ZedAlpha

As far as I’m concerned, Ladygolem, that’s Caladraland’s ass! Also, in regards to EVERYONE being hot and naked? Damn right we better get some beefcake with the cheesecake.

And what does this say for us barbarians?

the funny thing was that when this whole plot started, that player was the one most against doing this because he's a self-professed Gloranthan grognard. By the time we came to this bit, he was just champing at the bit, full-on-frothing-at-the-mouth-hungry to kill Harrek.

Thank you! I suggested everyone getting the same increases as the Cymrics, and none of the players like that solution. Tell the truth, I don't either.

Is there anywhere that has a list of all the cultural stat increases? My group might be playing Pendragon after we finish the short HeroQuest campaign (that is in and of itself a break from our ongoing Mage: The Ascension campaign) that we're currently in. Looking at the Book of Sires, players can make knights of a bunch of different cultures, but I only see stat increases for Cymric knights listed in the core rulebook.

(Note: Bold text refers to a Trait, Ability, or Rune that a character in question has). DRAMATIS PERSONAE Androgenus, a genderfluid Esrolian Eurmali trickster with the Illuminated Illusion, Earth, and Luck runes. They're out for blood vengeance against anyone who's ever victimized their family, their clan, and their homeland. in that order. Recently illuminated as part of a Heroquest that gave them temporary use of the Infinity Rune. Now missing the Rune, and grappling with the fact that his role as a Trickster may be just as meaningless as the society he rebelled against. Iris, an Esrolian Earth Priestess in service to the Goddess of Moss (I don't know who that would be in actuality, but when her player heard "land of ten thousand goddesses," she immediately came up with a gaggle of minor Earth goddesses that barely anyone might care about). She's got the Earth, Movement, and Spirit runes. Iris wants power at all costs, and now finds herself with an opportunity for it. Waddlestomp the Bloodybeaked, a Hueymakti Duck thane with the Water, Death, and Truth runes. He has sworn a dread oath that he will personally slay one human for every Duck that is or has ever been killed or otherwise victimized by human hands. Played by the oldest in our group, and the most experienced with Glorantha. He wields an enchanted shield originally crafted by the Square Circle Temple, and is making grim plans. and finally K'dud (pronounced Ka-Dude, after the persona of a Knight in our local chapter of the SCA). K'dud is a Caladralander priest of Vestkarthan, God of Volcanoes, and also an initiate into the cults of Gustbran and Kalvan as well. He holds the Fire, Law, and Mastery runes. He is a master of the Bronze Arms and Sharp Soul schools of unarmed combat, and seeks to help his people navigate the uncertain future after Belintar's death. To this end, he's attached himself to Iris and her gang of misfits, but more on that later. So last week, the heroes had killed Harrek the Berserk, one of the prophecied capitol-H Heroes of the Hero Wars. This week, the players wanted to rest on their laurels for a moment, lick their wounds, and let the player of the late Zonthor ease his new character into the game. I had other plans. We began the game at a celebratory feast in honor of our heroes, having slain (and barely survived the slaying of) Harrek the Berserk. The heroes were seated at a high table in the royal palace of Nochet, being toasted again and again and again by grateful nobles. Iris was wary of poison--she was the first to recognize that their deeds had painted a target on the party's back a mile wide. Androgenus didn't care; they were gulping down horn after horn of rich God Forgot-brewed beer and singing along (badly) with the songs of praise being expounded forth by a young poet who had captured (and dramatized) the events of last session. So far, he was playing up Iris's contribution to the battle as a fearless leader who had come up with the entire plan and was solely responsible for Harrek's downfall. Androgenus thought that his small part in the song (tricking Harrek into casting off his bear-skin cloak) was hilarious, and Waddlestomp wasn't amused at all, especially when the song mentioned him as a 'feathered friend.' Zonthor's ex-player (an enthusiast in Mediterannean archaeology) and Waddlestomp's took great pleasure taking turns to describe how bright and colorful the hall would have been, and the low tables piled high with rare delicacies brought from across the Six Nations. Well, five nations. I mentioned that since the betrayal of the City of Wonders and the fracturing of the Holy Country, Heortland was largely on its own. The Lunars (though beaten back earlier in the year) still prowled the northern frontiers, towards Sartar. Esrolia, the Shadow Plateau, God Forgot, and Caladraland still stood more-or-less together....but the Orlanthi ruled by the vile Broyan the Betrayer, the Last Vingkotling? They'd have to face the oncoming storm by themselves. In fact, rumor around the table was that the Shadow Plateau and God Forgot (I made sure to underline how much of a surprise the latter would be) were apparently preparing to attack Heortland to avenge the fallen God-King. Belintar's death--although caused by the Lunars--was being blamed on Broyan. Perhaps, the rumors said, Broyan had been in league with the Lunars all along. Perhaps he had wanted sole kingship of the Holy Country. In ages past, Vingkotling ambition had led to strife and turmoil again and again. It was to be expected....so perhaps it'd be safer all around if the other former Sixths dealt with the threat first. Iris was dragged into this intrigue when Samastina (Queen of Nochet, recognized as the leading Queen of Esrolia) leaned over the table, looked to her left, and asked Iris her opinion on the "Heortling question." Iris badly fumbled her Noble trait roll, and was completely tongue-tied, offering little more than confused noises and halfhearted platitudes about how unity in times of crisis would probably have been what Belintar would have wanted. "Yes," said Samastina coolly, as the local High Priestess of Maran Gor looked at Iris strangely, "But Belintar, blessed be he, is dead. Should we unite with those who spat on his memory, or against them?" The feast hushed, as if the entire hall was craning in to listen to Iris the Bearslayer's response. Androgenus loudly belched, trying to break the tension with their Trickster Trait, and scored a bare success. Despite herself, Samastina smirked, and things seemed less instant-death for Iris. Our Earth Priestess composed herself, and said, "I would counsel that we consolidate our forces. The Wolf Pirates are scattering, as moss mites do when you smash their nest. However, like moss mites, they will burrow deep and make more nests if we don't track them down and burn them out now. Broyan, if I may be so bold, can wait. The Wolf Pirates should not." Samastina smiled. Iris's player cursed loudly. "Exactly my thoughts as well. My young friend--" Iris's player groaned and cursed again"--is exactly correct. It is at this time precisely that we should strike together against the remnants of the Pirates. Gunda the Guilty is still out there, and may rally the survivors to attack us once more." There was a murmur of agreement. "To this end, and working with my esteemed friend King G'gardas of Caladraland, we shall send Queen Iris of the Three Step Isles to reclaim territory once stolen from us!" Iris choked on her wine. Androgenus fell over, clutching their side and laughing uproariously. Waddlestomp facebilled. A great cheer went up in the hall, and Iris managed to barely restrain herself from glaring daggers at Queen Samastina. After all, apparently she was a Queen herself, now! ....of a trio of remote, pirate-controlled, sheep-infested islands. ....very far away from the Esrolian power centers. Immediately, Iris's player figured it out: they had just made themselves the biggest threat to the Esrolian Queens' power. Howling barbarian demigods? Well, yes, those are horrible dangers to the Queendom and her people. But previously unknown adventurers who can kill those threats like it's nothing? An unknown quantity, particularly when one of them is such an obviously power-hungry Earth Priestess as Iris. The rest of the dinner was a drunken blur, discussing grand strategy and lofty goals: a phalanx of Esrolian pikemen backed up by caladralander naval support, led by Iris and her retinue, retaking the Three Steps in a swift invasion. Plundering the pirates' hidden treasure troves. Building a grand temple to the Moss Godess. Constructing a grand fortress in the middle of sea, from which the Holy Country (with Esrolia at the helm, naturally!) shall project its strength across many lands, for the greater glory of Kethaela! More raucous applause. Androgenus attempted to leap atop the table to improvise a praiseworthy poem, only to be stopped by Waddlestomp grabbing the wounded Trickster and yanking them back down onto their cushion. The feasting nobles laughed uproariously again, and we fast-forwarded past the feast, to later that night. Midnight in Nochet: celebrations for the death ofIris was abed already, having drunk herself into a stupor to deal with being outplayed by the Grandmothers. Waddlestomp was, as ever, sharpening his weapons and meditating on how much he hated humans. Androgenus, meanwhile, was being seduced by a comely servant from God Forgot. Androgenus had gotten even more drunk after the feast, and was busy trying to sleep their way through the entire serving staff. This one servant--a cupbearer that had taken his eye at the feast--was trying to lead them to a quiet stable in the outer bounds of the Royal Palace. Androgenus failed an opposed roll with his Paranoid flaw, and was led, stumbling and muttering, into a suspiciously empty stable. Well, it'd probably have been suspicious if Androgenus wasn't so stinking drunk, anyway. The Trickster wasn't laid down onto a soft pallet of straw, but rather a hard wooden table. They were tied down--which wasn't that much of a dealbreaker for them--but rather than inestimable pleasure, they felt the cold prick of a bronze knife poking them in the forehead! They could vaguely hear a cold, high-pitched voice (with a pronounced God Forgot accent) say: "The Rune may be vanished, but echoes of such a great power still remain, even in such unworthy flesh as this. Haruspex, are you prepared?" "Yes, lord," said the cupbearer, raising the knife. The Trickster sighed, the gravity of their situation sinking in past all the wine. They'd sort of figured it might end this way. It was now that we introduced K'dud. He burst into the stable (literally, using his Fire Rune's breakout ability Bronze Arms Style to punch through a stone wall Kool-Aid Man-style!), easily dispatched a burly Heortling mercenary set as a guard on this dark work, and set about attacking Androgenus's kidnappers. As it turned out, Androgenus had been taken by a Zzaburi sorceror--one taken with studying all sorts of forbidden God Learner-era lore--and his retinue. They sought to extract whatever remnants of the Infinity Rune still might be in Androgenus's carcass and use it for their own foul ends. K'dud wasn't having any of that. Using his Sharp Soul Style, he easily beheaded the Haruspex with his bare hands, dodged a retaliatory bolt of magical energy from the sorceror, lurking in the rear of the stable, and proceeded to kick the babbling, pleading Zzaburi through another wall. After untying Androgenus and using some Fire magic to help them sober up a bit, K'dud made his introductions: he was the youngest son of the King of Caladraland, dedicated to Vestkarthan and the Lowfires, master of several ways of unarmed combat, and he was here to protect Androgenus. Well....he was here to protect Iris, actually, but as Iris's sworn Trickster, K'dud's protection extended to them, too. Androgenus fell over himself (literally) thanking the burly, be-loincloth'd warrior, and scurried home to his quarters in the Palace. This wasn't the last of would-be assassins, either. As the in-game weeks went on in preparation for the conquest of the Three Step Isles, K'dud helped the party overcome a party of assassins sent by a rival priestess of another minor Earth Goddess, seeking to usurp Iris's position in the Three Step Isles (which baffled Iris to no end), a group of surly beastfolk who accused Waddlestomp of selling out their kind to humans by killing Harrek, and on the eve of the fleet's launch, broke the arms of a Dragonewt warrior who sought to punish the party for "usurping infinity with their unworthy mammal parts." Meanwhile, Waddlestomp began meeting contacts he had with other Duck expatriates in the Holy Country--enough was enough. He'd had it with obeying the orders of murderous humans. Once he'd returned from those blasted islands, he'd lead every Duck he could find in glorious war to reconquer their homeland. One way or another, anyway. Androgenus got into a philosophical argument with another Trickster about the illusory nature of Creation and their place within it that ended in a barroom brawl, and K'dud received a quiet pep talk from his father about how important it was for the Sixths to remain unified, even after Belintar's death. We stopped the session just before the fleet to the Three Step Isles set off. Iris had been told in no uncertain terms that she and her....warriors were not to return unless the Three Step Isles had been fully pacified and brought into the fold of Esrolia. Succeed, and a grand temple to the Moss Goddess would be constructed on those islands' chalky hills. Fail, and, well, they'd probably be killed by pirates. Or by Samastina's assassins, should they try to leverage whatever power they think they had back at home to disobey her orders. Thoroughly cowed, Iris finally agreed to this quest, and prepared as best as she could to conquer the Islands.

As a side note, I’m playing this game through with my partner and their husband, and they both really love the game and the lore. They really like the writing of the myths, particularly Hyalor’s Golden Tablets.

Yeah, Trickster player honestly doesn’t like playing their character as a murderous agent of chaos so much as the team’s designated rule breaker. Illumination helped with that, since it gave the player an excuse to play a Trickster not acting like a Trickster “should” according to the strict lore.

That’s a good answer. Honestly, yeah, my question was answered like...pages ago, then it just sorta spiraled out of the original scope of my question (as these things tend to do) when other people started debating about what would count as a martial art and what wouldn’t, then brought the runequest rules into it. Not criticizing anyone, ‘cause everyone’s brought some good input into it. Everybody.

To be clear: I think the thread has drifted into discussion of rules, when I'm trying to just find out if there's anything that we'd recognize as a "martial art" described in the lore, so I can build on it for our own HeroQuest campaign. You're asking rules questions. I don't know the answer to those, tbh. YGWV. Whatever works for your game, I guess? As far as your question about similar swordfighting or weapon arts? The ancestors of escrima, mardani khei and krabi-krabong don't have much documentation, but there's some evidence that they might have been taught and practiced in the same way as their modern counterparts long enough ago that it might not seem anachronistic for a Bronze Age-styled RPG. Kalarpiyat and silambam do have archaeological evidence supporting that they have been around for that long in some form.

Okay, so is there any information about the actual Humakti styles of combat written down anywhere other than "These guys are really hard to beat in a fight because they worship the god of Death?"

So human fires, godly fires, destructive fires. That can fit in neatly with constructive/inspirational/destructive fire trinities discussed above—-humans use fires to make things or do things, gods light the fire of the spirit, oakfed just eats everything

also, the whole question about the Martial Arts skill needing expansion just applies to RuneQuest. I'm running a HeroQuest/QuestWorlds game, and all that we need to do is write down traits or breakout abilities. That's simple enough. Hell, if we end up going back to FATE instead of HQ/QW, but keep the setting, all we need to do is define a new Stunt for our characters.

see, I meant "martial arts" as "systematized, often ritualized forms of formally teaching specific, usually named styles of combat, either armed or unarmed." We all know about karate and kung fu and pankration, but the Italian fencing schools are just as much a martial art. As are kendo/kenjutsu and Filipino stickfighting (whose proper name name escapes me right now). It totally makes sense to me that the culture that requires constantly having a weapon on hand would have these systematized, formal styles of weapon training. It also makes sense to me that cultures that can turn into animals would develop specialized fighting styles based around capabilities they get in those animal forms. And the Alkothi probably developed a specialized martial art that exists solely around kicking Elmal worshippers squarely in the genitals. That last one's just speculation, though.

Please never make me contemplate Delecti’s moisture ever again

thanks for the input by the way, everyone. Really appreciate it.

Huh. That's about the size of Florida. Good reference for me, because I'm Floridian, lol.

Hm. Shield fighting? Probably lots of defensive techniques, shield-flinging, circular maneuvers (perhaps representing the shield being passed back and forth between gods). That's awesome.

Alright, with this all in mind, I just came up with a two ideas for martial arts schools in Caladraland that I decided to write down. Don't expect quality, here, I know nothing about real martial arts, lol: Invisible Phalanx Temple Taught by priests of Kalavan, this martial style is directly descended from Lodrili Invisible Spear style, originating in the Dara Happan Empire. It was brought to Caladraland by Dara Happan refugees during the God Learners' ceaseless wars. There in Veskarthan's first home, the cult of Kalavan found that it could operate openly as an adjunct of the greater temple of Veskarthan, and the beautiful-yet-brutally-effective fighting styles once taught as "folk dances" in the Empire were and are taught (to a certain degree) to most youths in Caladraland as part of their initiation into the Veskarthani religion. Exposure to God Forgot styles of meditative self-defense and Heortlander "storm dance" fencing schools turned a single style that was once focused almost entirely on fighting with spears, staves, and other agricultural implements into several related, but distinctly different styles. All of these styles involve some fort of polearm training, and retain the whirling, dance-like forms designed to keep more heavily-armed opponents confused and too far away to counterattack. In addition, the styles all emphasize fighting in pairs or small teams (hence the "Phalanx" in the name). The most famous sub-schools of the Invisible Phalanx are the Fireblood School, whose most learned masters can summon weapons formed of molten rock and their own burning bodily fluids, and the Ten Flowers School, named after a "folk dance" (in actuality, a lethal bone-breaking attack form designed to dislocate and dismember unsuspecting enemies) still practiced among Dara Happan peasants to this day. Bronze Arms Style The Gustbranite temple is a smaller sub-cult of Vestkarthani worship that sees relatively minor worship outside of Caladraland. The redsmith-priests of Gustbran jealously guard the deeper secrets of craftsmanship in general and bronzeworking in specific. Lay initiates to Gustbran abound, but dedicated priests are very rare, even in their holy strongholds of Caladraland. Dedication to Gustbran requires patience, tenacity, and a desire to work one's fingers to the bone for a sort of perfectionism that even the Mostali respect. Journeyman priests in Gustbran, before their walkabout through communities who could use the Forgefather's aid, are taught this fighting style. So named because true masters of the style can literally turn their flesh and bone to red-hot living bronze, Bronze Arms is notable for its thudding, stomping movements and heavy blows with fists and forearms. Training in this style involves meditating in punishing temperatures and complex breathing exercises. This grueling regimen is said to grant great magic to those who survive it. The current acknowledged master of Bronze Arms style is Morg Forgegrip, a genius weaponsmith named because it's said that once, he smelted bronze ore solely through his iron-hard grip and divinely gifted body heat.

Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy

I’d love material on post-Belintar Kethaelan politics, personally. I can’t imagine Broyan has a good time after allowing Harrek to burn Esrolia and God Forgot to the ground like he did, let alone what happened to the City of Wonders

Okay, so it’s not a perfect metaphor

Also also: Flightless. Vestkarthan/Lodril was cast out of the Sky for his impetuousness, so why should his birds be at home there?

Also: Penguins, emerging from water to go on land could be seen as a metaphor for volcanic island creation

LODRIL’S SACRED BIRDS ARE GIANT ROCKHOPPER PENGUINS CHANGE MY MIiiIIIiIIIIiiiiIIIiIiIND! highly aggressive penguins very territorial able to scale mountain cliffs (hence the name) often found in highly volcanic regions in the South Pacific and Atlantic Lodril is King of Volcanoes, and their head feathers make bitchin’ crowns/sacred headdresses They mate for life (Lodril is quite faithful to Ernalda) Highly protective of their offspring (Lodril is protective of the Lowfires, and of the peasants who worship Him) Did I mention that these angry little bastards can and will pick fights with anyone and anything that threatens their eggs or mates? Perfect sacred animal for the God of Peasant Revolts