David Scott

Vovisibor wasn't really an invader as he came from Fonrit. I can't see a source for fonrit as Vovisibor's origin.

Wakboth got squashed by the Block and Kajabor was eaten by Arachne Solara to become time. They aren't an expression of chaos in Glorantha anymore - no worshippers, just concepts. http://www.glorantha.com/docs/kajabor/

GoG = Gods of Glorantha GtG = https://www.chaosium.com/the-guide-to-glorantha-pdf/ Parts of GoG are here: http://www.glorantha.com/docs/doraddi-pantheon/ Also http://www.glorantha.com/?s=Pamaltela&submit=Search and http://www.pensee.com/dunham/glorantha/pamaltelanGods.html Here is a very rich vein of Glorantha goodness - Pamaltela info here often from Sandy Petersen : http://glorantha.temppeli.org/digest/ such as - http://glorantha.temppeli.org/digest/gd5/1997.09/1289.html

IIRC in the current version of RQG Discorporation is still a common rune magic, so a humakti could discorporate using his death rune and then use his death rune to augment his spirit combat to kill it.

If you have access to Cults of Terror, that's an excellent starting point. It depends on what the chaos is. If it's not sentient, it likely doesn't want anything. It just does what it does to live and multiply. So at the very basic level chaos ooze is the chaos that entered the world, all it does is ooze and taint stuff with chaos. Sentient beings who realise they are chaotic will join a cult to channel their needs and abilities. I don't think chaos itself has an agenda for evil - that only comes with cunning then intelligence. Have a look at the reason for continued existence for the chaos cults. Chaos is then a tool for getting your beliefs into the world for example: So I would say that chaos itself wants nothing, it's the chaos cults that are the vehicles of chaos, giving worshippers a purpose in life. It's what the cults do that is important, they give purpose and direction to chaos worshippers.

I can certainly understand that, however that is a bit mystifying as well - surely arrow would go through? That makes complete sense. These is another picture of a similar siege engine that has a spiked prisoner on top of it. The prisoner is part of a different scene and the spikes are on small domes, the small dome looks like its on the siege engine, but is clearly part of the other section. This gives the engine a different turret top. I wonder if this isn't a case of copy error: http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details/collection_image_gallery.aspx?assetId=111886001&objectId=369052&partId=1 top of the engine / spike bottoms http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details/collection_image_gallery.aspx?partid=1&assetid=359774001&objectid=369052

Thanks for the retrospective. I played in a game of it on Free RPG day. I enjoyed it as well.

I wonder why it is a hemisphere? The siege engine has a prefabricated look to it - transported to the battlefield in pieces and assembled there. I would of thought that a dome was more difficult than say a square based pyramid or an angled roof to make.

As you are using HeroQuest, the magic is going to work differently from the time limits of RQs magic. Also it depends what the Lunars are going to bring with them in the way of magical support. If any units of the College of Magic are present, that will change the approach. See HeroQuest Glorantha for details on them. For me the balance will be about are their enough lunars to overrun the defences. Given enough soldiers and a path to the objective - they will get in at a cost, a forlorn hope (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forlorn_hope) operation, but possible if the enemy want the objective. Versus the story inside the siege - what the players do. My players would certainly want to break the siege in some way of their own devising or save the inhabitants and get away cleanly under the Lunars noses, like Whitewall - empty when the Lunars got in. Magical escape is much more likely.

@eyelessgame here's @Rick Meints answer in another relevant thread. The Pavis and Big Rubble Glorantha Classic Paper or Hardback can be found online for sale, sometimes for reasonable prices @Rick Meints may have copies for sale.

It makes complete sense. The vast majority of Lunars are of course aware of their goddess’s connect with chaos, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t fear it or participate in its use. A common stricture for all lunar initiates is (from Pavis GTA & HeroQuest Glorantha}: Lunar initiates can at any time swap their moon rune for the chaos rune! It’s normall permanent and they normally get at minimum a chaos taint. The occasional initiate turning into a chaos monster will certainly keep them in line. Most will be killed out of hand for safety and as an example to obey your strictures. There’s more info on this in the aforementioned books (HeroQuest Glorantha is the more recent).

This is the chaos exception I mentioned. A huge single spirit with tendrils infecting multiple victims. Once dead they reach out to another. Plague is fast and deadly.

I tried to find the definition of passion spirits in RQ and couldn't - I found there stats etc though. Anaxial's Roster says: From this I would say that they can splinter / making more but less powerful versions of themselves. This would be a mechanism for them dissipating.

No, except where previously mentioned with chaos or when it's part of some cool plot hook involving gestalt / hive minds.

Excellent series of pictures. I'm sure there's a massive amount of this kind of stuff in old magazines that have never been digitised.

I left out the rune associated with Warding as it's the Magic rune, which denotes it's a common rune spell: Casting rune magic is easy: So you just pick your best affinity associated with your cult. You can of course augment with another rune.

Here's all three versions for comparison: So RQ2 says: RQ3 says RQG

In that case you need to use the magic formula - @Jeff & @Jason Durall - they are likely busy as they along with most of Chaosium are at the Kraken...

RQG says who is inside the hoop?

Looking at the way the cult runs, I disagree. There’s a BG shrine at the Paps, as part of the Earth Temple. Under RQG shrines give access to one cult rune spell and are run by a godtalker. They can regain their rune points there. It’s a tiny cult protecting a tiny population of earth priestesses. The cult has no rune priests, Just runelords that fight. The cult only exists as the ancient shrine is there and few have a calling to that particular role in the Wastes. Think of them a bit like the Swiss guard at the Vatican. There are about 16 Ernalda priestesses amongst the nomads (Pavis & Pavis county orlanthi) and they are mostly Pol-Joni and Agimori. To become powerful in this cult is hard, most will do a pilgrimage to other temples to learn more magic.

Wow you made magical people rarer! 5000/100 = 50 by my guidelines. Another standard breakdown we use is for populations - half are children and then the remainder 50/50 men and women. It too is a useful guideline. So Orathorn’s 5k population gives us 2.5k adults. Let’s say half of them practice sorcery that gives us 1250 sorcerers. 1 in 100 is a powerful mage, so roughly 12-13 “Magic” people - oooh, that’s a mysterious Council of 13 that runs the city of Orathorn. You are welcome as before to fudge the numbers to suit, but personally I believe my mysterious Council of 13 trumps your 5 sorcerers on the MGF front.

While I agree for the Ernalda numbers, I don't quite agree with the numbers for the magical combat defender cults like Humakt or Babeester. By their very nature, such cults are more magical. As I said it’s a guideline that we use and you may want to increase some of the number. if you want to produce actual numbers go ahead, although I’m not sure it’s a useful exercise. When looking at a general overview 1 in 100 works well in practice. The numbers work very well with Babeester Gor, only large Earth temples will have rune levels or devotees and they are likely to be mobile. I suspect the main centre for the cult is in Esrolia. In the Wastelands, there are only 55 initiates. Please also note that these numbers never include PCs, so at some point there will be a devotee of Babeester Gor in the Wastes.

This is very much my understanding of Glorantha too. These aren’t extra obstacles, they are what happens when the world is magically alive. Everything then has a spirit/soul/essence that manifests in the world in some way. This is also the correct way to view Glorantha in my opinion, problems are magical problems and not on top of mundane or scientific problems. When you start to introduce a scientific answer to a Gloranthan problem you’ve missed the point. Take for example infant mortality in Glorantha. Why is childbirth dangerous in Glorantha. We know the real world science reasons for this, but that’s not Glorantha. Is childbirth actually dangerous there? Disease spirits always lurk, that’s always going to be an issue. Birth defects? Blood loss? Is there a fundamental magical issue, such as the soul/spirit staying in the child’s body at birth. Is it an interaction between the life and death runes. Be clear, I’m not talking about the physical discomfort/pain of birth, I’m talking about do babies die, and if so why magically

Great Winter = -20% population in Sartar, Old Tarsh, Grazelands; -10% population in Esrolia, Lunar Tarsh and Prax. These are the figures we are using and not just Orlanthi.

I certainly don't disagree with this although old supplements do provide us wth some good examples, times have moved on. Using Sartar as a starting example and looking at RQ2 & Cults of Prax , to remain an initiate of Orlanth means you have to tithe 10% of your income to the temple. This income is likely to be in the form of goods as service is 6 weeks a year. Goods will be food, animals, clothing anything to support the priest in his work, likewise service will be assisting in rituals, and the ruling of the temple, being in the fyrd, etc. As for magic - I'd say some of this service is learning magic - it benefits the temple and it's members, and likewise training. Every adult will know at least 1 piece of magic. Ignite, repair being perhaps some of the most common. The next being the free magic, the next reduced cost magic. RQ3 had the right idea saying 1pt per 5 (or what ever it was) years as it gives us an average to work with.