svensson

There are LOTS of power groups in Pavis that would love to do away with Brigga Scissorhands. From Governor Sor-Eel, Lunar interests outside the bureaucracy [the Temples, the Army, etc.], the Ingilli clan and Zola Fel river interests, the Sun Towners... Hell, even her fellow Sartarites of the Indagos clan would like to see her deposed if not actually dead.

[Note: Brigga is one of the leaders of the Garhound clan, a Sartarite clan that came to Prax with Duke Dorasor. She's the sister of clan head, Sir Daved Garhound and are about equal in political pull, though in different venues. They own the best farmlands and have the better relations with the nomads than Indagos, who came much later. They're both Orlanthi rival clans, but Indagos tends to focus more on freeing Sartar, where Garhound has made its bed in Prax and is content with that]

2 hours ago, Jeff said:

Problem? That’s maybe not the right term. Unlike most other organized states in Genertela, the Lunar Empire tolerates the worship of Chaotic entities. The Crimson Bat, Primal Chaos, Nysalor, and of course the Red Goddess are state sponsored Chaos cults. But ideologically it is difficult for Lunar officials to prohibit worship of Vivamort, Krarsht, Mallia, Thed, etc.

Now many things these cults do - murder, rape, spread of disease, etc. is going to get repressed by Lunar officials. But even the Orlanthi have Black Fang and Lanbril. Even in the Lunar Empire these cults need to operate in the shadows away from Yelms light. But of course it is much easier for them to exist than in Theyalan lands where their very existence is taboo.

The problem with the Lunar's logic is that in Glorantha the Rune influences conduct. This is part of the mythical structure of the world... The nature of Chaos is not 'change for change's sake', as it's Lunar apologists would have it, but nihilism... destruction for destruction's sake. Chaos is the antithesis of organization... any kind of organization. Societal rules, the Great Compromise, even physics [such as exist on Glorantha] are anathema to Chaos, which demands that nothing is consistent, nothing is stable, save only the cycle of creation, destruction, and creation again.

There are only three ways to prevent a being inflicted by the Chaos rune for destroying everything around them... Illuminate them, kill them, or redeem them by removing their Chaos rune. As of this moment, we know of ONE HeroQuest that'll do that for you. That is the Cleansed One subcult of Zola Fel river cult. [Note: IMG, that subcult exists in ONE river cult not all of them. AFAIC, river cults are not 'interchangeable'. The myths that effect the Creek-Stream watershed have no bearing on those the effect the Zola Fel or the Oslir. Ergo, while the cults are VERY similar, they are still different from each other. -- but that is another discussion]

I'd seen looking all over for this, turns out I'd bought it already 😁

This is a d100 conversion for space adventures. It's very raw and has a certain 'written on a word processor in college' feel to it. But what do you want? It was written in Golden Age of Game Fan Press... the 80's.

Anyway, enjoy.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/355945/Worlds-Beyond-Classic-Reprint

That's an error I think Mongoose made with a new game.

They did this huge K/S and relaunched their 2300AD title, but the forums for it remain in the main Traveller bracket. That can make it hard to find the discussions and info you're looking for.

So, the Americans on the board, Happy Thanksgiving.

May you travel safe, enjoy your family, and appreciate what you have.

And may the NY Giants beat the balls off the Dallas Cowturds. Because Jerry Jones doesn't deserve nice things.

And now a brief holiday message from WKRP:

2 hours ago, Shiningbrow said:

I don't think that's the "point" of Heroquests at all... The point is connecting with the Godtime for some reason or other, and usually to keep the world in order and not let Chaos in.

There's certainly other things that can be done with them, such as what you describe. But I wouldn't call those "the point".

 

 

Well, ok, the real point of HQs is to make PCs more powerful....

 

 

I disagree... but only slightly.

HeroQuests grant PC's the opportunity to become more powerful, but at very great risk.

I've never had a party try a HeroQuest at my table yet. However if one was in offing, I would make the warnings absolutely clear: You are taking your character's lives in your hands. This is not your 'Sacred Time' visit with the Gods. You'll be directly interacting with myths and the consequences, both good and bad, are significant.

Think of it this way.... Say you're a Bronze Age Greek who is about to undertake a HeroQuest. This isn't simply the retelling of Zeus founding your city. You do that every year, it's a comfortable well-known myth. Your participation is almost like watching a sports event on TV. But YOUR HeroQuest is entirely different. You'll be magically transported back to the Heroic Age and have to reenact some of the deeds of the Argonauts and the Golden Fleece. For the purposes of the Quest you will actually be one of the men at the benches of the Argo, undertaking all the risks of the quest. The reward for success is very high, perhaps the permanent favor of Athena in all your endeavors for life, but you are risking your very soul and Hades is a greedy god indeed.

3 minutes ago, Jose said:

I use Gim-gim as the "littlefinger" of Pavis, a truly sneaky bas.t.rd and a source of pain with script inmunity until Argrath catch him. 

And Argrath never does actually catch him, though he does do Gim-Gim in, metaphorically speaking.

24 minutes ago, Akhôrahil said:

One of my players is looking for Odayla/Storm Bull.

I can picture a full-on beary berserking being something to watch.

Talk about terrifying.... Yeah, that'd do it.

OTOH, here is something EQUALLY frightening... SHAVED BEAR!

Seriously, if I was the veterinarian who had to shave a bear, I'd sedate it, do the job, and be on the next plane to another time zone by the time 'Gentle Ben' woke up!

Ok, jokes aside, this is Dolores a European Black Bear at the Tiergarten Leipzig. The poor girl has mange so bad her hair falls out.

3 minutes ago, Bill the barbarian said:

I am running them

Fair enough.

So flip the script and make the threat's origin the Tunnelled Hills or Kralorela rather than the Lunar Empire. Simple. There's nothing saying that the threat isn't coming from anywhere... Pamaltela, Jrustela, Esrolia... it would be funny as Hell to make the threat origin be the vendref caste of the Grazelanders! THAT'D show those uppity sun-pony SOBs! 😅

And again, the penetration of Chaos cults in the Empire, if any, is only as deep as YOU choose to portray it. How many of the handouts for River of Cradles, Sun County, and Shadows on the Borderlands are true information and how many are false flags?

I think is might be a valid rules question to @Scotty:

What is the extent of the transformation when a spell caster uses Transform Self?

- Does the caster lose their intelligence?

- Do the caster's senses change into the 'semi-divine animal's'?

- Can they cast spells while in animal form?

- Do they count as 'were-animals' for damage?

- How is skill use [Dodge and Parry primarily] effected?

2 minutes ago, HreshtIronBorne said:

I would suggest either a Martial Art, Hero Cult Secret, or some other such device to provide Odaylans with an ability to attack with both claws simultaneously, maybe require surprise? 

Bears pinning and mauling a victim is definitely something I can imagine. I think I have seen it in a movie once or twice... Almost all cats in the bestiary get the ability to rip with hind legs if they land both claws. The Hsunchen cults and those like them should have some sort of Animal Martial Art to attack in the ways their totem animal does. 

I think abilities like that, acquired through gameplay like HeroQuesting or finding an epic teacher or something is a great way of rewarding players that picked a tough role and play it well. 

Well, let's not forget the one unmentioned spell in Red Book of Magic that serves to make many of these spells VERY useful...

Transform Self:

2 Rune Points, Beast Rune

Touch, Duration [Special], Nonstackable

Definition: This spell must be stacked with the three specialty shapechanging spells. For example, an Odayla cultist used Bear's Skin, Bear's Strength, and Claws.

When these spells are combined with Transform Self, the user bodily transforms into a magical, semi-divine version of the god's animal. All the spells combine for full effect for one full hour. All the normal abilities of the animal become usable by the target for the spell's duration.

Now, that's a whopping 9 Rune Points[!], so this is out of range of most casual cultists. But it could be devastating to an opponent who is unfortunate enough to find themselves in melee with the Odayla priest.

42 minutes ago, Bill the barbarian said:

A quick note to all. Some of those modules mentioned will end up costing their purchasers a small fortune if bought in an auction or on-line. Please protect such investments with spoilers... I know there is one here who will mock me and I will happily start posting their scenarios secrets and ruin the value of their products if they wish, but just imagine if you had spent a small fortune for a RQ3 module and have your players through no fault of their own stumble upon a posted secret that is the central part of a multi-game scenario. 

Cheers and thanks all for your forbearance!

These modules are long out of print, from an earlier rules edition that doesn't always mesh well with the current one, and are not likely to be played as-is by current RQG refs.

Secondly, nothing ever written in gaming has ever survived contact with a referee, much less player characters.

Thirdly, all you have to do is 'flip the script' and make the origin of the antagonists Kralorela or the Vulture Country.

Lastly, IF Gim-Gim has been compromised [and nothing says outright that he is, it's just rumors], just exactly what are PC's gonna do about it? Trying to out him would bring down the wrath of the entire Lunar power structure in Prax on them, both overt and covert. They'd spend the rest of their lives dodging Spoken Word and Lanbril agents. And it's entirely up to the referee whether it's true or not anyway.

So, I'm looking at some of my real-world experiences along with some apocryphal evidence in previous editions for my opinions here. Your Mileage and Glorantha May Vary.

1. In several sources and multiple editions, Gim-Gim the Grim is obliquely referred to as a secret Krarshti. It wasn't out-and-out said, but what is definite is that he has reliable connections with the cult.

2. In Sun County, the 'Rabbit Hat Farm' scenario talks about the Krarshti Polybius as being 'a Lunar from the Heartland'.

3. In Shadows on the Borderlands, Thanatari High Priest Drueke's biography has him originating in Carmania and going to another temple in Peloria before landing in Dyskund Caverns.

4. In my real-world experiences, I'm aware of several instances in Central and South America where police, military officers, elected officials and bureaucrats were members in good standing of terrorist groups, narco cartels, and revolutionary movements... and did their duties to BOTH their masters diligently and well.

All this leads me to believe that the Lunar Empire is infiltrated to a fare-thee-well by both Krarsht and Thanatar. Krarsht seems to have a very comfortable arrangement with the Lunar intelligence services, especially the Spoken Word, and I wouldn't be at all surprised to find out that there is some Illuminated Thanatari in the Lunar College of Magic that has access to more heads than even Drueke does.

40 minutes ago, Rodney Dangerduck said:

Hs anybody found the three parts of the Transform rune spells, i.e. Bear's Skin, Bear's Strength, and Claws, to be very useful in game play?

Bear's Strength is really good - one of my Orlanthi warrior's favorite spells.

As for the others, other than the "coolness" factor they seem, to me, pretty marginal as spells.  But maybe I'm not creative enough.  Wondering if others have found them useful in reasonable situations.

Well hunters start with very poor armor, so anything that adds to their survivability is a Good Thing.

What's more, in most parties the hunter is the 'sneaky guy' [cuz, duh] so adding physical armors that decrease his Move Silently isn't optimal. Most players try and balance the two... enough armor to prevent an instant-kill by an unaugmented weapon but not enough to severely impede his work. By removing his armor and casting Bear's Skin, it usually results in a net gain in AP and the penalty for SIZ vs armor tends to remain the same. So I can see the utility of Bear's Skin.

It's Claws that I have an iffy time with. All the spells does is raise a caster's Fist attack to 1d6+db and grant +50% Climb. Since the Claws attack uses the caster's Fist attack score, I submit that it's just not that big a deal as a combat option. My reasons are these:

1. Most hunters carry a weapon that does at least 1d8+1+db, if not more.

2. The potential for two attacks in a round is limited... unless the caster has extraordinary SIZ and DEX, he probably won't get that second attack in. A fist attack happens, on average, at SR 7 or 8. If it's at SR 8, then the second attack doesn't have time to happen in the round.

3. As to the climb bonus, you can get similar [though not as great] results if you just cast the spirit magic spell Coordination. This saves you from having to 'burn' a Rune Point you might need for later.

I perceive Odaylans as being the 'mountain-men' of Orlanthi society. They belong to the clan and are just as loyal to it as any other carl, but don't like large groups of people. They especially dislike human politics and petty feuds they think are trivial. They are a more 'primal' Oranthi type, solitary in nature, closer to nature, and they know every square inch of the tula... every hilltop and gully, every water source, every road, track, game trail, and rabbit run.

I think that it wouldn't break the system to give Odayla worshipers Surshot and Draw Beast as Rune spells, in addition to their Transform spells. It seems to me that these fit their role in society.

I agree with @Squaredeal Sten in that one man's elemental or helpful spirit is another man's demon. Dehori and Lunes look very different to people not in their respective pantheons, especially when they're order to attack. I don't have any problem with any 'demon' being manifested by almost any Rune association. I think that a Harmony demon would be rather pointless as an adversary, but several other Runes could generate some VERY interesting demon types. A Fertility Demon could be a nasty piece of work as it tries to turn your party of adventurers into nutritious mulch, for example. I would imagine that a Beast 'demon' would be a significantly up-rated minotaur or minotaur-centaur chimera [body of a bull, with minotaur torso, head, and arms].

As to your specific question regarding demon statistics:

Checking the RQG Bestiary on pg. 168, the table says that CON 'Depends on POW', ergo POW = CON. The text further states that HP and AP are equal to the demon's Magic Points... the most spirit magic it casts, the easier it is to physically defeat.

@Darius West I think you're misunderstanding the point of HQs.

At their very core, HQs make the impossible possible... though at great risk and cost. Consider the case of Hofstaring Treeleaper from the HQ game's Sartar Kingdom of Heroes book. It took very powerful magic to defeat him and imprison the soul of an Orlanthi Hero in a Hell not his own, knowing that you were going to have to contest with Orlanth's deep interest in a Hero of his cult. That deed alone might possibly have been an HQ on the part of the Lunars. OTOH, Hofstaring may well have been a 'Queen Leika level' personality... a successful HeroQuester, but one that isn't in the Argrath /Harrek /Jar-Eel tier. What we are sure of is that it took a successful HeroQuest to release his soul for durance vile. And while that quest happened under a different set of game mechanics, the event only happened a few years ago in the game timeline.

Then there is Sarostip Prince-Killer, who killed the Lunar puppet Prince of Sartar by moving an entire raiding band through the HeroPlane safely and arrive inside all the defenses that the Temertain [who may have been foolish, but was not stupid] and the Lunars could devise. He was then able to kill the Prince, his entire retinue and most of the Sartar Royal Guard [who are all werewolves].

I submit to you that these deeds would have been utterly impossible using the 'rules' and physics of the Mundane Plane. HeroQuesting, with its great risks, was the only way either deed could have been accomplished.

And all that is a whole lot more important than 'Grandfather Racoon's skin'.

For some reason there are people on this thread that seem to think that 'hunter god/ess' seems to mean 'no technology this side of Clan of the Cave Bear', and that simply isn't so.

Hunting and hunting gods use ALL technologies and applicable magics to bring the protein to the people. Sure, it's snares for small game and pit traps for migrating herds but ALL missile weapons... everything from javelins to crossbows [OK, so darts are under-kill and arbalests... well, that just depends on what you're hunting]... are happily used as another tool to get the job done.

Certainly, some societies are more primitive in their technologies than others. These societies will portray the hunter god as throwing spears and driving herds off cliffs. Other societies are far more sophisticated and will show the hunt as using beaters to drive prey into the kill zone for missile users.

1 hour ago, whitelaughter said:

The myth/practicality divide is a false dilemma, given the gods are supposed to be making their cults as strong as possible. So the 'crunch' factor should be considered ingame.

And Odayla wouldn't see any benefit. His Bear's Strength spell is increasing your Manipulation modifier, and your damage bonus: which applies to thrown weapons. It's simply more efficient to encourage cultists to use Bear's Strength for both hit and damage than to waste power developing/copying a new spell.

Mind you, he should be encouraging the use of the atlatl!

Most gods are not making their cults 'as strong as possible'.

For one thing, they can't. The Compromise limits them to acts performed in the Godtime. The portfolios they had when Yelm rose again in the sky is all they get.

The gods support their cults within the bounds of their portfolios and their reasons for existence. Some support the cults strongly, like Orlanth and Yelm. Some gods with minor portfolios do much MUCH less. The hunter gods are of the latter variety. Where Orlanth deals with every aspect of Heortling life [except those aspects directly attributed to Ernalda], the hunter gods deal with only one aspect of life. And that aspect is pretty small fry compared to, say, Humakt or even Daka Fal.

4 hours ago, davecake said:

I think most hunter cults do have missile magic. Because most hunter cults are variants on Foundchild, and so have Sureshot. 

I also find the stuff about Yinkin and Odayla being associated cults of Foundchild, but that get no magic only the ‘right to participate in the Great Hunt’ to be pretty odd. I think most initiates of Yinkin or Odayla who hunt (which isn’t necessary all of them) can be initiates of Foundchild if they wish. Some do, some don’t - and if course, some may choose to use Foundchild magic other than missile magic (such as Beastmaster to lure prey into position for driving them, Disruption for small game, Mobility for running down prey, etc). It wouldn’t be that unreasonable for Odayla initiates, given the number of  Odayla bow myths, to get Sureshot as an associate cult spell (Yinkin might be more of a Draw Beast type). 
 

 

 

Odayla doesn't offer any archery Rune spells.

I personally think it's because he offers Bear's Head /Skin /Claws. I don't recall seeing any of the Hunter cults that offer the Transform Animal spells and archer Runes spells together, and I think that was probably a deliberate game balance choice by the devs.

OTOH, I could be 180 degs off and it's just a typo 😁

I don't think Yinkin is a Draw Beast type. Yinkin is a cat and the act of hunting is as much a pleasure to him as eating he's caught. For that reason, I think his cult prefers the chase rather than mesmerizing their prey. But YGMV.

4 hours ago, Squaredeal Sten said:

A couple of decades ago i demonstrated my musket and bayonet to my mother in law.  Stabbed her ceiling when i went to right shoulder shift.  Thee bayonet went right in, despite being a piece of Indian-made repro which bends in the sheath when i sit down.   Since then I have been more careful indoors.

I've almost done that 😄

I'd be surprised if all of haven't, certainly most of us have.

2 hours ago, g33k said:

I would not apply a HP penalty, simply because -- once any injury is healed -- that person doesn't really have any fewer HP's.

It's not like a missing hand costs any total-HP's.
It's not like a 3-year-old (or congenital) missing hand is going to be relevant to the damage done to the bicep & humerus by an axe.

The RQ hit-location mechanism has no real way to distinguish sub-locations...
How far down that path do you want to go, really?  A ruined nailbed, that no longer grows a fingernail?  The last joint of a finger?  An entire finger?  Most (but not all) of a hand?  Etc...

Once these wounds are healed-up, I allege -- even if missing parts aren't restored -- the HP-totals are fully restored to normal pre-injury levels.

As @French Desperate WindChild said:  a manipulation-penalty would suffice, at his table (and mine).  YGMV.

At that point, if I were that player character I'd be investing a lot of 'filthy Lunars' into Protection and Shield spells.

[The OP said there were roleplaying reasons why the PC didn't want Regrow Limb]

8 hours ago, Scotty said:

Just for general reference:

https://robslink.com/SAS/democd79/body_part_weights.htm

Ah... forensic gaming, because no detail is too small for power gaming 🤣😁

[That's not a jab, @Scotty... Every one of us knows 'that guy']

53 minutes ago, Godlearner said:

Against a target like a deer with no armor, Multimissle will actually be better. 

Well, according to RQ Bestiary, black-tailed deer have 1 pt and elk have 2 pts of armor respectively. You make a good point, but Speedart seems to be more commonly available than Multimissile, so that was the example I chose.

Your point is well taken otherwise.

56 minutes ago, Bill the barbarian said:

If you are looking for damage, nothing beats a javelin 1D10 used by a strong guy or gal, plus 1d2 or 1d3 DB and then kick in a bit of magic and/or specials or crits... ouch!

Sure, but you have to be able to Track, Move Silently, and Hide at much higher levels to get into range for a javelin. Otherwise, good point.