svensson

@conajofa @Atgxtg

Thanks for being understanding. My wife tells me that I can come across as arrogant when I'm trying to be polite. /shrug

7 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

It's not a mistranslation, but an example of how society and language changes over time.

 

Originally the word courtesan mean a female courtier, that being a person who attends a powerful person of status' (i.e. a noble) court, and was some sort of retainer, knight, or in the case of a female, a lady of the court. The word was borrowed into English where overtime, as the definition of a powerful person of status shifted, so did the role of a lady who attends one. Geisha is somewhat similar in the artistic and social skills requires, but lacks the social stigma that is attached in the West. Mistress is also similar. The word courtesan is somewhat archaic today, and is mostly used as a polite way to refer to a member of  the oldest profession. 

 

So the word does/did mean what you thought it meant, but it has a secondary meaning in English that is much better known. 

 

Good point, Atx.

@conajofa

Respectfully, Conajofa, you keep using the word 'courtesan' for 'courtier'. In English a courtesan is a high priced and highly educated prostitute, a step above an 'escort' because courtesans are expected to be able to mix with high society without a problem.

I mean absolutely NO disrespect to you and I acknowledge the possibility that the spelling was intentional. There are a lot of similarities between a European courtesan and a Japanese geisha, after all.

I hope I haven't offended you. If so, it was unintentional.

4 minutes ago, g33k said:

How do you (or do you, even?) separate / distinguish two swordsmen, from two different schools of swordsmanship?

However you differentiate the swordsmen, I'd pursue a similar strategy in differentiating any other set of schools focused on the same field.

OK, I was a fighter in the SCA for many years and, yes, you CAN tell the difference between between who trained who if you're observant enough.

Since we're dealing with Oriental martial arts tropes here, we'll stick with their narrative descriptions.

In Rokugan certain styles are broadcast loud and clear by their students. The Mirumoto school is the only school that uses the niten, or two sword, technique, while the Hida school focuses on heavy armors and weapons [the tetsubo great club, the die tsuchi war maul, the o-no war axe etc.]. Now, ALL bushi are trained in kenjustu. It is the basic form of warfare, after all. But a bushi's specific school can be told by their footwork, posture, grip, and demeanor; all this together is referred to as your 'stance'. Each stance is unique to each school. The wild card is when you're facing a ronin who was taught by the 'dojo of hard knocks'... their stance is a mix of everything that he thinks works plus a couple things he's only heard of.

More to the point of the thread:

I LIKE the idea of treating your School like an RQ cult. I'm still tossing and turning the implications of that in my head, however. For bushi schools it ought to be fairly straight-forward. However, most bushi schools provide for a student to gain the ability to attack twice a round at School Rank [x], and that might get sticky when trying to use BRP mechanics.

I should also point out that parsing spells into elements is gonna something of a grind.

1 hour ago, Mugen said:

Then, don't automatically increase ranks in schools, and consider those skill minimums as a guideline to consider when a master from a school will consider you're good enough to receive appropriate teachings.

If you've seen the manga/Anime Rurou ni Kenshin, that's exactly what happens between Kenshin and his master.

It also explains why Mirumoto Hitomi was able to be rank 5 in the Mirumoto school despite having Insight just slightly above rank 2. Well, that and poor proof-reading in 1e, too.

When I ran an L5R game, I gave the players two options when they reached a School Rank threshold:

a] You can return to your dojo for [6 - INT] months to learn the technique, or

b] You can adventure and accumulate CP until advance all School skills to the School Rank +1.

For example, Mirumoto Jin has enough experience to advance to Mirumoto Bushi School 3. His INT is 3. He may choose to journey back to Kyuden Mirumoto and take 3 months training with the sensei there OR he must advance all the school skills to Rank 4 for an automatic advance.

On 4/22/2024 at 1:32 AM, Mugen said:

Oh, and I missed the elephant in the room, Land of Ninja for RQ3, which is currently discussed in another thread.

Let me also mention Mongoose RQ 'Samurai of Legend'. You can d/i that on the Mongoose website.

I'm interested to see how this project progresses! Keep us updated!

[ You guys are a tough crowd. I really thought I'd get some shine for the 'how do magnets work' bit. 🤣😆 No worries. If it wasn't funny, it wasn't funny. *I* thought it was hysterical, but I'm kinda strange so... ]

4 hours ago, M Helsdon said:

You are welcome.

I'm pleased that it is useful.

I'm now implementing corrections to the typos identified by my valiant proofreaders.

Please let me know when you're done re-proofing. I'd like to order the POD version, but there's no sense in ordering if it needs to be corrected.

26 minutes ago, Ynneadwraith said:

Pity poor Godtime. It's got the worst customer service job in the world. Every customer, everywhere, throughout all of time...is always right.

**ring**

"Godtime customer service. This is team member Solana speaking. Please be aware that this call may be recorded for quality assurance and canon ret-con purposes. May I have your name and the name of Heroquest you're calling about, please?"

"Uh, I'm Bob and I wanna know about 'Mostal and the World Machine'."

"Thank you, Bob. May I have your question."

"Sure. How do magnets work?"

"DAMMIT BOB! You may think you're funny but I have a job and..."

**click**

😆😁🤣

[For those of you who don't know about this, the Mormon church has  a program for those youngsters who cannot physically perform their required mission when they turn 18. These are the 'Elders' (and yeah, I'm not gonna an 18 y/o an 'elder' anything) are the ones who man the Q&A phones and on the LDS website. Their job is to put a positive face on the faith and direct the curious to their local temple. Given the LDS' stance on certain issues, there was a period of time where people would troll the kids on the website with off the wall questions that would be difficult to look up. 'How do magnets work' was the classic meme question. That question became so popular among the trolls that the kids manning the website have a cut-and-paste ready to go now]

31 minutes ago, EricW said:

Is that absolutely true?

Insofar as my reading tells me. YGMV and all, but I should think that if someone had encountered Wakboth and lived to tell about it that person would be famous somewhere.

I've got a pretty extensive RQ2 and 3 collection and nothing I have says anything about the Devil after the Spike, well, 'spiked' him. There are references to parts of Wakboth [the Eye of Wakboth mostly], but nothing about Wakboth taking any actions of his own will and accord since Time began.

I should probably also say that the RQ apocrypha continually surprises me. My collection isn't complete and the occasional 'Stafford-ism' pops up get me every now and again.

@M Helsdon

I just want to THANK YOU for your efforts in 'Ships and Shores'.

I'm running a 'faux Atlantis' campaign for my nieces and the work you've put into ancient ships, the effect of magic, and the practicalities of shipboard life in the Bronze Age has been a great help as well as a wonderful read.

I bought the book as a pdf upon release and it is one of my absolute favorite RQ products by anybody, ever. It ranks just below Trollpak [both versions equally] for the way that it shows seagoing culture and the homogenizing process that life at sea has on those who leave the shore.

Responding to the top post...

Since heroquesting has a temporal and Godtime components, those should be addressed separately.

No living mortal [at least none that I've heard of] has encountered a portion of Wakboth the Devil and returned to tell the tale. That covers the temporal aspect.

Insofar as the Godtime component is concerned, unless you're questing specifically to confront Evil Itself encountering Wakboth means that your plan has gone horribly horribly wrong. Your survival is seriously in question at that point, and even if you survive you may have to make a literal deal with the Devil and may end up tainted by Chaos for your trouble.

You have been warned.

6 minutes ago, Shiningbrow said:

While generically there's no restrictions on numbers in most cults, on p27 of Lightbringers is "There must be a need for a new Wind Lord".

I don't see this for the others though (eg, Humakt, Stormbull, etc)

In many cults, including the two you mention, there aren't any Priests. Rune Lords provide the spiritual and magical support, as well as teaching skills, leading ceremonies, and acting as the political head of the cult. Smaller but widespread cults, the 'tier 2 cults' if you will, are always looking for a new Rune Lord. After all, there are VERY few clan chiefs who are Swords of Humakt or Master Hunters of Odayla. Such personalities rarely pose any political challenge to the clan and tribal leadership.

A Wind Lord of Orlanth is another matter entirely. Such people have to be noteworthy and accomplished in most aspects of clan life, and if they're too popular they might be seen as an alternative to less popular leaders. People tend to gravitate to alternate leaders when they're unhappy with the current office-holders and sometimes that happens without any overt act or intention by the new Wind Lord himself.

So we got to talking about Alynxes, their size, and their comparison to dogs.

Here is a short [15 min] vid from the Extinct Earth series that discusses some of that. I thought some of you might be interested.

12 minutes ago, mfbrandi said:

Now I am imagining an a party of PCs who are wandering stonemasons who always end up neck deep in and resolving the problems of their geographically scattered client cults. We will start a new trope of hobos on the square. Tattoo of third eye over dividers optional.

Secret handshakes, embroidered aprons, tools that never get the dirty, and it can be used as a path to Illuminati... er, Illumination. Whatever. 😆

@Darius West @Malin

OK, one of the premises of RQG is to break the murder hobo trope. But a generation and half of gamers have been indoctrinated into expecting that trope. Add to that the pithy complaint phrases ['We're not playing 'Farmers and Famines', man!]. There is resistance even in the RQ fan base about the 'community adventurer' premise. My idea of having a troop of apprentices was demonstrate that 'community' can have more than one meaning and 'cult' doesn't have to be temple building or even one specific location.

As for player real estate, all your points are true but I also wonder if there isn't a certain anarchist 'I don't have to follow your rules!' attitude that goes with it. For one thing, most modern people have no idea of the implications of the standard oath of fealty, 'of life and limb and Earthly worship' etc. They just think, 'Kewl! I gitz ta build a kastle!', forgetting all the while that their liege lord will tax them, call them to duty in his army in prime adventuring season, make him get married to a difficult mate for reasons of state, 'visit' him all winter [remember,  you must provide hospitality to your lord and his retinue when they visit] to ensure he doesn't have too much grain or money saved up, etc.

And yes, while I'm describing this in a medieval context, this crap also occurred in Anglo-Saxon England, Celtic Gaul, and Viking Age Scandinavia. Clan chieftains are just as rapacious and jealous as any king-by-divine-right ever made, as any proper Scot will tell you.

14 minutes ago, Darius West said:

You may only play a "wandering party" style of game, but I don't.  When you become an important person like a Rune Lord, your life becomes a lot more settled, whether the character or player likes it or not.  Yes, you can become a victim of your own success, even in Glorantha.  This is not to suggest that you will never travel again, merely that it will be less frequent. Remember also that it is 1625 now, and there's a Hero War on.  You are part of a clan and a tribe again, and an important member of those organizations; you matter.  What you do matters.  You likely get  only 1 adventure for personal profit per year now.  The rest are on clan or tribal business.  That doesn't mean you don't get paid or can't plunder as you go, but you represent something bigger than yourself when you do.

There are lots of opportunities for roleplay and adventure, as a Rune level, but they are stories about consolidation, building, land development, politics, intrigue, military campaigning, oh, and Hero Questing.  Yes, really only Rune levels with at least Clan level support can Hero Quest with any reliability.

Of course if a character would prefer to bumble about after treasure in ruins and travel the world, perhaps Rune level isn't for them?

I intended the 'hero band with apprentices and hangers-on' model to be sort of a middle ground between the 'always adventuring all the time' of RQ 2 and the 'stuck at the steading /temple /clan-hall for 7 weeks a Season' model of RQG. The idea is to keep the service to community theme of RQG while still allowing some resemblance of the 'Dat Freebootin' Lyfe' that players love. After all, if they wanted to be farmers, they wouldn't be adventurers.

What I find funny about all this is how hard players work in some genres and milieux to get their own freehold or base. They'll bust their ass if you offer them land in Dorastor [or local equivalent], but give them a steading at the beginning of the game? Nah, they'll avoid that like a trip to the dentist. 😆

1 hour ago, Squaredeal Sten said:

As i re-read the Rune cults chapter of RQG, I don't see any reason that there should be a fixed number of Rune Lord positions at any temple.  Not as a general requirement, though who can say what might be in yet-unpublished cults books?  If you play it that way, YGWV, but it would be too bad if any third -party reader were to take a Rune Lord office count limitation as canon.

Why do i write this?

The Rune Priest requirements on page 276 do include "Have a vacancy at the temple as determined by the gamemaster."

But the Rune lord requirements on page 280 do not.

Those requirements are

   - Initiate in good standing for 5 years.  (And note that priests do not have a matching time requirement.)

   - Rune affinity and Devotion (deity) or Loyalty (temple)  of 90%

   - CHA of 18+

   - Cult skills, details vary

And that's it.  No vacant office required by the book.  Yes the book calls Rune Lord an "office" but I don't see a reference to a limit.

And I can see Gloranthan reasons why that would be so:  Qualified candidates for Rune Lord are going to be pretty rare, much rarer than clan or tribal thanes.   And rune lords do die in combat, so we ought not to assume that many live to a non-combat retirement, unlike priests who can perform their official functions into old age.  If you have one more rune lord and one less initiate thane, your tribe or clan still has the same count of "nobles" to support, so it's not a big economic issue even though the lord may have perks..  And the rune lord is going to give you much more combat power than the average initiate thane: Cheap DI, maybe an allied spirit, probably higher skills.  finally, it's the Hero Wars now!  You want all the rune lords you can get.

YGMV.

-

For an office vacancy, most likely that's a campaign decision by the referee. After all, every deity want as many devoted and skilled people following it as possible [within reason].

However some campaigns may include internal clan and/or temple politics, and we all know those can be every bit as vicious as racial or external politics. If there is drama within the church, it may NOT have room of a PC Rune Lord if that PC is gonna upset balance of power and authority. This is especially true in clans where the office of chief is inextricably tied to a church hierarchy like Orlanth or Ernalda. Every Orlanth Rune Lord or Ernalda Priestess is a possible rival for the clan chief position and that has to be taken into consideration.

2 hours ago, Darius West said:

Completely fair, I just wondered.

No sarcasm intended, thanks for the support.

2 hours ago, Squaredeal Sten said:

Any player who wants to do that should take pains to put maximum detail into the Ancestor part of character generation.  

Sure. There's plenty of room on page 3 of the character sheet for ancestral names and information, at least to the grandparent generation. After that, post-it notes 😆

27 minutes ago, Akhôrahil said:

If you have the time and magic resources, you could also map your ancestry by summing and questioning ancestors, and working your way back that way.

That's a whole BUNCH of Rune Points, man.

Don't get me wrong here. I'm presuming that a shaman would know their ancestors back 100-150 years ago if there wasn't a major catastrophe or magical event that breaks the lineage descent.

For example, the clans that founded Sartar literally broke from their ancestral Heortling clans, 'a new history was made', to quote KoDP. A Kolating shaman [who has tenuous ties to his clan anyway, shamans being almost-outcasts in Sartarite society] would have  a helluva time getting past that magical rite.

But initiates are not ordained in the priesthood... they're committed worshipers only. Yes, they can worship without a priest/ess, but there are functions they can't do... My point in my first comment on the thread is that Shamans with no connection to deity cannot access the deity's magic. Initiates have a connection with the deity granting the powers and a place in a cult's hierarchy that shamans simply don't have.

There are exceptions, of course, Kolatings sometimes have access to Orlanth-given Rune magic for one example. Shamans can Summon a Specific Ancestor to gain access to a deity's Rune magic if the shaman knows of the Specific Ancestor by name. A shaman would have summon his ancestor 'Bob, son of Joe', not 'I summon one of my ancestors who was a Barntar initiate'.

I suppose we'd need a mechanic to sort out whether or not a given Shaman knows of a specific ancestor that was an initiate of a specific deity. Off the top of my head that would probably be a Customs [Own], Cult Lore, or Insight [Own] roll, probably requiring a Special or Crit success.

1 hour ago, Squaredeal Sten said:

Does that mean that mere Initiates cannot use Divination?  

Does that mean there are no portentous dreams except for priests?

 

Initiates are part of god's hierarchy, though not part of the church. Initiates have donated POW, made the commitment oaths, and have some dedication to the faith. They are not ordained but they can conduct worship if no Rune level is available. They can cast Divination [it is a Common Rune Spell] but only via their cult connections. For example, an Orlanth initiate cannot use Divination for information that would rightfully belong to Yelmalio, etc. Just because an opposing Yelmalion initiate breathes Air does not mean that Orlanth knows what he's up to - - this works vice-versa of course... Just because an Orlanth initiate is working under Yelm's light doesn't mean that a Sky pantheon initiate knows anything about him either.

So, yes, Initiates can get Divination and/or prophetic dreams from their deity, but they may have to consult with the priesthood to understand the meanings [aka 'failed the Cult Lore skill roll to understand the allegories'].