hkokko

This article adds variety for pregenerated characters for Pavis for this game system

https://notesfrompavis.wordpress.com/2017/04/16/pregenerated-characters-for-pavis/

2 hours ago, lawrence.whitaker said:

For some extremely good examples of cults and religions, I'd suggest taking a look at various supplements of ours, but most notably 'Monster Island', 'Mythic Rome', 'Shores of Korantia', 'The Taskan Empire' and 'Mythic Britain Companion'. Each has a number of cult treatments (none are reliant on the Gloranthan runes) for a wide range of human and non-human religions, both fantasy and real world. Such things tend to be setting-specific, as has been mentioned, and so looking to a published supplement can provide a lot of inspiration for creating your own.

Monster Island contains multitude of really good sorcery orders, theistic cults and shamanistic societies. It really is a gift that keeps giving in multiple levels. 

6 minutes ago, jezreel said:

thanks Joerg

Is there a particularly useful source for the Runequest Cults - anything accessible on the web, say?

One pagers available from notesfrompavis blog. Most of the Runequest cults available from Chaosium (Cult Compendium, Cults of Prax, Cults of Terror...) - might be best to ask in the other forums (Glorantha, Runequest) than Mythras. 

In your own game you can use whatever cults you want. What is in the Encounter Generator is mostly one man's view of the mechanics of the cults in the scope of a particular game system - search the https://notesfrompavis.wordpress.com for those one pagers. They were built for my campaign from reading all the material that was available at the time for RQ2 and RQ3 etc. They contain only the mechanics - cult content itself (myths, role in the world, cult progression etc) is available in the many Gloranthan publications. The cults in the Generator were built on top of those one pagers. You can find a list of them here http://skoll.xyz/mythras_eg/statistics/#cults and by searching with those names you will find for almost if not all of them templates to generate. There is a number of cults there that are created from scratch or from very little snippets of inspiration or knowledge. 

Runes themselves are part of Glorantha but are open to much interpretation mechanics wise (=there were pretty much no mechanics or very little that I have used) depending on your own world. So invent away. 

29 minutes ago, Joerg said:

Hannu's encounter generator

It is not mine :-) It is the original brainchild of skoll with me and Pruneau giving input for features and me among others having built lots of content with that to our worlds and for anyone to use in their worlds. I might be the most prolific (public) contributor but it is not mine (standing on the shoulder of giant here, would not exist without skoll). It has given me tremendous pleasure and utmost functional use in my campaign to build this and is one of the reasons for my reinvigorated participation in RPGs. 

Fonrit Background and Culture for Players

Currently playing a campaign near Fonrit - one of the more intriguing areas of Glorantha. Expecting some new players to join and maybe eventually some players needing to roll a new character so wanted to formalize the creation of the characters in Fonrit for my campaign and game system I use. This may be of some use to others as well. 

The authoritative source is of course Guide to Glorantha. In Volume 1 there exists a detailed description of the culture of Fonrit and in Volume 2 description of the places. 

Now there is a character generation that points to few well known sources for the players to read. 

Generation takes into account Social class (Masarins, Slave Soldiers, Yad Slaves and Kaddam Slaves) and Languages including Tradetalk. It has a variation of standard skills and professional skills that is based on Civilized background. It looks at careers available for each of the social classes. 

Combat styles include  the combat style traits and weapons associated with the combat style. Combat styles currently include Kadam Slave Scuffle, Yad Strife, Slave Soldier, Harem Protector, Calari Grip, Afadjann Blade Dance, Kareeshtu Doublecross, Ompalam Overseer and Shovel Tusker/Elephant Cavalry. 

Folk Magic includes the starting spell selection where choices like Shock, Vigour, Tire, Voice, Find Slave, Incognito, Calm and Glamour reflect the society. 

Passions include the support for Renewed or Oldster and the society expected ones and Masarin's preoccupation with being the best dressed persons in Glorantha. 

There is also a link to pregenerated characters in Fonrit for one off games. 

The material is for one game system and tries to follow the latest developments in the official material. Perhaps it will be useful for any other game systems as well. 

https://notesfrompavis.wordpress.com/2017/04/15/fonrit-background-and-culture-for-players/

2 hours ago, Lord High Munchkin said:

I am very interested in this topic - I certainly prefer Fonrit and Umathela as gaming locales. If an alternative PC creation background could be built up that would be mighty useful.

This is character generation for Fonrit for my game - YGWV as will your game systems. Currently gathering input and thinking about the history of Fonrit for tying the character more into the game.  https://notesfrompavis.wordpress.com/2017/04/15/fonrit-background-and-culture-for-players/

Thank you. 

to entice people's interest to the Pamaltelan side, here is something for Fonrit

Pregenerated Characters for Fonrit for Mythras

Sometimes you just need a bit more variety on the kind of characters that people take up. 

Here is larger variety of pregenerated starting characters for Encounter Generator .

These are useful for those times when you just do not have time to go thru the character generation process. The reasons why (TPK, party member died in the middle of the game, surprise additional player...) are many. These follow the same principles than in the previous pregeneration articles (Standard Barbarians, Nomad Herders and Warriors, Barbarians, City Thieves and Priests, Esrolia, Balazar, Hsunchern - Civilization vs Primitives and Larger Variety of Pregenerated Characters for Esrolia and Sartar) that were usable for example in Pavis and Sartar.

This article expands still more the scope beyond those standard areas to guests who might arrive. 

Fonrit is one of the more intriguing areas in Glorantha. Here is a set of pregenerated characters for a game in a land where deceit is the new normal, trust was sacrificed centuries ago, colors are bright, conspiracy and assassinations are on the menu every day, Renewed battle for the (relative) freedom for slaves and Oldsters try to uphold the oppression and Vadeli are your friends while Silence is not. 

- Fonrit Slave Soldier
- Fonrit Slave Soldier (Agimori)
- Fonrit Thief
- Fonrit Merchant
- Fonrit Slavemaster
- Fonrit Harem Guard
- Fonrit Spy
- Fonrit Dancer
- Fonrit Conspirator
- Fonrit Storyteller

You can generate a group of them by generating

- Fonrit Characters Party

https://notesfrompavis.wordpress.com/2017/04/14/pregenerated-characters-for-fonrit/

Opens nicely on iPad

21 minutes ago, JonL said:

I'll say this for Mongoose, they had the balls to put out an entire Ducks book. It's a mixed bag like most of their stuff, but still, that's some serious commitment.

The horror, the horror

Looking at recent history (past 100 years of Fonrit and Umathela) from official publications I find that there are relatively few things happening per generation (compared to better known areas). For example there is a stretch between 1518 and 1585 where officially nothing of note happens. Similarly between 1601 and 1613 and 1614 to 1618. Would ask the crowd here to give their devious inspiration of ideas that might have happened in these stretches that would be of significant note. Below are the items that seem to be of canon note in publications. 

I would rather that we respect the original or even current grammar and wording and spend the time in getting the rest of the books out and new stuff :-) 

You are much better off using any of the stuff from chaosium and avalon hill (except for eldarad) than any of the second age glorantha materials: You do not need to wait - you can start with the available chaosium and ah stuff - even though it is old. 

Pregenerated Gladiators, Usurers, Priests and Sorcerors for Mythic Rome in Mythras

Here is an additional list of pregenerated characters for Mythic Rome. In the past couple of days there were already a list of pregenerated characters for Mythic Rome for Mythras and that was expanded even more with additional possibly more degenerate pregenerated ones yesterday. 

Reasons why you might want to have these are many and explained in that other post.

Encounter Generator solves this neatly for Mythras and old RQ6. Here is the third quickie fix for the problem.  Characters are at novice level and made for Late Republic period. Most likely few will notice if you use them in other periods.  Generation follows majority of the steps included in the chargen - cultures, careers, appropriate weapons for several professions that seem to be universal in Roman times. These are now for Roman native citizens. Late Republic it is rarer for citizens to have military combat styles if you do not have military background.

Go to that previous post if you want to have or know more about pregenerated characters for Mythras.

Here are the new pregen characters for characters at the start of their career

- Roman Actor 
- Roman Priest 
- Roman Sorcerer 
- Roman Surgeon 
- Roman Gladiator - Samnite
- Roman Gladiator - Thracian 
- Roman Gladiator - Equus
- Roman Gladiator - Retiarius 
- Roman Usurer 
- Roman Musician 
- Roman Labourer 

..and randomly composed group of them with their earlier friends in

- Roman Pregenerated Non Military Character Party
- Roman Pregenerated Gladiator School Character Party 
- Roman Pregenerated Character Party

https://notesfrompavis.wordpress.com/2017/04/09/pregenerated-gladiators-usurers-priests-and-sorcerors-for-mythic-rome-in-mythras

I had a request to create pregenerated characters for Mythic Rome for Mythras yesterday   - and found out that there are more of them that would be interesting.

Reasons why you might want to have these are many and explained in that other post.

Encounter Generator solves this neatly for Mythras and old RQ6. Here is a second quickie fix for the problem. Here is a pregenerated characters party that can be used both in Late Republic Roman environment. Characters are at novice level. Generation follows majority of the steps included in the chargen - cultures, careers, appropriate weapons for several professions that seem to be universal in Roman times. These are now for Roman native citizens. Late Republic it is rarer for citizens to have military combat styles if you do not have military background.

Go to that previous post if you want to have or know more about pregenerated characters for Mythras.

Here are the new pregen characters for characters at the start of their career

- Roman Senator
- Roman Slave
- Roman Bureaucrat
- Roman Meretrix 
- Roman Diviner
- Roman Beggar
..and randomly composed group of them with their earlier friends in

- Roman Pregenerated Character Party
https://notesfrompavis.wordpress.com/2017/04/08/more-pregenerated-or-even-degenerate-characters-for-mythic-rome-for-mythras/

Pregenerated Characters for Mythic Rome (Mythras)

I had a request to create pregenerated characters for Mythic Rome for Mythras.

There are situations where you need quickly either many or a single pre generated character. You might be running a one off and do not want to spend any time for creating the characters. There might have been a very nice total party kill early in the game night and players want to still continue. There might have been even an unlucky character death in the middle of the evening. In all these cases you just want to get back to the railroad.

Encounter Generator solves this neatly for Mythras and old RQ6. Here is a first quickie fix for the problem. Here is a pregenerated characters party that can be used both in Late Republic Roman environment. Characters are at novice level. Generation follows majority of the steps included in the chargen - cultures, careers, appropriate weapons for several professions that seem to be universal in Roman times. These are now for Roman native citizens. Late Republic it is rarer for citizens to have military combat styles if you do not have military background.

These follow the same principles than in the previous pregeneration articles  that were more fantasy world based - Glorantha or otherwise (Standard Barbarians, Nomad Herders and Warriors, Barbarians, City Thieves and Priests, Esrolia, Balazar, Hsunchern - Civilization vs Primitives, Larger Variety of Pregenerated Characters for Esrolia and Sartar) that were usable for example in Pavis and Sartar.

Here are the pregen characters for characters at the start of their career

- Roman Charioteer
- Roman Dilettante
- Roman Gladiator - Gaul
- Roman Legionary
- Roman Merchant
- Roman Street Thug
..and the whole group of them

- Roman Pregenerated Character Party

https://notesfrompavis.wordpress.com/2017/04/08/pregenerated-characters-for-mythic-rome-mythras/

Here is a thread for props for Cthulhu games in the 20's

Have (possibly reproduction) old Sears catalogue from that time. Have used that for players shopping list. 

Have New York Times Front Pages 1851-2012 and a similar one for a local newspaper. I was using that to create clippings or when news are read on radio etc. 

Have old travel guides from the time period - for example travel guide to China

Few photography books have been also useful

The Mythic City

London Then and Now

Rome Then and Now

New York Then and Now

Early Travel Photography

Found this site http://www.freevintageposters.com which has few posters that might be useful props for a Cthulhu game from before the 1950's 

What 'officials' would an Orlanthi town or clan have major or minor. Do the ring members have titles, what about other advisors etc to chieftain. Would the 'officials' only exist in cities or would smaller villages have them as well. Lawtalker, godtalker, weaponmaster? 

...

53 minutes ago, Joerg said:

I don't think so. You rather awakened a few of the Old Ones. (No idea if any of the participants qualifies for Great Old One...)

somewhere below - you can hear the drums - slow - steady - deep - then slowly accelerating...

1 hour ago, TK_Nyarlathotep said:

I have, indeed, created a monster.

I hope that the grognards and Glorantha nerds (all of that in positive vein) here have not scared you off. We all started with very little - there is not much you need to know to be able to play - really. We had way too much fun by extrapolating from Apple Lane, then Balazar with Griffin Island plus Cults of Prax then Borderlands and Pavis/Big Rubble. So a starting point with one of these combined with Cults of Prax will bring you joy. After many years of collecting and gaming I have large stash of the material - how much of that is actually visible to players - probably very little because they are tackling their own little corner of the world one encounter at a time. Let the players read one or two of the Gloranthan Voices for their tribe and maybe neighboring one (two pages max) and do not require much else from them. 

Pick a physical location where you start (one of the above in this writing) - dive into a small location on that physical area (village, clan territory, our neck of the woods...) and start there. Reveal from Glorantha whatever you think is necessary, cool and relevant maybe once per session as long as you and players think it is cool, wonderful and relevant. 

Eventually you might dive in but to tell you the truth - after 36 years of gaming in Glorantha - I have not read all the materials in all the supplements, books and web pages and probably will not. Especially I do not adhere to any canon purely orthodoxly but use the Your Glorantha Will Vary - quite a bit. 

Happy gaming. You can probably start a game with any of the editions of RQ compatible ones around and then twist to the new rules when they arrive later on - this is what most of us have done over the years - for example I have not started a new campaign just because a new version of the rules by a different or same publisher arrived - I have just converted when I have wanted - it is not really a big deal. 

Now all of the above are available when generating for example a priest in Sartar. 

http://skoll.xyz/mythras_eg/party/782/

Here an example generated...

Our History in Dragon Pass - My GreatGrandPa: In 1539 at Dragon Pass GreatGrandMother died in the action when Dragonewts Dream. Phantom dragonewts appear throughout Dragon Pass and surrounding lands carrying out mysterious rituals and other tasks. 

Our History in Dragon Pass - My Grand Parents: In 1580 at Lunar Empire GrandFather lost ones’ mind seeing the carnage when Lunar Empire made trade treaty with Ralzakark 

Our History in Dragon Pass - My Parents: In 1609 at Dragon Pass Mother embraced the enemy faith when Boar Hunt: Persistent raiding by tusk riders rallied their foes and many lands sent their best hunters and warriors to hunt down the raiders. Success was - as usual - questionable 
 

Our History in Dragon Pass - My Time: In 1619 at Holy Country member of my family (me or my sibling or my cousin) was famous for depravities when Ditali raided Esrolia

On the following round need to look at some of the syntax - there seem to be some missing words here and there. 

Oh yes. Thanks to both. 

6 minutes ago, Jon Hunter said:

 

http://www.backtobalazar.com/significant-family-events/

This article pushes develops the idea, it came because the elder wilds doesn't have the same history dragon pass does, so to give a good range of significant life events we needed to come up with more generic events that created variation and interest.

What i thought was interesting was we both developed the event and the personal interaction to the event as two different aspects.

Wow - I had missed that one. Wonderful stuff. . Could I combine/loan it to the stuff I developed with attribution - of course.

@Jon Hunter you mentioned earlier a need for general Gloranthan events - what kind of events you meant - the ones in GtG area activities or things similar to KoDP or something else? Have to revisit your blog about Balazaring backgrounds.

Well. Similar lists exist - standing on the shoulders of giants. The only thing possibly unique in this is automatic integration of this to gloranthan history timelines of certain regions tied to player paternal/maternal bloodline generations via encounter generator. This provides 4 generations (with approx  150 events in Dragon Pass timelines) x 150 acts what either your paternal or maternal blood relative did providing some variety and tie into Glorantha. This is currently approx 10mb of plain text data :-( If you have pointers to more lists that their writers would like to share (with attribution) to combine here would be interested.  The list was written adhoc this morning and afternoon and the combinations created from the database I have created earlier on for the Gloranthan timelines - this time done with a bit of elementary Ruby programming. If things go right the data is integrated to Encounter generator sometime in the future where one can use it system independently...

What Did I, My Parents and Grandparents And Siblings Do Before Hero Wars started

I created a way to generate pregen characters  earlier on for the Encounter Generator. I wanted to tie the pregenerated characters into the history of Glorantha. So in those I also included information about the family history for four generations - from the current time to Great Grand Parents days. Family history was connected to Gloranthan Timelines around Dragon Pass area roughly. Gloranthan timeline events come from Guide to Glorantha, Wyrms Footnotes and other sources. In that first version there was only one deed per each timeline event like in the below examples. 

• In 1563 at Elder Wilds GrandFather was caravan guard when Last Vizkinni king Partobas the Bold raises the wrath of Lunar Provincial Commander
• In 1589 at Lunar Empire Father saw when Jar-Eel goes to Fronela expedition and overcomes the Syndic's Ban

Here is a small table expanding those deeds that your blood relatives might have done. Deeds vary from small to large - from benign to evil - from mundane to heroic. This will be eventually incorporated to the pregen in some form . These can be used for the back story of character in character generation - this is system independent - so will work whatever version of Runequest or Mythras or even Heroquest you are running.

So for example you might pick an entry from the list and say that 

• In 1589 at Lunar Empire Father fought a famous duel when Jar-Eel goes to Fronela expedition and overcomes the Syndic's Ban
• In 1563 at Elder Wilds GrandFather refused to talk about the time when Last Vizkinni king Partobas the Bold raises the wrath of Lunar Provincial Commander

abandoned faith of the ancestors
ambushed the enemy
attacked enemy encampment
became a hero
became a runelord
became enemies with powerful clan
became friends with a powerful clan
befriended locals
betrayed his/her master
burned a temple
burned a village
was busy fighting chaos
captured
dabbled with dark forces
dabbled with sorcery
devoted oneself to the cult
died in the action
died fighting chaos
disappeared for a long time
embezzling company's money
embraced the enemy faith 
encountered chaos
was enslaved
escaped the bloodbath
escaped the caravan
fled for his life
fought 
fought a famous duel
fought for freedom
fought hard
found the family treasure
rose high in the cult
was banished from the cult
was famous for his/her herd
was famous for his/her prize bull
became a member of the ring/council/inner circle/general staff
fraternized with enemy
got ambushed
got an epithet
got craving to go to sea
got famous
got famous as a chaos killer
got involved with a vendetta
got married
got rich selling beer
had to flee the home region
was claimed to have child/ren outside the clan
was imprisoned
gained 50 herd animals in a raid
fell in love with wandering minstrel and left the family
had dealings with dwarves
had dealings with elves
acquired a Grazelander Goldeneye horse
went berserk and saved the day
was carried on his/her shield from the battlefield
joined
joined the outlaws
joined a Heroband
killed 7 enemies
killed enemy priest and his entourage
laughed at the grave of the enemy
lost a fortune
lost ones’ mind seeing the carnage
made a fortune
made a powerful enemy
made friends with trolls
married from outside the clan
met lifemate
never came back
offended the authorities
participated
participated in the atrocities
rebelled
refused to talk about the time
retired from active life
retired from the world
embraced the Lunar way
fought the chaos in Snakepipe Hollow
never returned from Snakepipe Hollow
succeeded in a Heroquest
failed in a Heroquest
came back changed 
came back as a broken person
never left the village after coming back
was hounded by a spirit the rest of her/his days
seeked forgetfulness from alcohol/narcotic substances the rest of his/her days
spent rest of his/her days seeking penance from the deeds done 
saw
saw the events of
saw the light and converted
saw the refugees suffering
served the dark forces
served the enemy
smuggled contraband
stole a treasure
travelled to distant land
was a body guard to a ruler
was a caravan guard
was a guard on a merchant ship
was a spirit talker
was a spy
was a Trickster
was absent from duty
was an unwitting pawn of chaos
was around
was asked odd questions by a stranger and was said to become illuminated
was barely surviving
was branded as a coward
was branded as a traitor
was captured
was caravan guard 
was defending the village
was drafted to the expedition
was drunk the whole time
was embezzling his/her master's money during
was falsely accused of a crime or unworthy deed
was famed thruout the region as the master of his/her skill
was famous for depravities
was fighting as a mercenary
was fighting for our lives 
was fighting for the freedom
was for many years consort in a ruling family
was hardened criminal
was hiding from the authorities
was in the camp
was in the city 
was in the city and got rich 
was in the counter raid 
was in the courtyard
was in the field
was in the relief expedition
was in the service of sorceror from the west
was in the service of the sorcerors beyond the sea
was lost at sea
was one of the first to see
was outlawed
was part of
was part of the army. 
was part of the caravan
was part of the work crew
was promoted
was rightly accused of a crime or unworthy deed but escaped the retribution
was spoofed by a Trickster
was suffering in
was taking advantage of the situation
was the lone survivor
was the party animal of the generation
went along

https://notesfrompavis.wordpress.com/2017/04/01/what-did-i-my-parents-and-grandparents-and-siblings-do-before-hero-wars-started/