Malin

16 hours ago, Tiný said:

 So why have a worship skill at all ..seems rather lame that it can be boosted so easily.

I agree with your analysis. The players in my campaign mostly sacrifice magic points, and we only roll the worship rolls to see if there is a fumble or a critical because some cool things might happen then.

I use sacrifices for other reasons, like community reputation (what do you mean you only sacrificed a chicken last holy day? Cheapskate). A huge object sacrifice (which might be displayed in the temple afterward) will give a permanent reputation bonus.

For me, the tension of the worship roll comes into play when you are in less-than-ideal situations. For example, are you at a temple, desperate for runepoints even though there are weeks to the next holy day? Sacrifice enough goods and animals to convince the priest to have a special service and the gods to look favorably on you regardless. Priests don't care about magic points, they need material goods. The magic points will be required to overcome the negative modifier for not doing it on a holy day. Do you want to worship at a loosely associated temple? Bring a proper sacrifice. If you are in strange lands or under bad circumstances, I might rule that sacrifices are needed to cast the Sanctify spell at all.

The rules as is are... lacking. But they contain enough moving parts that they are easy to play around with and adapt.

Well, as my players have currently decided that the best time to do a heist to steal a rival praxian khan's clan regalia (Inire the Red's in fact, invited as a special guest of the governor due to campaign reasons) is during Sacred Time in Pavis (this is pre-cradle), I have been reading up on Lunar rites and what better way to get more input and views than here. After reading through the Lunar Way carefully, it seems that the sacred time rites described there take place over a week, but sacred time is two weeks. Has anybody seen exactly where within these two weeks the rites take place? If done outside the glowline, are they synced with particular moon phases? I'm not as well-read as I'd like on past Lunar publications, so any insights or mentions would be welcome!

22 hours ago, David Scott said:

Don't forget it's an opposed roll Sense Chaos vs. Illumination ability. Immunity to Sense Chaos/Law Skills or Spells just lets the illuminate attempt the roll (and they can augment)

Is that an official rule (from where?) or is it a YGMV one?

43 minutes ago, Nick Brooke said:

and that means you're going to have to make a judgment call about how many more Rune Points or characteristic increases (if any) to award adventurers who start out older than most.

Yeah, I almost always add a bit more for skills, but NEVER more characteristic increases (we use a rather generous rolling method) and not more than three Rune points. That's enough from the start unless you start out playing at hero level (and then all bets are off)

I simply gave the players in my latest campaign who started a bit more weathered and experienced this option (or similar, can't remember exactly):

Additional skill bonuses: Add 4 skills at +25% (can't go over 100) and 10 skills at + 10. Then add +50 to one weird, generally non-combat skill that symbolize your character background, subject to GM approval.

The last one is the most interesting, leads to some fun character defining stuff like Devise, Swim or Bureaucracy. If the character is a non-combat character I can let them use it on a combat skill if it fits the background.

I generally don't give rune points or spirit magic, because I am quite generous with opportunities to learn in-game, but getting the width of skills with medium and high levels up is what makes a character feel experienced. If you run a tighter game when it comes to learning magic, I would add some points of spirit magic too, but cap the extra points at max 4 per spell or something to avoid people starting with like 8 in protection and the like. The point is adding width and variation.

2 hours ago, Erol of Backford said:

Does anyone know of published sources of a Praxian tribesman switching to a different clan that rides a separate herd beast than they were born into and then switching to riding the new clan's beast in lieu of that which they were born?

"A zebra rider is always a zebra rider."

From the Guide to Glorantha about the Pol Joni:

9 minutes ago, jajagappa said:

For this, I've drawn on the idea of herbal teas or leaves that reduce MP's (

I love this and am going to steal it. I have mostly worked with variants of the Warding rune spells (and even a Wyter in one case) for prisons and the like, but this is very practical!

Honestly one of the things that I DO find most fascinating with this current iteration of Glorantha in particular is how accessible and powerful magic is to the player character. Of course one might argue that rules made for a PLAYER character meant to be a hero fighting in the Hero Wars is not something we can use to assume that every single NPC in the world follows exactly the same rules. The RuneQuest rulebook is for running a GAME in the world, not detailing the natural laws of how that world works. At least that is my view of things.

However, we can use said rules as an indication of what might be found there. Sure, an NPC won't know that in game-technical terms it would be useful to sacrifice a lot of power for runepoints (though that might lead to ill health as disease spirits can get to you easier), because the mechanical rule of sacrificing power for runepoints is only meant to be a game mechanical way of simulating piety and commitment to a deity. It can be assumed that a priest, or a driven player character, would be a lot more focused on this path. But, that doesn't mean we can ignore that NPC's might have access to the same rune spells, even if we might argue whether the average person has one runepoint or three. Birthing is still accessible to women, and Bless Crops to farmers.

THAT is what I find to be so cool! To think about how the existence of these forms of magic influences society. As a slight digression, I was originally a horror writer, and I am old enough to be from an age long before cell phones. The advent of cell phones, and then to have them hooked up to the internet changed the rules for writing a horror story at a fundamental level. The isolation I felt growing up in the countryside, when nobody knew where you were as a kid, that's not a thing anymore. Now it is more scary that everyone can track where you are. Different vibe. And that's what I feel about Glorantha's current rune magic compared to what it used to be when I first started playing (as I said, not young).

I'm working on a Uleria thing right now, and I can already see a big cultural shift in the cult whether it is operating in a landscape where Ernalda is easily accessible and dominant (with Birthing through the Midwife subcult), or whether it is in one where Ernalda is more absent (Lunar/Solar heartlands) where Uleria's Birthing rune spell might be a lot more valuable and unique. (We don't know what Dendara has yet, but I assume there will be a lot of judgment about unmarried mothers in Solar societies regardless of magic, and the Lunar pantheon doesn't have that kind of magic).

Another thing I've had to struggle with and figure out how works is things like: Imprisoning people, keeping captives and the like. Surely society has ways to work with that, even though they have not been detailed in the rules yet (apart from the old slave manacles from earlier editions).

I don't even know where I am going with this at this point, other than that for me, the abundance of powerful magic is a feature, not a bug or a flaw. Sorry for ranting, I will get back to work now.

My players just went "hell no" and buried it again...

Well, I did manage to get some Kushile Horse Archery to include in the Sports chapter. This, and some other updates will be in an updated pdf later...

Kushile Horse Archery

While Sun County gave up their beloved horses centuries ago, the tradition of mounted archery has persisted. Without horses, this is practiced on the back of a wooden steed. Beginners start out training their balance on a sturdy, four-legged barrel, complete with saddle and reins. Once they are comfortable with shooting from a seated position and at odd angles, they graduate to the actual steed. The barrel is now mounted on a frame that can be jostled back and forth by two assistants. These assistants are called “prancers,” and it is their job to make sure the barrel moves with as horselike a gait as possible. During competition, they do their best to emulate the steady stride of a galloping war horse, but during exhibition shootings they can exercise their full creativity. It is a great crowd-pleaser to see the “riders” struggle with everything from skittish colts to stumbling horses while trying to hit their targets.

One might wonder why the archers simply have not adapted to using Praxian beasts, such as the common sable or bison. Anybody voicing such an opinion will immediately be accused of “not understanding the point of the competition,” and if tempers flare, this might escalate to a proper two-fisted settlement in defense of their traditional sport.

GM notes: Kushile Horse Archery: (Manipulation skill, 00%)

This skill can only be learned by initiates of Yelmalio, and the student must accept one random geas in exchange for a base chance of 25% plus any category skill modifier. After that, it can be trained and improved as normal, and as shown above, a horse is not required. Successful use of this skill allows the user their normal archery skill while on horseback, regardless of riding ability. This skill can be attempted per arrow fired and can be augmented as normal. It is up to the GM to decide if this skill can be used on mounts other than horses, though it is doubtful that any true Sun County Yelmalian would make the attempt. Whether zebras count as horses in this respect is up for debate.

12 minutes ago, svensson said:

But let me also say:

 

ELMAL LIVES! ☀️😆

 

[Hey, just because I appreciate your work doesn't  mean I'm still not an Elmal heretic... Don't MAKE me nail my 95 theses on the door of the Sun Dome, pal!]

Oh when I finally drag my players to Sartar, you bet Elmal will be a presence there to complicate matters further for our (almost) heretical Light Servant... 😄

Alright, it's been a wild week y'all, and I was supposed to be working on my interactive fiction demo. Instead I have been eying sales numbers and planning our next Glorantha release. It's been about a week and we've already sold Silver, I don't know exactly when it happened since I was busy last evening (99 last I checked) and 101 this morning. So I will pretend it was a week because I like big round numbers.

I want to thank everyone who bought a copy, sight unseen (sort of, we do have a hefty preview) from first-time Jonstown writers. We've got a long line of prospective projects waiting, so there will be more shenanigans in the future. And these will be more adventure/campaign-oriented.

If anybody has had time to read it yet, I'd love to see what stuck with you the most.

Silver in a week! Thank you everyone!

Look, Nick did a stellar job! Absolutely gold! Having those large color pictures half-page for each major chapter was a stroke of genious.

We did put a lot of work into having it as accessible as possible from a text perspective as well, from color, to little sidebars explaining context early before they come up in the main text when they are mentioned in passing. We tried to make sure you wouldn't need to be a Glorantha expert to read it or have much more than the base set.

As for the 300 pages... there you can blame us writers. We had 150 or so pages planned, but neither of us know when to shut up. At least we priced it as a 200 page book so you get the rest for free 😄

Copper within the first day of sales! Though the site says to allow 24 hours for updating. Thank you everyone who bought a copy!

Thank you so much for all the nice words! It's been a blast writing... hope everyone will have as much fun reading it.

24 minutes ago, MOB said:

It's not too late, that's one of the advantages of releasing in PDF!

We will see what might happen this weekend, I might think of something 😀

Now I kinda wish we had a part in the book about kushile horse archery, that could have a great serious comedy bit! But to be fair it slipped all our minds that it even existed....

And now it is live! https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/491594/life-and-traditions-under-the-sun-dome?src=rqbrp

You beat me to it Nick!

Life and Traditions under the Sun Dome is now up for sale, 300 pages of overly detailed cultural knowledge and Yelmalian shenanigans!

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/491594/life-and-traditions-under-the-sun-dome?src=rqbrp

Come foreigner, visit Sun County, the only nation in Glorantha that passed The Solitude of Testing. See the living light of Sun Dome, travel the easily accessible road network, enjoy our surplus of food, our stoic unity, and our fully adequate culture. Come for the holy days, witness our drill parades, leave when we tell you to! Sun County - the safest, hardest working and most envied nation in Glorantha. You wish you were us!

 -The Sun County Travel Bureau.

Life and Traditions under the Sun Dome was written as an attempt to answer any questions a player or gamemaster might have about Sun County, from the mundane to the theological. Whether the question is what happened in your initiation rites, to how rude the songs are the soldiers sing while marching, to what festival is coming up next, it’s in here. Need descriptions of the popular theater plays complete with different interpretations? What about the banned ones? Just look in the Popular Culture chapter. Need five different kinds of bread and what you can put on them? We’ve got you covered. What happens if my character decides to get married? What is a “Pavis Wedding?” Who gets the custody of the kids in a divorce? How do you relate to other citizens compared to foreigners? How do you insult someone and when are you insulted? Don’t worry. You’ll know by the end of this book. This is a sourcebook for everybody, gamemasters, players and the culturally curious alike.

It's the book you never knew you needed!

3 hours ago, Squaredeal Sten said:

Then it would appear that In character generation, at least two people made a career-limiting decis9n for the character:  He won't be able to make Rune level unl4ess he gives birth to a healthy child.  This is certainly OK for a demonstration project, but in general people play with the expectation that the character can make rune level.

Oh, one of the player other characters is not an initiate in any cult from the start, this is not a group of people starting out with the intention to make it to rune level at all. That's really not what the campaign is about, so don't worry about him! And I'm not sure what you mean with a "demonstration project?" Anyway, if the thought bothers you, my post still stands if you change the pronouns in it to she/her, the point was that an Ernalda initiate can make a good fighter, the fact that it happens to be a man was not vital to that.

11 hours ago, g33k said:

Nevertheless, I was looking at the possibilty of making an Ernaldan warrior, and considering how best to approach that.

We have an Ernaldan fighter in one of the campaigns I am running, and that can work just fine. The thing is, Ernalda has great access to defensive magic and summoning magic, but not offensive rune magic. The character in question (a sartarite farmer under the last years of the Lunar occupation; he's a man but follows Ernalda, very family oriented) has great physical stats, so he is a capable fighter with weapons. His rune magic is not for causing harm but for preventing it. If he ever picks up some more offensive spirit magic he'll be even better, but so far they haven't had a chance (the campaign is currently in the first week after the Dragonrise, so a bit of chaos). He fulfills a similar role to the Yelmalio warrior in my other campaign, a defensive mainstay who is filled with useful tricks and very helpful to the team, but is not the main damage dealer.

One interesting thing I've seen in many discussions (the unplayable 90% time shaman, unredeemable Chalala Arroy etc) as well as this one is that so many people seem to look at a wording and immediately read that in the most stringent possible way when the actual text actually provides a lot more leeway? It is almost as if anything that's more than slightly restrictive on the player character immediately makes it impossible. I wonder if that's partly because many are still used to making "independent adventurers" who are supposed to work in any group, no matter the campaign or the other players.

I actually almost had a Danfive Xaron initiate in one of the RQ campaigns I am gamemastering. Everyone was playing characters who, for whatever reason, had been spending a couple of seasons in a Lunar jail and one of them played a Lunar deserter who had been courted (not nicely) by the DX cult for a while. In the end, he said no, and currently is not an initiate of anything (laymember Yanafal Tarnils), but it would have been a really interesting opportunity.

I do agree that to play a DX initiate, there has to be room in the campaign to explore those themes, but the same goes for many other cults. It's not fun to play a shaman if there's never any spirit stuff, or Babeester Gor or Chalana Arroy if you don't have all those moral quandaries that come with that role. Apart from the "looking at the opposite sex" one at the start, everything else seems manageable. And presumably, you've been an initiate for a few years with most cults...

If we are talking about something that happened in-game, then it would depend on why and the player for me.

If the player isn't as well-versed in Glorantha, or didn't think trollkin counted, or any other variant of "honest slip, lack of grounding" then I would have a quest be the answer. Maybe not a hero quest if they are new, but some way of introducing more of Chalana Arroy's beliefs for the player. Some way of making them understand that all intelligent life is important, and that trollkin is no lesser. Maybe even anchoring it to the curse of kin, or have them shepherd a small group of trollkin somewhere, making them feel empathy for what they are going through. I would use it as a chance to learn and grow, I don't see Chalana Arroy as wantonly cruel, and a player who miscalculated surely needs a second chance. If letting the elves kill them was done out of fear that if they didn't, they'd die, I would also make sure that they understand that there is power in the respect everyone has for Chalana Arroy, but that power also depends on the healers living up to it. If people come from more traditional fantasy systems, it can be easy to feel like this is a situation where if they oppose the elves they will die. As if the GM is giving them hints that the trollkin are supposed to die. Some players really gets their wires crossed when switching worlds, even if they read something, they still react like it was DnD or something.

If this was more of a calculated choice, from a player that should know better, or might have been pushing the envelope before, then things are different. Then I would have it be hard, with the temptation of turning to Mallia to stay alive. Maybe having to contact shamans to battle the spirits of disease that have a hold of them. Essentially giving the player a choice of deciding whether Chalana Arroy really is the goddess for them. If this is a small group and everyone is happy with the healer being the focus for a little this can be a really interesting journey. Redemption could be possible (I'd go heroquest) but also a shifting of cults into something else that makes sense without making the character unplayable.

So, I am back with yet another set of questions I don't think there is a clear answer to:

Is there a clear line when a god/cult becomes powerful enough to provide all common rune spells? Looking at it, I get the feeling that it might depend more on how developed/spread the cult is than the "power" of the god itself? The cults that don't get access to all seem to be rather... let's put it this way, "shifty" or "individualistic" (Gagarth, Lanbril, Yinkin, Donandar). Teelo Norri is different, since her powerlessness is part of her divine self. Lanbril was as close to a mortal as a godtime being could be, Donandar spends a lot of his time still messing around within time as a wandering minstrel if the tales are to be believed, Yinkin is pretty much Orlanth's henchman in most myths, and Gagarth... well, Gagarth doesn't give a #%@£ in the classic honey badger way.

Does anybody else have any thoughts on this? It's been on my mind for a while.