Jex

I've posted here a few times with questions about things I wanted to know for a RuneQuest adventure I was working on for the Write Your First Adventure workshop by the Storytelling Collective. Well... I'm way behind on the adventure, partially because I haven't had much time this month, but partially because I... tend to get carried away. The idea of the workshop was to write a simple, 3,500 word one-shot adventure. I'm currently at over 12,000 words, and not nearly done. (And the deadline is December 8, if I want to have the adventure included in their RPG Writer Workshop Bundle. Which I do.) However... I just had an idea. (One of those ideas that seems really obvious in retrospect and that I feel kind of stupid for not having thought of sooner.) As it stands, my "adventure" was actually going to be divided into two main parts. The first half was going to be a detailed description of the village of Marshedge, where the adventure takes place. The second half was going to be, well, the adventure itself. So, the obvious-in-retrospect idea that belatedly occurred to me was... why not split these into two separate products? It seems to me there are two advantages to this. One is that it buys me some time in that I only have to finish half as much by the deadline--as long as I get the actual adventure done by the deadline, I can finish the detailed description of the village a little later. The other is that if I later want to write more adventures set in Marshedge (which I'm considering), I can just refer the reader to the standalone product that describes the village, rather than having to duplicate all that information or refer them to a different adventure. So... that's what I'm leaning toward right now, but I don't know if there's some disadvantage I'm overlooking to splitting it into two products, so I wanted to run that up the flagpole here for advice (particularly with those with experience publishing through the Jonstown Compendium or similar programs). Am I better off combining these into one product, or should I be okay with my plan of publishing it as two separate items?

According to the Glorantha Sourcebook (page 80), the River Styx is another name for Edzaroun, which seems to be the most significant body of water in the Underworld: Not sure if that's the same as the River of Swords, though; I can't find any reference to that outside Sartar Kingdom of Heroes. On the other hand, the map of the Underworld on page 78 of the Glorantha Sourcebook does show a Chasm of Swords; maybe the River of Swords is at the bottom of that? If so, it would appear to be separate from the River Styx. (Here's a cropped version of the relevant part of the map:)

That's basically it, yes. I don't have any intention of having her summon any other demons in the scenario, and since this isn't a spell that's likely to fall into the PCs' hands, there's no need to go into details about what else could hypothetically be summoned with it. The sorcerer in question isn't really a specialist in demons; she's an initiate of Lhankor Mhy who went digging and gathered some spells not normally taught by the cult, and this is one she ended up with, but she only learned the name of one demon, so that's the one she summons because since she knows its name she can control it. Keep in mind that the sorcery Summon spell takes an hour to cast, so it's not something she's going to be doing in combat in response to the PCs' actions. I have her basically casting the spell every morning with a long enough duration for the demon to stick around all day and serve her (invisibly, unless there's a big enough threat to make it manifest). To be honest, the main reason I'm putting the demon in the adventure is to give the sorcerer something to defend her and make her a bit more of a challenge if the PCs decide to fight her—although they don't have to do that at all; the scenario is open-ended and there are ways to resolve it without combat if the PCs are more social types. (It's also an adventure for starting characters, so I don't want the demon to be too tough if the adventurers do end up fighting it.) I guess it wouldn't hurt to make that explicit in the adventure to clarify it for the Gamemaster, though. I can call the spell something like Summon Demon of Kaldan's Gate (for example; name not finalized), and explicitly note that while there may be other demons of Kaldan's Gate that could theoretically be summoned, Foruel Ganodra is the only such demon whose true name Asratha has learned so far, so it's the only demon she'll summon in this adventure. (Notably, she does NOT know a Dominate Demon of Kaldan's Gate spell, so if she summoned some demon whose true name she doesn't know it would be hostile to her unless she overcame its magic points with her spell strength, and that's a risk she's not willing to take.)

Well, in the course of the adventure, the character in question is almost certainly going to summon only one specific demon anyway, so making her spell more constrained won't really cause a problem for the scenario. I guess I just have to figure out some evocative name for the particular demon family her summoned demon belongs to.

Hm... I thought Summon Demon was okay because Dominate Demon was explicitly given as an example of a Dominate (Discorporate Spirit) spell (p395), and I'd assumed Summon spells would fall under the same guidelines as Dominate spells. If not, though, do you think it would be all right to use, maybe, Summon Underworld Demon (which is what the demon I statted up is supposed to be)? Again, except for customization to the attacks and giving it a hit location table, my bespoke demon follows the guidelines for demons on page 168; notably, hollri and nyctalopes don't follow those guidelines (for instance, they don't have the magic points, HP, and AP linked as the demons described on page 168 do), so they apparently belong to different class of demon if they're true demons at all.

In case anyone's curious, here's how I've tentatively statted up the bespoke demon for the sorcerer NPC in my adventure to summon. I assumed for now that CON = POW and that the demon lacks CHA, and I went ahead and customized its attacks (and gave it a hit location table); aside from that it should match the guidelines for demons in the Glorantha Bestiary: Foruel Ganodra (Summoned Demon) To those who can see it, Foruel Ganodra appears something like a giant three-legged kiwi bird with a lamprey mouth on the front of its body and green pustules sprouting from its back. However, unless it is manifested it is only visible to those with Spirit Sight or similar abilities; it can manifest or discorporate at will. Foruel Ganodra claims to be a grandchild of Tolat the War God and Ty Kora Tek, Goddess of Dark in the Earth—though Asratha strongly suspects this is a lie. [Asratha is the sorcerer NPC who can summon this guy.] Characteristics STR 25 CON 12 SIZ 25 INT 15 DEX 20 POW 12 Hit Points: 12* Move: 12 DEX SR: 0 SIZ SR: 0 Combat: When manifested, Foruel Ganodra can simultaneously stab with its beak and rake with its claws, at the same or different targets. A special roll with the beak indicates an impale result and the damage is rolled twice. If it impales, Foruel Ganodra can detach its beak and leave it in the target, immediately growing a new beak. The detached beak dissolves into foul-smelling gas when pulled out the target. A special roll with the claws means that Foruel Ganodra has grasped the target; Foruel cannot attack a different target with its claws while it has a foe grasped, but if it succeeds on another claw attack against a grasped target it brings the target to its mouth and bites it for 5D6 damage (instead of the normal claw damage). A failure on this claw attack against the grasped target means the target has escaped the demon’s grasp. As a disembodied spirit, Foruel Ganodra is not subject to the usual effects of suffering damage to specific hit locations. However, if it takes damage to two legs equal to or more than the legs’ hit points, it can no longer make claw attacks; if it takes damage to its head equal to or more than the head’s hit points, it can no longer make a beak attack; and if it takes damage to its body equal to or more than the body’s hit points, it can no longer bite grasped foes. It regains the use of these attacks when its magic points (and thus hit points) are restored to their maximum value. Runes: Darkness 60%, Death 90%, Spirit 80%, Truth 75%. Rune Points: 9 Special Rune Spells: Blinding, Clairvoyance, Command Ghost, Mind Read, Reconstruction, Sever Spirit, Shield of Darkness, Summon Dead, Turn Undead. Magic Points: 12* Skills: Listen 70%, Scan 65%, Search 80%, Spirit Lore 70%, Underworld Lore 95%. Languages: Speak Darktongue 60%, Speak Spiritspeech 80%. Spirit Magic: Countermagic 4, Darkwall (2 pts.), Protection 4, Sleep (3 pts.), Visibility (2 pts.) Foruel Ganodra Hit Locations Location D20 Armor/HP Right Leg 01–04 */5 Left Leg 05–08 */5 Body 09–16 */6 Head 17-20 */5 Weapon % Damage SR Beak 75 2D6 4 Claw 70 2D6 4 Spirit Combat 80 1D6 12 *Foruel Ganodra’s hit points, armor points, and current magic points are all equal; if one of those decreases, so do the others. See page 168 of the RuneQuest Glorantha Bestiary for details.

For the sorcery Summon Demon spell, "one man's elemental is another man's demon" doesn't really work. Summon Demon, Summon Moon Elemental, and Summon Lust Spirit are three different spells; if Summon Demon allowed a sorcerer to just summon any spirit they wanted to, or if the sorcerer could decide for themselves what they considered a demon, then the Summon Demon spell would be far too versatile and there wouldn't be much reason for a sorcerer to ever learn any of the other Summon (Species) spells. So for the purposes of a sorcerer with the Summon Demon spell, it actually does rather matter exactly what a demon is, and it is important that the entity in question is a "true" demon and not some elemental or passion spirit. Right, I quoted the CON "Depends on POW" part in my initial post, but does that mean that CON = POW? That's the way I'm inclined to interpret it, too, but I'm not sure that's correct. If the CON just equals the POW, why not say "Equal to POW" instead of "Depends on POW"? Again, I'm inclined to agree that that's probably what "Depends on POW" means... but it doesn't explicitly say that, and there are other possible interpretations. Yes, I saw that part too, but I didn't quote it in my initial post because I didn't have any questions about it; that part seemed pretty straightforward. (Well, except maybe for the question of what the demon's starting Magic Points/HP/AP are, but I'm assuming the demon's maximum Magic Points are equal to its POW like for most creatures.)

Hmm... an interesting thought, but I see two problems with that. For one, the whole reason I decided against using the village of Ten Spear in the Lonendi clan territory was to avoid conflicts with what was written about Ten Spear and the Lonendi in Tales of the Reaching Moon #18 and #19. The fact that the Lonendi clan did have a border with the marsh was pretty important to the adventure in Tales of the Reaching Moon #19. If I'm going to contradict that, I might as well just ignore Tales of the Reaching Moon altogether and use Ten Spear anyway. For another, this isn't just any old marsh; this is the Upland Marsh, from which Delecti the Necromancer sends out undead horrors to ravage the surroundings. Why would anyone want access to it? I'd think the Lonendi clan would be thrilled if the Marshedge clan was there to act as a buffer between them and Delecti.

So, because I'm apparently a glutton for punishment, I decided to give a sorcerer NPC in an adventure I'm working on the ability to summon demons. I'm trying to stat up a demon for her to summon, but the demon entry in the RuneQuest Glorantha Bestiary leaves me confused on a few aspects. (I see I'm not the only person to have questions about demons; I found a prior thread on the topic, but it doesn't address all of my questions). What the heck is their CON? The table in the Glorantha Bestiary (page 168) just says that their CON "Depends on POW". Okay, but depends on POW how? Is their CON equal to their POW? Or is there some special manifesting power somewhere that I missed that lays out the relationship? For that matter, the table doesn't list CHA. Are demons incomplete creatures that don't have CHA? But they're disembodied spirits, and earlier the Bestiary says that disembodied spirits "have POW and CHA". Are demons an exception? The demon entry gives demons a claw attack. But the entry says that "the term 'demon' encompasses a wide array of Underworld spirits." Is it okay to assume that demons vary widely and that the table just represents a "typical" demon, and that if I'm statting up a bespoke demon I can give it different attacks?

As an additional data point, the map in Sartar Kingdom of Heroes matches the one in Wyrm's Footprints #15, but since that's even older (2009), the Well of Daliath map still seems to be the most recent one...

Borders could change in ten years, sure, but it seems like a very weird change for a clan to leapfrog over another clan's territory into an entirely different place. You're probably right that the Well of Daliath map is the one more likely to match current canon. I should have put this in my original post, but for comparison here are the relevant parts of the two maps; the first one is from Wyrm's Footnotes and the second one is from the Well of Daliath:

I'm hoping I'm not being a bother by asking so many questions here... I've received a lot of very helpful replies, and I appreciate all the responses I've been getting. But I'm afraid I have another question... So, I was working on an adventure for the Jonstown Compendium, which I was going to set in Ten Spear. Only it turned out Ten Spear had already received a lot more development than I thought (albeit mostly in the noncanonical Tales from the Reaching Moon), so I decided to set my scenario in Marshedge instead. One problem... I found two maps that show the location of the Marshedge Clan, and they completely contradict each other. The map in Wyrm's Footnotes #15 (page 17) shows the Marshedge clan along the Sword River, northeast of the Lonendi and west of the Goodsword. But this map of Central Sartar on the Well of Daliath shows the Marshedge clan west of the Lonendi (and shows the Lonendi and Goodsword directly abutting). Either location would work fine for my adventure; I just wanted to know which if either should be considered canonical so I know which one to go with. On the one hand, Wyrm's Footnotes #15 was a physical publication, while the Well of Daliath is just a webpage, so maybe Wyrm's Footnotes takes precedence. On the other hand, Wyrm's Footnotes #15 was a physical publication from ten years ago, while the map on the Well of Daliath was just from last year, so maybe the Well of Daliath map takes precedence. Does anyone have any thoughts, or is there a definitive answer?

Wait wait hold on I am dumb. There is a much simpler obvious solution here: I can just use a different village. The only reason I decided on Ten Spear was because I was looking for a settlement that was near the Colymar lands and not close to any major road, and that hadn't already been the focus of an adventure or otherwise had a lot of development, and Ten Spear seemed to fit the bill. But now that I know Ten Spear has been the focus of an adventure (a noncanonical adventure appearing in a fanzine, sure, but nonetheless one that seems to be beloved by those familiar with it), well, that means it doesn't fit my criteria as well as I thought it did, so the logical course of action is to find another settlement that does. There was nothing in particular in my original concept of the adventure that necessitated it being near the Upland Marsh at all, though once I decided on Ten Spear I did work that in and use some aspects about the Lismelder tribal culture. Still, I can keep most of what I've done if I just use a different settlement in the area. It looks like nothing much has been done with the Marshedge clan, and it seems to fit what I need just as well. Maybe I'll just use Marshedge instead of Ten Spear. The only thing I'll have to change is a few details in the backstory. EDIT: But now looking at the maps of the Lismelder tribe, I have another question... but since this no longer has to do with Ten Spear, I guess I should probably start another thread for this.

Oh... oh dear. It seems contacting the author of the adventure in TotRM #19 isn't a possibility. On the other hand, the authors of the Lismelder article in TotRM #18 that briefly limned that account of the Lonendi history, David Hall and Jon Quaife, may still be around, but if so I have no idea how to contact them (or whether they'd even want to be contacted). @Nick Brooke, though, was apparently a player in the original Greydog campaign that inspired that article, so maybe I can reach out to him for advice...

Oh, thanks for pointing that out; I thought I'd read through that section in the rulebook, but I must have missed that sentence somehow. On the other hand, @g33kmakes a good point that the size of the missing part would make a difference—like they said, it would be silly to take off a full hit point from a character just missing the last join of a finger. The guy's arm only has four hit points anyway, and the hand is a lot less than a quarter of the arm, so taking off a hit point from the arm may be excessive. I'm leaning toward leaving the hit points alone, but I can see a good argument either way.

Oh! I had missed that Tales from the Reaching Moon was an unofficial fanzine. Thanks for pointing that out. Hm... that kind of complicates things. On the one hand, I do want to acknowledge and build on previous creations, and I'd feel bad just ignoring the articles in TftRM and all the work that went into them. On the other hand, if TftRM wasn't officially a Chaosium publication, that means the copyright on the content remains with the creators and I couldn't use that material even if I wanted to, at least not without contacting the original authors for permission. (Besides, like I said, I kind of like my version of the history of Ten Spear better.) I guess for now I'll stick with my version of the history of the Lonendi tribe, but I'll keep thinking about this. Thanks again for your advice and information.

Well... dang. Turns out there is more information available on the Lonendi and Ten Spear, in Tales of the Reaching Moon #18. And it does relate how the village got its name. Oh, heck, wait... it's in #19, too, I just didn't see it when I skimmed it. Heck. I kind of liked my story behind the origin of the name better, but oh well. Should have read the sources more carefully before I started writing.

For the record, the character with the missing hand isn't a player character; he's an NPC in an adventure I'm writing for the Jonstown Compendium. (He's actually one of the main villains of the adventure, though he's a social, manipulative kind of villain rather than any sort of physical threat--he wouldn't be able to put up much resistance in a fight, but it would be difficult for the PCs to catch him alone and undefended and have an opportunity to face him in a fight anyway.) Based on the discussion here, yeah, I think I'm going to go ahead and leave his arm HP unmodified. Thanks for the responses.

It's at the wrist, and the character isn't much of a combatant anyway (though he does have trained animals that could defend him in a fight). Yeah, given that the arm of a typical human only has 3 or 4 hit points anyway, I guess taking off a point for a missing hand does seem a bit much.

The OGL FAQ that used to be on the Wizards of the Coast site (and is currently mirrored here) explicitly addressed the use of OGL content in digital games: While this was, again, on the Wizards of the Coast site, it was just explaining the Open Game License rather than anything D&D-specific, so it should be applicable to any system using the OGL. (That being said, while the words of the license don't change, it's conceivable that another company might interpret its terms differently.) If you're curious, you can see an archived copy of the referenced Software FAQ here, but aside from a discussion of using the d20 license, which of course is completely irrelevant to BRP, it doesn't really add anything important. EDIT: Whoops, didn't notice I was replying to a topic where the last post was two months old. Sorry; I'll be more careful to check the date of the topic before replying next time.

One of the major characters of a RuneQuest adventure I'm working on is missing his right hand. (I know magic exists in Glorantha that can regrow limbs, but there are reasons his hasn't been regrown.) I haven't statted him up yet, but when I do, I'm wondering if his missing hand means his right arm should have fewer HP? I'm thinking it would make sense to reduce the HP of his right arm by a point or so, but I'm not completely sure that would be correct. Is there an existing rule for this that I overlooked, or does anyone have any thoughts?

I'll share more when I've got more written, but I've (tentatively) finished the introduction of the adventure, which includes a brief history of the Lismelder Tribe and the Lonendi Clan in particular. (I've managed to get my hands on Tales of the Reaching Moon #19 and Wyrm's Footprints #15 (the latter, of course, I just bought from the Chaosium store), and I've looked through them for any relevant information.) The history of the Lismelder Tribe related in the adventure is basically all paraphrased from existing sources, but since there didn't seem to be anything on the history of the Lonendi Clan or Ten Spear I made that part up myself. Here's what I have written about that (still subject to change, so if there's anything here that doesn't make sense or conflicts with existing information by all means let me know): Oh, one thing regarding the Crescent River mentioned in the first paragraph... I couldn't find a name anywhere for the short river southwest of Ten Spear on the 7E maps, so I made one up. (As far as I can tell, it doesn't appear on the maps of the Upland Marsh in earlier editions, but one could assume that could be because it's too minor a river to be always worth showing.) I chose the name "Crescent River" because there's a building on or near the river called Crescent Manor, and I decided in the absence of any other explanation for the manor's name maybe it was named after the river. (Though admittedly, since Crescent Manor was built by Lunars, it could easily be named after the crescent moon...) If there is an existing name for this river somewhere that I missed, though, I'd appreciate having it pointed out. (The magical spears that the Dancers of Darkness use to expand the Upland Marsh are described in Tales of the Reaching Moon #19... the opportunity to connect those to the origin of the name of the village of Ten Spear seemed too good to pass up.) Anyway, I'm going to be describing the village in more detail later; although I keep referring to what I'm working on as an "adventure" (because originally that's what I'd intended it to be), at this point I'm projecting that about half the document is going to be a detailed description of Ten Spear, and the other half will be the adventure scenario. The goal is to have it finished by the end of the month, or by December 8 at the very latest; I'll definitely put a link here when it's done if anyone's interested.

For the purposes of my adventure, it's not important that the average Sartarite knows in great detail what the Spike was and what happened to it, as long as they've heard of it and know it was important. Sounds like that is indeed the case. Thanks. Oh, as far as my final goal with this... well, I've been wanting to write adventures and supplements for various game systems for a long time, and have a ton of projects I started but never got around to finishing, so when I found out about the Write Your First Adventure workshop from an email from Chaosium, I decided to sign up for the workshop in the hopes that having the structure and deadline would give me the motivation to actually finish something. So my immediate goal is to finish and publish an adventure, but I hope that actually getting something published will also give me the boost I need to start finishing some of my other projects, and that this will be the first of many.

Thanks for all the replies! This has been very helpful. Aside from its troubles with the undead (which I can definitely work into the adventure), sounds like there's little enough defined about Ten Spear that I can have a more or less free hand in developing it however I want. Thanks again.

So, I phrased the question generally—because I am also interested in general answers—but there's actually one specific mythic phenomenon I'm particularly interested in for an adventure I'm writing: the Spike, the ancient mountain and possible linchpin of reality destroyed during the Great Darkness. Because the gods and mythology in general play such an important role in Glorantha, and because the Spike was such a significant part of its mythic history, I've been most everyone in Dragon Pass has heard of it and knows the basic outline of its story. But I'm not 100% sure I'm correct in that assumption, so I figured I may as well ask here. Is it safe to assume the Spike is common knowledge, or is it something that the average Sartarite, for instance, hasn't heard of?