Scorus

I'm very interested in your experiences running Broken Tower, particularly if your players ended up bargaining with the Stone Woman (successfully or not). I'm running a version of it soon and am intrigued by the notion of the players allying it, I could see that potentially happening. Did your players try this, what did they offer and what was the result? Curious how many cows/season would result in a truce or even alliance.

Okay, so maybe a dozen?

How common would blacksmiths (as opposed to redsmiths) be in Sartarite cities and clans? What would they be? Dwarves? Third Eye Blue? Humakti? Other?

I love having a fillable character sheet in this Zoom era! I would like to be able to customize it to add things that are important to my game in lieu of things that I'm not using (more passions, less sorcery). Is it available in a raw form that I can edit with Adobe Pro or Publisher or something?

It depends on your gamers, of course. But economics has already been introduced in RQG on a micro scale with occupations, cost of living, hides, harvest rolls, etc. If they want to play within the kind of social structure that RQG introduces and encourages, then economics is going to come with it. My players are trying to develop Apple Lane, encourage another clan to defect to their tribe, fund a new shrine, navigate between competing interests of their tribe and clan, and figure out how to get to an important artifact buried in a cave-in. All of these have economic implications and require me to give them answers to questions about how things are done in Sartar. If your adventurers are more of the wandering adventurer type, then certainly they couldn't care less about these things.

Yeah, I think there are great opportunities for someone to write about the economics of Dragon Pass and Glorantha. The original writings were focused on spiritual and military, RQG has amplified the deep social aspects of the world, the time is ripe to flesh out the economics.

This is the kind of guidance that I was looking for when I started this thread, a somewhat objective limitation on the spell.

I'm only seeing a handful of non-Dwarf mines and no quarries. Nothing in Dragon Pass, for instance.

Is mining and quarrying the exclusive province of the dwarves? I've looked through my pdfs and can find almost no mentions of it, though obviously the many metals, gems, and stone needed for all sorts of things must come from somewhere. But I don't remember seeing mines or quarries on maps, or reading that mining or quarrying was part of a clan or tribe's economy. Is it a sacred process that only dwarves are allowed to do (i.e. Mostal is to mining what Dormal is to seafaring)? I would assume at the least that elves mine copper and trolls mine lead, since they aren't getting that from dwarves! But how about humans?

In the absence of guidance on this important area, several authors in the Jonstown Compendium have put ideas and even mechanics forward. Someone mentioned Secrets of HeroQuesting. 6 Seasons in Sartar had some interesting insights and examples, though I don't believe mechanics. In a Merry Green Vale, which is generally much more about backstory than mechanics, does lead you through a long and complex heroquest with mechanics.

No, I didn't see that as having a negative effect on farmers or farmland in my clan (Hiording). I could see some reasons why it could: The clan is adjacent to Boldhome. The clan had more than a few losses in the Dragonrise, disrupting the harvest. The clan is north of Dangerford where Lunar troops would be living off the land, as it were. The clan had a large lunar troop contingent that wasn't killed in the Dragonrise and that cleared out their storehouses before fleeing north. You want it to. And I ignored the premise in the book that the omens for 1625 were negative because of the Dragonrise. Negative and positive are relative and I think Sartarites were in general pleased with the events of 1625.

This isn't the 1623 migration, is it?

The biggest issue that 1 adventure (not session) per season has caused for me is that time passes very fast. If you start a campaign in 1625 and you want your players to be involved in the high level stuff going on as far as the Lunars, Kallyr, Argrath, etc. then you don't end up with time to develop much in the way of other storylines. I've gotten around that by having the whole Lunar to Argrath transition occur over a much longer period, but having more adventures per season might also be in our future.

After a cave-in, my players want to get back into a cavern. They have no mining experience or knowledge and their first thought was using an Earth Elemental, since one of their number had recently been buried by one. If they only need to get in and out, could a medium or large elemental basically escort one of them forward, temporarily carving out space for them as they go? Probably would need to bring a small air elemental with them to breathe? If they want to actually build a narrow passageway, it seems like a large elemental could open up a 1m wide x 2m tall x 5m long tunnel which they could then shore up while it holds it open (presumably using an Extension spell). Then move on to the next 5m, etc. Anything I'm missing here? Would the Command Cult Spirit need to be extended along with the Summon Elemental?

No need for apologies! I just realized that I needed to get an IMO in there! This is the point I was trying to make. People whose personalities had significant changes might be seen as needing a cure of some sort, but those born with it are just how they are supposed to be. Though individuals might see it differently. A good Uleria priestess can cure what ails ya!

Where are the Major and Great Temples to Orlanth in Sartar? The RQG book lists the Clearwine temple as a Major one. Would all the tribal capitals have Major Temples? Would all the cities have Great Temples? What size would the temples at the holy sites be (Kero Fin, Old Wind, Hill of Orlanth Victorious, etc.)?

One of my players has asked the clan shaman if she can contact his Uncle, who is missing and he is afraid is dead. Summon Ancestor only works on the caster's ancestors, so that isn't helpful. The character and his two siblings are the closest living relatives that they know of and they haven't seen the Uncle in over 10 years. How difficult would this be? What would the shaman need from the character? What would they charge the character?

Good point, and these are all just my opinions! More conservative people, which I think many Orlanthi would be, would believe that unusual=wrong. Most Orlanthi non-shaman parents would wonder what curse was on them that THEIR kid was born to be a *gasp* shaman! Similar to a family with a rich warrior tradition that ends up with a Chalana Arroy or Nandan son. One of my players is a son of a noble Orlanth-worshipping family who ended up with the Water instead of the Air rune dominating him. He is not an outcast by any means, but there is no question that the rest of the family feels that there is something very wrong with him (and, in fact, there is a magical reason for that which he is unaware of). And I'm still trying to figure out how his mother will react when they discover that his loyal Orlanth brother actually wants to be a Vingan! But only the most extreme cases would result in an Eurmal or charges of a chaos taint. In general, people who were born with something like schizophrenia would not be viewed as sick, only different. They would not be blamed though their parents or clan leaders might, depending on what the difference ends up being blamed on/caused by. I would expect divinations to be cast to discover what ancestral wrongs need to be righted. And if I had someone like that in my campaign I would not seek to cure them so much as figure out where they fit into the extremely diverse, and honestly wacky, world that is Glorantha.

A concept such as mental illness would only be applied if there was a change in someone. If someone has a significant, long-term change in their personality then it would be attributed to magical causes such as being cursed, infected by chaos, relife sickness (post-resurrection syndrome), possessed by a spirit, etc. Shamans and divinations to the character's deity would probably be part of the diagnosis process. For someone that was born with or developed something like schizophrenia from a young age, it would be considered how they were supposed to be. It could be attributed to a curse on their parents, being born under the wrong star, etc. and would mechanically be represented through their runes and passions. Probably a high Disorder rune, most obviously, and some screwed up passions. The more severe cases would be assumed to either be Eurmal or a taint of chaos, bringing shame on their family.

In my game they are theoretically administratively separate, but in reality they are heavily dependent upon each other politically. You can see that in the Colymar/Earth Temple relationship in the GA. The Orleving conquered the Greenstone Temple area from the Varmandi in days of yore and you can bet they made sure that their own people were the next generation of leadership.

To kill it, mainly. Reduce it to 0 magic points and it is unconscious. Big animal, huge fangs, big claws, tough skin. Choice of trying to take it down with a group of warriors and take your losses or sending a mediocre spirit to take care of it pretty easily. Giant birds, cliff toads, dinosaurs, mounts, sakkars, shadowcats, tuskers, enemy clans' cattle, giant spiders, giant beetles, sky bulls, sea creatures, some chaos creatures. All of them can very easily be taken down by a discorporate player or summoned ancestor, with hardly any risk.

The spirit combat rules (like the combat rules) seem geared toward combat between intelligent creatures and not animals. If they only have a base spirit combat % and, with an average POW and no CHA, a D3 spirit combat damage, even the largest and fiercest animal or elemental is an easy kill to a decent spirit or discorporated player. Is anybody doing anything with these creatures to give them a fighting chance in such scenarios?

I played a game at a Con back in the 80s or early 90s that used this as its model. It was either an RQCon or a DragonCon. Did you run that, by chance?

Thanks for these answers and opinions! It sounds like the majority believe that Eurmali should be given enough rope to hang themselves and then quite literally have that happen when they go too far. But allowing a wet-behind-the-ears initiate with a low POW use a 2 point rune spell to initiate mass suicide by telling a whole clan meeting that "You desperately desire to stab yourself in the heart over and over right now" just doesn't cut it for me. It is the difference between making them believe something, which is what I think the spell was intended to do, and making them do something. If every Eurmal is a Kilgrave, then that becomes the story line.

Are brand new Crested Dragonewts still being created/laid/whatever?