David Scott

A minor temple is only 150–500 lay members and initiates and "the staff consists of several Rune Priests led by a Chief Priest", the figure we normally use for "magic people" is 1%, so 5 RLs is not unreasonable.

Perhaps that’s the secret, Varnaval is not going to be a major cult, so a small one with several rune lords each riding flying ram chariots. Saren can likely fly too, carrying Elmal across the sky. Do chariots being aerial platforms help?

you might like Paladin, based on Pendragon when it comes out:

yes but mainly a replaying of the great Arthurian tales One. See Timescale p95 (5.1) The Glory economy becomes a problem with more adventures. I've recently played with a new GM who ignored this, we had 1000s of glory but were still squires! Depends which phase you are playing in , i've only ever run/played against the campaign backdrop. The bare outline of this is on page 217, tournaments sure, there's plenty of scope for this covered in supplements, but bear in mind that Pendragon is set much before the time you mention. all is this is covered in the progressing campaign. Pendragon gets lethal very quickly regardless of armour. Once you've inspired yourself Sword skills gets high. they are extra fluff, buy them later if you enjoy the game, not needed. the real extra is the great pendragon campaign. I see Pendragon as a two volume set, the rules and the campaign.

What ever you/your players make them into. To me it's a blank slate, just because they once did those things doesn't mean that they can't be moved into something new (but similar or related). Also bear in mind, you only get three, and to my mind the list that Janara names if the PCs fail is the most interesting. Varnaval is totally the god of ram charioteering. Awesome chariots pulled by the offspring of the Iron Ram (great HeroQuest opportunity). Tanian is clearly an Argrath secret weapon, a dragon god of burning rain. Korolful is a star captain. I'd make him the god of burning fire arrows, raining down from the sky. The others. Siwend, maybe a heroquest scout/raider. Baroshi is a blank slate, and can approached much like Firshala in Griffin Mountain. He's clearly an Earth warrior with a Storm weapon, hero forming him is likely a way forward. Saren seems like a fire aspect of Mastakos. Perhaps chariots need to come back to help in the hero wars. Oonil is the big picture guy, he'd be useful for melding new ideas together for the hero wars. I'd be interested to hear which three @Ian Cooper's group brought back Establishing will take time. Getting players to run with this was a difficulty in my Griffin Mountain campaign (with Firshala), they didn''t want to become a new religious hierarchy. Unless my players were interested in developing one of them, I'd leave them minor. The biggest change if you brought back a or both charioteers would be the return of war chariots.

I forgot I put it up there!

Here's Greg's answer as to who is Baroshi (from 1998!): https://web.archive.org/web/20000518224236/http://www.glorantha.com:80/greg/q-and-a/baroshi.html

Definitely Im sure they’ve got their own god who oversees butchery - no idea who, but they’ve got the peaceful cut. Yes Why? Amongst the Praxians it was likely unheard of. Only those who had direct access to the lunar hierarchy likely had access to luxury goods like foreign meat (imported animals). I’m cant really think what animals the Lunars have that the Praxians and Orlanthi don’t have access too.

I don’t see that as a problem, he’s a fundamental part of the cosmos. He’s the butcher god.

Peaceful Cut is not specific. It’s also a skill, and although it has a magical component it’s only a minor part of it. It subsumes: slaughtering an animal sending that animal’s soul or spirit on to the correct afterlife butchering what is specific are the rites performed on the animal to send it on its way, but that is just colour. I believe that every animal has its own song that does this. However the general actions work as well, higher skill levels encompass your expanded knowledge. Cultures that don’t worship any Pantheon that contains Waha still use the skill, so horses are okay as they are animals. Likewise all hunters will know it. It’s a fundamental Gloranthan ritual skill.

I'd go and read up about horse sacrifices first.There's some excellent RW examples that are Gloranthan gold. Of course the Pol-Joni use the Peaceful Cut, Waha is kin, they just don't hold him as khan. As for unfit horses, may be, although there's likely horse magic that makes lameness much rarer in Glorantha. You don't have to worship Waha to use the Peaceful Cut, as I said earlier There's likely a candidate somewhere on the second row of the Gods Wall and then it will be called something like "The Glorious movement of returning soul"... The Peaceful cut when used by a Humakti ensures the animals soul is devoted to Humakt. It's part of Worship Humakt and I still think he'd prefer a sword. "I am Humakt, I am Death personified and you may sacrifice anything to me, as long as it's a sword". I'd certainly use sword bog sacrifices as a model and certainly recommend both of PV Glob's books on along the way https://www.amazon.co.uk/Bog-People-P-V-Glob/dp/B003WSAW78/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8 https://www.amazon.co.uk/Mound-People-Danish-Bronze-Age-Preserved/dp/0801408008/ref=la_B000APTCQ8_1_2

The Scott Principles: Never underestimate ingenuity of your players, never roll dice against yourself, never have a conversation with yourself, never expect the adventure to follow the written path and when in doubt, always make it up.

RuneQuest Bestiary, page 91: Unchanged since Borderlands in 1982. As for maturity, I'd say ASAP, so likely a year minimum, from impregnation. You'd want fast maturity to keep providing things for players to kill.

Apologies, I gave only the page reference, page 228 Swords, weapons of your fallen enemies. In areas where he is not the warrior but executioner, prisoners would be appropriate. Sounds good. Worship (deity) does include the Peaceful Cut, but not the butchery part. Praxians never slaughter outside of a religious rite. It's like christians who say Grace. That's not a worship ceremony, that's the Peaceful Cut.

Depends on the god/Pantheon and the why of the sacrifice. In the Orlanthi (earth)/Praxian pantheons, yes. However there will almost always be exceptions, like the Storm Bull example above. If the intention of the sacrifice is to cause suffering to the animal then no. If using RQG or HQG, I’d certainly allow it as an augment on a ritual sacrifice, given the above. However as you can only have one augment, I’d just say it happens, if it’s not the augment needed. I would always assume it is used anyhow.

RQG says of the Peaceful Cut as it ensures that the animals spirit/soul returns back to the right place, it’s an important concept in Glorantha. In all Orlanthi culture, Waha the Butcher is present ( Orlanth’s nephew). He’s not the Khan of the Praxians, he’s the butcher. Even in towns and cities. Other cultures will doubtless have a similar if not the same god with a different name. Although he’s likely present in the Lunar Empire in small part due to the Hungry Plateau Sables. Only amongst the western cultures is he likely to be missing. the skill itself has a number of components; slaughtering - this is the actual peaceful cut part, not causing the animal suffering so it’s soul will pass on and not be tied to the animals death (see the example on page 228). There’s the butchering part - efficiently breaking apart the animal into its different usable parts. Finally there’s the ritual overtones, depending on culture, different rites are used. For example, the Praxians know a different song for each animal they sing to direct it’s spirit home. This starts during the slaughter and ends when the job is done. Other cultures will know different songs and perhaps use a specific knife for different jobs. The peaceful cut can be done without the ritual overtones, then it’s just butchery. I suspect all butchers use the peaceful cut part, to calm the animal before killing it, remember this happens outside their “shop”. This isn’t the world of abattoirs, it’s street slaughter with daily life’s gong on around them.

You might like to try a bigger picture number crunch: http://www.metamorphosisalpha.com/ias/population.php change the dates to Glorantha ones put in initial pop number from the guide alter the growth rate to get the current pop. Glorantha's growth rate is much lower than earth's you might want to do it in sections to compensate for things like the dragonkill Births and deaths even out - after war more births. Magic is the same.

Axis Mundi opens on to the spirit world in a location mythically specific to your tradition in the their Land of the Dead. The inner circle is always filled with ancestral spirits specific to their culture, although without extra magic are not recognisable. I can imagine a Sartarite shaman opening Axis Mundi and all the ancestors of those around the stead being present to come to visit their relations. All hoping for a moment back in the Middle World.

There isn't really on the fly creative magic as you describe, but Yes, the rune you draw could be used as a focus to cast magic you already know. Generally speaking it's used to focus magical power to do something related to the rune you are using. As to the "physics", the building blocks of everything in the world is runes, even people. Everyone is made of runes. In runequest your character sheet shows the balance of all the runes you are made of and as a result the affinity you have for some of them. If you have a lot of affinity for certain runes, you can use that to help you in daily life (an augment). Affinities with fire mean you can likely light a fire more easily, water, swim better, etc. The downside is that these runes are also your personality. Too much fire - hot headed, too much water - slippery 🙂

You can only get the the rune bonus once, I would have had he rune inspiration in the question section. Inspiring with a rune lasts the whole scene, so it can be applied to anything relevant. That’s the first +20, the second is the singing augment. Yes. Just like real world shamanism.

If you've the PDF, copy the rune text into a word processor and the font will substitute and the message become readable, to be honest they are not worth the effort after discovering "Here is another good place to type in some rune text" reveals some poor layout decisions from the Issaries era.

You might find this helpful, as noted already by @Tindalos they are Velhara (Lady of the Wild) and Varanorlanth's (Orlanth the Wild) personal runes, so yes likely the First Land.

@PhilHibbs You're right, there are clearly a number of Shamanic Abilities not listed in the Core rules, that will become available when shamanic cultures are detailed more.

I could find no trace of a limit on POW, I even checked the early drafts. No limit in RQ3 either.

The rune spell Sanctify specifically mentions that you can use it to replenish rune points. I’m sure there are sorcerous methods as well that the Lunars can use.