davecake

So, assuming the Vivamort cult write up that will eventually appear in the Cults of Chaos has changed little from earlier drafts - core abilities, and core followers, are firmly in the Vivamort camp. Not only are the Daughters of Darkness a variant of vampires, spells like the black oaks that spread the marsh are Vivamort sorcery spells. While it’s possible that he makes some use of Zorak Zoran zombie magics (I think he does have a bunch of undead Zoraida Zorani that work for him according to WF15), for the wide scale zombie magics that he is famous for, it seems more likely that he uses the Vampiric sorcery zombie creating magic known to the Vivamort cult, given the general presence of many vampiric sorcerers, and rather less Zoraida Zoran members, temples to Zorak Zoran, etc. Like every other hero, but especially every other sorcerer hero, his relationship with his otherworldly source of power grows steadily less subservient, but I meant it more in the sense of an enthusiastic practitioner of the methods of Vivamort. but I think in the new Cults of Chaos book, the corpse hopping methods of Vivamort will be included as another Vampiric sorcery ritual, another option available. Well, it’s certain that Delecti is an innovator in the world of vampiric sorcery, but I don’t think that means he is something other than a follower of Vivamort. The Dancers in Darkness are products and expressions of Delecti’s magic - and this is outright false for Death runes, and I suspect for sunlight too (why they stick to darkness). The marsh, of course, can be seen as a large scale project to stop the water flowing, and otherwise corrupt it. Noting that not only is his possession of corpses something possible with Vampiric sorcery - but so is possession of corpses by ghoul spirits, and has been a known vampire power since Cults of Terror. Yes, Delecti seems to combine the body stitching of live bodies of Remakerela with the necromancy of Vivamort. He certainly is a unique Hero level practitioner of creepy sorcery, and doesn’t limit it to the common or garden Vivamort classics.

He is a Hero level follower of Delecti, who has created several new Vampiric sorcery rituals and much more. He is a vampire, but that is a small part of what he is.

“She selected or constructed Rufus, the Red Emperor. It was a trick of Hers, with parts and powers joined together from an apparent defeat.“ (Lives of Sedenya) The Red Emperor is a composite entity. But one of his parts is a body that was once a mortal man. Once it was the same body returned, now the masks differ. But it is only one part of the Red Emperor.

The Vadeli carefully maintain their caste rules, though they also exploit loopholes in them (mostly relating to naval law). So they are as immortal as the Brithini as long as they do so, for the same reason. Like the Brithini they can choose when to breed, and may often not choose to do. However, while Brithini generally keep their population within the level sustainable with the resources they have, the Vadeli may instead push to expand the resources they have by slavery and conquest. There are many vile rumours about the Vadeli, and not all of them are true. It is not true, for example, that they must consume (physically or magically) their own children to maintain their immortality. That doesn’t mean they don’t consume their own children for other reasons, though! Also, only two of the Vadeli castes, the Brown (Dronar) and Red (Horali) survive. So they have had to learn to survive and adapt their customs to the absence of the others. Brown and Red both use sorcery, though their caste laws still restrict which spells they can caste. And neither is able to act as Talars. So Vadeli government, such as it is, takes advantage of loopholes around commanding ships at sea, and modern Vadeli rulers are always Captains or Admirals. They sometimes accept outsiders as Judges, notably beginning with Hrestol.

Nothing recovered back to true life from the underworld (other than via reincarnation) is truly a mortal afterwards, is always a bit something else (maybe a kaelith).

I always figured Burning Man in Prax happened in the middle of a harsh alkali desert playa - so the Dead Place - so it’s at the Winter Ruins. One of the ways you banish the power of Winter is with a big burning figure. But the Monkey Ruins are all connected, clearly. The big wooden effigy on fire is clearly Oakfed burning all the ancient forests to save us in the Darkness, right?

I use Scrivener, but if Obsidian predated Scrivener I probably would use it, and for similar reasons.

Yes. I consider it one of the flaws in the current rules, with its obvious corollaries - Fire sorcerers are naturally the most powerful of all sorcerers, due to the natural advantages they have in the Enhance INT bootstrap schemes which are the obviously most advantageous strategy for any moderately sized sorcerous effort.

Yeah, going on the aforementioned ‘Lie is Eurmali illusion mayhem, not for formal project initiation’, that is just never happening in my game. You may interpret ‘munchkin’ to allow such gratuitous and unlikely things if you want - but besides the general verisimilitude issue, there is also ‘if this was practical, NPCs would have already done it and the PCs would be dead’ principle. I literally just said LM would want that spell - and it’s one of the few spells they have easy access to. And IO and LM covers most of the sorcerers we are likely to find in the current adventuring areas in any numbers, and that we understand the rules for. So practically any group of sorcerers you are likely to encounter. Once again, the idea that Eurmali magic is a good way to create reliable, organised, projects that go to plan…

I generally treat bound spirits that way, but allied spirits are a different story, and can and do cast magic themselves - so your rune lords generally do have a spirit that casts magic on them in combat at least, and if in a creature rather than an item fully independently targets magic. Having an allied spirit is a big bonus. Pacted spirits for shamans often the same, though not quite as proactive.

Balancing battles is hard, and should be - tactics make a huge difference in RQ, and you can never be sure what your players will do, and how effective they will be. If, for example, PCs have the enemy attackers have to walk into a volley of missile fire, they can decide the battle very quickly. But if a PC charges the enemy with out backup, they can succeed gloriously, but more often get themselves in bad trouble quickly, taking an injury with no backup to let them get a chance to heal or regroup. One of the games I run is a Sandheart game, where the PCs are mostly trained to fight in a pike phalanx, and can be very effective when they do, but it’s also very impractical most of the time. Often how generous I am to them about their tactical situation is more important than how tough the opponents are. Having your PCs think about their tactical choices among themselves quite a bit is IMHO a very RuneQuest thing, part of the fun.

My general practices: I try to have stats done before hand, but I’m awfully good at improvising by now. If I have a little bit of time to prepare, all you really need are hit points and armour per location, and effective weapon % and damage, and you can improvise things like spells. for enemies that are organised, like soldiers used to fighting together with a smart commander, I like to have squad character sheets that take into account tactics (eg if they are in a shield wall, indicate armor per location including passive shielding), spells pre-cast (and listing weapon attacks with all the magic etc included) etc. The ones in The Cradle are an example. Also a couple of notes on tactics - will try to cast Demoralise if unengaged, or will open with a Speedart volley. I have a single sheet of paper or text file that keep track of bad guy combatants. It starts usually blank. Once an enemy enters the fight, then they get an entry on the sheet, which may say something like hoplite 4 or scorpion man 1, or big broo. Or their name. On that you record things once it starts happening, including hp loss per location per location. So after a round or two it might say Soldier 2 Demoralized, -4 R. Arm. I used to sketch out a hot location chart for every opponent, but I seldom bother. I may note temporary things like ‘can’t attack next two rounds)’ or just remember them. I only record general hit points if it’s not just from wounds. That’s pretty much how I do skirmishes up to small battles. - for one on one duels, use all the rules, and adjudicate and improvise on the fly the details of fumbles, terrain effects, etc. let your players try to use tactics like feints and deception, encourage inspiration. for a battle big enough that there are too many on either side to keep track of, I either use Battle skill and treat it like Battle in Pendragon - you do somewhat abstracted individual combats against presentative enemies - or treat it as a chain of smaller skirmishes. I usually go full theatre of the mind and we just discuss what’s going on, sometimes we add some mud maps, we usually aren’t bothered with using minis or VTT etc. works well when we do.

Unless they have magic that can cancel the effects of Lie, as we’ve just established they likely do. Or can simply talk them into a slightly different interpretation of what they should do. Lie isn’t a perfect command spell, it’s a one off blast of belief that must then stand on it’s own. Exactly! Not initiating large complex self-interested projects reliably! It’s Eurmal magic, it’s for initiating bedlam! Not project management initiation meetings! If the Red Emperor ordered it to be done, it would initiate the large machinery of Empire. You would be able to order resources as needed, have details confirmed and supported by many others (rather than just act weird in a way that might have others try to talk you out of it etc), regularly reminded of the reasons to keep doing the thing (like the threat of demotion or arrest) even if you found yourself lacking enthusiasm or harboring doubts.

Yes, but your proposed use isn’t really how Lie is supposed to be used either. It’s an instant spell that might take full effect only for a round - when being asked for something as extreme as giving up POW for an enchantment, it might be reasonable to, say, inform a colleague who might then realise something has gone on and step in. FWIW, I figured Lie was more ‘mental confusion’ than ‘mind altering magic’, so countered by Logical Clarity not Solace of the Logical Mind, especially as Madness counts as the former, but it’s obviously a question that could do with some rules clarification. But yes, immunity to being influenced by Orate, Charm etc for 2 points seems fine, but immunity to Madness for 2 points seems a bit unbalanced, I’d expect a point comparison or roll to overcome in there. But then, Lie has always felt like it should have some sort of roll to affect others too. (those two spells definitely change the game balance a bit, and make your LM sorcerers vital - offering defenses against the most powerful Lunar attack spells, ones which otherwise are almost impossible to deal with once struck) Why would a Lunar sorcerer in a society that includes Dart Competitions and similar skullduggery want to make themselves immune to Madness, one of the major attack spells of their colleagues? Not to mention immunity to Lune accidents too (and Lune ‘accidents’). Or maybe they just hate it when their colleagues talk them into things and always cast it before faculty meetings - or even want to dampen their own Passions, because they are sick of finding themselves doing very foolish things due to their Loyalty (Family) or whatever. (aside - making yourself immune to Madness, then fighting from inside a Lune is a pretty handy way for your Lunar sorcerer to give themselves some defenses against barbarian attackers) I don’t think lack of augmentation from Passions is very debilitating for a sorcerer - most will be able to augment with Runes or skills (dance, sing, etc) much more reliably.

It’s just non-trivial to achieve, takes a few years at least. But your scheme relies on Lie being so powerful that hundreds of sorcerers will give up POW for enchantments based on one Lie spell, despite the sorcerers being Truth magic masters with access to Logical Clarity, which would defend against Lie. So whatever, we clearly aren’t engaging with any practical considerations here.

I’m very slowly working on a general RQ Python library, starting with a monster stats generator, then a character generator. I’d also be interested in collaborating with others. A standard character format (probably in JSON) that multiple programs could use was one thing planned. When I have more to show I’ll open my GitHub

I said effective. I don’t consider having your Rune magic only work half the time as very effective.

It’s fairly difficult (but possible) to do both effectively. To be an effective Irripi Ontor, you want a high Truth Rune. To be an effective Eurmal you want a high Illusion Rune. Now, Illumination does allow you to increase Opposing Runes ( that is, not treat them as Opposed), but you only get to be Illuminated after character creation, and increasing Runes can take a while. I think this rule both somewhat reduces the ease of many of the obvious ‘munchkin’ uses of Illumination, and has a lot of interesting flavour to it. It’s obviously useful for the 7Mothers to have access to both Death and Life Magic, for example (your follower of Yanafals Tarnils can Heal Body in a fight, for example), but it requires a lot of effort to have both runes at a high level. (it is my feeling that many of the Illuminated members of Irripi Ontor do try to gain understanding of Illusion, and the Illuminated inner circle of the cult teaches sorcerous Mastery of Illusion at least, following the example of IO himself the master of Glamour - but this is a flavour thing, rather than something that greatly changes their magical effectiveness.)

The most ridiculous combat character doesn’t even require Illumination, IMO. it’s pretty hard to go past a Mastakos worshipper who has a friend who is a Maran Gor cultist. Command Dinosaur and a few points of Extension, and it’s pretty easy to get a dinosaur to hold still long enough for you to cast Meld Form and gain the ability to turn into your chosen dinosaur. And the Maran Gor can trivially kill a city. Shake Earth just needs a bunch of magic points, it’s exponential in area of effect. None of this has much to do with Illumination. Though if you want a cool Illuminated magician that is probably the best magician in the game practically available - Irripi Ontor (already like Lhankor May but with devastating combat magic like Mindblast), go for sorcery and learn no spirit magic yourself to maximise Free INT, when you become a Sage and get an allied spirit, get that to learn all the spirit magic you need. Once you become Illuminated, join the Red Goddess cult, and learn Red Goddess magic (which also uses your maxed out Free INT). You also have the option of learning Cyclic INT on Full Moon days, and casting huge duration sorcery spells. Now join Jakaleel and become a shaman. And this is all stuff that the cults themselves don’t even object too. In fact, it’s basically just a few steps on the road towards becoming a Major Classes Magician from the Lunar College of Magic. Join Deezola and get some good elementals and healing (Heal Body) maybe?

You think the Arkati object to.. acting like Arkat did, and breaking cult strictures? A novel interpretation. But wrong. Arkat (obviously) saw nothing wrong with breaking cult strictures. He left the Humakt cult to join Zorak Zoran. What the Arkat cult actually objects to is set out quite explicitly in the old Cults of Terror Nysalor write up. Arkat breaks cult strictures in pursuit of his own personal ethical code, a code that despises Chaos and the Nysaloran Dark Side. He takes powers from cults as needed - something that many Humakti regard as a terrible betrayal and abuse. But a person who joined many Chaos fighting ‘good’ cults because they wanted to accumulate power for its own sake - your Orlanth Wind Lord/Yelm Imperator/Sword of Humakt, and renowned Chaos fighter, might be just as much prey to the Dark Side.

The Invisible God of Everyone on the God plane. The wizards are just the ones who are fully aware of it. The Invisible God is the One. If it was only some people, it wouldn’t be the One.

It may be that you can practice horse archery without a horse, but is it useful thing to be able to do without a horse?

pg 20 and pg 120 the Know Lineage spell (Pamalt variant) is given the Fire Rune both here and in the Red Book of Magic - even though it is from Faranar who is an Earth Goddess (and Ernalda equivalent) and does not have the Fire Rune (and nor does Pamalt). Nyanka's spell Pathway is given the Earth Rune, though in the Guide Nyanka is a Water deity. In the RQG rules and here pg 21 Ernalda gets Healing Trance from Chalana Arroy, despite Chalana Arroy not having the spell herself.

Well, that's what the Buddhists would say, but they are just one kind of mystic (most closely corresponding to the followers of Machunasan in the East Isles). Mysticism is far broader than that. Illumination is better compared to the broader concept of moksha, common to both Hinduism and Buddhism, at least. If you read the Bhavagad Gita in context, in which Krishna is explaining to Arjuna that the truly spiritually enlightened man should still do his duty, which may occasionally involve some mass slaughter of hundreds of people in battle, right before Arjuna heads out and does just that (again), you might find the idea of Arkat as Illuminated, moral, and also a terrifyingly warlike killer more understandable.

You do need a live horse to actually use it. And when you do have one of those rare and valuable horses, you are probably going to want to give it to one of the people that actually knows how to ride it. Yes, for humour purposes, it being yet another thing the Yelmalio cult does that makes no damn sense but is just misguided tradition - but that jokes rather overused by now.