rabindranath72

That's a good point, but I reckon that Hubris is just a manifestation of the Lure of Power (one of the Shadow-weaknesses, to use a TOR term). As Tolkien talks about the Fall of Elves in his letter to Milton Waldman, "Their Fall is into possessiveness and (to a lesser degree) into perversion of their art to power". I'd say therefore that both Lure of Power, and Dragon-sickness (greed, possessiveness), another Shadow-weakness, would be appropriate Flaws. If there's a problem with the application of concepts from TOR to HQ, is that the Shadow-weaknesses are tied to Callings, whereas it would seem more appropriate to divorce them (in fact, Callings in TOR do not bring much to a character in terms of concept.)

Just yesterday I started re-reading the Silmarillion, with the idea of creating an HQ campaign. I have The One Ring, but the "tone" of the game isn't appropriate, and the rules themselves wouldn't support the theme. So the plan is to "HQ-ify" The One Ring, and take Cultures, Callings, Traits and Virtues, and transform them into Abilities. The Shadow-weakness would be the first Flaw of a character. The High-elves and Rangers would be the two main cultures.

That obviously makes a lot of sense. But it's not something one can "learn" from the book, as it's completely silent on this aspect; I suppose tweaking the number of abilities and ability points is kind of a "meta rule". To a newbie like me, reading HQ2 and HQG only contributes to the sense of confusion (and I am saying this as a RPGer with 30+ years of experience!)

That is interesting. I attempted a comparison, but whereas I could find a match for the number of abilities assuming one of them is free (let's say Culture, as it's suggested in HQ2), the number of ability points seems way out of the suggested 20, unless one makes a few assumptions about starting scores for abilities. HQ2 seems to suggest that only one ability can start at 17, so everything else must be bought. Supposing that the occupational keyword ability gets the baseline 17, we end up with: - 12 points spent on Runes - 4 points spent on the distinguishing characteristic - 12 additional points for a total of 28 points. So 8 points come seemingly out of nowhere. Now, the Glorantha chapter in HQ2 suggests magical abilities starting at 17 (but it's not clear whether this 17 is "free," or it's supposed to be the 17 we get automatically anyway.) Even assuming we get another free 17 per HQ2, we are still 4 points off.

Thanks for confirming my suspicion I suppose that even the number of abilities and points in HQG don't really match the suggestions in HQ2?

Thanks for the reply. However, the Glorantha Magic chapter in HQ2 mentions umbrella keywords when referring to magical abilities, but it doesn't use the "+x" syntax, hence my confusion. On p.108 HQ2 says: So, if umbrella keywords are supposed to work with "+x" syntax as you say, either the above is a typo, or the magical abilities definitions are wrong.

If you need "fresh" eyes to look at the material, I am willing to help. I am a newbie to the game (so I have essentially no bias) and I am a published author, quite used at writing, editing and reviewing (I am a mathematician, so I write very complex text, and I developed a good attention to detail; or as my colleagues put it, I am a pain in the ass .) I have also helped edit some gaming products; the latest one, Modiphius' Conan (with Jason Durall.)

Nice find! Here's hoping that character creation is explained better than in HQ2 and HQG, because as a newbie, I am finding the whole process obscure. For a rules-light game, one would expect it to be explained in a simple and straightforward way

Yes, the difference I was outlining is whether culture, religion (and community, which is suggested to be free in the relationships chapter) are free also in the as-you-go method. The free abilities are marked with an explicit step (2.) in the list method, not so in the as-you-go method. The Genre Packs chapter doesn't mention that breakout abilities should get a +1, and on page 10 where the Keyword concept is explained, it simply notes that the player should note how much they have improved the breakout abilities (two examples are shown, at +1 and +2; again, nowhere it's stated that breakout abilities start at +1 automatically.) The Genre Packs chapter shows sample occupational, cultural, species and religious keyword with long lists of abilities. Since there's no mention of +1s, I reckon that singling out breakout abilities at the rating of their keyword, means the remaining ones are considered non-specific? (so for example, in a contest, someone with a more specific ability would get a +3 or +6, as soltakss seems to suggest?) In the sample species keyword box (Elves of Ammelon), it also states: "plus any one of the following abilities", which I suppose is a way for the player to customise the keyword. In the Glorantha section I was referring to spells. But there's no mention that magical abilities are breakouts. Actually, it states that magical abilities are keywords (and they explicitly start at 17) so it seems the spells in a grimoire (and charms) should then be considered breakouts following the convention previously established (i.e. no +1). If they aren't breakout abilities, at least they are syntactically equivalent. At this point, it's not clear whether the magical ability is free, or if one chooses a magical ability and it automatically counts as the first ability at 17. And also it's not clear whether spells or charms are free or should be bought. It's noted that Charms can be increased like breakout abilities by expenditure of hero points at +1 or whatever, and that spells are learned and improved like other skills. My gut reaction is that since it's not spelled out explicitly, spells/charms should actually be bought as abilities (up to 5 charms, as explicitly stated in Spirit Magic section, and 4 spells.) Comparing with the HQG character generation and analogous topics, it's clear the authors changed quite a few bits, and I wonder whether the changes are only meant to reflect Glorantha, or if they should be considered as updates/errata of the HQ2 rules. Thanks in advance for any and all help! Cheers, Antonio

Blood of Heroes is based on the Mayfair Game System (used in the various iterations of the DC Heroes RPG). The Hero System is a different beast entirely.

Thanks for chiming in. I'd add that the HQ2 rules aren't exactly straightforward when it comes to character creation. For example, the Gaming in Glorantha section shows breakout abilities at the same value of the keyword, but is that correct? What's the point of having breakouts at the same value of the keyword, if the keyword subsumes a potentially larger set of abilities anyway? (as shown in the Genre Packs chapter.) Also, is the magical ability at 17 in addition to the 11 abilities (so, it's free), or is it supposed to be the main ability that gets the 17 rating? Why the discrepancy about the list and as-you-go methods in terms of free abilities? (cultural, religion). Thanks, Antonio

Hi all, so as I am slowly wading through the material for my Vikings campaign, I have noticed that the HQG character creation is apparently different from the HQ2 system. Apart from the free cultural keyword, HQG seems to offer many more skill points. Is this an optional rule somewhere in HQ2, or am I missing something? Also, it's not clear what happens if a distinguishing characteristic is instead taken as a flaw; can you choose another ability in its place, or the ability "slot" is simply lost? (doesn't seem a good trade-off) Thanks, Antonio

Thanks again! I am afraid I am not very well versed in Gloranthan lore to understand how magic works. Are you suggesting that each character should start with three Runes? Looking at HQG, I was thinking of making Runes work roughly like spells; the ability (similar to a Grimoire?) would be Rune-Casting, and the Odinic Priest would choose five of the Futhark runes for free at the start of play, with the possibility of learning more runes or perfecting the knowledge. There is also the issue of Occupations. My player will convert his Odinic Priest character to an Occupation, so would magic/runes perhaps be best described as a breakout ability? (But then I suppose I'd lose the ability to define breakout runes like spells in a grimoire.) If I keep Rune-Casting as a separate ability, could the Odinic Priest occupation (or one of his breakout abilities, e.g. Read Runes or Odinism) be used to augment the magical ability? Thanks in advance for your help, I am still not entirely sure how to handle it all. Cheers, Antonio

Thanks everyone for your feedback, much appreciated! A little bit more background to put things in context. I have actually already started a campaign, we are two sessions in and I used Pendragon 4e/Land of Giants, with a lot of background info taken from Legend Vikings (LV) and RQ3 Vikings (RV). The campaign is the one laid out in RV, and I plan on using also the two scenarios in LoG, and the suggested scenarios in LV at some point. Now, for a series of reasons my players aren't happy about Pendragon, so I thought I'd go with HQ2 which has similar but overall simpler mechanics (my group isn't much into complex games in general.) In terms of magic, the level I expect to inject is mild fantasy; ideally, I'd use the magic rules in LV (Divination, Shape-shifting, Rune Casting, Seidr) and I'd like to each as skill (breakout?) Following the HQG framework, I think I'd use: 1) Professions from LV, and make them into Keywords abilities 2) Magic skills from LV, and make them into Keywords abilities (with each Rune as a breakout?) 3) Traits from LoG, and make them into Flaws and Distinguishing characteristics 4) Clans/Tribes from RV and LoG and make them into Keywords I am not sure how Runes would work if I used them as in HQG. Anything I am missing? Cheers, Antonio

Hi all, long time lurker, I have recently bought HQ2, and I'd like to start a campaign. As I am a sucker for everything Viking, I thought of perhaps converting/adapting the Legend Vikings and/or RQ3 Vikings material, but I am a bit at a loss where to start. Has anyone done something similar? Or is there a "conversion" of RQ to HQ? Thanks in advance, Antonio