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davecake

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Everything posted by davecake

  1. Perhaps less a vow, but a result of not eating. But certainly convenient to never have to poop if you literally spend your entire time mounted.
  2. Yes, using fire against Aldryami is effective, but as I implied not as reliably effective as other methods. We do have plenty of evidence that fire works though - the Skyburn that destroyed the forests of Erigia, most notably. It’s also how the Doraddi cleared the grasslands (though admittedly first age Aldryami internal war was probably as big a factor). As for White elves - it is unwise to base your defense strategy on something that no longer exists. I don’t think there are any left, or at least not enough to matter. Sure, elves can heroquest - but so can everybody. That the elves have not managed to bring the White Elves back implies that it’s difficult. Though we are told that Erinorru showed the shamans of Pamalt something that scared them enough to seek peace. One possibility is that he showed them White Elves (fire is really the only effective weapon the Doraddi have against elves). And perhaps the mysterious new insect that destroyed the House of Erinorru was the result of a troll HeroQuest? The wars between the Elder races are slow, magical, and weird, and fought by many different means between very dedicated and resourceful antagonists.
  3. Except I did. Pendragon has both a set setting, and largely a set genre. It’s not just Arthurian, it’s mostly Mallory. Glorantha is a setting, but it allows many genres, and many styles of game (and even many games). The battle rules for Pendragon are cool, and one very useful way of dealing with mass battle in game. But only one, Nd your game might work differently. So the Battle skill needs to be useful in multiple ways.
  4. There are examples of pollen clouds in the Erinorru jungles in the Guide. It’s not a particularly well controlled tactic it seems (notably elves have very little wind control magic compared to humans, and also pollen has its effects on elves too) but I think it’s a thing that happens, especially in the dense jungles of Pamaltela. Of course this tactic will be very weak against other Aldryami. And of course it can be very effective against those unprepared for it, as in the Hero Wars reforestation project. I think most of those who regularly fight elves have tactics that very effectively counter these tactics. Trolls will have insects (or trollkin) that find the seedlings delicious. Mostali will salt the earth if needed, and have created creatures (eg bronze goats) to eat seedlings. Most humans have to rely on a combination of powerful fire magic and military warfare with the elves, and so have much less finesse and less lasting effect.
  5. I do tend to reject the ‘listen to the SCA’ school of thought for Glorantha, precisely because of the prevalence of magic and the combined arms aspect - magic is a vital part of Glorantha, at all levels, and that does change a lot. To an extent, a lot of battlefield magic is like artillery or air cover in how it changes battle, so Gloranthan warfare is very different to historical Bronze Age warfare, especially in the Hero Wars era. But it’s also wildly different to modern warfare, because magic is not like technology - especially Gloranthan magic.
  6. There is no one way to make a battle part of a story, and so no one way right way to run it in a game. I’ve run mass battle sessions in RuneQuest, HeroQuest, D&D, 13th Age, pendragon, and probably more, for a range of settings - Glorantha, historical, Arthurian, homebrew D&D, etc. There are multiple way to do it, that all can work, as long as you know what sort of story you want to tell. You can have the PCs as part of the general melee, like the Pendragon battle system. You can play it out with players as commanders, either generals at a strategic level or small unit commanders. You can have the PCs be that small but crucial strike team that can change the course of battle. You can have your PCs be focussed on the magical side, battling in the spirit world while the melee ranges ‘beneath’ them. Or the PCs controlling specific powerful assets - Dragon riding, or aiming siege weapons. And you can mix and match them - the PCs are commanders, but also the only people tough enough to take on that demon. Or after a few rounds of battle you can attack the enemy leaders. Or perhaps the battle starts with single combat between champions, and that will determine morale. I’ve done most of these as well. I had a D&D campaign that had a major war, and had scenarios with the PCs taking out strategic emplacements, another with PCs teleporting into the centre of battle to take out demons, another with a fight on the back of a huge dragon against enemy commanders, another with them raising cash for logistics, etc. War is one of the oldest sources for stories, and there are a lot of stories to tell, and ways to tell them. They all work. So there is no one right way to run a battle scenario or a war campaign, and no single set of rules that will always suit. Sometimes you want abstraction, sometimes you want detail, sometimes you want simulationist, sometimes narrativist (even, sometimes, when that goes against the campaign default mode), sometimes players have agency, sometimes the point is they don’t. Sometimes you want detailed war game rules, sometimes you might want DrameSystem and not much more. Most of them can work in Glorantha. I particularly recommend, as a source for a range of war stories all in one, Joe Abercrombie’s book The Heroes.
  7. For major battles we know about, this seems exactly what has already been done. At the Battle of Night and Day we know the battle order etc, but then literal gods turn up on the battle field. The Fall of Boldhome has dragon vs Bat, and a legendary magical duel. Four Arrows of Light we know far more about the actions of gods and heroes than troops. Dwernapple is about giants, and Jar-eel leaving the field for love. Nights of Horror has dragons and heroes and chaos monster hordes on the field, as well as huge hordes of cavalry. We may spend a lot of time worrying about the battalia and troops, because that’s the human scale detail that matters to many PCs. But when it comes to descriptions of battle in the sources, a magic and myth dominated outcome seems pretty common.
  8. I think the Orlanthi practice a little Ancestor Worship just like everyone else, and this is the primary form of Man Rune magic for them (and almost everyone else, Ancestor worship is by far the most common form of Man Rune magic). They don’t necessarily need shamans to do this - they have incorporated Ancestor worship into the pantheon rites, and can directly contact the ancestors this way. The description of Ancestor day in S:KoH Page 360 is a description of the core practice here - once a year, as a result of pantheon rites, the ancestors turn up and visit, and can curse or bless. You don’t need a shaman, because the rites are like an Axis Mundi spell, letting the ancestors be Visible. But that’s just the core rite - there are Ancestor shrines in most clans, you can make special sacrifices if you need to, and sometimes the ancestors intervene all by themselves at other rites. The blessings and curses of the ancestors usually take the form of the ancestors themselves intervening - such as guarding the stead against other spirits, teaching ancestral secrets, or intervening to sabotage other rites. This can be on a personal not just clan wide basis. I think someone with the Man Rune would be able to connect with an Ancestor during these rites enough to converse and make long term arrangements, and perhaps get the Ancestor to accompany them as a spirit ally (or allow themselves to be summoned, depending on the details of the game system). Let them have a Man Rune charm perhaps, usable to defend against spirit attacks at least, or an Ancestor as a follower. Make it a specific named Ancestor, give them a distinct personality. Let it also offer ancestral advice, good and bad. The MGF and role playing possibilities are endless. Is your ancestor trying to live again vicariously? Or a nagging elder, always criticising your diet and other habits? An aged storyteller, garrulous and meandering? All that said, a shaman is obviously handy when dealing with ancestors, and I’m sure shamans are involved in many more personal interactions with the ancestors, like dealing with a particularly troublesome angry one. The difficulty in Heortling culture is finding a shaman that is a blood relative. Carefully maintained genealogies, as the skalds and lawspeakers do, helps with practical Ancestor magic too. The next most common form of Man Rune magic is City gods, that I expect mostly have quite similar magic to the Pavis divine affinity (though Pavis’s Sorcery, including his Man Rune sorcery, is likely unique). Tailor according to the individual city and its wyter if you want more, but where city gods/waters have extra magic it’s usually as a separate Rune - eg Hauberk Jon in Jonstown also has the Air Rune, as detailed in Sartar Companion Page 22, Swen of Swenstown might have mercantile magic, Boldhome probably doesn’t have a city water as such but Sartar serves in that role and has the Movement Rune, etc.
  9. I do think that it’s impossible to directly follow the path Sheng’s Bursts took, as his teachings were based around loyalty to him magically (and magically sabotaged, as noted above), but it’s possible to follow something quite close. It’s also likely that very few direct practitioners survived, and those that did found themselves a minority within a Pentax culture that wanted to move on and find alternatives (such as the Storm tribes). But it’s also likely that many of Shengs ideas survived and there are many people trying variants and reinventions. Some are trying to repeat his path from first principles, some trying to use his system salvaging as much as they can (and will be delighted when he is freed), some trying to reinvent it to include other systems that are seen as more viable than his ancient Solar ways. So, extreme ascetics, mysticism, but variants. Mostly variants on Shengs system, so combined with Solar shamanism, ancient Kargzant etc rituals, pure nomad practices. But some variants. Particularly, the same weird mystic asceticism applied to the Storm gods (eg followers of North War Wind (Humakt) with the equivalent of all the gifts, and as Illuminates able to get away with twisting the meaning of the inconvenient geases). What sort of ascetic practices? I’m thinks strict diet (eg only horse meat), not drinking water, meditation for hours, never sleeping under cover (in some cases not sleeping for extended periods), sleeping on sharp rocks, slashing at the body, staring at the sun, voluntary hyperthermia (meditating next to fires etc), never being in full darkness, sometimes not touching the ground but being mounted for days, staring at the sun.
  10. Hero status is never cheap. Sheng followers are very powerful and mighty, but they are only on the path, not yet at its end - Sheng became a hero, then 90 years later became a god. They are each aiming to be another Sheng, effectively. I don’t know if he is incarcerated with any followers, or few, but he starts recruiting followers from 1355 on - I don’t think many seriously take him up on it until he conquers Boshan etc though. And I don’t think torture and meditation are, on their own, that useful or sufficient for Shengs purposes, he isn’t an orthodox mystic. It’s austerities, the practices need to be rigorously maintained, it’s just there is also a big payoff for prolonged practice. And I realise it may not be clearly articulated in the Guide etc, but some documents I have make it clear this is a method that takes roughly a century to reach fruition (I think 90 years) - I think you have to loyally serve Sheng, ‘Good Slavery’ (as contrasted to the Kralorela Bad Slavery Sheng endured), for many years before you are truly liberated, like Sheng is. My theory is they are re-enacting Kargzant gathering the fires and re-awakening the stars before the Dawn. That is one interpretation, but I think there are less mystic interpretations of what happened. Sheng is drawing on Dara Happan theist and Pentan ways, not just Orthodox Kralorelan. The Kralorelans think he is a mystic who went wrong, the Dara Happans think he perverted the Solar rites with nomad ways, the Lunars think he was the Emperors Other, the Pentan’s think he used pure nomad ways to conquer, and they all are partially right, but only partially. They don’t succeed in replicating Shengs Powers for the most part - most of his followers find that their century of service is magically sabotaged - Godunya is able to magically prove, with his mighty Curse, that Sheng is UnJust, so their powers fail just before the battle of Kitor. There are degrees - the Bursts do not just follow the nomad lifestyle, but eschew all material comforts, and practice a whole range of rigorous ascetic spiritual disciplines. And get to be Demi-gods, with all sorts of cool demigod nomad powers, like being able to ride their horses into sky realm, and getting supernatural weapons from there. They probably also do get some Mystic ability to shrug odd some Magic’s. But Sheng probably doesn’t have tens of thousands of them - they are all serious dedicated magicians. He probably has tens of thousands of the Rays/ Emanations, but those guys are mostly just normal nomads with a little magical smarts and well resourced from looting.
  11. Page 172 “Darkness, Sea, Rarth, Sky, and Air” Earth not Rarth
  12. Page 157 “ The Chaos demon and his allies were driven off by a small deity from Ssar On Gror, who was born of Darkness and had the shape of a giant scorpion” the second line of this sentence is not visible in the pdf, only by copy and paste could I read it, I think it’s obscured by the caption.
  13. The troll warrior write up is inconsistent about the spelling Karrg ( in the intro paragraph) vs Kaarg (eg Kaarg knows me epic talent). Not that trolls are renowned for their spelling, but Karrg is correct.
  14. If it doesn’t, it’s unclear why you have a map at all.
  15. I’m impressed that the map of the underworld on page 78 only has about 6 geographical features on it, but still manages to be inconsistent with S:KoH!
  16. Page 7 some hinky punctuation in the second sentence of the Kralori description. Either lose the spare comma and replace the hyphen with an em dash, or keep the comma and lose the hyphen.
  17. Page 6 I think that should be Pendali not Pendarli page 7 reincrnating is a typo
  18. Not my intention. But: 1) magician units in the war games are a really diverse bunch when you look a bit closer, and I don’t think all work the same way at all 2) if anything, big wyters and other collective spirits seems a more common method, but that doesn’t exclude spirit hordes and 3) ‘spirits’ is a much more diverse range of things than just ghosts, and are capable of a lot more than just spirit combat (for a start, most of them would be able to cast magic), especially with expert magicians to guide them. I’d personally be inclined to associate the Dead Men of Dunharrow image with any cult that has magic to bind ghosts ( Ty Kora Tek, for example), but Ancestor worship is common enough any tribal group might be able to invoke a horde of ancestors onto the battlefield, especially if (as seems common in Sartar) their wyter is an ancient commander of men. In Argraths Saga, Argrath has The Army of Dead Heroes helping him at the battle of Dantolfol, and gets Broyan and his household (at this point dead for many years) to drive off the Crimson Bat.
  19. That is one possibility, but it’s really obviously not the only one. Lots of different types of magicians use this sort of magic, and having a lot of roughly human level spirits attack en masse only makes sense for a few of them. But if you want that scene to happen in a game, it’s certainly one of the things that does happen. This isn’t a God Learner perspective thing - what I’m saying is that the counters called ‘spirits’ in the Dragon Pass game are not always what would be called simply a singular spirit (though that’s the terminology in the rules), and probably represent a wide range of things, just as normal non-magical units represent a wide range of things, in ways not always obvious from their counter type. The ‘Physical Magicians’ of DP, have agents that in the rules function very similarly to ‘spirit’ counters, and are obviously a game mechanic grab bag for a wide variety of effects (from cannons to falling chunks of moon rock through to a horde of elementals), there doesn’t seem to any good reason to assume that all the non-Physical magicians (eg every magician unit whose spirit counter has a Magic Factor rather a Combat Factor) are identical either. In fact, right back in original White Bear Red Moon days we knew this - the SMU is described as a very motley collection of different types of magician even back then. We know quite a bit more about those units now, and its pretty obvious that the other magical units are almost as diverse in their operation as the Physical Magician units are, though most use a similar technique to combine their talents effectively (just as most melee troops use a system of officers and standards etc). . For example Sir Naribs Company and the Snakepipe Dancers look pretty similar in Dragon Pass rules (5-5-5-5 vs 4-5-5-5, so magically identical), but the former is a group of mostly Pithdaran Sorcerers who summon a giant demon with a flaming sword riding a blue lion using an adamant nail, the latter Sartarites whose rituals mostly involve ecstatic dance and manifest their water as a flying draconic serpent. The only thing they seem to have in common that the warlocks of the SMU and the core magicians of the LCM have complex rituals that involve combining their consciousness into a wyter- so actually, kind of the opposite of a horde of small spirits. Actually it seems a bit the opposite in some cases - the animists of Nomad gods are more likely to ally or summon a single great spirit. It might differ culturally. And sorcerous cultures seem to very often work their powerful war magic by summoning great demons or minor gods as well. It’s more a matter of methods they use, rather than result - animists bargain and sacrifice, theists rely on ‘kinship’ to get allies associated their god to cooperate with them, sorcerers bind and command. And the warlocks of the SMU and the Illuminates of the LCM use all those methods, with a lot of weird mysticism related magic to glue it all together into something greater.
  20. Yes, my point was you were answering a question about the Dragon Pass rules by referring to the Nomad Gods rules, and thus some of your answers were misleading, as they were incorrect in the context in which they were asked.
  21. That makes total sense, yes. I don't think really anyone new much about organised ranged combat magic in that era, but that it was something that was probably in use by the time Arkat and Nysalor met in Dorastor. There is an interesting Greg snipped in YBOT #6, an excerpt from Harmasts Saga, about Nysaloran scrying magic that might be relevant.
  22. It is certainly true that normal trolls don't seem to be able to attack at range in Dragon Pass/Nomad Gods, that might just be because it doesn't show any troll full magician units. Cragspider has a spirit, and is able to attack at range like the LCM and SMU magicians. The trolls of Dagori Inkarth didn't take part in any of the major hero wars period battles that are covered by Dragon Pass or Nomad Gods - and I think if they did, they'd probably have ranged spirit attacks like any other shaman magician units, though admittedly likely neither as likely to organise themselves that way as the LCM or SMU, nor quite as effective.
  23. It depends quite a bit on what you mean by 'spirits as a troop type'. In Dragon Pass, spirits are the game mechanic for how magicians attack at a distance. Its not necessarily indicative of either animism, or powerful individual beings that we would call spirits. Rather, it indicates that magicians who attack at a distance mostly do so by invoking some sort of powerful otherworld entity to do so (though discorporation may also be a factor). The magicians involved are mostly either Lunars who are part of the Lunar College of magic, or part of the Sartar Magician Union, and generally they combine a mixture of magical techniques to produce one massive ritual - but the 'spirits' involved are mostly a result of theist worship (or the Lunar equivalent of such), perhaps guided by the spirits of discorporate shamans or sorcerous perception spells. Without wanting to spoil the campaign, there is quite a bit of close up information on how such a magical unit is put together in The Coming Storm. And in Dragon Pass, some of those units aren't Spirits at all, but game conventions to describe other forms of long distance attack, magical or not, but this mostly applies to the Physical Magicians whose 'spirits' don't have a Magic Factor but have a Combat Factor - eg the Stormwalkers 'spirits' are mostly elementals, but the Cannon Cults 'spirits' are just a game mechanic for describing artillery (though some form of magic may be involved for forward observation). In Nomad Gods, the spirits there are much more like Spirits as we know them (even so, a single counter generally doesn't represent a single spirit, but more like a single great spirit and a large entourage of lesser spirits). When @David Scott describes what happens in terms of spirits in Nomad Gods he is correct, though a lot of things he says are quite misleading, because he is ignoring/confusing the Spirit units in Dragon Pass. Just because they are spirits (which may be other forms of magical discorporate being) doesn't mean they can only attack using Spirit Combat. Powerful spirits are capable of using various forms of magic in their own right - for example, Oakfed spirits can start fires. But saying that - the existence of Spirit Block and Spirit Screen doesn't mean its easy to protect an entire unit with them. Some units will be trained in various forms of magical defence, and/or have magicians who are practiced in the necessary techniques to defend the entire unit, some will not. A wyter absolutely can protect, but only to a point versus a concerted assault. All this is indicated by the variation in the defending units Magic Factor. Humakti aren't even opposed to ghosts! The Humakt cult has the Bind Ghost spell, and the spirits of dead Humakti are often part of the magical defences of Humakti! Humakt is quite clear - they hate undead such as zombies and vampires, but ghosts are just dead, their spirits have totally left their bodies. and so they are quite fine! That said, it is not a form of attack that Hunakti themselves would favour - their traditions are very much about being soldiers and hand to hand combat - but I'm sure they would be fine with them as defences, or with allies using such magic. Its a matter of learning how to summon and talk to powerful otherworld beings, but not necessarily by animist means and not necessarily dead ones. Sometimes the spirits involved might be more like weaponised wyters. Or summoned demons. Depends on who your magicians are. The answer is both can happen, but it depends on the unit, and other forms of magic are possible too. In Dragon Pass/Nomad Gods terms, this is dependent on the Magic Factor of the Unit - a high Magic Factor indicates a unit that is likely to have a powerful wyter/vexilla and other magical backup. Read the description of what happens when the Zorak Zoran spirit of retribution, Hellroar, attacks, it provides active spirit support to the warriors rather than attacking, but that support is very powerful defence against spirits. So I don't think Zorak Zoran worshippers are likely to use spirits in the sense of a Dragon Pass or Nomad Gods spirit unit, that I don't think they use spirits as a means of long range attack like 'magician; units - but this doesn't at ALL mean they don't use them in battle, rather they use them as direct combat support, which might manifest as a Dragon Pass/ Nomad Gods sense units having a relatively high Magic Factor, and in RuneQuest terms as them preferring to use spirits defensively and in direct support. But as far as access to spirits and magical support, Zorak Zoran is stronger than the average - their priests have access to ghosts, shades and salamanders. If you fight Zorak Zorani, especially the rare relatively well organised ones, expect their berserks to have magical backup. And such a well organised group would probably recruit shamans to assist anyway.
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