svensson

19 hours ago, jajagappa said:

A couple hundred Lunars is 2-3 years worth of coin - perhaps that is enough to change your life?

Assuming that you don't buy adventurer gear with it [enchantments, high speed/low drag armor, etc.] and put that 200L into steading improvements, more livestock, better living conditions for your people etc., 200L could be what we call a 'foundational fortune' nowadays.

Heroes and adventurers get stories told about them, but the real backbone of a clan are the prosperous steadholders who are the economy. It's the steadings that pay most of the taxes, sacrifice the most POW, and so on and having the cash to make sure the roof is in good repair before Dark Season, or getting a chimney, or even a separate barn can start a family down the road to real prosperity.

In the strictest terms, yes, grave robbing is dishonorable and can lead to some very ugly consequences.

In some cases, such as the Dragon of the Thunder Hills scenario of the GM's Pack, the ghost of the deceased may give permission for the living to make use of their grave goods. IMG, there is a 1000% chance that such a claim will be confirmed by the local clan's priestly caste if they suspect even a little bit that a PC showing up wearing an ancient panoply possibly owned by one of their ancestors.

Something else to consider: the Dragonkill of ca. ST 1000 is a great big red line between 'the ancients' and 'today' in Sartar. The Orlanthi who lived during the EWF bear little or no relation to the Heortlings who re-colonized Dragon Pass centuries later. While the spirits of the deceased will certainly be angry if you loot their tombs, those spirits will most likely [but not definitely] not be related to the clan living nearby. Archeologically speaking, the Dragonkill is that great big ugly black line of soot and ash layer between, say, Minoan civilization and Hellenic Greek civilization left when Santorini blew up.

Last thing: most Orlanthi don't leave extensive tombs. The funerary rites of Orlanthi require cremation, so there isn't much of a tomb to speak of and most often the possessions of the deceased are divided among their descendants or else 'go to the Winds' with the dead. I don't have my Earth Mothers book handy, but IIRC it's not uncommon for Earth women to be cremated and their bones buried in an urn, so not much grave goods there either. Certain great priestesses may be entombed with goods, but those tombs would be nearby an Earth temple and would be protected by patrols of Babeester Gor women -- NOT the people you want to piss off, ya know?

I believe that if I could figure out how to make 'Pumpkin Spiced White Zinfandel' wine in a box, I could sell that shit on the corner like meth.

"Wussup, bruh? Ol' lady all pissed off again? Did she go full 'Karen' are ya? I gots whachu need, bruh! Couple shots of this and she'll be fine!"

On 12/3/2023 at 1:50 AM, metcalph said:

No.  There was a mention of potato bread p40 and potatoes p54 in Cults of Prax but these have since been redacted.  

A Goddess of Edible Roots is Thilla (Cults of Runequest: Prosopedia p121).  There will probably be similar goddesses all over gloratha but they have less impact than the grain goddesses.  

 

 

Seriously, how messed up would it be to be 'Carrot Top, Goddess of Spuds'... 🤣😆😁

35 minutes ago, Ian Absentia said:

Ah, I found it.  And it is BRP-adjacent.  It's from The Comae Engine, which is, at it's heart, a very streamlined d100 game.  The rule is "Negative Luck" (p.20 of the most recent version), where a player can use up to 2 extra Luck Points that their character doesn't actually have in a present scene as long as they agree to forfeit a successful roll in a future scene.

I gather the idea isn't unique, but it definitely suits the "pulp" genre.  For all the talk of how incredibly competent Indiana Jones is, he's an awful stumble-bum from scene to scene.  Even James Bond has to pay off his over-extended fortune from time to time.

!i!

Hey, if John Wick has to take that kind of beating, your player character is need health insurance.. 🤣

11 minutes ago, Mugen said:

Err... No, I just didn't check what I wrote... You can ignore one of those "all"...

What I meant is that all PCs should have at least a couple of skills at 90+, an at least 65+ in some others.

Yeah, the PCs should be excellent at their key character-concept skills [for example Drive Aircraft for a pilot], good at a three or five other skills, and then a more reasonable level most other PC important skills.

Pulp isn't so much about how skilled the characters are, it how skilled the referee is at making their errors exciting! It isn't always about succeeding a swinging from the chandelier, it's how fun the tavern fire is when the chandelier crashes to the floor [PC in tow] and spreads lamp oil all over the place 🤣

Well, you found Astounding Adventures, the BRP specific book. I'd also suggest GURPS Cliffhangers for some more ideas.

In addition, take a look at the old TV series 'Tales of the Gold Monkey'. It only ran one season, but was classic Pulp in concept and execution.

Thanks Jaj!

Is the next volume of Gods of Glorantha [the Lunars, iirc] still on pace for Q1 24?

@g33k makes a very salient point in all this when he talks about a herder getting part of the plunder...

There are no 'adventurers' in Glorantha any more than there you can put 'adventurer' in a W2 form [this is the basic annual earnings statement in the US tax code]. In Glorantha, you're a herder/hunter/farmer/whatever that does heroic stuff. Even professional warriors are 'thanes' or 'mercenaries', not 'adventurers'. Remember, the player characters have an adventure once a season and actually have day jobs that earn them their daily bread.

@Ian A. Thomson So, what's the title and expected finish date of the next installment? I own all three so far and have been VERY entertained by them. I really enjoy seeing some of those old RQ2 'gaming from the hip' sensibilities updated.

OK, in an in-world manage-the-economy sense, taxes are usually paid in kind [you owe x amount of produce of y types for z hides of land]. It is very rare that taxes are paid in cash. What's more, even if you did pay your taxes in hard coin, with so many types of coin of so many vintages it is most likely that the coinage is measured by weight instead of purchase value.

In a game mechanics sense, your taxes are paid during the Sacred Time end of the year phase of the game. The 10% of 'income' is income from all sources, including adventuring. Now YGMV on just how much of a stickler the gods are about shorting your religious tithes. Back in the days of RQ2, many PCs would go on a spending spree right before the High Holy Day so that the temple got '10% of what I have on me right now'. The Sacred Time mechanic is intended to average that out a bit and make the adventurers actually pay more of what's owed.

Something else to remember: The cult tithe also INCLUDES two weeks of service to the cult per year. In an agrarian society like the Esrolians or Heortlings [and by extension the Sartarites], NOBODY wants to be polishing statues or standing guard at the temple during planting and harvesting. There is A LOT of hustling going on behind the scenes to avoid doing your cult time during these vital seasons of the year. Oh, and Sacred Time NEVER counts towards your annual cult service. During those two weeks, the whole society is focused on religious duties.

As you can imagine, 10% of annual income and 2 weeks per year adds up quick if you join multiple cults.

@Joerg

Excellent summary, including information that I didn't know. I would have been VERY leery of RQ's ties to GW had it gone that route. Glorantha offers something that all WH franchises purposefully avoid: Hope for the future, an opportunity for the good guys to win. Tying Glorantha to the WH publishers would have REALLY increased the price point, and I really feel they would have tried to chain their vision of Chaos to Greg's version. And while there are clear equivalents between the two milieux [Malia and Nurgle for example] I think that the differences are equally important and I'd prefer not to 'cross the streams'. The last thing I want to see a bunch maniacal of  cultist-tribesmen boiling out of Snakepipe Hollow screaming 'Blood for the Blood God!'

I had no idea about the defamation issue with the [Mongoose?] project leader. I DID like Eldarad very much as a RQ Gateway setting, but the other offerings weren't up to that par. Some of the writing in RQ Second Age was very good, but there were some real drek in there too.

As far a Pavis being a 'ghetto', it's no more a ghetto than Sanctuary, Greyhawk, or Shadizar the Wicked... it's a hub from which bands of unauthorized mayhem makers in service to [insert cult/nation/motive here] venture forth to loot tombs, do underhanded semi-legal fetch quests, and otherwise jab the darkness with a sharp stick just to see what bites.

I liked two things about RQ3...

1. EVERYTHING you needed to play a game was in one box /book, character generation, the mechanics, spells, bestiary, starting adventure, everything. None of this DnD TSR/WotC hitting you up for $200 [PH, DMG, MM, and adventure] before you could sit down with your friends and start playing.

2. Once the 'Glorantha Renaissance' started, I LOVED the detail and depth of the material. Chaosium should put pdfs of River of Cradles, Sun County, Shadows on the Borderlands, and Strangers in Prax up for sale because those resources are as big a step towards where we are now as Tales of the Reaching Moon was.

GREAT question! I look forward to the discussion.

As I understand it, and I forget where I read it [I think it was RQ3's Cults of Terror but I might be wrong], the nature of Delecti is that he can inhabit any corpse in the swamp. Kill one Delecti and another rises within hours. Until all corpses are removed from the swamp, there will always be a Delecti.

But I would like to see a fully empowered Delecti statted up.

On 11/6/2023 at 10:06 AM, French Desperate WindChild said:

My point was there is no issue to play a human without knowing the troll perspective. Of course real people (not all players, not only players)can be interested (and  I am) to know trolls perspective. But that is not to play, just because I love this world.

You can infer an awful lot from the race and cultural descriptions, but at the end of the day you'll always bring your perspective and emphases to a character of another race.

Consider that Tolkien never wrote anything about hobbits that included the 'vicious prankster' or the 'laughing backstabber' tropes. The Pathfinder goblins [funny psychos with explosives] are nothing like the existential threat of a 'goblin horde from Mt. Gundabad'. That was all inserted into the stereotype by players in multiple RPG games and the course of 40 years.

You're always gonna add your viewpoint to a character, and most of the time that won't be the same as another player at the table.

Went looking for it on DTRPG today and didn't see it. Will check again on Monday.

1 hour ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

Didn’t know 🙂 

 

While Chaosium and Mongoose have repaired their relationship, the whole Second Age Glorantha series was thought to have 'gone off the rails' insofar as Glorantha lore and canon were concerned. There is a whole bunch of pretty goofy dreck in the series, but with a little effort you can find the odd and sundry gem. 'Race volume 1' is one of them.

1 hour ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

Your conclusion about this fact is based on your conception of dirty

now imagine that in your culture, eating your own feces is good.  Now imagine why trolls don’t eat their own feces.

for example maybe they consider that their  feces is what their body did not absorb. In that case there is no reason to eat them again.  That would be fool

note I m not saying that is the reason, just that is not because a fact may be explained by our culture that our culture and the other one have the same explanation.

We unfortunately have no source of elder races based on their own perspective

not an issue if we play human, of course.

While it's not considered 'canon', I personally like the writing in Mongoose's RQ2 'Races of Glorantha vol. 1'. This volume DOES discuss three elder races, the dragonewts, Uz, and Ducks, from their own points of view. Of course, these points of view are expressed 600 years or so ago in ST 900. I REALLY enjoyed both the dragonewt and Uz chapters.

There are several deities that a bandit might worship

- Orlanth

- Eurmal

- Gargarth

- Ygg [for pirates]

- Lanbril

But you should also remember that one guy's 'bandit' is another guy's 'freedom fighter' or 'Robin Hood' or 'committer of survival crimes'. Point of view is important to that definition.

21 minutes ago, tooley1chris said:

Doing some proofreading and small edits but it will be very soon. Within a week or 2 with other 2 books following a couple weeks apart after that.

Great! I'll keep an eye out for it!

Yelmalions.

And any word on the availability of the Core Rulebook?

And troll lairs are remarkably free of rats and roaches! Trollkin DO have their uses, after all 😁

1 hour ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

lmao as a child of the 80s I now think of them angrily smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee

And listening to Nirvana in their thrift store flannels [yeah, I know that's early 90s but the image is there]