davecake

She has Spiderlimbs, just how awesome it is differs between editions, might be as good as the Beetle version in the new Gods book, though it wasn't as good in the RQ3 version - still pretty good though, extra net attack. Think carefully about messing with Cragspider.

Gorakiki -Beetle has Carapace as well, but their 3 point spell is the killer - Spout Arms! The extra arms can be used for weapons, if a character is skilled with dual wielding weapons, they can potentially get four attacks! Or three and a shield!

You would first half to establish a magical connection to him - such as by summoning him like the God Learners did, finding some secret bit of the spirit world, or going on a heroquest to revive him. Its probably not as hard to summon him as it was for the God Learners if you find a place connected to him (like the Puzzle Canal). He has no living initiates or priests, so there is no one to hold a worship ceremony - but if he contact was made, maybe it could be like a spirit cult. At 500 worshippers, he could be worshipped as a sub-cult of an appropriate deity - probably his parents, Lorion the Sky River Titan or the little known Boveluru the goddess of Celestial Waters, but these are obscure deities themselves, or as a friend of Heler. At 2,000 worshippers, his cult can be worshipped as a separate cult. He was also worshipped by the EWF as well as the God Learners - the EWF worshipped him through draconic rites. You probably would also need to learn his old worship rites, maybe from ancient EWF or God Learner sources. He is primarily of the Sea pantheon. but the EWF awakened his Inner Dragon, so he has the Dragon rune now. His other runes would be Fire and Water. His magic would be his one big power - to set water on fire, so it burns. If using draconic rites, maybe he ignites the water with fiery breath? These water fires do not easily go out once they are started. A more powerful cult could start to get spells like rain of fire.

That is one important reason why Yinkin, Odayla, and Foundchild go and do that Great Hunt thing - a place where you can always find a God-Talker and other cult members. They’ll use Sanctify if needed.

Guarding both the humans and the herd seems like a valuable role for dogs, but I can attest that even in very harsh environments (I've seen it in Central Australia, which can be right up there for harshness, I assure you) camp dogs, that are neither trained for specific tasks or dependent on humans, but with both species generally finding the relationship beneficial, are very much a thing. And there is evidence that this has been going on for a very long time* Dogs in Balazar seems quite likely similar to Australian Indigenous relationships with the dingo, which includes humans and dogs living together and hunting together, but a fair degree of independence as well (dogs existing wild without humans), called commensalism rather than true domestication. In Prax humans are probably less happy about wild dogs, but the relationship may be similar. The training required is fairly minimal, even - for hunting together, you more or less just need to convince them to accept humans as pack members, and then pursue similar cooperation as would normally be done in wild packs, such as having pack leaders drive animals back towards the rest of the pack. Same for using dogs to guard the camp against predators. The Understand Dog skill of Foundchild would be more than enough. *(though not that long by Australian Indigenous standards - dingoes arrived in Australia a mere 3.500 years ago, so are far less 'uniquely' Australian than many Australian fauna, being definitely a species of dog, and Indigenous myth and tradition preserves stories about the dingo displacing the thylacine, a marsupial that held a similar apex predator role, from the mainland).

Illusion magic, at least the core Rune magic and sorcery spells, is far too weak, and any kind of dedicated illusionist magician seems really weak. Its pretty much always been that way for Rune magic, and in the over 30 years since it was introduced in the RuneQuest companion, I don't think I've seen anyone play an Illusion specialist, or even express much interest - its the opposite of a game balance problem, Illusion magic just hangs their limply, present but worthless and unused. For Illusion Rune magic, it is just far too weak in effect per Rune Point, especially considering that a sophisticated illusion may require multiple types of spell, at vast cost, and the limits of the spell make it basically unable to perform many things you might want to do with Illusion (like have it talk). Consider that for three points you could make a bad smell or a shouting noise - or a Thunderbolt, Shield 3, Sever Spirit. To make an Illusion of a normal human is at least 4 points - unless you want them to move (at least another 2-3 points), feel real (rune points equal to SIZ!), be able to make some noise (at least 2 to appear vaguely, if unconvincingly, normal) etc. For sorcerous Create <sense> spells, things are both better and worse. Again multiple spells are needed - and while the Rune spells get the ability to cast it all in one round, sorcery has to cast them separately so would take many rounds for a multi-sense Illusion, and they are all separate casts, including for purposes of ritual magic and most other ways to enhance casting chance. They still have large numbers of magic points needed, if not as bad as for Rune Points- to use an illusion of a human as an example again, 6 points of Create Image, 4 points of Create Sound, again a lot of Create Sensation (up to SIZ to have the same weight, lift things, etc). On the one hand the ability to cast Illusions as an active spell that must be concentrated on to change, move, etc makes things a lot more flexible - an illusory voice, for example, is now very possible. In RQ3 sorcerous Illusion magic was viable just, if not exactly thrilling - you could imagine a successful illusion expert sorcerer NPC, if in practice quite underwhelming for a PC. But a lot of that was down to Multispell allowing a sorcery to cast multiple sorcery spells at once, and combine it with other magic, so you cast a powerful Illusion with the same time taken and chance as other sorcery, and Multispell no longer exists - and the number of magic points used was still notably huge compared to most sorcerers, and it required you to further actively concentrate on your Illusion most of the time, so it wasn't that effective in most circumstance. Again, I never saw one in play. Illusion magic of a more specific nature (eg rune spells that have the Illusion Rune but do not have Illiusory <something> in their name) is fine. They range from useful (Clever Tongue, Charisma) through quirky but cool (Hallucinate, Hide Fire, Group Laughter), with some quite effective, and Tricksters are not poorly served with magic. Spells created this way are vastly more effective than the Illusory equivalents - for example, a person trying to simply appear as a different creature would need at least an Illusory Image that masked their whole body, which would probably be more expensive than the Become <othershape> spell, and would still need Motion, Scent, Sound, etc. I'm not blaming the RQG designers for much of this. Illusion spells have never been used much, and so they are regarded as unimportant, and most of rules have just been pulled across from previous editions unchanged. They've merely replicated the previous problems. I honestly think these rules have simply not seriously been used or playtested much ever since they were introduced.

Hsunchen/Odayla/Yinkin/Gorakiki etc shapechanging rune magic is far too weak. Turning into a wolf/alynx/bear/whatever is cool, but for the rules as written it takes 8 Rune Points, which is a huge number, and would mean most members of those cultures would never get access to their signature magical ability, which makes it a big problem even as NPCs to justify them using shape change magic much at all. Its also a comparitively weak magic* in most cases point for point - turning into a scary bear is cool, but not as powerful in combat as Shield 4 and Trueweapon (or Crush, Slash, etc) for 6 points, and has quite a few disadvantages as well. The (cursed) Telmori get to work around this by always attacking on Wildday, which kind of makes them good NPC villains while keeping them annoying as PCs. Fixes I suggest include having these cults have access to cult spirits have access to spirits that have the Shape-Change power (Bestiary page 167), but can do so with passive possession rather than active, as an alternate form of shapechange, and clan wyter powers for hsunchen especially that are capable of mass casting magic on the clan so they can at least have many of then transform on occasion (usually holy days). It is also really interesting to compare it to Become <Other shape>, which gets a lot of the effects of transformation for 3 points. Most of the transformation spells do add abilities and/or change characteristics, so they are more powerful, but it does seem to replicate a lot of the power of transformation. But making shapechangers like Hsunchen/Odayla/Yinkin able to do a weaker transformation more easily also seems like it would help, and bring it roughly into lune with Become <other shape> Eg let Transform Self be cast with only 1 or more of the specialty spells? It also seems pretty crippling to me to let Transform self only be cast on Wildday - and this is a new, and fairly crippling, restriction in RQG. * I shall note that Gorakiki Beetle is actually weirdly great, at least for purely physically melee combat, but I've also never seen one in play, and that taking damage only from magic/rune metals like the Telmori is pretty huge.

When we talk about magic being a problem we usually mean what magic is too powerful, but what magic is too weak? What magic is weak enough that it will frustrate players who pursue a particular character concept, or does not seem to make game rules that fit with the 'fictional' Glorantha? And to keep the discussion productive, how would you change it or work around the rules? I'll start with two suggestions. Shapechanging magic as used by the majority of Hsunchen cults, Odayla and Yinkin, etc. And the core Illusion magic for both Rune magic and Sorcery. And I'll explain both in separate comments. But add your own suggestions.

Armies and Enemies suggests the definition of what a 'corps' is in the Lunar Army is a bit more complex. (see pg 248) Sometimes a corps is an official designation for units based in the Heartland - the traditional Imperial Bodyguard, Heartland Corps, and Cavalry Corps, plus the Magical Corps which is dominated enough by the Lunar College of Magic that they are often used synonymously (though I'm sure non-Lunar magical units like the Spell Archers are more aware of the difference). The Provincial Army is treated as a fifth corps from the Lunar Heartland point of view, and the sixth corps is technically the Sisters Army, commanded by Great Sister, but its a very different institution to even the Magical Corps, as its an almost entirely magical and spiritual institution, and deals in very different magic that seems of a far less practically martial nature. All these Corps are ancient, dating mostly from the early days of Empire, and don't change much. The four base corps, the Heartland, Cavalry, Imperial Bodyguard and Magical Corps, are divided into Divisions and Brigades, according to A&E, but I don't recall them being mentioned before. I suspect they are much looser and more flexible than our modern equivalents, in particular Brigades being reorganised for individual campaigns, and changing with political whims somewhat - or is this just that the Divisions and Brigades are largely superceded by the organisation of the Field Armies in the field? But they definitely matter for things like where logistics support comes from, and I suspect the great houses, most of whom have many members involved in the military (eg Sor-Eel of the Eel-Ariash) as well as provincial administration and of course the heartland satrapies, care a great deal about the details. Then there are the Field Corps, a designation for a practical mobile army, which is a more practical term, there seems to be some confusion over whether these are better titled Field Armies - the Heartland Corps is also a field corps, but the Cavalry Corps especially is regarded as a division whose units are re-assigned between the different Field Corps, the Provincial Corps is not quite the same as the Provincial Army (even though the Army is technically a Corps) and the Southern and Eastern Corps are formally Imperial Field Armies not formal Corps in as far as the Heartland army is concerned. I gather units are regularly moved into and out of the field armies/Field Corps at need, and the Southern and Eastern Corps are basically the two field armies representing all the campaigns in Dragon Pass/Holy Country/Prax, and the campaigns against the Pentans, respectively? I found all this pretty confusing! I've probably got some of it wrong, and I'm summarising it half in an attempt to make sense of it in my own head. The Northern Corps seems to have been effectively abolished due to embarrrasment over the Parg Ilsi affair (and it would seem to be currently an army aimed at its own people or long established allies, there not being much to the North), and the West Corps doesn't seem active as of the 1620s, probably because it fell into inactivity during the Ban or because of some complication of Carmanian politics or feeling the Arrolian states made a sufficient buffer that a field army was unnecessary. Pulling the Western Corps back into a big active field army presumably happens decades later in the Hero Wars when the Lunars make a military push into Fronela along the Janube. Everything below the Field Army/Field Corps level seems to be fairly ad hoc and changes with every campaign?

I have both 'beta' releases (it more or less doubled in size between them). While I obviously have a few personal niggles with the content in those, as I'm just chock full of opinions about Glorantha (though I know there have been changes since that release, and more will happen in editorial) on the whole it is wonderful already. Huge, rich, glorious. Most of the cults that people really care about as players (including all the traditional PC cults from RQ2/3) have been dealt with very thoroughly and with care, others have been fully fleshed out for the first time, it now includes a thorough 'Cults of Terror' update to make GMs happy with lots of bad guy cults, and it also fully fleshes out the Lunars, and a few other important Solar/Pelorian cults. Once you have it you are pretty set for play in all of Central Genertela. Unlike the old RQ3 Gods of Glorantha, is doesn't aspire to cover the entire world (so don't expect Eastern or Pamaltelan gods), and it is a bit light on shamanism and sorcery (more just dabbling at the edges), with no attempt to tackle the West either. But we've never had this amount of great info about all the core homelands with this thoroughness, detail, and care - and greatly expanded Lunars too. Can't wait to see the final version, we are all in for a treat.

The battle of Dangerford, according to Eleven Lights (but noting this is 'paper strength', real numbers substantially lower. Provincial Army Veterans Cavalry: 500 Heavy Cavalry. 2nd Furthest Cavalry: 500 Heavy Cavalry. 3rd Furthest Cavalry: 500 Heavy Cavalry. Bagnot Foot: 1000 Heavy Infantry. Dunstop Foot: 1000 Heavy Infantry. 1st Furthest Foot: 1000 Heavy Infantry. 2nd Furthest Foot: 1000 Heavy Infantry. Goldedge Foot: 1000 Heavy Infantry. Talfort Foot: 1000 Heavy Infantry. Cavalry Corps Antelope Lancers: 500 Heavy Cavalry. Bell Temple: 500 Heavy Cavalry. Char-un: 500 Heavy Cavalry. Whipstock: 500 Heavy Cavalry. Arrowstone: 500 Heavy Cavalry. Goldwave: 500 Heavy Cavalry. Uplands: 500 Heavy Cavalry. Queen’s Horse: 500 Heavy Cavalry. Starkin: 500 Light Cavalry. Moon Arrow: 500 Light Cavalry. So 7,500 Tarshite, 5,000 Cavalry Corps from all across the Empire

Plenty of info about battle of Queens in this thread https://basicroleplaying.org/topic/10383-another-question-for-the-sages/?tab=comments#comment-154100 The most relevant bit for original question Lunars Army Commander: King Pharandros Veterans Horse – 500 veteran cavalry Landholders Horse – 500 regular cavalry 1st Furthest Foot – 1000 foot levy 2nd Furthest Foot – 1000 foot levy Silver Shields – 1000 veteran foot - Southern Corps Dalini Foot – 1000 regular foot - Provincial Army Minor Class – 50 magicians - LCM So the majority are Tarshite - 3,000 troops of 5,000, but there also troops from the Southern Corps and Provincial Army, plus a small contribution from the Lunar College of Magic. The Heartland Corps and the Cavalry Corps are off dealing with Pentans far away, but it’s not just Tarshites. the Silver Shields are from Sylila, the Dalini foot from Mirin's Cross.

Yet it's literally an example of an appropriate Fear passion on pg 26. Ugh.

In old school RQ2/3 talk, they are both in permanent Mind Link, at least when the wyter is in range. But an allied spirit is not the same, and you can have both - indeed, its pretty common, as the wyter 'priest' was likely a Rune Priest or Lord before they became 'priest'.

It is true that the God Learners could have learnt those things from Arkat, but that does not mean that they did, or that the God Learners were all Illuminated. There is very little evidence that there were, only that they could have been, if you presume their intention from the start was to cynically adopt all the practices of those they hated. It is pretty clear in the MSE timeline that the God Learners did not begin actively heroquesting into pagan otherworlds until after 780, and then unsucessfully until well into the 800s - so around a century after the last vestiges of Arkatism were wiped out, and by a distinctly different faction of the God Learners And MSE makes it very clear that the God Learners, as normally understood, were a very intellectually varied group (as you'd expect for a huge empire that existed for centuries), with an evolving position that started as a religiously conservative form of purist Malkionism. If you want to make the God Learners a monolithic band of cynical villains, well, YGWV - but its not canon Glorantha. Yes. But that doesn't mean that is all it is. The majority of Illuminates (and other forms of mystics) believe it has intrinsic spiritual value. That doesn't mean they aren't aware of its other uses. The Hwarosian mysteries (and Hwaros) are not part of canon Glorantha. They originate with Mongoose RQ, and do not appear in any source that is currently canon that I know of. I would not base my understanding on Mongooses flawed understanding. Greg would redirect you back to MSE (as he did when people asked him about Mongoose stuff). It's absolutely not pure in the current day - its the state religion of a giant Empire, corrupted from the spiritual goals of the Goddess to mundane power and maintain itself, and the original concept of the Examiners trying to correct Occlusion has been corrupted from being a way to correct spiritual falseness into a mechanism for enforcing personal loyalty to the Emperor. Many spiritual practices that seem dubious have been introduced after the zero wane, many of which seem awfully convenient for those seeking to exploit Illumination for magical power. But it originated as a project of spiritual liberation by a transcendent goddess made flesh. and that still remains its core for anyone who wants to seek it. Its the same old story as ever - when religions become temporal powers, they are debased. But the core remains. The Catholic Church at its most corrupted still contained many who devoutly believed in Christ and his teachings, and so on. And Illumination IS liberating. If you were a normal Lodrilite Pelorian prior to the Nysalor project, the religious pantheon that were part of told you, and the majority of the population like you, that you were spiritually impure, and that it was sinful and unjust to seek to have any significant power or authority in society, just keeping digging in the dirt, drudgery even into the afterlife - and the gods literally punished you if you tried to change this. Nysalor didn't just tell you, but made it possible, to jump out of that. In condemning the Dark Side, it is important to remember there is a Light Side - and that is what most followers are primarily engaged with. It was definitely Greg's intention that mysticism/Illumination was modelled on real world mystic traditions (at one stage he was very big on Patanjali), and that these were valid. It was also his intention that the ethical temptation that that liberation from conventionally ordained morality brings was very real, and individuals were corrupted by it. He had a good understanding, and personal experience, with both these things. If you want to make it morally empty of value and followed only by cynics, well, YGWV but that wasn't Gregs understanding. They did not have the secrets of creative heroquesting into the myths of others until at least a century later, and that was Arkats big discovery (due to his unique experience). The Arkati tried quite hard to conceal them, and they nearly succeeded. Most of the magicians in Glorantha still do not understand it (the Lunars being a notable exception). They did get some of Arkats heroquesting knowledge early, but I think mostly his knowledge from his Brithini and Hrestoli periods (or at least, only that was readily understandable or accessible to them), most of the rest being regarded as heretical at the time.

Not necessarily, or even usually. It depends how your Glorantha’s version of the Red Cow campaign events went. People that haven’t run it can make their own choices. And any further discussion of that should be in spoiler tags for people that do want to run it. It definitely implies that Tanian has received no active worship from the end of the Second Age until then at least. And that there are probably other methods of reviving dead religions (including Tanian)

A lot of the population has Fear (Chaos) as a passion - it’s the normal outcome of an encounter with Chaos. One effect of Face Chaos is override that normal reaction. Storm Bulls always have Hate (Chaos) instead (and some more heroic types also. Storm Bulls have both a compulsion to fight Chaos (and the passion), and a cult value, and there is obvious overlap - but the compulsive and hate kick in usually when it’s in sensory range, outside that they are able to plan and act like anyone, just with the goal of hurting Chaos. I think Storm Bulls would generally be regarded, in modern society, as suffering mental health problems stemming from severe trauma. Chaos hurts them to be around, it haunts their lives, it has stopped from living normal functional lives with normal relationships for the most part. They deal with the way their Chaos trauma compels them to violence and rage by a combination of drinking and other hedonistic transgressive behaviour that deadens them, and obsessively thinking about how they can destroy it. Like traumatised people in our earth, they find it difficult to turn off, difficult to pull out of an adrenalised state of alertness, they are always alert for Chaos, and know that destroying it is the only way to be safe once you sense it. Unlike terrestrial traumatised people, they can use that to trigger magic powers and fighting abilities, and Chaos is so big a threat that this broken life is considered valuable. But not many people would want to be one once they understand what it means.

An Odayla heroquest that grants something mechanically similar to the shamanic self-resurrect ability would be my likely way to handle it in the rules.

Tattooing at initiation, both cult initiation and the adult initiation in which you are acknowledged as an adult, or other major life events, is an Orlanthi custom, including a standard clan tattoo design, and appropriate cult runes, and maybe others. but it’s a custom. The magic does not depend on it, other cults have different customs, other cultures definitely have different customs. tatooing is common in some other Gloranthan cultures too. And often used for magical purposes too, such as an Enchantment. if you really want a character not to have tattoos, Orlanthi will think they are a foreigner. If an Orlanthi has no tattoos, there are definitely going to be questions about why, as it’s very strange, the sort of thing that might happen if you were raised a foreigner or outlaw at best. But if you hate the idea, YGWV, and it won’t make much difference.

Which is cool, but it also regenerates magic points only at seasonal worship usually, so its more likely to want to use yours.

yes, but they are individually crafted items. You don't assume the guys the next city over know the secret of making swords that do an extra point of damage but don't share it with anyone, or that a PC can learn how to make better swords easily, do you? Sects share among there members, that will include player characters. Sects are big, and share knowledge amongst themselves, and often between themselves - if not peacefully, in centuries of warfare most spell knowledge will have been shared. If you think that, eg, the Rokari as a whole are a bunch of incompetents have haven't optimised the design of the common spells, but a random PC can, I won't convince you otherwise, but it seems a very weird assumption to make.

Yes, I have no idea why, but its as if there is grudge against them. The profession is bad, less skill points than almost any profession, for a very skill based occupation, and with glaring omissions, and the cults seem a bit weak and misdesigned - and Yinkin and Odayla both seem very stripped back to a much more boring cult from a much more interesting HQG version. Another issue if the confusing associated cults etc for Yinkin and Odayla.

What was the wyter before it was a wyter? A wyter is powerful, but all of its abilities are hard to replenish community resources. Being the 'priest' is a big community responsibility, and irresponsible use of the wyter weakens the community. The most effective use is find methods that don't weaken the wyter much, and support it, rather than the other way around, like if it can attack as a shade then buff it and heal it. Even something as simple as spirit combat or spirit magic can come at a big cost - any magic point loss isn't regenerated the next day, but last for the rest of the season until the holy day. So they aren't an everyday thing, but a turn the tide in a crisis thing. One big everyday use for it is just moving about and perceiving things. Decide where it always checks, use it to scout, keep it checking for threats to the community. And just its presence is enough to protect against some spirit attacks - many spirits won't attack if intimidated because their POW is much less. Lore skills that help you learn about the history of the community or the magic of the wyter are going to be very useful. A heroquest can demonstrate new aspects of the link with the wyter. You could find out what its enemies are, and the community could defend it, or you could take on the enemies of the community with its help, and thus forge a bond. You could investigate the wyters origins, and if it has a natural superior or ancestor talk and ask it for help. You could re-enact some ancient event of the past. Black Arkat probably knows a few secrets for making a spirit more powerful. A really cool ability can make a wyter much useful - look at the Lunar war spirit in the Beastiary, with its ability to cast a Madness spell for just magic points! Sounds like a fun campaign!

I think Odayla is bad - and partly because it is very niche, when there isn't a good reason for it to be. Odayla should at least be a competent hunter god, if Odayla is supposed to be the Orlanthi hunter god. And it is supposed to be a cult powerful enough to take the place of Orlanth in Sylila. I liked the HeroQuest version of it, which was much more interesting. And turning into a bear is FAR too expensive.

Yes, but there isn't much point in speculating how the rules balance would be different if only the rules were different. LM is awesome at doing what LM does. Which isn't blasting away with combat magic, and mostly shouldn't be. You are definitely not the only one. Especially as the one adventure featuring sorcery was essentially just a parade of awkward fudging because the sorcery rules didn't fit it.