David Scott

That’s how I’ve always played it. It’s the same as two combatants in combat reaching zero hit points.

That’s why I did the poll, although the sample is only those who have accounts on this site and is likely not completely representative.

I’ve used large plastic figure in HeroQuests, so I can’t wait for gods war the come through. I played out the final fight between Great Newt and Lizard mother from the Rainbow mounds with giant modified dinosaur and crocodile. The players were 15mm so looked great. In another game, one of the players fought Thed hand to hand by heroforming Storm Bull, I could have done with gods war then.

28ish mm covers 25-32mm

I'll start with this Poll and then move on to tracking and movement.

A spin off from a comment in a discussion. https://basicroleplaying.org/topic/8184-facing-and-positioning-in-rqg-combat/?tab=comments#comment-116247

Hopefully quicker (this is from a company that Ideal with's website) Once it gets to the distributer, it just needs to go on sale on the web store, then fulfilment is quick.

Elurae are covered on page 32 of the RQ Bestiary. Runes: Beast 60%, Fertility 60%, Illusion 60%. Elurae are magical, they are not normal foxes, they are part of the beastmen and aren't animals but hybrids. Likewise as has been mentioned, not everything that's called a fox is interrelated. There is Trickster magic in RQG that can turn you into fox, but that doesn't make you an Elurae. By comparison I'd say that Red Foxes are Beast 100%, and although an offspring of Trickster illusion 55%. Blue Foxes may not be related to Trickster, although by their latin name in AR, likely. They would be the same as Red foxes, although I say the runes for these creatures isn't so relevant. They don't need dominant elemental rune. I think these are different and have a different name in AR. I'd give these Beast 100% and Darkness 20%, but no illusion.

Facing is a detail I avoid at all costs, it brings about a level of detail tha I want to avoid in RQ combat without figures. I don’t always use figures, but when I do, it’s 15mm so everything is more compact and facing is rolled into movement. Movement is important with mounts, wheeling to charge, getting up to speed, etc. In close combat, I use it in remounting as well. Players instinctively use a metre of movement to turn 90 degrees. I’ve never corrected them. My 15mm comes from traveller, so I’m using square (or rectangular) bases on a square grid and not hexes, facing is a bit more blunt on squares than hexes. Players like to line stuff up, that’s not to say it isn’t freeform or diagonals aren’t allowed. We did a recent combat with a caravan of 30 bison, 9 ridden and the rest pack animals, only one player wasn’t mounted, and one was a centaur! The attacking Sables did make off with a few bison, but at a heavy cost. The facing and movement worked very smoothly. As for penalties and bonuses, for facing, @jajagappa pretty much covered it for me. We had a Morokanth attack where both of the lead adventurers fumbled their scan rolls to spot the hidden hunters, both attackers got the bonus.

I ran a Balazaring campaign for many years, eventually under HQ. The players were Votanki, eventually joining Balazar and becoming The Hawklords. It ended just before the windstop. Elkoi Themes: Citadel in flux, old ways replaced by new ways that never could fully take hold even after 100 years. Civilised verus hunter gatherers Aging, disassociate monachy Yelmalio versus Seven Mothers Balazar verus Invaders Queen Jocestis becomes a priestess under Elecora Kindtongue as the Lunars slowly depopulated this frontier outpost. Elecora dies about 1620 and Jocestis becomes then acting High Priestess. Marusa and Halcyion are reassigned and there is little to do here. Into this void, Taklong begins actively reestablishing Yelmalio amongst the clans, looking for a successor to the ageing King in the guise of Balazar reborn. He has support from the other priests at the other citadels (he is the High Priest) and Blueface. Joh Mith expands his market to Elkoi. Trilus Themes: Standard citadel, Yarling is the ideal leader, keeps the old ways alive. Hunter gatherers vesus civilised Young monarchy Foundchild dominates Lightbringers embed. Dushi Sone, Bluebird, Joh Mith, Pay Surney. Around 1616 Torath Manover leaves with the Windsword, his followers and Some of Pay's. They head south to free Sartar. Pay becomes the defacto head of the Lightbringers at Trilus. She marries Cirtan, Ravena's brother, they have a small holding outside the walls (Cirtan's first wife and family were killed by the Lunars). Euclia becomes a (native) rune lord Vingan, she takes over Pay's adventuring role while he settles down and has children. Pay never recovers from not finding the Windsword and everyone leaving. Dykene Themes: Rise of the Yelmalio Hawklords (Guardians of Balazar) The rise of Balazar Increased chaos and murder. change of hunting styles Hawks versus Horse Hawking versus dogs Around 1619, Karazar is kidnapped and never found around. In the ensuing repercussions, Praxena Kills the King and escapes. She is caught by Euclia now a Vingan who returns her. Starnia has her tied to a stake outside the citadel (never let pcs advise a future king) and has Sunrider peck her eyes out. It takes a few days for her to die. Starnia Stormrender becomes King. Calamene marries Bodoni Boldface. Chana Greeneyes has a child by Silvanthi Brighteyes who subsequently vanishes (becomes Blueface's apprentice). There is no overt lunar backlash against Praxina's death, however there are many more broo attacks in the Dykene clan regions. Granny Keeneye is much more active against the Yelmalions (as she's subverted by Jakakeel). That's all I can remember at the moment.

Here's the Windstop detail for Balazar: Yellow - Votanki, Light Green - Southwood Elves, Dark Green - Highwood Elves, Light Grey - Tarsh, Dark Grey - Holay A number of clan hearths fall within the Windstop: Flinthill (2), Pure Hearth (5), Taks Mound (7) and Oldtree (8). I'm sure that given the nature of the Votanki, that they would be displaced north, with few if any fatalities. The Dwerrow river and it's tributaries would freeze. The Dwerrow would be frozen to just above High Bridge, along with the Kintals. The Bilini would freeze just at Summerford, and where it merges with the Rapidwater, a large marshy lake would form. The upper reaches of the Bilini would be frozen or dry. The unfrozen section of the Dwerrow would likely dry up, losing valuable fishing. At the thaw a similar but smaller deluge can be expected, like the Zola Fel. The marshy lake would drive the melting ice down, scouring the riverbed, and perhaps taking out Highbridge (if you want). The Highwood elves (those who weren't asleep, outside the Windstop) would be doing everything they would to minimise this event, likewise the small number of Southwood Elves. I can't see the Lunar pavilion providing much protection, so the majority of the Lunars will certainly leave likely travelling north to Soldier Ferry along the caravan route. The local balazarings have been occupied for 4 generations and are not so likely to have clan links in the wild, may perish along with their pigs. The two downriver villages are likely depopulated in the die off. The royal family evacuate with the lunars. I don't think they return. Taklong is granted refuge in Trilus and on his return is a major mover and shaker in the power vacuum, Erapp Barbacon being the major contender if he can be persuade to stay. Blueface will certainly be influential in this respect, pushing for one of unrecognised children to become king or another clan chief. Cyriel Endelkar returns if only to see what business if any can be salvaged and likely leaves seeing his empire blasted back to the stone age. I'd have Moraring Broom survive and return with Cyriel, he's a member of Yelmalio and so has the support of Taklong, he'll try and sell the inn to the first person who comes along and leave to find the luxuries he once knew. The winter is hard and devastating. Although near the edge of the Windstop, it is still frozen. There's little here for Tusk Riders and although they could have travelled north through Southwood (their southern area is shared with the Southwood Elves). I'd personally have some kind of Lunar demon outbreak from the Lunar temple from the doings of Queen Jocestis and Marusa. The defences they left in place have thrived in the dark and cold as befits demons of Jakaleel. Spectral demons now haunt the citadel, those arriving find dozens of dead Tusk Riders inside the walls. The only thing worse than a Tusk Rider, is the thing that kills Tusk Riders. This proves a great problem for the Yelmalio temple and even Blueface.

No Tapping on the shadow path...

@PhilHibbs & @womble, I’m specifically talking about those that aren’t part of cults. The sorcerer in my game although from the Lunar empire, chose not be an initiate of a cult. He didn’t hold with “that god stuff”. “The Shadow Path needs no gods, only a willingness to send those who’s time it is to their fate”

The first thing to note is that Elkoi is at least 5 miles inside the Windstop, while the other citadels aren’t. It’s possible that it evacuates. I’ll dig out a detail of my regional Windstop map. I’ve now completed the Balazar area which was incomplete in this version

But none of this applies if you are a sorcerer with no rune or spirit magic. There are no holy days.

I think they are related, but different forms ( hence the names). The spell itself has a moon and a sky component. The text infers for me that that it was based on the skyburn, but manipulated with lunar magics. There is, however very likely a spell called skyfire, missing the moon rune, and that moonfire is an example of creating a new spell. All of this is conjecture I know.

I think it is happening and that all these huge magics have a root in a much simpler form. The massive form clearly needs more magical effects that are not yet documented in RQG. However having had a lunar sorcerer in my game, they were certainly eying that spell up. The reality of playing a sorcerer is just like all the magic types - always a compromise between what you'd like to do and what you actually do on an adventure. Realistically you could get a POW gain roll every season, however that's not my experience in actual play.

And it's meant to be. We know this has been done twice: 1279 Skyburn, took 2 years to prepare (+85% casting), duration 12 hours (Intensity 8), radius 80000m (Intensity 60, 81920m), range 80000m (Intensity 20), Damage was a lot. 1296 Moonburn, took 5 years to prepare (90% casting) ...

For me the starting point in all this is that they are actually the physical land as @jajagappa says. If we look first at the overall land masses the north and south continent had/have a dominant single male component Genert and Pamalt. Looking only at the northern continent. There is a predominant female component making the whole in a kind of animus/anima jungian whole. Each is personified as a being, with the land being devolved into smaller parts that not only retain their overall personification but have their own smaller being. This leads to the whole continent being Ernalda, as well as the smaller parts being land goddesses. They are both things at the same time. Small regions of land may be devolved into daughters of the land, leading to the land being not only the daughters, but the land goddess and ernalda as a whole as well. This one being the many and being the one is a normal mythological theme. Many people look too closely at the many not realising that it's still the one. In some parts there is no many and ernalda is the land goddess. Have a look at the marvellous picture on page 88 of the Glorantha Sourcebook. Generally, the devolved parts are the Earth and where the devolved parts married non-earth deities, their children although of the Earth aren't actually the Earth. Genert and his many sons died, so the northern continent has no male component, but the many husbands of the earth make up for this. His personal land, the Wastes is odd in that it has no land goddess and is as a result dysfunctional. One will be along soon.

I'm not sure that dramatically reducing casting time is true: Then you'd want to always increase your chance of casting to at 95% (always 5% chance of failure) or more as a crit reduces mp cost to 1. My sorcerer alway used meditate - 10 mins for a max of +25% or more often a day's ritual preparation for a seasons worth of Boon of Kargan Tor for +50%, he'd always augment with his Death rune, avoid fertility week (-10%), use a sword (normally the recipient of the spell +10%) and in one case stand on a recent battlefield for (Moonbrth) +20%, so at least +70%. He did critical a few times. Unprepared battle was always a problem as a Strength 12 +3D6 BoKT would take +11 MPs, so 1 round + DEX SR2 + (2 MPs (base) +11 MPs boost) = 26 Strike ranks, so overall 3 rounds and finally on round 4 SR2 he would roll for success. His Base for the spell was 37+5% bonus, +10% for a sword, and if he was lucky, someone had already died for another +10%. Often he would fail, but he was known for coming in at the end of a fight and killing everyone left. As sorcerer of The Shadow Path (a minor Carmanian School), he was more than happy with this. As he had no other types of magic, this was his main tactic.

The first thing that the sorcerer in my game did was to spend three POW on a magic point matrix, on 3D10 he got 25. He realised that POW wasn't the key thing to casting sorcery, however he did need an offensive spell to use to get a POW gain roll to bump his POW back up.

Although they may just use sorcerous enchantments and have unmastered runes and techniques, making magic expensive. Though are unlikely to use inscriptions. But let’s wait to see what the sorcery book says.

While a nice idea, I suspect the transcribing is the enchanting ritual. Not getting them to do the hard work seems lacking in MGM’s and gives no scope for fumbling and producing something “bad”.

Do you think the second value is already doubled? (+1/+2). Would make sense.

yes oops, the spell is free for the first 4 levels of Intensity, then another 4 levels gets it to 8 requiring 4 Free Int, another 4 levels is 4 mps.