svensson

You'd end up with a 'Thanatar head' situation... 'w' is the AS of 'x' is the AS of 'y' who is the AS of player character 'z'. And that is a level of complication NOBODY wants to muck about with.

@Scotty Thanks for some of the clarifications. I'm not sure how an AS would/could raise its CHA. Certainly the deeds it does with its human would count. A Humakt sword with a resident AS whose Sword of Humakt owner does great things with it would naturally improve its reputation, especially when you consider the item valuation tables in Weapons and Equipment. That being said, some kind of table-rule would have to be negotiated. I don't think that Allied Spirits can or should advance in a cult. Initiates they may be, but initiates they ought to remain. Allied Spirits and their mortal ally make a very powerful team, and allowing the AS to become a Rune level in its own right kind of breaks that system. And the LAST thing any referee wants to entertain is the possibility that an Allied Spirit has an Allied Spirit of its own...

I would tend to disagree with that assessment, but YGMV. As for the initiate AS being off performing cult duty, it is very, VERY rare for someone lower than Rune level to get an allied spirit. Almost 'have to go on a successful Heroquest' rare. We have examples in canon of initiates who do indeed have an allied spirit, but not in this edition so far as I know. I might be wrong there, but I can't think of anyone right off top of my head. Supposing that Allied Spirits are the privilege of Rune status, I would think that serving an ordained member of the cult 24/7 would be 'cult service' enough! 😁 I mean, could see the hear the conversation at the Allied Spirit Bar and Grill? "Hey, Word of Desolation! I heard the good news about you!" "Yeah, Eye-Blinder, I got selected." "Why so glum, then? You look like you just lost the Divine Intervention Lottery...." "Well, I kinda did. I DID get selected to be an Allied Spirit, praise our Master, but... well... it's to a Player Character..." "Oh, DUDE! I'm SO sorry to hear that. Player Characters are NUTS! You never know WHAT those clowns will try next! You want me to ask around and see if any of the others will donate to the United POW Relief Fund in your name?" "That may not be a bad idea, EB....."

It's not too crazy to assume that an Allied Spirit is an Initiate of the deity you got the AS from. So yes, I'd rule that your Allied Spirit would have 1 Rune Point and an associated spell. It would also have access to the Common Rune Spells and may choose to sacrifice for additional Rune Points and magics. However, UNLIKE the mortal, it doesn't have any items [crystals, enchantments, etc.] to boost its magical abilities. It only has it's native POW. Also be advised that, just like a shaman's fetch, your AS is vulnerable to the Spirit World all the time. Never let its native POW get so low that it becomes bait for a malevolent spirit on the hunt.

The last figure is a Priest of Poseidon, the Imperial cult. He bears an orichalcum trident as his staff of office along with the orichalcum and moon opal brooch of his specific priestly rank. On his wrists he wears bangles and whalebone decoration. His headband brings to mind [pun unintended] of the waves at sea.

The third figure is a lokhagos [or 'captain'] of the elite Black Krakens tagmata [a 'regiment' of 8 'companies' called 'logakhoi'] Most Atalan military units have excellent equipment, usually steel. This is a vast improvement over the iron and bronze of their continental opponents. Occasionally an expeditionary force of Atalan home army troops is formed and these are mostly equipped with orichalcum. While gold retains it's prestige value, it is a poor military metal. Therefore, bronze is held in nearly the same esteem given it's association with orichalcum. This company commander advances with his falcata at the ready, his horse-hair comb denoting his officer status in a home army unit [troops in such units have a simple dyed cloth 'horsetail' running down the back of their helms]. The quality of his gear proclaims his elite status, as he is armed with an orichalcum helm, breastplate, shield, and falcata. He wears bronze greaves and his steel-and-bronze pauldrons proclaim is specific rank

The second figure is a Priestess of Athena and her screech owl. Note the color of the breastplate and spear-head. In this campaign, 'orichalcum' is a mixture of tin, copper, and 'orichal', a mineral from deep in the planet's mantle that is only available in trace amounts and small lodes. By law, all lodes of this metal are the property of the Poseidophilos... the Priest Emperor of the Atalan Empire. The smelting and forging of orichalcum is kept by a closed guild of High Smiths, and the Empire uses the most drastic measures to keep this secret.... These methods that are best left to the imagination, but the least odious measure is that a High Smith in never, ever allowed to leave the continent of Atalan. The slightly 'off color bronze' tone is one I selected for 'orichalcum'. This tone is best seen on the spear head. The mounting shank is typical bronze, while the spear blade is 'orichalcum'.

As some of you may know, I'm running a faux-Atlantis game using the RQG rules [liberally modified, obviously]. This is the game that I'm running for my wife, my niece and her daughter. I've been mucking about with Heroforge to provide pictures to the words of how I describe the Atalan [aka Atlantean] people and their institutions. For the sake of those of you Runequesting outside of Glorantha, I thought I'd share a few screenshots, one per reply. First image is a Priestess of Artemis on a hunt. She's wears a she-wolf head and the typical tunic of an Atalan, with the sky-blue clamys cloak of an authority figure. With her, and staying clear of her shot, is a wolf pup she's raising.

Well, an Orlanthi OGRE maybe... 🤣

And it looks even MORE 'disordered' than when you started. There's just something 'Stafford-style' elegant in that 😂

First off, yeah, I got shit for my Alice Cooper and Killing Joke records too. Second off, I deeply appreciate talent and musicianship, even if I don't necessarily like the style of music or the artist themselves. It's the AUTOTUNE that object to! So much 'processing' goes into so-called 'singers' and so-called 'bands' nowadays that the little SOBs can't do a concert by themselves. How many groups have you heard in the last 20 years whose Top 40 hit was so autotuned that they have to lip sync their own work because they don't know how to harmonize with each other? For example, I loathe boy bands as a genre but the Backstreet Boys have my [reluctant] respect because I heard them a cappella six of their songs without missing a beat or a lyric. Skill is skill, period.

I'm convinced that this is how 90% of US Top 40 music gets made... 1. Record a random animal noise 2. 'Process' it 3. Find an Instagram model who lip syncs well

Very true. Otter is also a local trickster, but is more concerned with comforts and family than the clever teacher role

The trick with advancement is being lucky. A few good rolls of the dice and you can max your POW pretty frikkin' quick. So, both you and @Squaredeal Sten are both correct. I've often told the story here on the board of how my character in a long running RQ2 campaign stayed an initiate while everyone else in the party advanced to Priest or Rune Lord because I couldn't get one required skill to bump past 85%. Sometimes the dice are simply not your friend and you have to RP that lack of success.

Well, Complete Griselda was published LOOONG after Big Rubble. Big Rubble was written as Griselda was still appearing in Different Worlds, in media res so to speak. The Big Rubble statistics are accurate insofar as people understood her at that time. So you're not wrong necessarily, you just didn't have all the information. And for all I know, it's been changed since. Besides, the question you posed the place/role of uninitiated adults is still a good one.

OK, responding to @smiorgan's actual question... I personally had a lot of fun in the RQ2 days earning my initiation. It can make for a fun campaign as a group of random layabouts who met at a bar [Gimpy's for the WIN!] sort out which deity they'll follow based on their skills and interests. But you're right, RQG starts the players at a much higher experience level than either RQ2 or RQ3 did. And a large slice of those previous experience percentage points comes from initiation, probably 5% of the total percentage-points-above-starting-values. HOWEVER, this concept of initiation does have the benefit of being logical in a 'religion as an aspect of culture' sense. Most Earth religions initiate [confirm, baptize, bar mitzvah, whatever] their young people somewhere between the ages of 14 and 18. In the modern world, that's to solidify the young person's religious beliefs before they go out into the big, bad world and find other influences and other ideas. So it makes sense that a Gloranthan young person, whose family are members in good standing of a given cult, would initiate at age 16 and have a body of Rune Points /Spells and spirit magic spells to start with. But for those people who insist on being outliers... it could be great fun to have a character be from a Daka Fal background but have to earn their way into the local cult [Orlanth, Yelmalio, 7M]... having to pass RP the tests and so forth. I'd LOVE to play a game where a Darkness-friendly Sartarite clan lets my Dark Troll character stay at the tula, take instruction, and eventually initiate into Orlanth. If the campaign runs long enough, being a Dark Troll Wind Lord would be freaking awesome.

Griselda IS initiated. Just not in any cults that the locals are familiar with. OD says in The Complete Griselda that she's fully initiated in both Lanbril and Eurmal the Thief. And she's friendly with most of the other Lightbringers, if not an actual initiate. Glorantha is a place of LOTS of different archetypes for heroism. In Grizzy's case, it's a very 'Godfather' type arrangement. Muck with her family and she'll go the extra mile and three-quarters to make sure you regret it..... right before you die.

Magic is unreliable in the EQ milieu... the farther you get from the High Elf genotype, the less ability with it you seem to have. Because of that, I would suggest that you use Sorcery instead of Spirit or Rune magics from the BP/CoC/RQ line. - Each spells has a skill percentage and the more advanced spells would naturally have lower percentages. - Each caster would have a VERY limited repertoire of spells. - POW or MP recovers VERY slowly, one-half to one-third the common rate. - There are VERY few magic items, and those that do exist like to malfunction. Use of an item's power requires a POWx5 roll and fumbles happen on a 90%+ instead of 95%+. - There are few, if any, POW/MP reservoir crystals or items. Most spell casters have to rely on their inborn ability alone. - I would probably avoid the RQG mechanic of basing spells on the mastery of a Rune. That would lead to too many complications for a setting like EQ. I would divide magic into three basic categories: a] Life-- Living items like plants, animals, and people. Wooden items, which once did live, counts here. b] Things -- That which never has lived like stone, metal, ceramics, fire, water, etc. c] Minds -- Sending and reading thoughts, guarding thoughts, influencing thinking

Coyote. Trickster, teacher, and fool all in one.

Hey, it's Seattle. You could probably find a high school kid who'd do it for free... lol!

Just kidding. THIS is, no joke, Buoy the Kraken Mascot And I honest to God don't know WHAT to make of the eff'ing thing... [BTW, it's a hockey stick, not a harpoon]

The Seattle Kraken NHL team have just revealed their new mascot.

Yeah, I understand that. As a publisher, guarding your copyrights/franchise/IP is naturally a major concern. SOME game magazines have allowed old material out into the aether but not everyone can be so generous, and there's nothing wrong with protecting what's yours. Am I disappointed? Of course I am. TotRM and HiG had some of the absolute best 'approved for use with' writing ever done by anybody. And at least some authors [MOB for example] are returning to their older works and expanding on it.

@Jeff There is a whole crew on the board here who only see [or just continually mention] the negatives of Argrath. Some have even questioned his Hero status. Argrath was a man of many parts, not all of them good to be sure. I see Argrath as the modern Arkat, the harbinger of great change and ending of an Age. That much is obvious to anyone who's read The Glorantha Sourcebook, much less delved into the apocrypha arcanus of Glorantha. Parse his motives as you like, but Greg Stafford didn't build paragons of virtue. Glorantha was built by relatable personalities, by human beings, with all the warts and all that come with it.

Achilles was a much trouble to his allies as he was to his enemies. Anybody think of anybody else who might fit that description? 🤣 Folks, Argrath was developed to be a Hero that gamers could empathize and identify with. He was specifically NOT designed to a Persival or Aragorn. Argrath has faults, blind-spots, past mistakes that come back to bite him in the ass, and all the other symptoms of being a human being. He is not an iconic statue or an ideal. I've been a military historian since I was 12 years old. Like most us, I cut my teeth on the World Wars. I was very, very lucky to have a mentor early on in the process who taught me a very important lesson when dealing with historical figures [especially the villains]... He said, 'Remember that each of these people was a human being, not some statue or a representative name for a given trait. Hitler isn't the archetypal 'Racist'. He was Adolf Hitler, son of Alois and Klara Hitler. He was human. He had a temper. He had PTSD, which fueled his hatreds. You have to look at the whole man to understand how he became what he was, not just the summary.'