Malin

Small update: the text of the "Life and Traditions Under the Sun Dome" is now complete at 200 000 words long. Twice what I expected. That's what you get for working with a sociologist! Going to hand it off to my "I know a little bit about Glorantha" reader to see what questions pop up, then it is time for proofreading.

This has been such a delight, it has derailed my other projects, but hell, it's worth it for the fun bits. Now at least I know what kind of children's songs they have in Sun County...

Another tangential thought: When it comes to roleplaying design it is so easy to run into the conflict of "rules as written for pcs to make a playable campaign" vs "the normal world around them" vs "what is needed for a dramatic and cool story."

I will forever be grateful to RQ for stating Maximum Game Fun! Which for me lets me focus on the last part with the blessing of the writers of the rules.

So many things start turning weird once you take the "ttrpg rules as written are the actual rules for the world" to its full extent. I've seen (and been a part of) many discussions here where that assumption is what causes confusion and conflict. When you extrapolate what can actually be done within the rules for a (heroic?) player character, so much of the worldbuilding falls apart around it. I prefer to look at what is written about the world first, and the rules later.

But, I feel when it comes to adventures, and using the Garhound one as an example, what we have here are people arguing that the rules would make the central premise impossible instead of seeing that the rules are what makes the central premise exciting?

Take our lovely Argan Argar ogre and the hapless Stormbull rival. They are both placed there for a reason, and for player characters to make choices. Do they believe the Stormbull? Or do they think he just wants to get rid of a rival? How do you find proof of something that's just one person's gut feeling? Are there other Stormbulls here? Probably not many, otherwise I doubt the ogre would have tried this. Is a PC a Stormbull? Do they also sense chaos or do they fail? What does that mean? And if they agree, would they be accused of just supporting a fellow cultist?

Stormbull's sense chaos is, above all, a PLAYER tool. Something to pull people into mysteries and problems. Not something the world of Glorantha has used to set up a city-wide chaos scan net. If that had been the case, it would have been described as such in the world, just like other weird stuff like dragonnewt roads.

I feel that by trying to over-analyze the rules as written we risk losing the world it was written for.

I think for me the assumption that just because an ability exists, it will always be utilized in the most efficient and organized way is a bit too much. Just look at our society today. We have police and government with the ability to tap and scan every cell phone and demand records, cross-referencing vast amounts of registers. That's not even counting surveillance cameras. If you just look at the maximum capabilities of a well-organized police force, there is no reason to say that any criminal shouldn't be hunted down and caught pretty fast. All you need to do is hire a lot of well-trained officers who use all the powers at their disposal in an efficient way at all times because what society likes crimes? I leave it to the reader to decide whether a bunch of stormbulls are easier to organize than cops...

I also feel that any self-respecting chaos cult hiding in a city would work hard to influence the members of the city council to have some nice civic ordinance to keep those rowdy storm bulls contained to the rougher part of town. No bothering upstanding citizens or merchants. Everyone knows chaos is broos hiding in the forest, or maybe the weird-looking poor people. Let the storm bulls have a drink and show them the door, and make sure they never go wandering around the respectable neighborhoods.

35 minutes ago, Joerg said:

Quite the costly treatment in terms of rune points. As an introductory treatment, how about Befuddle?

I mean befuddle is fun for a couple of minutes and a few laughs at a night out on the town. If you really want that blackout-drunk forgetfulness that comes with bad decisions and regret, it's worth two rune points.

41 minutes ago, Darius West said:

also a wonderful way to unwind after a hard day at work.  It hits harder than liquor or hazia, and is totally recreational. 

You have changed my worldview!  Love that way of thinking about it...

26 minutes ago, mfbrandi said:

No, because spud talk is light-hearted and fun, not bitter and bonkers. It is not the stuff of Trotskyite infighting … right?

As an innocent country bumpkin who stumbled into both topics while carrying a bunch of pizzas only to find the place catch on fire around me... well... 😅

Thanks for the tip! Feels nice to have it in digital too!

Voted, I love Roll20, it makes everything so smooth! (Running two RQ campaigns in it)

7 minutes ago, soltakss said:

Here is the Template

Thank you so much!

3 minutes ago, Rodney Dangerduck said:

I am skeptical of emphasizing CHA.  it's already the most important stat in RQG, and I see no reason to make it even more so.

I think you have a point. I don't think I have ever had a charisma roll in a heroquest. It's on the form because it was on the one I got the inspiration from...

29 minutes ago, Runeblogger said:

I’d like to read more about the heroquests you ran in your campaign!

Might write them up eventually, the ones we have run is the Quest for the White Bull (yep, getting into that whole thing from the start in my campaign), an borderline real world one one they were dragged into by another party (fighting the Wicked Writher), and a rather big dragon related one on the Plateau of Statues.

1 hour ago, kalidor said:

You forgot about "techniques" as identify, challenge, range...

Didn't forget, left them out! I didn't know if I wanted to handle them on the sheet. So far I have built them more into the actual quests, as different methods they can use to accomplish what they want. I see them more as tactics than actual skills they would have stats in. Like... I judge them more on how they roleplay and what acts they do when it comes to Identify.

7 hours ago, Ian Absentia said:

What you've been doing is remarkably similar to an unrelated project I've been working on

I basically tried to work backwards from heroquesting as depicted in the chaosium house campaign, and the sketch for a preliminary HQ stat sheet they showed but I can't remember where. The short lightbringer's quest as depicted in the White Bull campaign is the basis for this, so we might be drawing from the same well.

I have not written down the heroquest rules we use in detail (they are getting more into experimental heroquesting the longer the campaign progresses) but I did make proper HQ character sheets for them which tells a fair bit about what we do.

The way we do heroquests they mainly use passions, rune spells and runes, with charisma and power being the two starts. It's been a lot of fun so far, done two big ones and one small one.

Yeah, sometimes the Seven Mothers feel like a very organized version of the Lightbringers to me, but where the focus is on the whole rather than the parts. I want this cult book sooo badly!

Also, I suspect we will know more in March when the Lunar cult book comes out. Things might have changed a bit there. I am particularly interested in how communal seven mothers worship interacts with worship of a particular seven mother.

Is an initiate of Yanafal Tarnils counted as a Seven Mother worshipper, for example? Or would a dual initiation be needed there?

On 1/21/2024 at 11:08 AM, soltakss said:

I have a revised Template that I can share with you that has fixed the headings issue, and I think other people have done the same.

I would LOVE this template, headings are essential and hopefully we'll be at the editing stage soon!

40 minutes ago, Nick Brooke said:

Potatoes grow in Darkness. I relish the idea of desperate Sun Domers turning to the potato goddess for aid...

One of the Yelmalio is already going weird and slightly heretical heading off towards the Sun Dragon path, the other is a Babeester Gor who has decided that death is a sucker's game and she'll just skip that whole deal thank you very much. And that's not even talking about the soon-to-be shaman... Things get weird when you have players who get the first tiny points in draconic illumination and then proceed to roll an 08 and a 06 the first time I had them roll against the number to see if they got illuminated... Potatoes and darkness sound just right up their alley!

Might do my potato writeup one day, but the reason I started this topic right now was just to find out the official stance, and see if I needed to include potatoes in the Sun County module we are working on. Seems I was right to leave them out so far, but if a big famine happens I know my players might be looking to Count Varthanis II for an example and might do a heroquest for food. So who knows what they might find?

4 minutes ago, Joerg said:

We ask for a lot from Glorantha, don't we?

It is quite astounding that we have as much information as we do.

Yeah, I am loving Glorantha so much! The Grain goddesses sadly gets so overshadowed by Ernalda, maybe I need to sit down and think about some myths there eventually...

Just now, Squaredeal Sten said:

But whether there is a RW myth is relevant. since there is clearly a link from Bronze Age RW Middle Eastern myth to the dominant Gloranthan myths and cults.

Not really? Yes, Gloranthan myths are clearly inspired by real-world ones, but I was talking about the fact that no Gloranthan potato myth was created in the past (unlike for Maize). However, if my players ever do the potato heroquest I have half boiling in my head and bring potatoes to the land, I will certainly draw inspiration from the real deal!

16 minutes ago, Squaredeal Sten said:

Is there really no Peruvian potato myth?   

I was talking of a Gloranthan potato myth! I am sure there are tons of Peruvian ones...

Honestly, driving across the Snoqualmie pass and following the Columbia River south for a while this summer gave me such an appreciation for the Sun County/Prax landscape. Beautiful views, even with the drought.

((might as well post the first draft here. will be tightened up and edited, but it's fun to share some things))

This is what you remember from your initiation rites.

You knew something was wrong when the blood started coming. And the pain. It felt like everyone had known it would happen except you. On the morning of the splattered bedsheets, you were spirited away by the women of your family, all masked and dressed up. You were carried in a litter, not allowed to touch the ground. You were carried through the doors of the Ernalda temple. You knew it well; you had seen it a dozen times, as a girl, with your mothers and your aunts.

But this time, they put down the litter in the temple courtyard and left you there. Alone.

You were hurting. You hadn’t eaten. Nobody answered your questions. So eventually, you crawled out of the litter and found yourself in a garden. Was it really the temple garden? The trees were so high, and the undergrowth so thick. You saw no walls, and the path behind you faded before your eyes. You were lost.

And yet, there were fruits in the garden. You ate them and were no longer hungry. There was a distant sound of running water, and you followed it to quench your thirst. This was a world of peace and beauty, where all you had to do was to reach out, and whatever you desired waited there. There were faces in the water, beautiful, blue men and women beckoning you to join them in their dance, artfully decorated trees in the shape of people offering you food and friendship. And yet, you felt lonely. This was not your family. Not your people. What you needed to find was not here.

GM notes: A future follower of the more sensual sides of Ernalda or Uleria might choose to join the dance and have their first, slightly confused, sexual encounter. Someone initiating into Zola Fel later might find it hard to leave the river, but eventually, they all do.

In the distance, you smelled smoke. The fire frightened the others but not you. You knew the blessings of the cooking fire and found a hunger for things other than fruit. Soon, your feet found a path, leaving the forest for golden fields of barley, a white palace gleaming in the distance. You followed the path as it turned into a road, smiling as you saw other people like you in the humble village ahead. At first, they looked away in shame, and you realized, to your horror, that you were naked, your face marked by sticky sap and your body with the green of leaves. The mother offered you water for your skin, the daughter clothes to hide your shame, and the son food to fill your belly. You might have stayed there as one of their own, but the palace beckoned, so you walked on.

Under your feet, the road grew wider, now paved and lined by flowers. Around you, people farmed the fields, dug the canals, and harvested the bounties of the earth. The houses were open and airy, and the people were happy and well-fed. You found yourself in a magnificent weaving hut, more a house or a mansion than a shed. Beautiful women worked there, skilled hands and wide smiles gossiping about their husband, the All-Seeing Sun. There was a loom there, ready for you to sit down and get to work. This was new; you had not yet been allowed to touch the loom back home, only the spindle. Reverently, you started working, your fingers knowing what to do. And yet, you felt lonely. 

GM notes: A character choosing a more martial path might struggle with the loom, her fingers unused to weaving. A future follower of Babeester Gor might leave the weaving hut and follow a distant scream, going to the aid of a woman in peril. She would not return to the path, but others might.

There came a day of great festivities. Of a challenge between upstart Storm and All-Seeing Sun. All the women were there, and you had flowers in your hair, hoping to perhaps attract the attention of the Sun they all spoke so highly of. But your body felt heavy and coarse compared to the women of light and ethereal beauty surrounding you, and the Sun did not look your way. Instead, the Storm did, a youth like you, with a wicked smile and wild, red hair that moved in the wind. He lost the first two competitions but won your heart, so when he won the last and the Sun lay black and bleeding on the floor, you followed him as he ran. This was not the place for you.

He took you to his house, high up in the mountains, where the winds blew cold. You were shivering, but he warmed your bed in more ways than one. His family was loud and brash but treated you as a queen, and so you stayed. And yet, as darkness fell over the world, you grew lonely. The Storm raged far and wide, and you heard whispers of the others he spent time with, men and women both. With the sun gone, the stars soon followed, and one evening you found yourself staring out the window at the single remaining star. It looked as lonely as you felt, alone against the dark, and so you made a doll of dead grass to hide in your bed so nobody would know that you were gone and not just sleeping.

The trek toward the star was long, there were monsters on the roads, but you were no longer a helpless maiden. You fought when you needed to, hid when you could not, and found your way to the star. It was the Last Light; a planet descended to the earth to protect what was left. Its surface was cold and cracked, but it still held firm, its light holding the darkness and monsters at bay. You took it in your hands and warmed it with your touch. As dawn finally came once more, the star turned into a man, holding his hands in yours. You knew his face then; you had met him as you passed through his village on the way to his father’s palace.

In the gray light of dawn, he made you a promise. He would be yours and yours alone. You would no longer need to feel lonely, together you could create family and future both. You answered that you would not give up anything you had gained in the past. You would not be trapped in a weaver’s hut or forget that you once danced with the storm, bathed in the wild river, or lay down to sleep among the flowers. He replied that his promise was true, but what you promised in return would have to come from your own heart. All he offered was companionship and family. You answered that you already had family, a large and sprawling one you could hear awakening with the return of the sun. But you would accept companionship, and perhaps he was the one who needed family. Who felt lonely and bereft of kinship, with a distant and broken father and relatives looking down on him. He acknowledged that might be true, and you kept hold of his hands as your family approached. Together you were stronger than apart.

As the women in your family embraced you in the real world, you remember feeling confused and overwhelmed, filled with emotions that were only partly yours. Over the years, you came to realize the wisdom of following Ernalda’s footsteps, embracing all the facets of the world before deciding which one suited you best. As your aunts would say, men are simple and make many promises; you need to find the one who sees wisdom in your words. 

Perhaps one day you will.

GM notes: The ending and denouement should be shaped by the character. This is written from a classic  Ernalda initiate’s point of view. If she has chosen to follow Chalana Arroy, perhaps the focus should be on healing the Last Light. A follower of Donandar or Uleria might see the lost palace of light as something she can take inspiration from and recreate in her own words and actions. A woman choosing to initiate into Yelmalio later might see the Last Light as her mirror, her other self, and meld with it as one being, greeting the rising sun herself. A Vingan might leave the house of Orlanth, taking a spear with her, fighting her way across the darkness, and finding a comrade in arms in the Last Light rather than a husband.