Aurelius

Thanks for all the helpful links ... the previous MIG I read was a bit of a List of Stuff and it was a long time ago. Did I miss other significant changes where later canon Glorantha directly contradicts earlier canon Glorantha?

Thank you for the reading tips and answers everyone!

I've read some of Jon Peterson's books on how Gygax and Arneson created Dungeons & Dragons. He writes these excruciatingly detailed books on how Thief class was added to D&D originally as a fan contribution, and once he gets out of the 70s and even 80s, I expect him to detail when and how it became a Rogue, and how then Thief became a subclass of Rogue. In Glorantha, we don't have a Jon Peterson -- actually, trying to look for people writing about working on Glorantha, pretty much the only source I've found was in Nick Brooke's Gloranthan Manifesto, the piece where he discussed working with Greg. I loved that piece for the way it conveyed both appreciation and frustration, and how some of the painfulness of the collaboration was there. Is there anything else I could read? I'm interested in the big things. How Malkioni became Arthurian knights, and how that was undone later? How the entire Yelmalio-Elmal thing developed not in Glorantha, but on planet Earth. How the Hero Wars version of Glorantha came to be, and how and when we got yanked back on the RQ track with a lot less Helamakt. How the Mongoose Glorantha got so far away from Chaosium and Issaries Glorantha. I'm also interested in the small things, even individual words. Why are some words forbidden, like the Pharaoh, and Sultan-or-Satrap I don't remember which one. RQG seems to have rehabilitated the word "elf", and maybe "dwarf"? I guess Chaosium never says Elmal, except to state that Elmal is Yelmalio, but it still says Buserian and Erissa? I guess new Chaosium creative direction is making Glorantha more accessible, which I appreciate ... while maintaining a lot of Glorantha's traditional mystery and its inherent paradoxes. I stopped reading Mongoose RQ at the point where they disclosed their understanding of the Godlearner secret. I know some these questions might be painful, and I don't really want to open up all the Greg-said-Sandy-said wounds of the community. But if I've missed some source that would cover at least some parts of Real World History of Glorantha, it'd sate a lot of my curiosity. I guess I'm hoping even for a podcast or a RQ Con transcript somewhere.

Just be an Initiate of both and call it a day. RQG makes Glorantha a lot more flexible in that sense, because you don't really need rune levels for anything -- I mean allied spirits and POW gain boosts are great, but not mandatory. The real problem and the real question in all these multiclass concepts is whether the Sorcery side will ever be good enough to be usable in play. You have to sacrifice a ton to get it started, and what's the real fun spell you are going to wave around to show for it? Certainly none of the ones listed in Lhankor Mhy cult description.

BTW: Is Annilla the same entity as Lesilla?

Yeah, the Hollri are pretty insane and I love the Ice Points mechanic. Buut... practically speaking, binding them requires a 6-point enchantment, and with 2d6+12 POW it is not easy fun time to either put them in a box or to send them against your enemies ex tempore. (Speaking of caps, I'm glad there's a Binding Limit now.)

I guess this settles it then! Left hand changed how very high skills work, right hand picked up Axe Trance and added it to RQG, and added Sword Trance too, and the outcome is silly. I would have nerfed it to oblivion in an errata or the Red Book, but I guess Chaosium policy (kinda design intent) is to keep stuff as is.

Okay, I reread and I stand corrected, it rocks. I'd like more specificity in how Shake Earth works when stacked, but its great. And I wish Blast Earth had the same target area, because it takes Blast Earth-3 to get rid of my late grandma's backyard potatoes and if your tomatoes are in a row, Create Fissure-1 beats Blast Earth-2. 😄 (I wonder if any PC has ever in the history of Runequest learned to cast Blast Earth and then used it for its described purpose according to the written rules.) I don't think Maran Gor is a great PC Cult, but it is a Truly Great NPC Cult, and that's easily enough in my book. I'm totally fine with Voria and Barntar being useless as PC Cults, its the lost potential of greatness that makes me type into internet!

Correct me if I'm wrong, but at the moment I don't think there is such a concept as "Sorcerer" in the RQG rules -- just someone who knows some Sorcery spells or has Mastered some Runes or Techniques. So unlike Shamanism, which is very much a binary (fetch asleep or awake), being a sorcerer is very much a spectrum. As far as I understand, there is nothing in the rules that would prohibit a sorcery-knowing individual from awakening a Fetch, and using sorcery afterwards. On Lankorings I'm thinking ancestors as the key spirits to learn from!

I think it's good that there is imbalance between gods and cults and that's fine, and that's always been like that. Nothing you can do as a Humakti will help you farm harder than your average Barntari. Orlanth Adventurous is designed for extreme MGF with great combat spells (Shield, Flight, Bear Strength, situationally Lightning, Earth Shield), great great utility spells (Dark Walk, Flight, Teleportation). If you feel like it you can also grab more great combat spells from Thunderous (Thunderbolt) and amazing utility (Guided Teleportation). For weird and surprising utility, throw in Second Sight and Charisma. And weirdly, Heal Body and Restore Health too. Some teleporting-blasting-flying-fighting-healers they are, or at least can become. I guess I'd rather see more cults like Orlanth, but I don't think Orlanth is game-breaking. Sure it's weird that every little trick Orlanth did in a myth is available to his followers in some shape or form while most of the cults don't, but I think Orlanth is acceptably in-balance among the "great PC warrior cults". My regret is that Valind, Maran Gor and Queen Deezola all could also be great PC cults, but are not.

That also weirds me and makes me wonder about design intent: I understand and appreciate that "Great Gods" or at least Great Cults have more holy days than some others, I think it's a nice reflection of how Orlanth and Seven Mothers and Yelm are situated in the world. Buuuut... I didn't do the math, but I suspect that an Orlanthi initiate regains more RP per year than Chief Priest-Lords of most cults. Not only do they have the 7*5 extra minor Holy Days, but also some 18 Associate Cults. I 100% agree with the design decision to narrow down the earlier stupidly-wide gap between Initiates and Rune Levels, and we had house-ruled all Initiate Rune Magic to replenish already, but now I guess the intent is that initiates, at least initiates of the great cults, can too be immensely powerful in Rune Magic. I think that's kinda good, but also such a big change on Glorantha I'd love to see it spelled out somewhere with some intentions and world consequences.

Sure -- but Babeesteri get pretty much Berserker, Axe Trance, Earth Shield, Shield, and Slash, so if you play the cards you are dealt, your pretty early character is pretty soon going to end up standing behind Shield-3 getting hitting and parrying with 150+% skill in Axe Trance. But the bigger problem, in general, in my game design opinion, is that if you accept "glass cannons are fine because there are counters" as a starting point, there will also be counter-counters and counter-counter-counters in play: boosting Dismiss Magic with MP's to get through Shield to dispel Axe Trance. And then a sort of meta starts to emerge and gameplay starts to look like League of Legends or World of Warcraft Arena instead of playing heroic adventurers in a somewhat Simulationist manner. "If I will Axe Trance first, he will dispel it, so I will cast Shield while he Sword Trances so I can dispel him but he cannot dispel me" is a way of playing out Musashi duels that are resolved before the first attack, but not my Gloranthan cup of tea. Glass cannons and coutercounters also start to work really well only in bigger groups. In EVE Online you have endless amounts of ship pairings where A wins B a hundred times out of hundred, but the game works because it is intended to work on the fleet level. But that's not my Glorantha either: "Peltast groups always choose a magically potent fighter to stay back, spotting enemies trying to cast longer spells and trying to hit them with ranged attacks; and if they see an enemy in trance, it's their job to dispel it while the front line executes [whatever]". That's why I'd prefer a well-rounded system for my tabletop role-playing needs...

Maybe also for Spirit Magic, "needs double points in stackable spell after skill/20", meaning if your skill is 49%, and you cast Bladesharp-6, you get +20% to your Broadsword attack -- Bladesharp-2 at face value, and the rest of the points halved before they turn into payload strength. What is this Spirit Magic skill you ask? Well, I've never been happy with the POWx5 mechanic, so I'd rather have a Spirit Magic casting skill starting from POWx5 that you develop like all the other skills.

The question I find myself asking is ... "in my Glorantha, are the Humakti and the Babeesteri best known for their immaculate performance in trance, like the Uroxi are best known for their blind berserking rage", and I find myself answering no. So I think I'd cap it even lower, at the Fanaticism level of boost perhaps, it's strong even then. More generally, on stacking RP, I'd kinda want to cap it at "double cost after Rune/20", meaning if your Air is 87% and you spent 8 RP, you could crank out a Lightning-6 -- four first points at normal cost and then two more at double cost -- but considering it is a board game, that math gets too painful too soon, so trying to find an easier equation. (But that's the problem with a percentage system, trying to derive new numbers from old ones requires dividing double-digit numbers which is not phun).

In order to dispel Weapon Trance you have to get past Shield and Countermagic; but you can dispel Truesword without going through them? Just to understand better, is that an official ruling or your GM differing?