David Scott

yes. In a SciFi game I'm playing in, my character Alan Vishnu - Lord of light has the flaw of Boring 3M. In the middle of my battle plan speech, the narrator asks me to roll my Boring. I roll 19 a failure bumped to a success, no one listens to me. The other characters resist with an appropriate skill, one has Space Cowboy at 5M. 3M vs 5M masteries cancel, I roll a 1 vs his 18 (If you have an Alexa it can do dice rolls without you having to move). I succeed with a critical and he fails, I get a Major victory and he falls asleep. In a later event I rescue the daughter of the Emperor of the Evil Empire and try to woo her with the natural charm that I have as a god, however... Boring kicks in. She is interested in Alan, and I'm putting her off with boring. The narrator give me a -6 bonus to my Boring as I rescued her , but adds a +6 plot modifier to her as I am the sworn enemy of her father. I roll 7, a success, but not bumped as my Boring is 1M -6 = 15. Galaxina (the narrator) rolls a 9 against a Moderate Difficulty level of 16. a success. I have the low roll so have a marginal victory (I'm boring her), so I spend a Hero Point to bump down my success to a failure to give a minor success and Galaxina falls in love with Alan Vishnu. Now the courting can begin (It ends well after several sessions and a lot of hero points). Another way that my flaw has been used is as a negative augment to my abilities. We use auto augments so my Boring is often -4 (1M/5 = 4) to my Lord of light 5M.

To be fair Simon, it's just a rune spell version (with a bit more rules) of the Chaos feature Spit Acid , which is in RQ2 & RQG.

Of the three versions, I'd go with the Cult Compendium. It's RQ2 revised from the RQ3 version and still available. The three main references are RQ2 version - Griffin Mountain (CHA4013 Original & Classic) Griffin Mountain (ISS1606) - both still available. Special Rune Spells Create Ghost, Create Skeleton, Create Zombie, Sever Spirit This version can summon Cacodemon RQ2 version (Revised) - Cult Compendium (ISS1608) - still available Special Rune Spells Create Ghost, Create Skeleton, Create Zombie, False Form, Sever Spirit This version can summon Cacodemon & Fiends of Cacodemon RQ3 version - Elder Secrets of Glorantha, Elder Races Book. Special Divine Magic: Create Ghost. Detection Blank, False Form, Vomit Acid. This version can summon Cacodemon & Fiends of Cacodemon

Yes, one of the Mods likely did it as MRQ is a different flavour of RQ and has its own section on BRP Central. Easy to find though, I just follow all activity.

I bought Mongoose RuneQuest (I) as it came out, mostly the PDFs (space consideration). I wasn't really interested in the RQ aspect of it. I'd been involved in some RuneQuest 4 play testing at the end of the RQ3 era and had only slowly moved to RQ3. I really liked RQ2 and everything since just made it more complex. I saw the light when Jonathan Tweet's Everway debuted in 1996 or so, that and Greg's Glorantha the Game and Epic system, paved the way for playing in a Robin Laws pre-Hero Wars (RPG) game. RuneQuest pretty much fell away from me in favour of the flawed but right direction Hero Wars. Then appeared Mongoose RuneQuest - even more complexity that I didn't really want. So ignoring the system I bought it for the background. Overall I thought it a great idea, an encapsulated history that eventually vanishes - we know what happens. I really hoped for a Pendragon style campaign that led to the present day, but what we got was patchy hit and miss supplements. If I remove all the system and redone supplements (core rules, cults 1,2,3, elder races) there was wasn't that much new: 2 second age supplements, the clanking city, Jrustela, fronela and Ralios. Then the two big adventures, blood of Orlanth & Dara Happa stirs and an odd ruins of Glorantha supplement. The second age supplements were interesting ignoring all the repeated stuff from previous version, I liked the two cultures chapter, the god learners secret, but the campaign setting fell flat. The magic book was good on the Draconic Mysticism and God learner sorcery, but the heroquesting was very flat and there it continued, almost generic fantasy. The clanking city was interesting in that it was weird, but its heritage was steampunk, terminator and the crossover genres in TORG (I've played a lot of TORG), not Glorantha. Blood of Orlanth seemed like a great adventure, but the author seemed not well versed in Glorantha, it felt like Generic fantasy welded onto glorantha. Ruins of Glorantha feels the same. Dara Happa stirs is great, as has been said already. Overall my players didn't like the background and it's D&D feel, they wanted more 3rd Age Pavis, Red Goddess vs Orlanth. We did some foreshadowing using Pavis rises, which was also enjoyable (but MRQ2 and I always felt there should have been at least one Rush song title as a chapter name). I also liked the abiding book. Ignoring the system, take a look at Dara Happa stirs, Pavis rises and the abiding book. Those are the three with the useful stuff in IMO. I quite liked a lot of the covers, but as a last note I have draw your attention to the worst IMO: All of the rune covers eg and then Disclaimer: I know Loz, but those three books were the best.

The problem with animists is that unlike theists, their primary magic rune does little to define what actual magic they get involved with. It’s their other runes that do this. Herrox is from the High Llama Tribe whose primary element is Water and this defines one of the tribe’s background spirit societies, the Thirstless (who's primary spirit is Zola Fel). You need a 1W to join a spirit society so that's why he boosted it. So he has a natural affinity with Water magic and always augments with it, he can also augment Zortan. Any Kolati shaman would augment his wind magic with his air rune. etc. Generally your other runes define the type of spirit magic you do best with (as you can augment). But what about his illusion rune rune? As you say his Illusion rune is dormant at this point. However it's still useful as an augment if circumstances call. He's used his illusion rune to cover his move on water, later I put more points in Illusion (Herrox was my character) and got it to 1W. At that point I started seeking out illusion spirits to add to my repertoire. Putting points into just spirit is only one route to HeroQuest character development. Have a look here https://www.glorantha.com/docs/balazar-hq2-keywords-and-magic/ I did an example Balazaring with spirit magic. Same setup, Bobandi augments his Become dog with his Beast rune. This Balazaring https://basicroleplaying.org/topic/6315-starting-runes/?tab=comments#comment-89865 example, is a little less useful as her other runes aren't high enough to join another spirit society. But as the character becomes more experienced and gets to raise harmony for example, it will become more useful. Hearthmother is actually the same as Earth Witch these days, as soon as she gets her Earth rune up to 1W she can get more Earth spirit magic. I've always said that you can hang your spirit magic off a representative rune. Eg Kolati - Air rune Earth witch - Earth Rune Troll Magic - Darkness rune Argrath hangs his spirit magic off his change rune. It's the Praxians that generally do it off the spirit rune. However it's always easier to augment with it off the spirit rune, same with sorcery off the Law rune. It's more flexible. A Kolati casting Fly like the wind off their Air rune can augment with spirit. A Kolati casting Fly like the wind off their Spirit rune can augment with Air or illusion to be stealthy or Beast to fly with spirit wings, etc.

They aren't related. Meditation get's you into the Spirit world, if you fail it, the ritual doesn't work. The shaman just does the ritual, they can cross with no difficulty. Spirit travel is navigating the spirit world once you are there, not travelling into it. Only that it serves to illustrate that the shaman is in both worlds all the time, where everyone else needs to cast magic or get into the spirit world to see it.

Normally I'd agree with this. I have a fifth edition rules set and have played a lot of CoC over the years. I've never seen the need to upgrade as basically in my mind versions 1-6 are the same. However this changed when I watched Mike Mason, one of the 7ed authors run a game on Penny Arcade: It was great, as the game unfolded the 7ed rules looked better and better! So I got the CoC Starter set and ran the first adventure last night with two players. The rule book is very small, but has all the needed stuff. The new rules really changed the way the game was played, % characteristics, regular, half and fifth rolls, when you fail a roll you can push if you want - do a re-roll with a consequence, and there are now bonus and penalty dice if needed. The only thing that annoyed me was that the new luck rules aren't in the Starter set (I don't have the full 7ed rulebook) the new luck rules were the first thing that caught my attention in the video. Disclaimer - I work for Chaosium and know Mike. That aside as a gamer I was really impressed with the show, the Starter set and the 7ed rules.

A shaman has a natural affinity with the spirit world and is effectively in both world all the time, permanent second sight is the key here. Crossing into the spirit world is an hour long ritual and cost 5 magic points. Using the Discorporation spell takes an hour long ritual, meditation roll and costs a rune point. The major difference after this is that the Rune spell user is limited to 5km from their body, further requires more rune points spent at the casting. This effectively limits them to the Inner World as they have no means of finding (or the time) to reach a frontier and cross into a different region. I'd certainly allow the use of spirit travel (as it's 10%) to get somewhere particular, but the time limit is the problem unless extended. The Rune spell is much weaker and ties the adventurer to their body. The shaman version effectively frees their spirit.

So to clarify this here is Discorporate from RQG In the example: If you have learned to Discorporate, you have an hour long ritual first, then meditate roll and spend a rune point. You don't need to make a Rune % roll. To clarify the example I've added in the rune point (as I said there're likely mistakes in this).

He did, but only level 2. If you die you die. If your spirit dies, your body will starve to death (or the shock will kill you). If you die on a heroquest in Hell, you don't come back. It's much like faerie in Arthurian legend, you are gone so everyone assumes you are dead (until you reappear).

Self Resurrection 3 (returns in a day) He wasn't actually dead from physical injury. Spiritual dismemberment happens in the spirit world, his body is still in the Middle World. Depends how you role-play your games. I'd certainly play out a shamanic initiation with Bad Man as I did in the example as a whole session. Otherwise it's just reduced to a series of abstract die rolls and choosing from a list. What I love about Glorantha is its story potential. Look what I wrote about Bad man in the box on page 353. I could of said "Enemy of all shamans, POW 35 you must resist his attacks." Glorantha is a rich world to play in.

Dismemberment is a common theme in shamanism. It's a death and rebirth motif common in mythology as well. I find it odd that you are asking about rules and haven't actually read this in the Rune spell description on page 326. It's based on MGF on page 6 and page 11:

I eventually read it, but his first novel really made a barrier to his others.

Here's a simple example of getting a new shamanic ability. I've just given the other players discorporation to make it easy, but the ability of discorporate other certainly exists - remember discorporate is a meditation roll and costs a rune point. Another version would let the target provide the rune point or POW point. There's also the Shamanic ability of take others with you. Bregtha is an Orlanthi shaman (or Kolati) of the Ernaldori Clan. Kolat is a spirit cult that Bregtha worships. He is going to the Middle Air so Kolat himself will dismember him, throwing his spirit to the Seven Winds so he can be remade. He travels from his village with his six supporters (assistant shaman) and a small group of clans folk, up to the clan boundary on the Little Starfire Ridges. It’s Clayday, Movement Week of Storm Season. A day when the Moon is dark and Bregtha knows it won’t be able to send spirits against him in the Middle Air. His six supporters clear the ground of loose wood and windblown leaves and each makes a spiral of pebbles around themselves to define the sacred ground (Sanctify 2). The clans folk stand and sit around the central group, they’ve invited Mahome into the circle to keep them warm, with a small fire burning in the east. Bregtha stands in the middle and as the sun sets everyone the worship ceremony begins with the chant of the Rising Wind. The six supporters begin the sacred hand dance of the Ram Clouds at Night (both part of ritual practice). At about 11pm the supporters start to change the hand dance to that of the Flying Rams (discorporation ritual starts) and the chant slowly changes from the Rising Wind to the Rising Storm. Just before midnight( 5 hours later), thick clouds have started to gather overhead (A few points of Cloud Call plus Extension 1 - it’s storm season so not a problem). Bregtha in turn calls each of his supporters forward and names them one by one: Hhu Ho, friend, bring your winds and guide us, Tular Narnei, bring your cold and crispness, Uuuh Hu, bring your weather and confusion, Seleran, shield us from harm, Veren Vu, defend us, Zolan Zubar, fighter of the Six foes, never leave us. At midnight, the six complete their discorporation ritual and make their Meditation roll including a 40% ritual practice bonus (making the skill at least 60% rolling 19, 40, 97, 26, 01, 51) and spend a rune point each to discorporate. Uuuh Hu fails to discorporate, but Veren Vu criticals and reaches back into the Middle World and yanks their spirit through. Simultaneously all cast Extension 2 (Using their Air rune which is at least 80% rolling 30, 34, 45, 53, 56, 71). Bregtha Discorporates (spending 5mps to begin an extended discorporation and rolls a D6 for his initial duration getting 6 hours). In the spirit world everyone mounts up on Bregtha’s Ram spirits. All begin to fly up heading for the Middle Air inside the huge spiral vortex of the storm, the air is purple, blue and grey with lighting arcing across sky. The GM calls for an Air rune roll for the supporters to stay with their assigned Ram spirit (27, 21, 33, 12, 04, 48). As their destination is clear (the Middle Air), the GM says it will take D3 hours to reach the frontier, rolling a 2. Each hour in the inner spirit world, the group must roll highest POW x3, Bregtha’s is 19, 57% or less rolling 34, 36, so no encounters. At the frontier Bregtha’s asks the Rams to start the circling Dance of Supplication and after half an hour of intricate flying and chanting by the group (both part of ritual practice), they attempt to enter the Middle Air (Bregtha’s Spirit travel is 90% rolling 86). The rolling clouds open slightly and they fly in. The Middle Air is a huge place, But Kolat lives at the centre, GM says it will take D3 hours to reach the Centre rolling a 1. There is no encounter roll needed as this is not the Inner World anymore. Kolat is a unique spirit so -50% change to find it, but +50% as he lives in an appropriate Spirit Place. Bregtha needs to make a spirit travel roll at -10% as the group are one step away from the Inner World, but no spirit rarity modifier, rolling 89. Needing 80% Bregtha fails to find Kolat. His supporters have only about 40% spirit travel, but each attempts to find Kolat, adding an hour for each search. Hhu Ho rolls 66%, Tular Narnei rolls 28 and locates Kolat after a total of 5 hours. Kolat is a huge storm, the eye of the storm is an eye. Kolat understands what Bregtha is here for and his wind furies tear him to sheds in a flash. As his dismembered parts spiral around the sky, they see a piece of his spirit slip away lost forever into the eye of the storm as Kolat takes what is now his as part of the bargain (two POW). His supporters must now gather all his parts and they bind him together with wind spirits. He doesn’t move and seems dead. The supporters must make their way back without this help. They head back to towards the frontier. The GM does not forgo the spirit travel rolls as this furthers the story (page 375). After an hour Hhu Ho makes a spirit travel roll at -10% to locate the way back rolling 96. Six hours have now passed and although Bregtha seems dead, he must still spend 1mp to remain discorporate and roll a D6 getting 4 extra hours. After another hour Tular Narnei makes a spirit travel roll at -10% to locate the way back rolling 88, after another hour Uuuh Hu makes a spirit travel roll at -10% to locate the way back rolling 51, after another hour Seleran makes a spirit travel roll at -10% to locate the way back rolling 40, after another hour Veren Vu makes a spirit travel roll at -10% to locate the way back rolling 18, success. Four hours are up, Bregtha’s body vanishes, his cloud Rams vanish and the six supporters fall through the frontier into the Inner spirit World. They must wait until the Extension expires (24 hours but 10 hours have passed already). The GM calls for an Air rune controlled descent, each rolls 68, 27, 70, 54, 94, 26. All begin to fly except Veren Vu who is unable to regain control. The decent is 2 hours and the GM allows Veren Vu another roll after an hour rolling 63. They land back in the circle on the Little Starfire Ridges. They are still discorporate and meet Bregtha’s fetch, a particularly large light grey ram. Bregtha is lying dead in the centre of the circle and unable to cast Dispel Magic on them to return them. At Midday they return, exhausted. All six roll their worship (Kolat) with a +50% bonus for meeting Kolat. rolling 40, 02, 63, 50, 49, 10, receiving all their rune points back. At 5am the following night, those watching Bregtha’s dead body are rewarded when he returns from the dead (self-resurrection 3), a day after Kolat dismembered him. (likely a few errors in this, I did it quick).

Fortunately belief and reading ability don't have to be related. You just have to read books or look at youtube. Shamanism isn't a religion, it's a set of techniques that allow practitioners to access "the spirit world". Animism is the belief that everything has a spirit. It's quite possible to practice shamanism and believe it's all in you head and not be an animist. RuneQuest's spirit world and shamanism rules didn't just spontaneously create themselves, much is based on real world shamanism but transferred to the fantasy world of Glorantha. Real world shamanism has everything to do with Gloranthan shamanism whether you believe in anything or not. Just as the cults and god are related to real world gods and practices of the ancient world. None of this has come from nowhere. Because shamanism isn't a belief, but a practice, it does influence the game mechanics we use, as that's where they've come from. If I want to look at how a shaman in my game has to interact with a greater entity, I don't start with looking at the mechanics, I go and look at how shaman deal with them in this world and use that as a model. I don't have to believe it happened i just have to look or read. There's an excellent description of a two day ceremony where a shaman travels to the ninth heaven to meet a being who could be the Horned Man, excellent material for a shamanic adventure to gain a new ability. https://www.sacred-texts.com/sha/sis/sis10.htm go down to the Altaians section

As I said if I have timeI will write the next section. "Big" spirits / Gods live in their own areas away from the middle world. They are not just sitting their waiting for you. Being a shaman is hard work. You might want to read about how real world shamans travel to meet big spirits. The needy will yes, they are the ones more attached to the middle world and live in the spirit world nearby. More powerful spirits have their own agendas and aren't so needy of middle world souls. Although gods and spirits can't refuse worship (of mps and POW) they don't always seek it out or need it. The greater entities mentioned - Horned Man, Daka Fal, Waha, Hykim and Mikyh, Kolat, Kyger Litor, Jakaboom, and the Earth Witch, you will need to attract their attention - bring something good.

I just realised that the bargaining bit is missing. If I have time I'll do another example where fishing meets the Twinstars and bargains for a power. Please be aware that there are a few tiny corrections to the travel section (which my example uses) in the second printing corrections: Page 357: Discorporation topic, 2 nd paragraph, delete the sentence “Every additional magic point spent during the ritual increases the time that the shaman can remain discorporate by one hour.” Page 374: Regions of the Spirit World topic, last paragraph rewritten/replaced with “Moving deeper into the Spirit World imposes a modifier to Spirit Travel. Each step away from the Inner Region reduces the shaman’s Spirit Travel skill by -10% per step. Returning has the opposite modifier. It is always easier to return in the direction of the Inner World.”

Go and meet the entity in the spirit world using the rules in the spirit world chapter. I wrote up an example here: https://basicroleplaying.org/topic/7955-im-still-confused-about-spirit-travel/?tab=comments#comment-114593 Change the places and spirit to fit your situation.

There's only one real epidemic disease and that's plague. It's the only one not defeated in the God time. The others can be defeated, but with enough infected places an equivalent of an epidemic can start. I ran the scenario "A Darkness over Runegate" a few days ago and this is its theme. The disease splinters and effects large numbers of peoples who are exposed to a range of contamination. In real world shamanic cultures (on which RQ disease is based) this is exactly what happens. A tiny intrusion overwhelms the defences of the individual and needs removing. Read through the disease section starting on page 154. It covers all of this. Even if you don't regard disease as an spirit, it still needs defeating to remove it.

Cure All Disease RQG page 325 Fight Disease RQG page 328 RQG page 182 RQ bestiary

Yes, see Malia in the Bestiary. Personally I’d say no. Spirit combat drives out the disease. Yes. See the bestiary.. As an aside, in HeroQuest Glorantha, I associated all the mortal diseases with Malia’s death rune spirits. the minor diseases, from cults of terror with her darkness rune spirits the plague with her chaos rune spirits. we had lots of disease in my game a few days ago. Cured by summoning a cult spirit, controlling a cult spirit to fight the disease. When no one had the appropriate rune magic or treat disease skills. have a look here for some guidelines https://basicroleplaying.org/topic/9599-breaking-possession/?tab=comments#comment-141203

It depends on your local games store. For example there are two over here in in London UK that have space to do games and one that doesn't. Of the two, just speaking to the staff will get you a spot and with the other they've a maximum capacity of over 100 so no problem. You could use meet up or eventbrite to help organise your games if wanted. Recently a group of GMs organised an independent meet up in in Birmingham UK with over 60 attendees. Publicity materials will be coming soon from Chaosium. Perhaps @Psullie could talk about any experiences he has had organising games in the UK, he's one of our regular GMs at cons here and one of his scenarios is one of the RQG winners of the Scenario Writing contest -

The straightforward answer is that you aren’t meant to. However don’t forget that wyters can’t regenerate POW so topping it up to maximum just means it has more to spend. Not that it’s fixed.

Wyters work the same as per page 286. I'd use the points to bump it's POW to its maximum for the size it is, a minor temple Wyter's POW has a max of 6D6+6 so bump to 42 as per page 287 (a bit more if you want species max rules to apply). Regalia are magic items, but more so they have a link to the temple and culture we have a couple to look at as examples, Sartar's Regalia (can't find the reference) and the Sun County Regalia (from Sun County RQ3): Clearly these would be different for RQG, perhaps @MOB has thoughts on this.