svensson

Fair question. I mean, we have problems with that in the US too. For just one example, in a recent Congressional vote the Republican Party shot down a bill to compensate veterans who suffered lung injuries due to toxic fumes from burning garbage and sewage at camps in Iraq and Afghanistan. The press [which does indeed have a liberal bias - - that allegation is absolutely true] lambasted the GOP over it and waaaay down at the bottom of the article they finally mentioned why the GOP voted it down. Turns out there was half a trillion dollars -- 450+ billion dollars- - of pork money that absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with veterans or health care. This is right on point for the GOP: their big thing to cut government waste and cut the budget. Now, I'm not saying I vote Republican. I have in the past, for my own reasons, and may do so again when the right candidate comes along. But I'm not a member of any political party and I never, ever vote the 'party line'. In my state's politics I'm considered a Centrist, but the press and the Democrats were pretty unfair in this instance. And from what I've seen of Tory v. Labour politics in the UK, it appears that the same thing happens there. And I should also note that I'm not damning one party /position or another. BOTH of them do this kind of nonsense. What I object to is the practice itself, but then, that's politics in a democracy. It's a nasty business from one end to the other.

In my defense, I justified the shotgun for sound CoC in game reasons... 😁

The Crown is just a figurehead, a symbol of Great Britain. Elizabeth herself never expressed any strong political opinion other than to support the constitutional monarchy of which she was the head. In many ways, the ruler of the UK is rather like an American Vice President. They're seen but not heard. But blaming the Crown for policy decisions of its Government is like blaming the Vice President. The VP may have an opinion on policy, and that opinion may be solicited on occasion, but the orders to act go out over another person's signature, in the UK's case various Prime Ministers. As to your comments about several of the British military interventions, there were good and bad wars in there. As the UK retreated from empire, it had some major problems to deal with. If they'd just abandoned several of the colonial possessions, nations that had less than 100 college graduates in them for example, it would have been a tribal bloodbath.... Rwanda times ten. Then, of course, there is the UK's utter reliance on the Arabs for oil and access to the Med via the Suez Canal. That meant that UK policy was chained to Egypt and Nasser /Sadat, and the KSA and House of S'aud. THEN you add the attempt to pull out of India, by request of the Indian people, without IT turning into another farking bloodbath. We can see the results of that even today. Running down your list of colonial interventions, there were several that had completely legitimate causas belli. Malaya and Indonesia were completely legitimate. Putting down a Communist insurrection or a blatant power grab for territory... and doing so with remarkably few casualties... can hardly be called 'imperialism'. But others CAN honestly be called 'bad wars'... wars for the sake of corporate interests or proxy wars fought for 'allies' where just as bad as the enemy. Oman and the Radfan come to mind as conflicts in those categories. There is no literate citizen in the world who is completely happy with their military's record. War is a messy business and once you start dropping ordinance it can be very hard to reel it in. This is why war is and should be the LAST resort instead of the first. But you don't blame a flag or a document because poor policy decisions. You blame the people you put into office that made those decisions. Great Britain spent 1000 years pulling the teeth out of their monarchs in favor of the House of Commons and whoever the Prime Minister is. There is very little the person wearing the Crown can do if they violently disagree with policy, and were they to do so half of the UK would lose their freaking minds over it. Elizabeth Saxe-Coburg and Gotha /Mountbatten /Windsor had damned little say in the events some of you take issue with and it's rather unfair to blame her for them. Blame Churchill, Eden and MacMillan all you want. THEY made those decisions. PS: I understand why someone would not like the UK's military record after War Two... there really is some bad ink in there. But you can take comfort in this: At least Britain didn't screw the pooch like the French did. You wanna talk about nasty, culture-changing wars, nothing the UK did was as ugly as Indo-China and Algeria... or even America's Vietnam.

1. If you ever need evidence that Chaos is Real, the platypus ought to do it for you. 2. Hairless cats and dogs... they're just creepy lookin', so NOPE 3. Goblin Shark... quite possibly the ugliest creature with a spine on Earth [pic below]

Well, I don't think this is the thread for discussions about UK politics... Not that I wouldn't read them, it would interesting as Hell from an American perspective. But I think Charles III and William V have enough work ahead of them without people stirring the pot before their predecessor is even buried yet. We're all at a historical moment where the world holds its breath for a moment, that instant between the moment change happens and you first start feeling the effects of that change. I fully expect the UK to pull out all the historical stops in the funeral and national observance of the Queen's death. There are a lot of staffers at Buckingham, Windsor, or Canterbury Cathedral that are going to be short of sleep for the next 10 days. As I know from my own mother's arrangements, you can plan something to a fare-thee-well but when it's time to put that plan in motion things can get confused in a hurry. Something that not many Commonwealth citizens understand is that Americans have a strange fascination with the trappings of monarchy, even though we rather thoroughly rejected that form of government nearly 250 years ago. I think we quietly wish we had a steadying influence like a constitutional monarch like the Crown to focus all the patriotism on, instead of investing in an elected official who will only have the job for 11 years maximum [assuming a POTUS dies in office and the VP is reelected twice]. It makes one wonder what might have happened if George Washington has become King George I of the United States. Try this one on: with the vagaries of genealogy and all, there would be a fairly good chance that Gen. Robert E. Lee might have been King Robert I.... For entertainment value, here's a link showing the three senior lines if George Washington HAD become King [I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around 'King Bushrod']

The big trick with Heroforge or any other 'paperdoll' program is that it's very easy to keep going back into the program and fiddling with this or that detail. You can EASILY find yourself 'gilding the lily', so to speak.

I'm certain that many Irish and Scots have similar feelings. For that matter, a lot of my own Americans are in 'so what' mode. But I meant my post as a courtesy and as empathy [something I'm not altogether 'good' at] to those who are upset or saddened by the death of HM. Like it or not, Elizabeth was a constant in Western culture, a figure that most in Western civilization regarded with familiarity and respect. So I don't think it's inappropriate to recognize that and offer condolences for it. As for King Charles III, as I understand it he's actually fluent in Welsh and has 'taken an interest' so to speak in Wales generally. I could very well be wrong in that, but that has been my impression of the man for over 30 years. Think of it this way: I myself am not a Catholic, but in the inevitable event of the death of Pope Francis I will still offer my respects to my Catholic friends who will be effected by it. I see it as the civilized and courteous thing to do.

There are many British and Commonwealth contributors to the board here and today is a very sad day for them. I hope you all will accept the condolences and respects of an old American cavalry corporal on the passing of HM, Queen Elizabeth II. She was fixture in lives of everyone exposed to Western media, the stern but loving grandmother, and beacon of tradition when everything in the world seemed to be changing. This is the change of a cultural epoch for all of Western Civilization. The Queen is dead. God save the King.

Well the Hunnic comparison was on purpose. Anthropologists believe that, like the Huns, the Sea Peoples were a large grouping of various different peoples without common origins. What's more, there's evidence that the Sea Peoples were not a military invasion for conquest, but a mass migration of entire tribes, rather like the Germanic Invasions and Goths faced by Rome.

Knowing when to aggro the boss fight is a KEY skill in the overall goal of 'not dying stupid' 😁

@Joerg 'Where in Glorantha' is this? Pretty much anywhere with a pissed off Ernalda Temple Queen that you offended recently... And that can be A LOT of places if one isn't careful. I don't know if there's a spell called 'Summon Great Big Eff'ing Earth Elemental' but SOMEBODY figured it out....

All life depends on Ernalda and her bounty. She is the source of Health, Wealth and Happiness for every living being on the Great Floating Burrito [an old Bloom County comic strip reference]. While she doesn't have a great many damaging spells, her protective spells are top notch!

So would running like Hell... I've personally found that knowing when to duck and knowing when to GTFO were two VERY important aspects to my lifelong ambition to, as my team sergeant said so long ago, 'not die stupid'....

"'Dodge this', he says...."

This one is remake... made by a different company from the original plans. There were a few, um, bugs...

History and archeology buffs will see A LOT of Greek Bronze Age in Glorantha. What many don't know is that the Greek Bronze Age is divided into two periods and separated by a long Dark Age. The Heroic Age of Greece is the one of Agamemnon and the Battle of Troy [both of which are historical], while Alexander and the phalanxes are Late Bronze /Early Iron Age. In between these is a series of natural disasters that effected the entire Eastern Mediterranean and an invasion by the Sea Peoples, a polyglot group of tribes that united and either conquered or burned down almost everything East of Italia. Think of them as the Huns of the Ancient World. One city that strode magnificently through the Heroic Age was the Cretan /Minoan city of Mycenae. She was the hub of a trade network that spanned the Med and was in serious running with Egypt's Thebes as the most cosmopolitan city in the world. Here is a great video that details the city and culture of Mycenae. You'll see a lot of Glorantha here... clothing styles, architecture, etc. and so on. Enjoy.

Pavis New City for just about everybody. The Rubble has temples for Yelorna, at least one Lanbril Gang, Aldrya, Kyger Litor and other Darkness cults. Sun Dome for Yelmalio and what very few Yelmites are in the area. Garhound for Lightbringers and 7M. There is a Chalanna Arroy minor temple [or hospice?] at Horn Pass. Hender's Ruins and Monkey Ruins are major Axis Mundi sites for Daka Fal, don't know if there are resident shamans there, however. Tourney Altar is a site for Humakt, but no resident temple that I know of. Logically Moonbroth Oasis would also, it being the site of two major battles. Corflu for Zola Fel, 7M, Dormal, and Gorakiki. Paps for Waha, Eiritha, and Storm Bull. Note: With Waha and Eiritha, each Praxian tribe worships in their own unique way and each tribe is, in effect, its own subcult. But the Paps is the source for the 'universal church' of each cult where each tribe's practices are respected but generalized so all may worship in peace in one place.

Just some mucking about with Heroforge's design program, with some Investigators. Enjoy. In order, Dr. Dick Danger, Olivia the Occultist, Peter Gunn, Private Eye, and Delta Green's Deshaun Green

I got a couple PM's on what a 'China Lake sooper-blooper' is. During the Vietnam War, USN Special Warfare [the SEALS] issued a requirement for a man-portable repeating grenade launcher that fired the standard 40mm grenade of the M79 single shot GL. After some trial and error, the engineers at the China Lake Weapons Test Center submitted their prototype. It got rave reviews. Essentially a 'grenade launching shotgun', the China Lake GL held one round in the barrel and three in a tube magazine. A skilled operator could fire all four rounds before the first one landed on the target. Somewhere between 20 and 30 of the weapons were made. Just a little something to add to your Delta Green character's letter to Santa 😁 Information link below: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Lake_grenade_launcher PS: No, I've never fired one before. I've never even SEEN one before. My personal military experience starts with Reagan. For that matter, I only found out about the all-too-short existence of these beauties in the last three years or so. My home state would take a VERY dim view of such a device in private hands. But it'd be fun as Hell while it lasted! 🤣😁😂

"Uh, sar? Leftenant, sar? Yer Purdys tain't gonna help you much, Leftenant Archibald. Not wit th' Willys 'cross No Man's Land using those bloody kugelspitze contraptions. Wot say we gitcha some proper killin' iron, eh?"

Last Terracotta set... Even for such a personage as the Emperor Ch'in Shi Huang, bronze was valuable enough to NOT be wasted in his tomb. Therefore representational scale armor was made out of limestone and entombed with the Emperor's heavy infantry. Rather Uz-like, if I do say so myself.

More Terracotta items First image is as the artifacts were found, in situ. The second is what they likely looked like when buried, based on chemical spectroscopy of the dye and lacquer remnants.

To add to the discussion... My wife and I toured the Terracotta Warriors of Emperor Ch'in when it came 'round locally. Obviously, copper and bronze artifacts were featured prominently. Here's a couple of the pics that came out... Crossbow trigger mechanism Pottery with dye remnants

At the beginning of the Great Depression in the US, it was still legal for private citizens to own fully automatic firearms, such as BARs and Thompson SMGs. They could not own belt-fed, tripod-mounted MGs. The first nation-wide licensing of firearms and restrictions to ownership began with the Federal Firearms Act of 1938. As for the Browning Hi-Power itself, there are in-game arguments for and against. There's no denying that having a lot of rounds in the magazine is a good thing, but there are quite a few Mythos creatures that are highly resistant firearms damage. You need a large number of damage dice to get past that resistance, if it's even possible at all. This is why a lot of CoC characters really like the shotgun over pistols and rifles generally. My advice, get you a Winchester 1897 trench gun. Nothing says 'EFF YOU and all your friends' like a pump-action 12 gauge with 2 ft. long bayonet on the end of it. As for 'evil'.... You guys keep saying 'evil' like there's something wrong with it or something. An awful lot of what we define as 'evil' is just the shit you do that would embarrass you if your momma found out about it... 😁🤣😂 PS: There IS one thing that says 'Eff you and all your friends' better than Model 97... but the China Lake pump action 40mm grenade launcher [aka 'Sooper-Bloop'] wasn't invented until the Vietnam War.

I was unaware that HQ was rebranding itself as QW. I was thinking of the old QW boxed set. I really didn't like the HQ rules that much... they were too 'narrative' and open to power-gamer misuse for me. YMMV, of course, but that definitely not the rules I'd be running with. I'd wholeheartedly support d100 genre books... in fact I've bought several BRP titles that did that.... but I won't be collecting any HQ material.