davecake

On 10/3/2023 at 1:30 PM, Darius West said:

Illuminates don't face any spirit of retribution ever, and can break every cult stricture without suffering what they deserve.  THIS is what the Arkati object to.  Illuminates can infiltrate and abuse cults and hero quests with impunity, even chaos cults.

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. 
 

On 9/28/2023 at 3:03 AM, metcalph said:

The Invisible God is the collective intellects of the Wizards on the God Plane.  It acts through them.

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. 

28 minutes ago, David Scott said:

My friend who does horse archery say that the kids practice on saddles on a kind of trolley. He says much of it is about awareness of the horse in relation to the bow - where you can and can't move it. Horse archery is popular around here (London UK that is). 

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. 

On 8/29/2023 at 12:27 AM, mfbrandi said:

I think — but really, what do I know? — that the Buddhists might agree: in your meditation, you have to get past the stage of “temptation” by hallucinated demons on your way to the peace of being blown out.

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. 

On 8/29/2023 at 7:55 AM, MOB said:

Praise Yelmalio, you don't actually need a live horse to learn and practice your Kuschile Archery skill. 

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. 

On 9/20/2023 at 4:11 AM, metcalph said:

There are still ancestors that are worshipped through the rites of Daka Fal today (I think the local name for him is Malkion the Old but the contempuous wizards call him Daka Fal because of longstanding cult tensions).  A noble would think nothing of worshipping at a temple of Aerlit or Seshna Likita and then going to the priest-shaman of Daka Fal and worshipping some other ancestor instead.

I tend to think that Seshnelan talar ancestor worship isn't usually shamanic, but more restricted and uses mostly normal (Daka Fa) Rune magic without shamans

full on shamanism sounds like more of a covert peasant thing, not befitting a noble. 

I don't think its at all a coincidence that Xiola Umbar's brother, Zorak Zoran, is one of the cults with the Seal Wound spell - which means that wounds caused can not be healed by magic, including not just Healing but Heal Wound and Heal Body and similar spells. Wounds from Seal Wound can only be healed by natural healing over time - but Healing Trance does count, as its still healing naturally with time, it's just a lot less time. 

So, one definite use for it is when fighting Zorak Zorani - or Tusk Riders, who also have access to the spell, and a similarly sadistic nature. 

I think the accidental Illuminate definitely feels that something has happened, but may have no idea what. Note that being Illuminated doesn't necessarily get you any cool Illuminate powers at all (almost all get the lack of innate hostility to Chaos, though), but may have to learn them. 

But I also don't think everyone is automatically hostile to Illuminates - and indeed, unless they start behaving badly, or weirdly, no one may even know. Even the Arkati don't hate all other Illuminates (though they do look at their actions very carefully), and they ability of Illuminates to detect other Illuminates is one not all Illuminates learn. 

One of the more common powers of Illuminates in RQG is that they can learn to treat Opposed runes as if they are not Opposed. This means an Illuminated Trickster could have high Illusion and Harmony Runes as normal - and high Harmony and Truth Runes as well! 

After the disappearance/'psychic dismemberment' of Belintar, a lot of adventurous hero types set about trying to fill that power vacuum. We know about Bryan in Heortland, and before him Rikard the Tiger-Hearted in the Esvulari lands, we know about Fazzur and his attempts to get power in Esrolia (variously through conquest and intrigue) and the Hendira vs Samastina struggle in Esolia, etc. But its all through the Holy Country, and that includes Caladraland.

Two relevant threads in that are the Demivierge of Rhigos (both sacred virgin, and notorious sexual decadent) turning the Esrolia struggle into a three sided one with the 'Warm Earth Alliance' with the Warlords of Porthomeka, and the efforts of Galeros Highpeak, elected governor of Caladraland by the clan chiefs post-Belintar, to become Kind of Caladraland. If you set your game prior to 1624 then Argrath and Harrek are out of the picture, and plenty of opportunity for intrigue with the various factions, and trying to woo warlords as allies, discredit the Demivierge (or her enemies), etc. I think the efforts of Galeros are worth some attention too - he has refused to surrender the Diamond Diadem, given by the dwarves to the first King (I suspect that the dwarves believed Belintar was entitled to it, but now there is no God-King and no King either they think they should get it back). The dwarves trying to get it back could be very interesting, for example the dwarves getting their human allies to support them in getting it back would make awkward choices for the Lodril or C&A cults. 

BTW I think gems and gem working in Glorantha can include, at least when it comes to dwarven work, gem cutting magic crystals, which might even have some unique magical effects - for example 'harmonising' several magic crystals in one piece of jewellery so that they can all be attuned as one. Or if you prefer something less exotic, at least creating sorcerous enchantments all powered by inset crystals. 

And speaking of dwarves, the dwarves of Gemborg made off with a significant number of the treasures of the Clanking City at the end of the Second Age - its possible they might still have some stashed away - and its also possible that if they hear of someone else having any in their possession, the dwarves will try to claim what is 'theirs'. Such items can be very powerful God Learner magic! Such notorious treasures, or many other historical artefacts, could be looted from a Volsaxi barrow-tomb, or a mausoleum in the Esrolian Necropolis, or a shipwreck, for a few ideas. 

Elsewhere in the Holy Country, I'd also note Obas Broosmasher, dark troll who worships both Argan Argar and Orlanth with an air elemental familiar, who is trying to re-establish troll/Kitori control over the trade route to Dragon Pass. 

The Zoo island in the Right Arm was a God Learner experiment where they imported all sorts of dangerous creatures from all over the world. Just find a reason to go there (God Learner treasure again?) and you have an excellent excuse for any weird alarming monster you like the sound of. 

On 9/13/2023 at 6:40 AM, ZedAlpha said:

yeah, if Illumination is recognizing the illusory nature of Glorantha and becoming more cognizant of and one with that illusion, power itself would be just as illusory and hard to wield by squishy dumb mortals without supreme effort. True Dragons are literally dilt buifferent.

Remember, Illusion is temporary reality. Maybe it's just recognising that all reality is temporary on some time scale or other. 

And True Dragons literally turn their dreams into reality. True Dragons know that reality and Illusion are just a matter of perspective better than anyone. Honestly, I think there are some explanations of Dragon magic, including perhaps some from Dragons themselves, that teach that it is all just temporary changes to reality, and therefore Illusion - and 'reality' is just the same with a longer duration. Which is just a detail to an immortal dragon that can sleep through centuries. 

On 9/10/2023 at 8:08 AM, John Biles said:

The biggest difference between Glorantha's mystics and Buddhism is that Buddhists have compassion as an element of the eight-fold path and Goranthan mystics think there is no good or evil, just relative positions they've risen above. 

I don't think this is true of East Isles mysticism, or at least not all of it. Not only has Mashunasan saved the world twice, Mairnali is one of the most prominent deities associated with mysticism, and is also very strongly associated with compassion. 

Of Glorantha's schools of mysticism, only Mashunasan is, I think, explicitly intended to have compassion as a central tenet AND to be explicitly analogous to Buddhism. 

Though note also Serelaloon, the Kralori name for Chalana Arroy, is said to be a daughter of Vith, the supreme mystic deity. 

The God Lodril is associated with volcanoes, and his most powerful spell is Summon Lodril, which can only be cast on the lip of an active volcano.

And Pamalt gets Summon Lodril as an associated cult, so this spell should be very well known on the Pamaltelan plains, plus there is a temple to Balumbasta in Fonrit (in Formstosi). But the only volcanic mountains in Doraddi country seem to be in the fairly small Tororo mountain range, so the spell is not of much use to the Doraddi? Though Fonrit seems to be quite volcanic (and presumably Kimos often is). Are any other Pamaltelan mountains in the southern grasslands volcanic? 

On 8/5/2023 at 4:44 AM, John Biles said:

In Glorantha, there's essentially two kinds of mystics - the ones who achieve enlightenment, and have zero impact on the world, leaving it to rot in selfish pursuit of enlightenment, or the ones who cant let go of the word and their mystic accomplishments enable them to become history's greatest monsters.  Mystics end up either selfishly neutral or pure evil on a stick.

Not true of the Eastern sources, in which Mashunasan (Buddha) manages to sit passively pursuing enlightenment, AND save the world twice. 

On 8/13/2023 at 2:15 AM, soltakss said:

Troll Shamans are handy in combat, as they tend to be big and brutal. They also have Wraiths and Fear Spirits that they can use. But, I suppose, Trolls are not really playable characters yet.

Kygor Litor is playable now, especially if you also have access to an older edition long writeup, though you do need to have a reason for them to adventure with non-trolls. But the short form cult writeup and occupational skills are pretty much there in the bestiary. KL priestesses must first become priestesses and are only secondarily shamans, though - the priestess profession does grant shamanic skills. 

There are certainly other spirit cults unique to troll shamans, and many troll shamans are part of the shamanic tradition of Jakaboom (which can be treated as essentially the same as the standard shaman rules) and actually most of the spells are already in the Red Book, just lacking the background (mostly just who grants them). Boztakang grants Stones to Kill Chaos, Gore and Gash grant Shadows Dance, Hombobom grants Tambour, Jakaboom grants Create Foe-Curser, Karrg can be contacted as a spirit cult and grants Induce Uzdo, Korasting the Purification Ritual, Robber grants Drown, Lorian grants Strongnet (worshipped near Skyfall Lake), Jeset the Ferryman grants Styx’s Shore (useful on heroquests), Vaneekara the Hurler grants Hurling, Kogag the Boatmen grants Float. They can also worship Asrelia as a spirit cult and gain Hide Wealth. So that’s a pretty rich set of troll shamanic traditions. Troll shamans don’t learn combat skills, but do have natural strength and start with ok weapons and armour, so are far from defenceless. 

Troll smiths can learn the Heat Metal spirit magic spell from Gustbran. 

It’s notable that shamans that get the ‘4 free extra abilities, 4 bonus extra geases’ deal are at a big advantage (Waha, Golden Bow). I think that normally costs 10 points of attributes outside of shamanic initiation or the intervention of a Great Spirit! 

Daka Fal does not - but I think the Cults book version is changed from the RAW version, and makes Daka Fal is both easier (confronts an ancestor not the Bad Man) and harder to qualify for (must be a master of Spirit Speech first). Spirit Speech, while not unique to Daka Fal, seems to be something they are particularly adept at. All the Ancestor spells give them unique advantages, too. 
Jakaleel does not get the extra abilities, but they do get an allied spirit, which is helpful. Plus access to all that Lunar rune magic, and potentially Illumination and Red Goddess magic for super boosted spirit magic, making them quite formidable when experienced. 

And the various Hsunchen shamans are relatively weak shamans with no particular magical advantages, but immediate access to shape changing and combat magic is useful? I think one of their real advantages is that many animal spirits are readily available, friendly, and with a lot of practical survival and military uses.

And troll and elf shamans are among the weakest and least flexible shamans in some way both have restrictions in what spirits they can bind to their fetch), but both have a full range of Rune spells. Aldrya shamans seem to have a much more dangerous that usual shamanic ordeal against the White Lady (anyone got a handy copy of the Earth Cults book) rather than the Bad Man. Aldrya shamans can bump their Rune Magic access to include all common rune magic either by becoming a priest of Flamal as well (explicitly encouraged) or waiting 20 years and becoming a Gardener.

Kygor Litor shamanism is of course in addition to being a priestess of Kygor Litor. So they do have notable shamanic powers, but excellent Rune magic. And can usually get access to Ancestor Worship as well.

16 hours ago, Akhôrahil said:

RAW, Success vs. Success is explicitly a tie.

You are correct, my mistake - the corrections on Well of Daliath removed the sentence that mislead me. 
I still think while it’s true that while managing to boost your Spirit Combat well above 75% to increase your chance of success in fighting the Bad Man, is definitely an advantage if you can do it, you are still only about to win contests with a lot of luck - most of the time you are fighting for the difference between a loss (an extra taboo) and a tie (nothing happens). Mostly it is still in your interest to leave the fight as soon as you can (which is random). 
While it’s definitely a good plan to make it as high as you can, I don’t think delaying becoming a shaman for the many years before you can approach the Bad Man’s 175% skill (which just gets you on equal terms, so usually a tie) is worth it. You miss out on years of POW gain roles, etc! 

 

On 10/9/2018 at 3:39 PM, Jeff said:

I'm not sure I would present Kolat for RQG at all like I did for Sartar Companion. 

Kolat is the source of Air Elementals. He's more of a name or title than anything else - Orlanth cultists just ask Orlanth to summon up an Air Elemental and use him to command them or dismiss them. 

I think the Kolat cult in the Sartar Companion is full of great stuff that should be kept - but it’s mostly a description of the Seven Winds spirit society (which includes Kolat), and a bunch of other spirit cults and minor spirit traditions that are also commonly known in Sartar, rather the the ‘cult of Kolat’. A typical Sartarite shaman is probably just as likely, or more, a Daka Fal shaman - many of whom might also be in the Kolat spirit cult, and regardless may get called ‘Kolati’.

But quite a few of the spirits and spirit cult abilities in the HeroQuest books might be best represented as other abilities rather than a Rune spell, such as knowing where to find particular useful spirits that you might be able to make pacts with, or finding particular spells, or make useful minor minor magic items. Some spirit traditions or spirit cults may grant particular shamanic abilities (like Black Fang knows the Conceal Fetch ability). Shamanism shouldn’t be just about Rune magic! 
 

Spirit tradition rules sound great! Looking forward to them. 

23 hours ago, Akhôrahil said:

giving you decent chances to avoid taboos by having 50% left after being downgraded

Because it’s an opposed role, 125% skill giving you a 50% chance of succeeding at your skill roll is a lot less than that chance of winning the contest. Even if you roll a normal success (between 10-50), nearly half the time they roll a normal success higher than your skill, so you lose, but another 20% of the time they beat you because they rolled a special, and if they rolled between 20-50 there is a good chance you’ve both a suceeded but their number is higher so they win then too. Opposed rolls amplify advantages. 

22 hours ago, Squaredeal Sten said:

That reminds me: Recently someone playing an assistant shaman expressed the preference for taking the Ordeal for full shaman as early as possible.  That struck me as a strategy likely to produce future frustration, because

(1) low skills will both increase the chance of starting with a low POW, low CHA fetch and also 

(2) lower chances of getting extra shamanic abilities and higher chance of getting more taboos from the ordeal vs. The Bad Man.

There is only two skills that makes a notable difference - Spirit Dance, and Spirit Combat. And Spirit Dance needs only to be a moderate level - it explicitly can be augmented by ritual practices, which means +45% or more is easy to achieve in normal circumstances with an extra few hours, and other augmentations might be possible, so a moderate skill can get you to 100% chance of success. And chances over 100% are probably diminishing returns - only getting a special or critical improves on a plain success, so it’s worth getting to 95% but not much above that. So it’s relatively easy to ensure have a 95% chance of getting the a full 3D6 CHA fetch - and very difficult to get it much above that except by luck. 

Now, it’s worth improving your Spirit Combat chance, because extra shamanic abilities are cool. But it’s also difficult to do so to the point it makes much realistic difference. The Bad Man’s skill is 175%, so the shaman is at -75% to their skill. It’s not that very hard to hit 75% - an assistant shamans Spirit Combat is at least 20% base chance + 15% cultural + 30% for occupation = 60% + magic bonus, but can be as high as 20% + 20% cultural + 30% occupation plus 15% if an initiate of Daka Fal or Waha = 85% + bonus. But even at a skill that high, you are still at a huge disadvantage at the Opposed Roll. Your skill - 75 is still just almost always a failure, as if you make a normal success, it will still be beaten by any normal success from them (and that only starts to change at skill -95 so you can roll a success that is higher than their special chance). To get a real chance of beating them, you need to get close to their skill, and getting close to 175% is incredibly hard! You can bump it a bit with Inspiration, but I can’t think of much else, and if your skill is less than that you should be fighting the Bad Man for the minimum number of rounds. Waiting until you had a notable chance of success would take a huge effort. 
On the other hand, what are the consequences of going into that fight at a big disadvantage? The most important factor really is the completely random determination of how many rounds you must fight minimum. And the consequence of failure is extra taboos. Just accept you get extra abilities only by dumb luck, and extra taboos are not that awful a consequence! 

Considering your realistic chance of both, I’d say wait until you can be nearly certain of a successful Spirit Dance with reasonable ritual practices adding at least 40+%, but just accept that you’ll almost certainly not get much from improving either chance beyond that point, and hope a lot for some blind luck (the Bad Man can always fumble!). 

Unless I’m missing some ways to hugely boost your Spirit Combat skill? 

An Apprentice Shaman is not yet a powerful magician, just being prepared for one - but the barriers to becoming a full shaman are less game mechanical, and more story (does their master think they are ready? Yes, can be an abstracted roll, but I prefer this to be roleplayed) and player choice (does the character feel ready to take the ordeal with a reasonable Spirit Combat, and to a lesser extent Spirit Dance skill, and enough POW that they are prepared to sacrifice a reasonable amount for their fetch). Whether you want to make this easy or hard is campaign style choice, I think. 
But an assistant shaman can still be fulfilling. Emphasize their knowledge of local spirits, and ability to communicate with them, and make it useful. They have access to the (otherwise rare) spirit magic for talking to the spirit world like Visibility or Taunt or Spirit Screen or Control <spirit>. Their master may help them out with the loan of helpful spirits or items, shamanic resources (magic herbs? a bit of hazia for an emergency Discorporation maybe!), etc, while also being a useful ‘quest giver’ for the GM. (Useful ideas in the Weapons and Equipment Guide, and Treasures of Glorantha book from the JC has the excellent medicine bundles). 

I don’t think of becoming a full shaman as the same level as becoming a rune lord - more like becoming a god talker, something that can happen fairly early in an adventurers career. Shamans effectiveness depends a lot on their fetch POW and shamanic abilities, both of which can increase during play - their core shamanic abilities increase their abilities for sure, but aren’t the huge jump in power that becoming a rune lord is. I’d not at all be afraid of letting PCs becoming shamans, and not forcing them to spend a lot of time as apprentice shamans if they aren’t interested - it makes them the magic specialist they want to play. And they become more powerful through play.
if you want a shaman that feels effective in combat situations, a few points of spell barrage as a shamanic ability make a big difference. Multiple Befuddle or Demoralise spells in a round, plus the shamans increased chances of effecting others, can make their magic turn the success of an encounter quickly, while not raining on the melee specialists parade. Having a spirit or two ready to attack can help turn the fight against a big powerful enemy, too. Or they can just be a member of one of the shamanic cults that also has a combat side if that is the character they want - be a member of Golden Bow and blast away with Fire Arrows plus have generally good combat magic, join Waha and you have solid combat magic, both access to Shield (yes, there are cultural constraints on those cults). The hsunchen cults are also an interesting option, most can give savage hand to hand spell options. 

if they just want to feel like an important member of the party due to their magical abilities, just have a lot more spirits in adventures! Let the shamans at will Second Sight be useful, because they can see spirits that’s enemies have as allies. Let them talk to spirits of a place to find out useful information. Let them trade with spirits for favours (spirits like nymphs can be incredibly useful at solving practical problems, but even simple animal spirits and spirits of place are handy). Give them easy access to spirit world interaction spells like Visibility, Taunt, Control <spirit>, Binding. Let their Spiritspeech skill mean they are able to communicate with almost all spirits, likely a rare ability. 
BTW a small optional rule I use - Pacted spirits don’t need a binding object IMO but can move independently (very practically useful as spiritual guards, scouts, etc), and while they don’t cast spells for the shaman, I think they will use spirit Powers (bestiary pg 165-167), which can varying be very useful practically (Affect Environment, Control animals, Search), make for nasty attacks (Bite, Spirit Dart of Spirit Weapon, etc) as they will fight on the shamans behalf (RAW say spirit combat, but I figure that means anything they have), or make enemy shamans excellent villains (Curse, Disease, etc).

Shamans when you do get to the ‘rune lord’ level of play can be incredibly powerful. Spell Barrage is very powerful, they can have permanent magical defenses with Spell Extension, and over the long term can gain POW at an unprecedented rate by increasing their Species maximum POW with Soul Expansion. Plus most can rapidly built up a collection of useful Rune magic from spirit cults - if they don’t have plenty from a shamanic cult like Golden Bow, Waha, Daka Fal, or Jakaleel already. The various Spirit Traditions can give access to a lot of powerful spirit magic, though most aren’t well documented in public material yet. And attacking with spirits is very effective. Plus you get a lot of choice in how you develop your character compared to Rune cults that strongly direct your character focus. 

2 hours ago, JRE said:

In my opinion RQ:G is less deadly for PCs or any high skilled combatant.

In my opinion, RQG is more deadly for a high skilled opponent. In RQ3, a combat between two opponents of 95+% skill would tend to be long and often relatively bloodshed free, especially if they also have good magic (especially Shield) - 95% of the time there would be a successful parry, usually a parry would block all incoming damage, even a dangerous blow with a special might not get through parry plus armour plus protective magic. Most of the time, an unparried blow is still going to be mostly absorbed by armour plus magic protection. Even a really nasty critical would be mostly absorbed by parry armour, so would be nasty, even decisive, but not fatal. A location destroying blow (which may not be fatal, but is likely decisive) most of the only happened with a critical or  special that was unparried.
Contrast RQG. Highest skill subtracts the difference from 100 to get the lowest skill effective chance, so small differences count more, and often one is at a real disadvantage. It’s usually the attacker that has the advantage over the defender, as there are more ways to boost attack rather than parry (weapon enhancing magic, Berserk/Morale, etc). So failing a parry is substantially more common. 

On 9/15/2022 at 8:42 PM, whitelaughter said:

If your starting initiate spends 3 POW, they can be maintaining spells for a year - so Find Enemy, Soul Sight, and Spirit Block for everyone, plus 6 cult specific spells. Say for BB, Axe Trance, which if backed by a 10MP enchantment (that you can easily get as a starting PC) allows your Axe skill to be increased to ~480%, ensuring automatic Special Attacks and Parries.

An unusual way to commit suicide, as that would mean until the spell expires ‘…they are in a trance and cannot drink, eat, sleep, or indeed do anything except focus on their axe and their enemies.’ (From spell description in RBoM). 

On 7/28/2023 at 11:11 PM, Erol of Backford said:

Also would any of the living Mostali know the spell form-set adamant?

IMO it’s among the rarest and most difficult of Mostali magic, perhaps only known to Diamond Dwarves. 

Of course, finding a sufficient supply of adamant can be a trick.

On 7/31/2023 at 3:09 PM, JRE said:

few adamant pieces are around, but unless you wish to work truestone or as an unbreakable chisel, they are not so useful to mortals. We had a player with a shard that he used as a dagger. We played that

there is a spike described in the RQ 2 Griffin Island book. As you mention significant property, besides it’s unbreakability, is that it dispels all magic on anyone who touches it. Useful if you need to attacks someone with powerful magic defenses, but a usually the wielded is also effected. 
 

On 7/29/2023 at 6:06 AM, French Desperate WindChild said:

they may have "sorcery spells" but for me "dwarf sorcery" is not what we call sorcery  (what pc can learn)

I think Silver dwarves can use sorcery that is effectively the same as ‘normal’ sorcery, and a few other dwarven spells are of a similar nature, but most dwarves regard it as essentially a limited, not as useful, subset of ‘real’ sorcery/maker magic using the simpler, weaker, Techniques. And they do not generally teach those other Techniques to non-Mostali. Though of course, Mostali PCs could be possible. 

FWIW I think the entry for Ompalam in the Prosopedia more represents the general Pamaltelan, largely Doraddi, impression of Ompalam. I think the Garangordites see Ompalam more as some see Mallia - an unpleasant fact of life, often linked with Chaos, but not intrinsically Chaotic - and that in ‘freeing Ompalam from the shackles of Jraktal the Tap’ Garangordos freed Ompalam from being intrinsically Chaotic - at least, that may be their official dogma. It’s dubious though, because I don’t think even the Garangordites believe that slavery was a widespread social institution in Pamaltela before the Vadeli created their vast Godtime slave empire. Or do the Garangordites claim that Tishamto was a slave civilisation? Certainly I think the Doraddi would vehemently deny it. 

So of course, it’s also very likely that when the Doraddi say the Glorious Ones are False Gods, they are substantially correct, and when the Garangordites say Ompalam worship is not Chaotic the way they do it, they are hypocritical and/or delusional, but they might not be 100% false. It’s almost certainly possible to worship Ompalam with no Chaos rune and no use of Chaotic powers. But it’s also true that there are probably tempting Chaotic abilities available to the Masarin, such as using the power of Tentacule or Darleester as a conduit for Tap like magic for taking slave life force for magical power (as the Vadeli did). 

While there are ways in which the Glorious Ones parallel the Seven Mothers, there are big differences too. One is that the original, untainted, deities that the Glorious Ones usurp the power of are still very much active and powerful, and worshipped to the south. Another is that the Glorious Ones can claim to be redeeming Ompalam, but ultimately the Glorious Ones are deeply hostile to the mythic origins of Ompalam, Darleester, Tentacule, etc because the original slave powers of Pamaltela were the hated Vadeli, and they know they are using stolen Vadeli secrets. The Lunars see themselves as gradually uncovering, and returning to, a utopian past - the Glorious Ones see that for themselves too (they think of themselves as the true heirs of Tishamto), but secretly (and in some ways openly) acknowledge that the foundations of their power are actually the dystopian horrors that their worst enemies wielded in the distant past. Of course, they also blame the corruption of the Artmali, leading to the inherent corruption of the Blues, as a reason to blame the Blues for the persistence of many other Chaos cults  (Seseine, Pocharngo, Gark) but the Masarin and the Garangordites are at least, if not considerably more, to blame. 
The Vadeli ruin everything. They are the worst.