Baron Wulfraed

I've had some problems correlating those annual incomes for some time now. Page 405, for example has "A typical noble or priest is assigned five hides of land by their temple for their upkeep, which produces an annual surplus of about 400 L to support the adventurer and their household." (Emphasis mine). Surplus, to me, implies what is left after the costs of farming have been taken out of the actual "income". In other words, a pre-tax profit (taxes being the cost-of-living and tithes). Of course, that 400L for the noble doesn't include that the tenant farmers receive half of that. So the noble really has a (5-hide) income of 200L If this noble keeps one warrior as a bodyguard, he is responsible for paying the warrior's cost of living (page 423) -- so 60L knocked out the 200L (while the warrior is still receiving 60L base income from somewhere?). The only way I can correlate these is to assume that "base income" is the amount that one is able to /save/ throughout the year from a continuous income/outgo stream. Consider (page 413) a warrior hiring out as a short term guard (say for a caravan with two weeks on the road)... 1L per day -- 14L per job. Say the caravan runs once per season -- five seasons @ 14L => 70L a year for working a mere 20 weeks of the year. However, being on the road likely means buying food/drink at tavern prices (unless the caravan owner is providing meals). 6C for typical mid-day meal, say 10 cups of ale (those cups are small!) for 2C, say a loaf of bread to eat during the day (not really a cost factor) but add a cheese (two cheeses per week, maybe) brings us to about 0.5C/day. If the caravan stops each night at some inn, we have 1C to sleep on the common room floor. That comes to about 9.5C per day, coming out of that 1L per day pay. The warrior nets 7C per trip, or 3.5L per year. If this is sort of a full time job -- four trips per season, or 14L in savings for the year. Again, using the 100 animal flock of sheep, and assuming 60 are slaughtered/sold each year. Page 410 gives 3L per sheep. That's 180L per year per flock, yet a herder has a base income of only 60L for the year. Where did the other 120L go? Surely the herder didn't lose 40 sheep to predators -- possibly a few could be lost but not that many. Even if one assumes lambs only bring in 1.5L (though as a more desirable cut of meat over elderly mutton, that may not be an applicable assumption), that still comes to 90L in sales, where did the missing 30L go? Some may have gone to pay healers to check/treat the flock, I suppose some may have gone to pay shearing and processing costs of fleeces (though that brings up the lack of a listed price /for/ selling the fleece). Note that if the herder does not slaughter some 60 animals in late fall, come spring lambing season the flock will suddenly swell to around 160 animals, or more than a herder is assumed capable of managing. Estimating from https://www.dimensions.com/element/sheep the usable (which accounts for trimming to rectangular sheets) for an adult sheep is likely around 36 inches (90cm?), and 18" (per side) -- call it one square of 36x36". A quarto fold would give four sheets of 18x18", octavo fold would give eight sheets of 9x18 (not quite US Tabloid -- 11x17); 22.5x45cm? If looking at it as a scroll, I suppose one could slice from side-to-side to produce three strips of 12x36" (30x90cm?) Concede I'd missed the parchment listing on page 412 -- but I have to state the two entries don't make sense. ALL parchment is "Made from the carefully treated hide of various meat animals." so how does one explain a 3C "sheet" vs a 1C "hide sheet"? Is the 3C parchment really "vellum" produced from young animals and having a higher overall quality from general parchment made from adult animals. But then -- an adult animal is typically larger, and should produce more parchment per skin. Producing parchment is rather labor intensive -- soaking the hide in a solution for a few days to dehair it https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parchment#Skinning,_soaking,_and_dehairing then stretching, scraping, drying... possibly with multiple cycles. Granted, the parchment maker might be able to work on more than one stretched frame during a day -- having one soaking while the other is being scraped.

Some number crunching, based upon a series of assumptions. Assume sheepskin parchment supports an octavo fold (8 sheets, 16 pages, after trimming). Assume lambskin vellum (parchment made with skin from young animals -- likely starts thinner and has fewer defects like healed scars needing extra attention) supports quarto fold (4 sheets, 8 pages) to get equivalent page size. The rest of this computation will assume use of vellum -- rationale will be provided later. Assume three lambskins are stacked, quarto folded and stitched, making a signature of 12 sheets/24 pages. Assume the book in question uses 6 signatures (144 pages, 18 lambskins). This somewhat arbitrary size is based upon my bible using 140 pages just for Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John -- taking the four gospels as something that might be important enough to be duplicated. Assume, per PBS/NOVA episode, that parchment does not support rapid writing, and that a scribe is doing well to do one page per day (so, no taking dictation). Assume cost of lambskin is nil. RQG (page 410) gives 3L for a sheep (no separate listing for lambs, but as I will show, irrelevant). Buy animal for 3L, have it butchered ("skilled crafter", page 413) for <5C, sell meat to local tavern with maybe a markup to cover cost of butcher, keep possession of skin. Assume parchment maker is a "skilled crafter" at the upper end of the pay scale -- 10C => 1L per day. Assume processing a lambskin takes 8 days, 16 days for larger sheepskin (arbitrary, but simplifies computation to 1L per page). Per RQG (page 413): Cost of a scribe "Write Letter" is 2L per page. Scribe @ 144 pages * 2L => 288L (and 144 DAYS). Parchment maker @ 144 pages * 1L => 144L (and 144 days of processing). Cost of this parchment/vellum book (not including cost of book binding: covers, etc, and no illumination/illustrations) => 432L (21W & 12L) and takes half a year to produce by one scribe and one parchment maker. Rationale for using lambskin/vellum: RQG (page 405) suggests that a flock (herd) of sheep consists of 100 animals. Assume 40 ewes (and enough rams to keep them happy come the fall). Assume each ewe average 1.5 lambs each spring. 40 * 1.5 => 60 lambs. 60 lambs + 40 ewes => 100 animals (plus a few rams) Assume after the fall season, most of the rams are slaughtered, along with any non-productive (elderly) ewes. Enough lambs are kept back to replace these slaughtered animals. The rest of the lambs are slaughtered (is there any "preserve meat" spell?). This means that only the core 40 animals are overwintered. One flock of sheep, composed as above, easily supplies lambskins for three books. Interestingly, I couldn't costs for fleeces; after all, those sheep should be getting sheared at least once a year, and especially just before slaughtering.

PBS Nova recently (well, September) ran a two-part series on writing https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/series/a-to-z/ As demos, they had a calligrapher using period tools work on papyrus and parchment. One result was that papyrus was easy to write upon quickly, the woven reed texture provided inherent rulings for keeping neat lines. In contrast, parchment was very difficult to write upon. Where a scribe using papyrus and reed pen could do many pages in a day, the scribe with parchment and quill would be lucky to duplicate a page per day. A book of, say, 50 sheets of parchment, was easily a third to half a year of labor by one scribe. And that doesn't count the production of the parchment itself (stretching the animal skin in a frame, soaking in hot water, and scraping the surface to remove undesirable hair, fat, etc.)

Maybe a bit more expensive (especially if you buy the various plug-ins for dungeon and village layouts) ProFantasy's Campaign Cartographer 3 https://www.profantasy.com/products/cc3.asp

Were you carrying the components of soap-making at the time? I'd think merely getting wet would not qualify (what, are you going to cower in a tent during a cloudy day with a chance of rain; refuse to ford a stream on horseback because you might get splashed). And then there is the practice of using scented oils rubbed over the body and subsequently scraped off to carry away dirt -- which is a form of "bathing".

What? Having a party try to live through the local version of Vesuvius/Pompeii?

<snort> I'm afraid I'd have taken it in a completely different direction. The loss of the "smoke" means the fumaroles have closed, which will result in an increase in the below-ground pressures -- eventually leading to an eruption...

Yeesh... expose them to RQ2! Where initiate rune spells were one-use and required sacrificing characteristic POW to regain.

That would be quite evil if all three panels were cut using the same die-pattern.

As plants, shouldn't that be Sappy Aldryami? 😁

That's an over-the-ear stereo headphone (those youngsters with their foam ear buds, these days...) Addendum: it probably indicates there is per-seat entertainment options for passengers.

Page 366 (emphasis mine): Once a corporeal being is engaged in spirit combat, they may not attempt any skill or engage in physical melee combat with a separate physical melee target without first succeeding at an intelligence check (normally INT×5, but the gamemaster may adjust that up or down, as desired). They may choose to attack the spirit attacking them using enchanted weapons (see below) without succeeding at a concentration check. Page 368 may be applicable, but not definitive: If an entity is attacked by more than one spirit, they must roll their Spirit Combat skill separately against each attacking spirit.

Whereas I now visualize a laboratory with preserved eels in a bell jar.

Heh... If we were in Haiti, I'd say the spell is used to create (original/classical) zombies.

Beyond those in the "Conversion Guide"? {Quoted below - page 437} """ Sorcery Sorcery has some aspects in common with the system from RQ3 but has otherwise been replaced completely. A few spells have identical names, but otherwise it is best to consider them completely different systems. The gamemaster should work carefully with the player coming up with a means of converting a sorcery-using adventurer from prior editions, with the following guidelines: For fledgling or beginning sorcerers, simply use the guidelines for sorcery-using adventurers presented in Mastering New Runes or Techniques (page 384). For more advanced sorcerers, the gamemaster should estimate how many skill points to allocate, based on existing total skill ranks in the sorcery skills of Intensity, Duration, Range, and Multispell. It is recommended that each 20% increment (round down) equals mastery of one technique or Rune. For starting spells, the player should pick a total number sorcery spells equal to the total of techniques and Runes mastered. Additional spells can be selected at a cost of 1 point of POW. """

Greatsword worked well in (A)D&D traditional dungeons (at least, when I played in the 80s, the dungeons we encountered had 10ft wide by 10ft high corridors). Since the greatsword usage is mostly held in front of the body, hands about waist high, the tip would clear the ceiling, and (high) parries just required leaning it to correct side (low parries might be either dropping to one's knee or rotating to a point down pose). Two adventurers in the front row basically covered the width of the corridor without endangering each other or the party behind them (and there is a fairly good gap between them for bowmen in back). In contrast, shorter one-handed swords and axe-men often entailed swings that would risk injuring someone on the same line across. A party trained in shield-wall tactics using just thrusts between shields, or vertical chops over the top of the shields might be effective -- but what (A)D&D party ever had 3-4 fighters with such training (four fighters with ~2ft wide shields would be needed to get a good corridor coverage). {One might be able to stick a cleric into the line, but with the artificial restriction to "blunt weapons" [which was in (A)D&D at the time I played] they'd be limited to overhand chopping.} Since Glorantha does not appear to be littered with such uniform underground constructions, the greatsword is likely not as useful. Caves and mines might succumb better to a flexible shield-wall and shortsword approach -- where the number of people in the front line can be adjusted to fit the varying widths of the passages (and since everyone -- well, maybe not that Chalana Arroy field medic in the back -- can essay pretty much any type of weapon, there shouldn't be a shortage of candidates to fill the front line).

Some of those oriental bows are also "unbalanced" in that that hand grip is not equi-distant from the tips. Makes for even more confusing design considerations. 🙄

Arm length probably doesn't matter that much... A longbow, when drawn, flexes less than the shorter composite bows. The limit is "can you draw the bow far enough to anchor the arrow (to the cheek, or whatever point the archer is most comfortable using)" and is that draw maximizing the pull but not risking breakage (since the longbow stacks the further it is drawn). The unstrung longbow is basically a straight shaft. Not so for composite recurve bows -- many of which are so nasty one doesn't "unstring" them if possible; A bow that looks like } when strung might look like C when unstrung, the open tips of the C have to be pulled past the vertical. Recurve/composite bows partly use the recurve to accelerate the string in release (while the longbow max acceleration is at full draw) I'll agree that bows should not roll damage bonus. The damage is inherent in the bow itself, if the bow is too strong, the user just can't draw it. So a series of bows with differing pull weights => differing damage is a feasible modification, with the usable pull weights dependent upon STR. Maybe four ranges? STR 9, 12, 15, 18 yielding damage of 1D6, 1D6+1, +2, +3 (and similar for elf bow, composite use STR 13, 16, 19, 21). Also take into account that the spine of the arrows will have to match the pull weight of the bow. A soft spine may work well with a lighter pull, but fly badly with a really heavy bow. I have witnessed such: back in the late 70s I took the college Archery "recreation" course. We used provided target arrows, and some used provided bows (I recall one girl kept picking the wimpiest bow in the stack -- so wimpy that she was practically anchoring the string behind her ear -- and watching her she was /throwing/ the arrow at the target). About half (including me) used hunting grade bows in the 45-70lb pull range. I ended up with an arrow that, when released, visibly curved two or three targets to the left of my position (this is angular measure, not linear) before curving back toward my target. My measly 45lb setting was strong enough that the nock was moving before the point moved, the arrow turned into ), covered half the range to target before flexing into ( ...

I'd think it depends upon what the "tech" consists of... Consider what would happen if a pair of modern FRS handheld radios appeared in a WW-2 electronics laboratory. Sure, they'd likely figure out that these are moderate short-range fully portable radios (and since they operate on AA batteries there isn't any problem of a power-supply). They might be surprised at the frequency of operation (I'm assuming they may have a frequency counter that can reach the 500MHz range) -- remember, at this point in time AM broadcast is low HF band (540kHz to 1.6kHz), TV low-band is around 70MHz, modern FM is 88-108MHz, but the first allocation was only around 42-50MHz. Usable radios in the 460MHz range were unheard of (even RADAR was only up to the VHF band, not UHF). Problem -- now that they know such is feasible... Reverse engineering is going to be mostly impossible. We are still half a decade away from simple semi-conductor transistors... Even if they can somehow open the IC packages and study the circuitry under microscopes they won't be able to reproduce it. Making precision coils/inductors and capacitors (maybe even resistors) of a size compatible with the frequency will be nearly impossible -- the common HF gear can be "adjusted" by physically stretching or compressing coils that are 6-10 inches in length with maybe a 1/4 inch gap between turns. A coil smaller than a pencil eraser is something else entirely.

As long as you don't create those garbage can lids from the movie "Ivanhoe" (or am I confusing things with "The Black Shield of Falworth"?). Those were so thin that a few blows left them wrapped around the user's arm!

Humor someone apparently having trouble reading maps... The "adventure book" (page 58) gives Apple Lane as yet the map in RQ:RiG (page 105) shows it clearly closest to Runegate, with a mountain range between it and Jonstown. (And the AAA doesn't show Apple Lane at all)... But I've been unable to locate "Sword Vale" in these references. Hence my request for more detailed directions

That leads to some absurdities... Character takes enough damage to limbs to reduce total hit points down to 1-3, say. Limbs are subsequently healed to full status. You now have a character with NO DAMAGED LOCATIONS, but with only 1-3 total hit points? Where one good blow to a limb (say 4hp limb, takes 3pt damage -> total HP goes to 0 or less) results in death? If true it leaves Heal with just two uses (in my mind): Heal 2pt to cauterize wounds to stop blood loss, and Heal 6pt to reattach a severed limb -- and then send the character home to spend a few weeks waiting for total HP to catch up. I'd probably interpret the location specific part to limit how much healing is done -- no sense casting Heal 6 on a limb with 2pts of damage as the other 4pts of heal don't migrate to other damaged locations or total HP. Whereas Heal Wound allows the excess to migrate to total HP.

I would interpret the first clause to mean that one can perform multiple parries with the same weapon -- rather than being limited to one parry per weapon (unless applying the equivalent of split attacks for split parries if skill >100%). The second clause is independent of that, and applies to any parries performed.

No mention in Sourcebook, Guide, RQ:RiG, Bestiary

I tend to think in US coinage as the RQ exchange rate of: 1 W (gold) => 20 L (silver); 1 L => 10 C (copper) maps nicely to: 1 Double Eagle ($20 gold) => 20 Dollars ($1 silver); $1 => 10 Dimes (granted, old dimes were silver -- modern ones are 3/4 copper, 1/4 nickel).