a 5% higher special chance than normal.

The context might be a bit confusing; i was talking about my proposal, which is criticals (or critical specials, to be unambiguous) on x1 and regular specials on x5.

So of successes, 10% are criticals, 10% are specials and 80% are regular hits.

With a skill below 100, choosing to halve your skill to make that be 20/20/60 is a strictly bad idea. But with a skill of  say 150%, you now get;

- 25% chance of failure

- 45% chance of regular success  (.75 x .60)

- 15% chance of special (.75 x .20)

- 15% chance of critical (same math)

This seems playable, and avoid the '95% chance of nothing happening' stalemate that can affect a pair of heavily-armored opponents with 100%-plus skills.

Of course, the other, and perhaps cleaner, way to do it is just roll another d20, alongside the hit location dice. 1 = critical, 2-4 = special. 

10 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

Mechanically, the biggest issue I see with this rule would be with impales and similar effects. By RAW any critical is also a special success and thus an impale, but with the alternate method criticals and specials are independent of each other (except for when you roll a 55)

I've always assumed that a critical was inherently a special, not that you apply both sets of rules independently due to the way the numbers work. But even if not so,  if you are changing the rules, there is no reason not to change that too. 

One option is to replace the combat maneuver rules, which generally involve halving your skill to get some special effect. Instead, you can choose to half your skill to get a double chance of criticals and specials. So criticals on x1 or x2, specials on x5 or x6. 

Having a skill over 100% just makes that more practical. 

The Humakti definition of 'undead'  is perhaps better translated as 'not dead'. Everyone is supposed to die; those who defy death must be dealt with.

Skeletons and zombies are actually dead, so they in theory don't count. However, the vast majority of such in the Dragon Pass area are raised by Delecti the necromancer or one of his minions. As he was around in the second age, he presumably is using some form of sorcerous immortality adjacent to vampirism. So they do detect as undead because it is his magic that power them.

Corpses animated by other means (by trolls, or perhaps Esrolians) do not detect as undead because they are expressing the death rune normally. However, such practices are one minor heroquest, or sorcerous innovation, away from summoning and binding a dead soul back. So Humakti are always suspicious of them. 

As they are of Chalana Arroy healers, who have the other half of the magic required to do that, as was shown when Queen Deezola participated in the rebirth of the Red Goddess. Perhaps the seven day limit on resurrection is more of a pragmatic compromise between the two cults than an unbreakable cosmic rule.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thieves'_World is a very RQ and somewhat Gloranthan fantasy anthology. Chaosium published a boxed set describing the novels setting, the city of Sancturay.

As I understand it, the Esrolian city of Refuge was, once upon a time, a stand-in for Sanctuary. However, that this is not currently true, presumably for the obvious reason that Chaosium do not want any part of official canon Glorantha to be based on a way out of print box set based on someone else's IP.

The red book of magic has _detect undead_ as a spirit magic spell. So presumably whether something is undead or not is an answerable question.

This is in contrast to chaos, where there, by current canon, no reliable objective procedure to determine whether something is chaotic or not.

I use:

• x1 on a success is a critical.
• x5 on a success is a special
• x0 on a failure is a fumble

This is simple, but does double the odds of a critical. I use it with other tweaks to the per-location 'instagib' rules that make a critical a fight-ending event, not necessarily a life-ending one.

i need to check out the math for adding an extra rule:

• x2 under (skill - 100) is a critical
• x6 under (skill - 100) is a special

and so on.

Humakt is neutral to chaos because, having severed all relations his kin, he can't feel anything but indifference towards his nephew Wakboth.

Doesn't mean he won't kill him in a fair fight. or if he's getting paid. But there is no hatred there.

5 hours ago, John Biles said:

Dara Happans basically lump Chaos in with the Orlanthi and other unruly folk

Old school Dara Happans are somewhat fuzzy on the distinction between Orlanth the son of Umath, and his brother Ragnaglar, father of Wakboth. Both of those are storm gods who broke the world, supported by violent rebels against civilisation. Any subtle distinction between the two is not really evident from the outside.

Enlightened lunar scholars would tend to respond with 'well actually' when someone  confuses the two, as they would if someone confuses say Antirius and Khelmal.  But then they go on to say that the partial redemption of Orlanth, when he went on the lightbringers quest, shows that the same is possible for Ragnaglar.

I would recommend the Last Kingdom and Winter King TV series, or the novels they are based on.  They really show how to tell a story around and largely about battles, without becoming a wargame. They have the Runequest feel of combat being a deadly thing where skill matters, but numbers matter more. The technology level is a bit higher than Glorantha , but it's still clearly pre-medieval.

A promise to not use any Odaylan rune magic?

Yes the other option is to ritually bless the journey at the village shrine/site. This just flags it up as 'interesting', and so ensures the eventful and potentially dangerous things happen on the way. This including speaking to people who suddenly find themselves playing up to archetypes[1], and stumbling across farms or even villages that are not on any map.

On the other hand, you definitely wont run into anything mythically anachronistic, like a lunar patrol.

At their destination, the spell pathwatch is learnt, as the pc now knows the secret of what signs of trouble to look for. As there is an actual element of risk and a fully-played out adventure, that spell is technically a heroquest reward rather than simply learnt, and so the usual restrictions on what can be learnt where do not apply

[1] You are my brother's wife's cousin; we drank together at Helda's wedding barely two seasons ago. Are you really saying you won't let me pass the gate without paying this ridiculous toll?

Having presumably gone through the general adulthood initiation rites, the PC will now know the secret of getting to Orlanth's hall, or Ernalda's Palace, on the hero plane. on the holy days of Issaries, he visits that location, and so can be met.

Initiation requires learning a spell, in order to provide a route for the exchange of mortal and divine energies. The default spell learnt at issaries shrines is _lock_, so that is likely the first myth acted through.

Something like:

In that time, King Vingkot's Second Son had not come into his wisdom, and was eating more than even a king's wealth could support. He ate a horse as a starter, and followed that up with 5 more courses, each larger than the last. When the hunger came on him, no argument could sway him.

Vingkot asked his first son, who said while violence was an option, noone could stop him without kinstrife.

Vingkot asked his wife, who said there is always another way, but turned back to her weaving without explaining what it was..

he went to see the Knowing God, who only talked nonsense about prophecies

Finally Vingkot came to Issaries for practical advice. He taught him the secret of the first lock, which kept the second son out of the food store. Not being able to sate his hunger caused ther second son to come into his wisdom, and he departed to fulfill Lhankhor Mhy's prophecy.

The pc takes the role of vingkot.

[1] By the third generation, Orlanth's line was actually starting to get the idea of forseeable consequences.

37 minutes ago, Hellhound Havoc said:

Say I'm a Carl, I hold 2 hides of land, I have 3 beautiful sons.

If every father has 3 sons (who live to adulthood and pass the initiation rites), the clan is tripling in size per generation, which is obviously unsustainable.

Relevant myth (from Prince of Sartar):

Quote

 

Hengall was the second son of King Vingkot, Orlanth’s regal son. His mother was the Summer Wife, but he was born at night when the Dragon’s Head was blotted out by the Sky Gorp. When he was born, the Third Mother give him a star for a heart.

Hengall was poisoned with a drink which caused him to grow huge. After one day of growth he was larger than a long house. Despair filled him. He knew he could not find sustenance without starving his brethren, and so he departed to fight against Predark, alone.

 

In a stable clan,  it would be relatively rare for two sons of a carl to both be allocated land. The happy ending to that situation is one of them qualifies as a thane or priest.

noble status: a ruling cult[1] feels an obligation to support you at an elevated living standard. This usually comes from exceptional performance in adulthood initiation and other personal-level heroquests. All rune lords are of noble status; the cults that don't support rune lords are those that don't provide a route to nobility.

noble occupation: you spend a significant part of your day to day life dealing with the concerns of those who labor to  support that elevated lifestyle.

If you have noble status, then not only is someone is doing the work implied by that status, but someone else is managing and organizing those workers. if you are a noble, this could be you; it could also be your sibling, spouse, or priest. I don't think the Orlanthi have the kind of hierarchical society where that work could be delegated to a steward, let alone the kind of letting agency a modern landlord might use.

This logic of self-defending rural farming communities applies as well to the atomic age as it does to the bronze age

[1] one risk with some interpretations of the RQ:G rules is assuming they imply a rigid separation of cult and state. Whereas it is more true that the structure of ruling cults (including Orlanth) is the structure of society, into which other cults fit.

Yelmalian, Ernaldan, Pavisiite.