David Scott

Here's my travelling in the spirit world example from a previous post that contains a spirit combat: Vishi Dunn is going to travel to the Sky World to contact the Twinstars to follow up on some troubling information. The obvious place to begin his journey would be in the Monkey Ruins, where the Fireground is close by. This would mean setting up a camp in baboon territory and hoping that the group is either not spotted and if so can hold off an attack. This is very risky, so he plans to do it from within his home camp. Before sunrise on Fireday, his assistants prepare the sacred ground by casting Sanctify 4 and building a huge fire in the centre. Everyone takes their place around it. Beginning a day long Worship ceremony to Waha, there is much chanting and dancing. At the height of the ceremony Vishi spends 5 magic points, collapsing into sleep he discorporates and appears inside the Great Herd at his Power Place. Meanwhile at the ceremony his huge high llama fetch appears and stands over his body. The dancing slows and the crowd begins to settle down into a different dance, high llama stalking, the men mimic a male high llama's lookout stance in the herd, whilst the women (who are lay members) continue to dance and drum just outside the edge of the sanctified circle. Vishi's player has already stated that this is an extended discorporation and rolls a D6 to find out how long his discorporation lasts and rolls 2 hours. His spirit high llama Attuk (a specific 4-legged high llama ancestor ) is waiting, he mounts up and sets off through the herd. Eiritha in the centre of the herd quickly fades and the edge of the herd approaches and he enters the Wide Plains. From the Wide Plains he makes a Scan roll and sees the Fireground in the distance. It takes a hour of travel to reach the Fireground, so he must make an encounter roll. He rolls POWx3 and gets 82, failing so gets a hostile encounter. Rolling a 4, the spirit has 1D6, POW, 4 points. Spirit combat starts and the weak spirit is quickly dispatched. Finally he reaches the edge of the Fireground. This is a different region, so to enter it he must make a Spirit travel roll, it's one step removed from the Inner realm so -10%, he rolls 38, succeeding. Now inside the burning Fireground to find his way to the Star Steps that lead to the Skyworld. Almost immediately the Fire Guardians appear. These are a pair of humanoid shaped burning forms, each holding a burning spear. They lunge, Vishi knows this is very dangerous, they are 6D6+6 POW & 3D6+6 CHA: POW 24, CHA 14, spirit combat 96%, 1D6+3 damage POW 26, CHA 21, spirit combat 104%, 2D6+3 damage So he rolls his Dance to augment his Spirit Dance rolling 14, a success, adding 20% on to his Spirit Dance of 90%, so 115% - 50 for the spirits magic points, 65%. he rolls a 03, a critical, avoiding the encounter and staying in the Spirit World. His 2 hours are up, he's had 1 spirit travel roll and one planned encounter. He now spends 1 magic point to extend his declared extended Discorporation and rolls a D6, for 5 extra hours. His next spirit travel roll is to find the Star Steps into the Sky World. He augments his Spirit Travel with his Spirit lore, rolls 30, succeeding, bringing his spirit travel to 120%, leaving this region is -20 as it's 2 steps removed from the inner realm so 100%. He searches amongst the burning land, taking an hour to locate the steps. The edge of the sky dome now rises up in front of him. His high llama jumps onto it and fails his jump roll with 97. Vishi is thrown off and the Llama disappears back to his Power Place. As planned, Vishi now begins an hour long ritual to Summon Lucky Star, an important patron of the Blue Llama clan. Spending 20 of his stored magic points, a tiny blue floating stars appear and he asks them to lead him to the Twin Stars. Following the stars he begins to traverse the edge of the Sky Dome. After an hour a POW x1 roll is needed to avoid an encounter in this outer region, rolling 98, a fumble! A hostile spirit encounter, I've added 25% to the roll to reflect the fumble, 68+25=93, 5D6+6 POW & 3D6+6 APP POW 24, CHA 17, spirit combat 120%, 2D6+3 damage. Clearly a Sky Guardian (place Gods War Phoenix figure on table). Vishi is currently POW 18, CHA 15, spirit combat 95%, 1D6+3 +3 (shaman) +6 (Spirit Mastery 2) = 1D6+12 damage. Vishi augments his spirit combat with his Death rune rolling 88, just a success, 90+20=110. Round 1 Guardian 54, success, Vishi 32, success, tie. Round 2 Guardian 47, success, Vishi 95, success, tie. Round 3 Guardian 73, success, Vishi 85, success, tie. Round 5 Guardian 67, success, Vishi 37, success, tie. Round 6 Guardian 68, success, Vishi 40, success, tie. Round 7 Guardian 09, special, Vishi 78, success, Guardian wins, 5 special doubled +3= 13, Vishi has 5 mp left. (not corporeal so no extra damage) Round 8 Guardian 00, fumble, Vishi 78, success, Vishi wins, 3+12= 15, Guardian has 3 mp left. Fumble roll, Combatant’s energies become unfocused; lose 1D6 magic points = 6. Guardian has 0 mp left. Vishi forces it to teach a sky based spirit magic and asks for a new sky spirit magic spell (to be determined later) Another hour passes. Vishi has spent 5 hours in the spirit world. He's got an hour left to find the Twinstars or has to make a POW x 4 (90%) to avoid a d6 hit points loss, he's also down to 5 mp and they don't regenerate. He decides to return and reach the Sky World another way, using Lucky Star to reach the Sky World directly. He attempts his Spirit Dance to return to his body, succeeding on a 38. He stands up slightly disorientated next to the still roaring fire. A rain of arrows falls around him. A Sable attack is in progress. Clearly he was on to something. (all rolls are random)

Not that I know of but you could use the round fort part of this fan map of Jonstown (from https://web.archive.org/web/20061030061429/http://www.heroquest-rpg.com/support/fan/jonstown.html) or any small fort: https://www.coflein.gov.uk/en/site/300704/details/pen-y-bannau-hillfort

I actually meant individuals with documented illuminated behaviour. Generically it can be said that huge swathes of people were illuminated. So Arkat is a good one as he changed cults, all Red Emperors would need specifics.

No, we know little apart from what Darsten Black Oak reveals in the Sartar Companion, page 58. A treacherous Pelorian Storm God. Clearly a tiny aspect of Orlanth that was beaten by Pelorian mythology (where Orlanth won, Doburdan lost). His RQG would likely give a single rune spell - Thunderbolt, https://wellofdaliath.chaosium.com/?s=Jajagappa Hero Wars said: Durbadath & Basmol are masks of the Lion god (As Bisos & Storm Bull are masks of the Bull god)

I didn't fall for it...

No I'm not saying that, it's not in the text. That's your interpretation.

The best evidence I can offer is from the Prisoner of Azkaban: 🙂

Take a look at Kestrels, not much wind needed. I ignored the wind factor as it's not like there isn't going to be any...

MGF - They hover like birds of prey. Hovering and performing actions is equal to your ride (Hippogriff) skill (like horses). Don't sweat the details.

We have quite clear definitions, it's worth reading page 206 of HQG A Note on Lunar Illumination and Occlusion: Likewise in Under the Red Moon page 33 (this section is completely in keeping with what we were working on for HQG and so I consider this to the best definition available)

So actually we have very few examples to base any behavioural info on.

Which leads to the question of how many actual examples of illuminates do we have?

There is a well known classic supplement that uses them as adversaries in certain storyline.

Virtually anyone can join spirit cults, shaman can join Foundchild. I actually think that there is the occasional hunting shaman in some communities. They certainly exist amongst the Balazarings.

FYI, Cults of Glorantha currently says under Etyries:

Have you seen Matthew Cole's 3D New Pavis work over on Glorantha Fans. He's done a lot of work on the proportions (mainly new pavis). He's also got a twitch channel where you can watch him at work - CmdrNEXUS.

You'll find the unfinished write ups here: https://wellofdaliath.chaosium.com/home/catalogue/publishers/issaries/issaries-heroquest-1-products-2003-20xx/heroquest-1-archive/heroquest-1-support-material/heroquest-1-sample-keywords/ I've recently put them back up in case people find them helpful. The full version of Kolat is in the Sartar Companion. Serdrodosa the Earth Witch is still a full path as a shaman can still join as a spirit cult. Earth Witch can be viewed as the fetch of the Earth Goddesses.

Yes, but Serdrodosa is the Earth Witch, commonly called just Earth Witch (For example in Prax she is Helpwoman, not Serdrodosa). Ignore the HW cult (overly complicated HW era unfinished/unedited write up) and use the description in Sartar KoH page 141 instead and of course Heortling Mythology.

While I agree in concept, practically there's complexity. An assistant shaman has a loyalty to a shaman who teaches them with the goal of them becoming a shaman. You'd likely need to be a member of the Kolat spirit cult. Then you are subject to the priesthood's orders. So who is the shaman. You might be the person in charge of them. Time wise you need: While I'd not let this be a barrier, the loyalties part I would.

Kolat is a simple spirit cult. You can be shaman and an Orlanth initiate. It doesn't say that orlanth initiates can't be shaman or assistant shaman. You couldn't be a rune level though. You could be assistant shaman & orlanth initiate shaman & orlanth initiate however as an initiate you are then beholden to the Orlanth priests. assistant shaman & Kolat initiate shaman & Kolat initiate As a Kolat initiate you are beholden to Orlanth priests. Orlanth Rune priest & Kolat initiate Orlanth Rune lord & Kolat initiate You would be the person that the Kolat shaman is beholden to assistant shaman & orlanth initiate & Kolat initiate shaman & orlanth initiate & Kolat initiate you'd have access to more rune magic as an Orlanth initiate but your life would be more restricted.

Fortunately we have a large body of art to look through! Sartar companion preview: https://wellofdaliath.chaosium.com/home/catalogue/websites/moondesign-com/jeffs-old-blogs/sartar-companion-preview/ has Theyvora the Axe by Jan Pospisil (or Sartar Companion page 253)

Overall, there's no reason why runes can't be at any angle. In books It's a limitation of fonts (unless you want to get fiddly). It's convention that we keep them the "right" way up. and some are symmetrical so it doesn't matter. It's been long established that there are no alternative meanings for inverted runes. We now have lots of art with runes at all angles. There is a font that has along with the usual mastery run has one on its side, but it looks like an E.

It's D&D played in a narative style: https://www.inverse.com/article/55999-dungeons-and-dragons-deborah-ann-woll-on-relics-and-rarities-season-2-cast

Both have free SRDs (without Glorantha), please note that HeroQuest is now called QuestWorlds you can have a quick skim here: https://brp.chaosium.com/basic-roleplaying/ https://questworlds.chaosium.com/game-rules-srd/

It's from the adventure in HQG. It's outside the House of the Dead in the underworld. This the part in the heroquest where the adventurers need to pass Babeester Gor to retrieve Hara Orane (“Beloved Orane”), a local Earth goddess. Hara Orane is pictured behind Babeester Gor, the other goddess, Ty Kora Tek is just out of picture by the goddess. I'm planning on using this adventure soon, setting it in Apple Lane.