davecake

FWIW while you clearly need to map the deities etc from Sanctuary to Gloranthan equivalents, I don't think there is a strong reason not to otherwise use Sanctuary as a basis for Refuge. Lunar Empire for Rankan Empire (noting that Lunar Empire often really means the Lunar provinces, not the heartland), and Ilsig as the Heortlings, etc. I like the Order of the Blue Star as a small group of Blue Moon associated sorcerers - mostly because the we could do with a bit of interesting background for God Forgot generally, a very underdeveloped area compared to most of its numbers, and a Blue Moon connection makes sense.

You'd think that, but the Spiral Dance is a phrase referred to Lunar or pre-Lunar

I have thought about doing a class conversion of druids for a more generic shaman.

A lot of those caught outside communities (eg outlaws and bandits) are going to turn to propitiary worship of the winter gods, who will be enjoying a rare chance to dance in the valleys. When turning to (propitiary?) Valind worship is one of the good options, you are in a bad place. Valind is a miserable deity who kills many of those who try to become priests, and whose priests tend to ally with the ice demons against the rest of humanity. There is that wonderfully macabre bit in the S:KoH clan creation system in which one of the great Darkness survival stories is making skates from the bones of your dead fathers and escaping the monsters by skating on the ice. Actually Melbourne (where MOB lives) is regarded as pretty cold by Australian standards! Still warm for most of you - ie does not get snow - but nothing compared to a Perth summer, and then there are the really hot parts of the country, some of which make Death Valley look comparitively lush.

It does mean a warrior with an Iron weapon is very effective at spirit combat, and that is a big change to Glorantha. But not only do shamans have much better defences, a spirit can retreat from a warrior pretty trivially, and there isn't much you can do about it.

I was particularly struck by the suggestion that when there are 'dual' deities like Hykim and Mikyh or Darhudan and Darhudana, one of them may be a child or emanation of Uleria, blessing the deity with the power to create. That underscores that she is a universal power. It also makes me think about Tilntae, her love nymphs - it would interesting to see them described as mortal level (eg statted) so they can interact with adventurers.

Agreed.

Why? There are multiple sources. Actually a longer format cult of Uleria was published before then (oddly enough, as a Gods of Glorantha preview, though it wasn't included in the eventual product) in 1985, in Different Worlds 38. Many elements of that write up also appear in the GenCon draft Cults book, really very similar, she hasn't changed much in 34 years. She certainly been described as including powers to enhance community and generally favour loving creation since at least then.

I think it is a profound misunderstanding of Uleria to think she only deals with erotic love. She is not the goddess of eros, she is the goddess of love - eros, agape, philia, storge.

Skirmishing isn't ambushing. I'm sure many Humakti will be happy to explain the difference to you in exact detail. He killed A ruler, I think Orlanth would deny it was HIS ruler. And stealing from an enemy is just a less violent way of raiding an enemy, its not as if you are violating a hospitality oath or anything. Rebelling is just recognising when rulership has become Dishonorable and so on. Sure, there are differences in Humakti and Orlanthi practice, I don't think they differ too much on what is Honorable.

I think the idea that a Hunakti should lose all loyalties etc that conflict with the Humakti ideal is the wrong approach. Passions that conflict with ones Loyalties or religious virtue isn't something that should never happen in the rules - rather it is an excellent roleplaying opportunity. A hero whose passions conflict is what tragedy is made of. I don't think a Humakti will have Loyalty to casual or short term employers, or even necessarily long term ones. But they will be Honorable, and Honor demands that they respect any loyalty oath they will have given. Except when the story says otherwise! At just what point can you decide that your employers conversion to the Lunar Way makes your oath of loyalty less important?

If you read a whole bunch of long form (eg RQ2 style, which will also be in the new GoG when it is published) cult descriptions it will become very apparent that different cults differ *dramatically* in Spirits of Retribution. At one end you have Daka Fal - leave the cult, and the official punishment is 'the gods protection from death will be removed', which in reality amounts to your shaman will mumble in a vaguely menacing way with no practical consequences of any significant kind beyond being able to renew your magic. At the other end you have gods like Orlanth or Yelm, you have multiple different kinds of Spirit of Retribution, some of which punish even very mild infractions but in a very mild way , but in a fairly mild way (the Impests give you a rash or a cough etc), but some may be very dangerous monsters that attack you at a terrible time (the Wind Fists will appear and beat you senseless when you are already in combat, but only for genuinely terrible crimes like murder). Storm Bull has quite a dangerous spirit of reprisal, but it is also implied that he doesn't necessarily visit those who simply leave the cult, only those who actively counter its ethos by leniency towards Chaos. It's implied that if someone leaves Storm Bull for another chaos hating cult, they might escape with retribution. Sometimes it may be dangerous, but you can arrange it in a neat formal manner (eg inform your priest in advance and face them at a time of your choosing), some may keep pursuing you for life. Some cults have a very specific and large set of rules, maybe with different Spirits of Retribution (Yelm has many specific furies, for example) but some it may by very much to do with the personal relationship with the cult hierarchy. Sometimes it may be left up to the worshippers to enforce, and that varies greatly. This is normally the case with Cacodemon, for example, but as his worshippers are generally ruthless murderers expert in ambush, that is pretty nasty. But with a City God it may have no consequences whatsoever that can't easily be avoided by leaving town. Sometimes the spirit of retribution is just withdrawal of the cults benefits. Basically, I highly recommend grabbing a bunch of long cult writeups and comparing the Spirits of Retribution, and you will end up with a good sense of the wide range of variety and attitudes, and how it reflects the cult and its magical power. I think this extends to the 'correct behaviour' vs 'faith' argument too. Though the way Illumination works does tend to imply that the Gods do not necessarily know the actions of their worshippers, only their inner relationship with their god (the worshippers, of course, conversely may notice the actions but not know the inner truth).

It isn't that abnormal - Orlanth also wants his initiates to be Honorable, so the Humakti take a slightly harder line on it, but not much.

If your clan fyrd all become lay members of Humakt? (becoming a lay member of Humakt is more of an obligation than most cults - you need to be Honorable)

I don’t think allowing transferring the geas between weapons is ridiculously powerful at all - it’s just not hugely and permanently penalising players for losing a weapon during play (of course it still penalises them in the short term). And most ‘ magic weapons’ from any source except Humakti gifts etc are going to be fairly weak. The best you are likely to get is an iron sword, and that is mostly good defensively (unless you are fighting trolls or elves, obviously). Not that there aren’t a few legendary weapons around (Wrath, the Wind Sword, Ironbreaker etc) but a lot of them are more about a spirit that casts magic rather than a damage boost.

It is how you make a properly powerful magic weapon. Seriously, not many GMs are going to give you a magic weapon that does double damage of any kind on its own. But whether your sword is plain old bronze or proper iron, you are going to want to learn Repair. (and I think most GMs would let you change which sword has the magic boost out of combat at a temple service)

For combat, the double damage with sword ones are all incredibly powerful. For roleplaying/general utility, Sense Assassin is great.

Just took a look at Donna Haraways Cyborg Manifesto for the first time in a few years, and it struck me how much Gloranthans are ‘thaumaturgic organisms’, in which the normal organic selves are intrinsically deeply intertwined with their magical selves. The Red Goddess in particular seems to be preaching a radical thaumaturgic organism agenda - accept your magical self as inseparably intertwined with the physical, accept you have the power over how magic mediates your self, and break through a maze of dualisms. And then having had that thought, I hit the last line of the essay- “Though both are bound in the spiral dance, I would rather be a [thaum]org than a goddess.” The spiral dance!

Yes. We don't have real rules, but for now, we can improvise. The sort of thing, vaguely, that you might get from Gifts , only not necessarily related to your cult, and without (usually) a Geas. So attribute increases, Rune spells, large skill increases. Rune spells that you would otherwise have no way of gaining. Who doesn't want a Heal Body spell? Magic weapons may be often be very powerful, such as having a spirit that casts Rune Magic for you in it.

That is actually making me flash back to parts of the first Hero Wars draft...

And thank you much for the info on the Sables and the Twin Stars. So it all goes back to Jannisors defeat, when the Twin Stars revealed themselves to the Hungry Plateau Sables. Cool.

@David Scott Could you tell us a little more about the Many Friends? I asrnsume these are well known Spirit cults joined together into broader societies - but which ones. The Burners presumably Oakfed, for example, but what else? I also think it is interesting that the Lunars are linked to the all male Sunset society - I would have thought they'd be the least likely of the Praxian spirit societies to link to the Lunars.

The purposes of the (incredibly powerful) Morale spell, what is the definition of a regiment? The spell affects an entire regiment, but is a bunch of lay members of Humakt who band together a group? Or do you need a regimental wyter or similar?

The largest use of war-elephantids in modern Glorantha is probably Fonritian shovel-tuskers. I think they still have a flexible trunk, but their tusks are certainly different. I love the idea of getting them drunk before battle.

The tricky part, of course, is when that doesn't answer your question - when later material may disagree with the Guide, or when you have to choose between the world as presented in one Chaosium or Moon Design product or another. There are going to be quite a few of these.