davecake

We know the Waertagi return, but do we have more details? My understanding is it can be any time after the rising of the Boat Planet in 1624, but does it start immediately and are they back on the seas by 1625? I gather the return in the far north and far south, so where do they first make contact and when? Sog City? Elamle? Arolanit? Kralorela? When do the make contact with Kethaela/Nochet? I assume there will be several dragon ships quite happy to be able to use dry dock facilities for the first time in several centuries, and it will be a notable part of the Fronela timeline. But it’s also very interesting to know when they make contact with Nochet, and how their relationships develop with the Ingareens, and the Choralinthor Ludoch. They might resent the Ingareens as God Learner allies. I know the Waertagi, surprisingly, interbreed with the Piscoi mermen but not the Cetoi like the Ludoch, and they are usually hostile (not least because the Piscoi think cetaceans are food), but the history of the Holy Country says the Triolini in the first age end up allied with the Waertagi rather subjects of the Only Old One (though they are allies with the OOO, in return for trading ports etc). Jeff’s recent posts more or less repeat this - and it would be a big change to the Kethaela politics if this happened again, which seems plausible now Belintar is not there to unify the Holy Country. And of course sea trade is a huge economic factor in Esroliain particular. Sandy said that while they might be expected to be seeking vengeance on Zzabur for the Closing, that no, they are trying to revive the alliance with the Brithini. Anyone know if that is still the basic story?

My general feeling is that community support may be dealt with in a more interesting, and less abstract, way by having the wyter explicitly represent community support. That gives you a lot of options for consequences that are immediately applicable - wyter gets a new ability, or loses an ability that the community relies on, gains or loses POW, becomes more powerful in itself, etc. and seems to go with existing examples of how community support works. The wyter can also involve the community directly - eg the community might sacrifice to it to keep it going, you could certainly make mechanics that allow the wyter to intervene by aiding skill rolls as described - but it could intervene other ways too. and, of course, if the wyter is destroyed, so is the community - not generally literally, but it falls apart as its members no longer are loyal to each other and cease to behave as a unified group.

And I think the rules are vague enough that is a possible interpretation, but I don’t think the spell list is supposed to be read as ‘a list of effects you can produce using any runes you can come up with vague argument to justify’.

Sure. But thebRokari all mastering the rune rather suggests they are going to have a lot of spells available, or they wouldn’t bother. of course, they could all just be learning defences against spirits - if this extremely smart group of people haven’t worked out how massively useful bound spirits are. It’s also worth noting the Loskalmi know Spirit rune magic, too - it’s the main rune of the Furlandan school. Ok, so ostensibly so they can banish disease spirits and passion spirits and other wicked things but the thing about sorcery is once you have the knowledge there are a lot of ways to apply it.

Neither of those have any meta effect, so they just don’t matter as much. Enhance INT makes you better at casting, say, Boon of Kargan Tor, which means a sorcerer with Enhance INT and Boon of Kargan Tor will be able to cast a more powerful damage enhancing spell. Or Dispel it. Or also cast better defences, summon bigger spirits, and just generally be able to cast better spells. Hell, if Enhance STR or Enhance DEX was really good, the sorcerer with Enhance INT can probably cast more powerful versions of them.

In my game, a sorcerer Sage will typically know no, or very little, spirit magic - and when they get an allied spirit, they typically teach it as much as possible.

And destroying/removing the wands. Either someone ‘taking one for the team’, or a single person with a strong magical defences (the Rune Lord with Shield etc).

And note that Rokari sorcerers all have the Spirit Rune mastered.

I think in practice, if you didn’t choose the spell at character creation, it is unlikely to ever get to a %age such that casting it in combat seems like a prudent use of your time. Either enhancement/utility spells get cast prior, or you cast it as an opening attack or similar when you are the first attackers and have time to prepare - eg if you are able to ambush an enemy, or have them bottled up in a confined space, then taking a few rounds to drop a Moonfire or Conflagration on their position appeals, but in the midst of melee combat taking a couple of rounds for something that is at best very unreliable sounds a very bad idea.

For a similar but not identical effect, sure. Moon tends to be associated with POW not INT of course. The theoretical version seems weird - it’s both a spell only created deliberately to get around another rule, and it’s not actually that big an advantage generally, as it requires mastering an extra rune, and if you are that intent on reducing the casting of that one spell, why not just learn Fire? So it seems of very marginal use unless you have already mastered Harmony or already know other Harmony spells.

And yes, an example spell is a ‘rule’, as all spell descriptions are. The word ‘sample’ just indicates that the spell list is not intended to be exhaustive.

And my answer to all of this was in my very next sentence - yes, they are only sample spells and many more exist, but I think the idea that therefore spells exist that are exactly the same as existing spells except changed slightly to be more convenient to players, while it is not ruled out explicitly, I regard that as a flaw in the rules, which are incomplete and poorly defined where they should not be. I do not think the intent of the rules is that you can essentially directly reproduce a spell by creating a new one edited for your convenience, and I assume that the sample spells are basically showing you ‘standard’ spells for an effect. So Enhance INT will basically be the best enhancing INT spell you can make, Boon of Kargan Tor the best damage enhancing spell, etc. And yes, you can cast a spell using other runes (the minor elemental runes, for example), taking a major disadvantage for doing so, and as that possibility is already covered by the rules, so you should not be able to just make a spell that bypasses that limit, even if it isn’t explicitly ruled out. That doesn’t mean you can’t make a spell that produces a similar effect, but it’s probably going to be a bit worse. My issue here is with the worldbuilding consequences - increasing Free INT is such a significant effect for the limits of sorcerous power, and so it seems obvious that sorcerers with ready access to it will be notably more powerful than those that don’t. Cultures with Fire sorcery as common will be more powerful magically, cultures with multiple Elemental Runic associations (like the Rokari) will encourage Fire sorcery, elemental focussed schools that do not have access to it will be notable weaker (such the Darkness focussed Black Arkat cult or Spolite sorcerers , or the Air focussed Orgethites). None of these things appear to be true in Gloranthan lore up to now. A possible alternative is that there is another spell that is clearly inferior to Enhance INT, but that still allows enhancing Free INT, and more widely accessible to other sorcerers who have not mastered the Fire rune. I’d suggest a spell that only enhances Free INT for purposes of sorcery casting limits, but does not actually increase INT for other purposes, such as skill rolls and memorization, perhaps a spell that focussed magical perception but not mundane.

The Enhance INT spell description. Was that not obvious?

Well, not according to the rules. But the spell creation rules for sorcery are so extremely vague, who knows if it’s not perfectly ok to just invent a version of a spell changed to be more to your liking?

Enhance INT also bothers me, in that it implies sorcerers with a direct, or indirect, connection to the Fire rune are at a notable advantage compared to other sorcerers - and yet, Fire rune sorcerers and Fire magic have been pretty much never mentioned at all in the entirety of the discussion of the West (I guess you could say the Carmanian Magi, who are at the periphery of the West, at a pinch). It seems an idea that just emerged entirely from new ideas about game mechanics. And gives a huge elemental bias to sorcery that just isn’t there anywhere else. If anything, almost every other element seems to have higher importance in the history of Western sorcery, and sorcerers focussed on Powers not elements if anything more important than that. The simplest fix seems that Enhance INT doesn’t enhance Free INT.

The real irony and indignity of sorcery is that to be an effective sorcerer at all, but especially to be one as a PC who might want to have sometime useful to do in a combat situation, having bound spirits is such an advantage that PC sorcerers are likely to spend quite a bit of their time chasing spirits and spirit magic. Any sorcerer, including all those NPCs, is going to find one hugely useful as a source of magic points, but a spirit that knows spirit magic, so letting sorcerers cast it without a Free INT penalty, gives the best of both worlds. So henotheist sorcerers that have access to allied spirits have quite the advantage. Irripi Ontor Sages are basically huge winners for player character type sorcerers in particular - once they have an allied spirit, they can use the spirit magic it knows freely, and unlike Lhankor Mhy philosophers, they automatically have access to combat useful spirit magic (Befuddle) and sorcery spells. And then once they get access to Red Goddess magic (which lets you manipulate spirit magic like sorcery, also based on FREE INT) they are the best magicians in the game, by quite a margin - especially as they may have access to both Enhance INT and the Cyclical Characteristic rune spell (it's in the Red Book of Magic, increases an attribute by 50% at the Full Moon - or inside the Glow Line every day - and works on INT). It would not be at all surprising for them to crank out spells with a Free INT in the mid-20s or higher.

In a practical sense, yes, he is an old man by the time he is literate enough to compare to a Rune Priest (18 POW and 90% in their main Rune Affinity), and he has literally dedicated his life to those spells - any spells that other than the two or three learned during character creation are likely to be far far below his POW x5. So choose widely at character creation, you are probably stuck with them. Sorcery ends up needing a lot of POW in various enchanted items and inscriptions to be effective.

No idea why it is only those two of the stat spells, but it's there in the rules. Not really - there are plenty of people who don't get much from Strength (casters, ranged combatants), but extra hit points are always good. Strength does seem a bit backward though - the people who 'need it' most benefit less from it than those who need it least.

I feel much the same. Free INT annoys me conceptually. The more sorcery you understand, the less good at it you are? Sorcery is 'something you know', but you have to strive to not really know it, and instead carry around a lot of objects? What? And then, in practice, it is worse. Of course sorcerers will strive to cast long duration versions of most of their spells, and then 'forget' them, and then recall them when they need to cast them again. Which means that Free INT isn't really a limit that changes game balance or anything like that - it just means that a) an already complex and book keeping heavy system has another book keeping heavy mechanic layered on it and b) this mechanic doesn't add anything interesting, or add tension, it just means that sometimes if a sorcerer wants to cast a spell, everything will be delayed by an extra three hours or more. It combines two different ways to suck fun out of the game into one! It manages to be make things more boring for both the players, and their characters! I thought 'what would be the net effect on the game if Sorcery spells did not reduce Free INT', and basically there it just means the sorcerer has one less bit of book keeping to do, and you no longer have three hour waits inserted into the game (and the sorcerer, who already has less useful spell options than everyone else, no longer has to deal with those options being arbitrarily reduced). Just take the whole mechanic away, and there is no consequence of it that doesn't improve the game.

If you already have a 1D6 damage bonus, then Strength is actually better than Bladesharp 2 for the same magic points - gets you +10% to hit and +1D6 damage, so average +3.5 instead of +2 damage, and helps your Agility and Manipulation skills as well, including your Shield parry if applicable. The only disadvantage is that Strength does not help you against Telmori etc. But Bladesharp and Strength are compatible anyway, so why not both? The only problem with Protection, of course, is that it means you aren't casting Countermagic, so some Lunar will probably Befuddle you, but that's why the Gods made Shield. Vigor and Strength are incompatible anyway.

Which will be quite a disappoint to the entirety of Loskalm, who basically are only able to learn sorcery once they have become good candidates for adventuring.

I am still intending to do my version of a Shaman for 13th Age too, and put that on the JC. But I have no time frame for you. And my initial focus of Shamans (as a class conversion of Druid) will be Praxian, so probably not that helpful to a Colymar game.

As I understand it from Jeff’s clarifications last night, for the Rokari: Zzaburi are specialist sorcery users. The general citizenry are expected to donate magic points at regular community rituals, which the Zzaburs can use for powerful community rituals. The Talars worship their ancestors. And their genealogies may include some beings that other cultures would treat as not only heroes, but gods. In particular, Issaries is an ancestor of many Western noble families (this story about Garzeen is in Cults of Prax), including the Trader Princes of the Manirian Coast. And of course the old Seshnelan Serpent Kings were descended from Seshna Likita. But also famous ancestors would be hero cults etc. Presumably they don’t practice Ancestor Worship in a very shamanic way. Horali Warriors typically get magic from war gods and the War societies. This is tolerated as long as they remain subservient to the Talars, and effective at fighting. I personally don’t think the War societies are practically very hsunchen like these days - I don’t think there is a big emphasis on shape changing, unarmed warfare, I don’t think they consider themselves animals in human form, etc and they are still very civilised in lifestyle - rather, they were hsunchen spirit cults ~1500 years ago and are now quite different - but they are not really Malkioni magic either. And the Dronars quietly worship the same sort of deities as farmers and workers elsewhere - largely Earth worship, crafter gods and gods associated with professions, but a few wilder religions as well - and as long as they continue turning up to the weekly community rituals, and obeying the Talars, no one really pays that much attention.

Not really the point I was making, but... if you think the Hero Wars isn’t basically ‘oh crap, here we go again’ on all that, you haven’t been paying attention....

I personally think the rules for heroquest rewards that they described in the White Bull campaign sound great. Flexible, not immediately unbalancing to a game but scales to high power effects, lots of potential for interesting customisations for particular campaign needs and ideas. So that is a great start for official rules I am going to like. Now, that is obviously incomplete - we know of heroquests that have different effects, such as powers for your wyter, resurrecting dead gods, etc. and they will hopefully be in fully developed heroquest rules in the future. But that is just more to look forward to. And already, Passions and Runes in the base rules help set things up nicely for the sort of things I'd like to see in heroquests better than previous editions of RuneQuest. Another thing I am liking is what isn't in them. I really dislike the 'Super RuneQuest' style of rules, and I'm glad that they will largely avoid this. I don't want all my hero PCs to be running around with 800% skills, it just doesn't seem very RuneQuesty to me, and cuts out a lot of interesting plots. That's my preference, and there are plenty of other sources if that's what you want. I want them to have a lot of cool magic that they can invoke though, and that looks like what we'll get. I've probably got enough ideas now about what is coming that I can improvise my own rules if I need to before they get published, and they'll be close enough to the official ones. But what I am definitely looking forward to is the same as @lordabdul - guidance for running HeroQuests that move away from the fairly rigid 'repeat the story' model (that is often confusing and offputting to people from outside the Glorantha world, and often awkward to run while giving the players enough agency to improvise and shape the story), to something more open and flexible. I want maps of the heroplanes so we can understand the interactions more, heroquest scripts that allow for flexibility and variation, rules for building up wyters and other resources - stuff that gradually fills the world of heroquesting, moving away from the model of dropping into a scripted 'choose your own adventure' sequence, and more like gradually moving you into a world in which sophisticated magicians contest against one another with elaborate rituals in the magical otherworlds - the world of the Hero Wars.