svensson

Using Ian Thompson's Pavis 1620 books as a reference, the 'Pavis Royal Guard' are the bandits... thugs and mercenaries hired by the Lunars under command of a Zebra tribesman-turned-brigand. The so-called 'bandits' in the Rubble are actually Zebra Tribe loyalists who resisted the Lunar invasion and had to disperse when the city surrendered.

I wholeheartedly agree. And Kiku being the little manipulator instead of 'the happy hooker' she is portrayed in the book as. I think Naga is pretty spot-on... a young man with a legendary father trying to make his own mark without the wisdom necessary to do so I also like the characterization of Blackthorne a lot. He's portrayed as a desperate man playing a lousy hand of cards with every trick he knows. As for Shogun and RPGs, I'm a big fan of the Legend of the 5 Rings RPG [though oddly enough not so much the card game]. When the game was at the top of its popularity John Wick [the author and designer, not the assassin] was asked about an L5R movie. His reply was classic... "How could we possibly make a 5 Rings movie? Master Toshiro is dead..."

I'm a bit of a Luddite when it comes to AI art. Firstly, it devalues an artist's skill and effort. It takes the humanity out of the experience of art. Secondly, there is the significant issue of plagiarism. I've said on this board that 'The last truly original piece of writing was probably Gilgamesh. Everything else is plagiarism to one degree or another'. I still believe that to be true, but the threat AI poses to original artists and writers cannot and should not be discounted. Thirdly, what will happen to actual artists when companies can just run some parameters in a software program and the computer will gin up a very pretty image, but one with no thought, no controversy, no technique, and no individuality? Where I'm at right now with AI is this, "It's awfully pretty, but is it 'art'?" Or to be much more blunt with it, "AI artwork is the artistic equivalent of an HOA President... everything is bland, controlled, and various shades of beige."

I would submit that most gods communicate through their priestly hierarchy exclusively unless the faith has a shamanic component... Some Hunter gods have a shamanic branch of the faith, for example. But the whole point of having a priesthood is to make the powers the god offers exclusive to it and not available to just anybody with a fetch. However, there is an oblique path shamans can use to access some theistic powers, that of summoning specific ancestors and receiving Rune spells through them.

I'm glad for all these maps. I run a tabletop game with my nieces and paper maps have a sense of 'real' that electronic maps don't. They seem to take the situation more seriously.

Where is the GMs Book /Guide /Whatever 'teased'? Here in the forums, the GMs Book has been mentioned as an idea for after the Gods of Glorantha series is done. There hasn't been a proposed date, author, or list of content or anything. I have seen no cover, content discussion, or literally anything saying the GM's Guide is upcoming any time soon. 'Back burner' is the closest description I've seen. Now, the Gods of Glorantha project HAS been held up by that bane of editors everywhere, artwork. Add to that COVID, economic hassles with China, and shipping backlogs. The wait for GoG HAS been significant. And GoG is supposed to be a 10 volume set, which is not yet at the halfway mark [the Lunar Pantheon is Book 5]. Meanwhile, Jonstown Compendium keeps us their stellar work keeping you supplies with adventures, locales,stat blocks, cultural descriptions and other material. Quite frankly, it's one of the most active 'third party fan content' milieux on DriveThru. And given the GM's Pack content, the Glorantha Bestiary content, and so forth, I'm not really seeing what a GM's Guide could add to the body of material already available. But then, I've been wrong before. There's no doubt a corner or cranny that I have thought of. Insofar as I can see, we're getting the content that was promised us and since last summer it's been on schedule.

You rang? @Jim Rickel YES! These will be useful. Thanks!

We discussed this in a discussion of RQG hunting and weapons therefore. There are neurosurgeons who insist on igneous glass scalpels because they're the only instrument with a fine enough edge to slice a nerve lengthwise. I met one once from the University of Washington School of Medicine and that's where I learned about that.

Well SOMEbody has an 'in' with the Easter Bunny! Enjoy!

This just came across my desk, though I'm sure those of you in the UK are fully aware of it. For archeologists and to a lesser extent anthropologists, the pot of gold at the end of a rainbow is the midden pit... the trash pit of all the cast-off items of a culture. Certain types of midden pit are more valuable than others. A midden dug into soil with little or no acid or oxygen content preserves the items within nearly perfectly, but these are incredibly rare. In Cambridgeshire in England they've recently discovered and excavated an entire burned village circa 800 BC... a pre-Roman Celtic village whose artifacts were almost hermetically sealed. It's as close as the UK gets to 'the Pompeii Standard'... where a habitation was preserved in an almost 'frozen snapshot' state. Anyway, here's a link to the BBC story. Enjoy! https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/68620228

Last one, and FAR more on-point. An inspirational image capture from The One Ring RPGs title, 'Ruins of the Lost Realm' of a Human trading with the giant otters of the Swanfleet Marshes. This seems to capture a sense of the OPs question, if a bit colder. Art on specific pages is not credited, but the artists in the book are: Antonio de Luca, Jan Pospisil, and Federica Costantini

I am about to make your day better. No, really. I am about to make your day 1000% better than when you woke up this morning. And I'm not selling anything, asking you to take a religious tract, or asking you to forward anything for 'good luck' Just relax and enjoy Snoop Dogg's take on 'Otters' You're welcome

Meet my spirit guide, Rufus the Evil Otter Life got much less complicated when I started asking myself, 'what would Rufus do'? 😆

And it's your Glorantha anyway. If you want a couple of Eiritha Zebra women at Zebra Fort, have at it. You certainly don't need OUR permission... 😆

[Ya know, I was kinda hoping for some love regarding 'Honest Atilla's Mounts and Tack'.... Just sayin' 😆]

@French Desperate WindChild @metcalph And yet the tribes have consistently been portrayed in multiple editions as highly biased against horses and the people who ride them. Horse riders are singled out in raids, the horses themselves draw fire, the PJs are written as having a tenuous perch at the edge of the Plains because of excessive raiding by all the Tribes.

@David Scott @Nick Brooke You both make good and related points. What I'm wondering is this: The PJs are the 'interface' between Sartar and Prax. It seems likely, or at least possible, that they could make a lot of coin if they were a source of cavalry zebras for Sartarites traveling to the Plains. Thane Bob gets outlawed for some reason and decides to head to Pavis, where he's heard that good sword can find work. He mounts up on his trusty Sered cavalry mare and rides for Barbarian Town. There he finds out that riding horses in Prax is bad voodoo indeed, but he sure the Hells ain't walking across the Plains if he can help it. So what to do? Then he finds 'Honest Atilla's Mounts and Tack' and Atilla is *perfectly* willing to buy Bob's Sered and sell him an allegedly cavalry-trained zebra. As for 'The PJs don't care what the Praxian tribes think', I would think that the one thing the Bison and Sable tribes would agree on is ridding the Plains of the Non-Covenant heretics and their filthy beasts! Should that be the case, the PJs would be well-advised to find some sort of accommodation with the Tribes, or else their very existence would be in jeopardy. Like a said, there are good 'Greg reasons' for and against the PJs and a healthy zebra herd.

Taking European destriers as an example, training a war horse also is a matter of temperament and intelligence. You can't take a draft horse and make a war mount out of it if it doesn't have that fighting instinct. That also serves to keep the eligible candidates small. I've read in RQ3 sources that Praxian braves own only their own personal mounts and those beasts he takes from enemy tribes. All other animals belong to his wife, if he has one, or the clan herd under the care of the herd-mothers. His captured animals are a form of counting coup and are a secondary food source.

And the Great Table fills another seat. My sincere condolences and regrets to his family and friends.

Thanks guys. A couple of minor points /thoughts /questions a] Mounts of all sorts are a lot cheaper if you're breeding them and not paying with cash. One would suppose that Pol Joni Eiritha-women can keep the costs manageable and increase breeding of war-zebra sized mounts to a reasonable level. War zebras are not common and are rarely for sale to outsiders, but I would guess the PJs have a sustainable population. b] When you guys are generating a Praxian brave, what skill-level of mount do you give them, 'cavalry or 'war'? I ask all this because I'm thinking of putting together a Pol Joni Elmal cultist via my cult writeup.

Given that the Pol Joni are 'invaders' in Prax and are considered the 'clan of outlaws', do they ever ride zebras? On the one hand, it could ease relations with Praxian tribes. On the other, there are good 'Stafford reasons' why they don't.

So, keeping this in the BRUGE realm, you can assume that most rolls for a native are automatic. It's when you get into the nit-picky details of culture that rolls are even called for. I would give Culture [Native] about 35%. This would represent basic cultural 'literacy' for someone with little formal schooling but who was raised in said culture..

Sadly, nostalgia jacks up the price by 150% of CURRENT retail value, not ORIGINAL. And when you're an RQ or Traveller fan like myself, it's a rare thing indeed to find your treasures at the used book store.

There's the list in order: 1. New Pavis: The City on the Edge of Forever 2. Old Pavis: The City that Time Forgot 3. Pavis and Beyond: Secrets of the Borderland 4. Old Pavis (II): The Good, the Bad, and the Rowdy Ian also recommends and refers to pages in the Glorantha Classics 1: Pavis and the Big Rubble pdf.

Do androids dream of electric sheep? 😆 [I'd tell you I couldn't help myself, but fact is that I didn't even try]