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Not to mention alter boys, singers in the choir or people who plays the instruments during services. Basically its the devout people who devote time and effort to temple activities, as opposed to the people who are nominally members but who do do too much. But since Glorantha is so heavily focuses around the gods and religion, and as the cults grant access to real magical powers, people are probably more into their church than the average person probably is in the real world. I'd s how up more often to services and donate more if it meant I could fly. I suspect most non-adventuring initiates would probably get more use out of the common rune spells, and stuff with more general utility.

As Crel points out others do exist, but are probably uncommon or rare. I think some more powerful gifts probably exist as well, but with correspondingly more restrictive gifts.

Odd that they fight to defend Hell from Chaos but don't do the same for the lands of the living.

Okay, I can mostly buy that. The tapestries are a bit of a borderline case, since they are treasure but also serve a function. Yes, generally most of the high class versions of foods (i.e. white bread) tend to be less healthy than the lower clkass version. It why a lot of popular healty foods today (artisan breads) would have been cosnidered peasant food in the middle ages. I still think the nobles ate better than the peasants, in part because the nobles always were able to eat, while the peasants often had shortage due to famine. But since we are dealing with survival between knights that is a moot point. As for the latter, that is still true today. There are a lot of factors involved, and generics is one of them. Wealth probably plays a factor too, especially with larger families. But I'm not convinced that standard of living plays no part in it. I do think the bonuses in KAP are too generous, but I think the basic idea is sound.

I don't beleive so. Probably, but that is more a case of thier gowing up in a culture that dislikes Chaos, but Humkti severe ties with it when they become Humakti. I think Humakt himself doesn't care so much about Chaos I don't think so. I think it is reall ymore a case of the only Chaos we've seen so far has been bad Chaos. I mean the only Chaos cults that are not thoughly evil that we've seenin the game are the Red Goddess, Seven Mothers, Crimsom Bat, and Nysalor. There are probably Chaos cults for muscians, artists, engineers and inventors that show off some of t he benefits of Chaos that we just haven';t seen yet. Of the cults no doubt justified their own existence, but that doesn't mean they are accepted by others. I doubt the cults of Mallia, Thanatar and Vivamort are practiced openly even in Lunar territory.vEven the Lunars view places like Dorastor as a nightmare.

Yup. Basically Humakt sort of has to accept Chaos as he accepts Death. Good. That is needed to make Chaos more appealing to the Lunars. I could see sort artist cults with Chaotic equivalent of muses and such. Chaos really isn't all bad, it just that the only cults we've gotten writeups for so far have been the Cults of Terror.

I always viewed it as Humakt being the premier god of death, and his viewing anything that defies death as unnatural and wrong. Hence why Humakti can't come back from death and why undead is considered an abomination. Chaos, in and of itself is a non-issue. I think the Lunar religions are a lot weirder. They are pro-Chaos, yet pretty much all the Chaos cults we have info on are evil. It's not like Malia or Thanatar are the sort of cults you want in your city, even if you are pro-Chaos. Chaos would seem to be a tough sell if the best poster child they can come up with is the Crimson Bat.

Aruge yes, prove? Probably not. Even the bnobles didn't eat as much or as well as people in Europe or the US do today. So that extra food, and better funishing might make a diference. Probably not as much as in the KAP book, but I could see a +1 per grade of maintenance. Probably significantly at that level. Meat isn't bad for you. The major reasons why meat is problem for some people today is due to a less physically active lifestyle and occupation. I doubt they'd have sugaraed jam back then, and even thie rwhite bread wasn't like the processed stuff we get today. Not to mention the lack of fillers allowed in today's foods. Again I could see a +1 per grade of maintenance added to the second survival roll. That would work out to a fairly minor reduction. Yup. I'd go with that. I'm not sold on that. Stone tends to be cleaner and less prone to vermin and parasites, although stone halls did have wooden timbers for supports. Oh, I could think of a few things. The Baron's sleeping room is probably better heated, since the fireplace won't h ave to heat as big an area. It probably is less drafty due to tapestries, and probably has better blankets and better, fresher bedding too. It gets clearned more often and probably has fewer bugs. Can we find examples of household and vassal knights that show that?

Yes, I agree. I disagree somewhat. Naturally a higher standard of living would also include a better diet and better living accommodations (warmer building with more tapestries to cover drafts). So I could see a modifier, but not a big one.

I think it is more a case of Stormbringer being the first Chaosium RPG to break from the 5% increments of RQ2. So 5% became 1D10%, which was later changed to 1D6% in RQ3. Even so advancement tends to be quicker than in D&D, and more broad as well. Rather than narrowly focusing on a handful of abilities related to class, characters can improve in the various thing they do during an adventure.

Actually it is kinda helpful. Much of the underlying thinking is similar to what we've been kicking around in this thread. Namely that you need to s pend more to get more of a bonus and that the higher your standard of living the more you should have to spend to get a bonus.

Generally you wouldn't. Part of the fun of the BRP system is that players get to see their characters improve a little after each adventure or game session. So rather than adventuring for a cmonth or two and then leveling up and getting a bunch of bonuses at once, like in D&D, n BRP the characters improve a couple of skills after each adventure and overtime wind up in the same spot. In fact, advancement in BRP tends to be a bit quicker than in D&D, since each level is usually only a 5% increase to attack and possibly skill scores, so a BRP character can get the equivalent of 2 or 3 levels worth of improvement with a weapon in under a month.

It's not exaclty world for word, but it is close. In the film he was, and he took a bit of a hit in KAP5. He's not so bad in the literature. He seems to be a great general, and a decent king, who goes a bit overboard for Igraine.

Yes. Plus I also think there is a case to be made for rank. A £5 gemstone is probably going to do more to help out a common knight than a baron. That's why I think that if they were two separate bonuses it would work better. Me too. I think it is more fun and playable without getting too out of hand. It also means than knights who end up feasting after a battle might noit have thier best clothes about for the +1 bonus. Let's look at the progression for a second: £1= +1 £2= +2 £4= +3 £8= +4 £16= +5 £32= +6 £64= +7 £128= +8 £256= +9 £512=+10 Hmm, So someone who wanted the +10 bonus could either spend £512 on gems(!!), for a permanent +10, or spend £16 on gems and £16 on clothing for a +10 that would degrade a point every year, down to +5, but would be a lost easier to maintain. Yeah, that looks okay. Oh, and we could probably add in a bonus for any glory earned for events that took place shortly before the feast. So a knight who earned 1000 glory at a battle might bet an extra +1 to seating during the victory feast. So Something like: Critical: Sit two levels above station. Success: Sit slightly above station Failure: Sit at proper station Fumble: Sit below station One idea could be to allow characters to just buy a bonus for the feast that way. Getting a new outfit, having their hair done and so on. Since it would be a one time bonus (or we could have it drop in half each year) then it wouldn't be an issue. Right now it is just spend £10 of gems and be done with it, which is no fun at all.

Well, it will be a bit of a fix. I'd rather keep the numbers lower, hence the +5 and two different categories gems and clothing.

I think both makes a bit more senses as £1024/year on clothing is kinda out of even Arthur's budget. With two separate +5, it would be £64 total. It actually isn't. Sitting on the floor with the squires is the insult. Below the Salt is actually supposed to be typical seating for a knight, but since everybody spends £10 on jewelry, most end up sitting near the salt. Maybe if the seating were by glory (famous knigts sit together, notable sit together and so on), and the seating rolls could bump a character up or down a category or two?

It's not a bad start, but I think it needs something more, basically an increasing cost for additional +1s. As written players pretty quickly get to +10, as it's a cheap price for a big bonus, and can cover part of a knight's ransom.

I've considered that, but it might slow things down too much. As it is now, it takes a couple minutes for everybody to read through their cards and pick one. If they did then one at a time it would take even longer for the players to agonize over each card. This has become more pronounced as the hard sizes have increased. That's not much difference than my 1 per 6 with standard rounding: 4-8= 1 card, 9-14= 2 cards, 15-20 = 3 cards, 21-26= 4 cards, 27-32 = 5 cards. IMO, the problems with the bling are: The rules make the bling somewhat mandatory. Without it most characters have only a 5% chance of sitting above the salt, and half will get sent to a lower table. IMO the whole seating thing is the weakest aspect of the feasts. Some knight with 40,000 glory shows up and gets seated below the salt because he doesn't have a pretty face. Bling is simply additive. Everyone winds up spending £10 on jewelry to get the +10. So it pretty much winds up being a permanent bonus for all PKS after a point. An d it's worth it too, since better seating means extra glory every year. Since jewelry lasts for every and clothing degrades, there is really no reason to bother with fine clothing at all. I think some sort of increasing cost for both, with each being capped at +5 would help. That way somebody would have to buy new clothes every year to keep the +10 bonuses. I think the doubling costs would be the best for that, since clothing degrades in value by half each year (so the bonus would drop 1 point a year). The bonus doesn't take into account status or glory. Basically, I think it should be easier for a poor no-name knight to get a +1 from a nice bit of bling than for, say, King Arthur. I think the costs for a +1 should be greater as the characters get more famous. So maybe tie the costs to their glory bracket? What if jewelry and clothing were separate and each capped at +5, and the cost for a +1 doubled, and was also increased by glory bracket (notable, Famous etc.)?

Way back, a friend of mine wrote a tournament adventure set in Dorastor where a ZZ and Humakti had to work together, a lo ng with a Storm Bull and s o other characters. In play it was tense, but they worked together against the nasties in Dorastor. The interesting bit turned out the be the Storm Bull. While the players had expected to b e closer to the Zorak Zorani due to cut ties, the Humakti proved to be more reliable, as a vampire was involved and the Humakti pretty much led the way.

I think it was a case of giving a complete picture for those who wanted to get an idea just how many knights, soldiers, and wealth there was in Britain. One of the benefits of that is that the number of knights in Britain has actually changed a bit to reflect the econmic realities.

Yeah and that paints some interesting targets for ambitious knights looking to move up the social ladder. A PK who can wrest control of several nearby manors along the border has a real chance of becoming a small estate holder and a powerful man in the county. Me too. I think the hundreds and all that is probably info more useful to clerks and bean counters than to knights. I think a simple list of manors with a default in come (which could vary a little for individual manors, but over an area it would average out about the same) is better for knights way of thinking and for gamers as well. It's really easy to just say, Sir So&So is a Baron with an income of £250/year and thus holds around 25 manors and commands around 25 knights (about 5 are vassal knights) and 50 footmen, with about £25 in discretionary funds. The actual numbers can vary a bit either way (say +/-20%) but we know that we're in the right neighborhood, and it's very quick.

Mostly I find such numbers useful for determining how much wealth a given noble has, how many knight he can support and so on. It helps when determining and evaluating rewards, estimating size of armies and so forth. I can think of threemain ways they react with it. First off w hen they get some sort of expensive gift, the numbers give us a ballpark as far as how much of his income the noble in putting into the gifts. If a noble is has £50 or £100 in discretionary funds, then a gift horse worth 40 is really a sizable percentage of the noble's free income and shows how important the receiver is to him. The second way that players might interact with it is when that income gets used to hire men, that the PKs might fight alongside or against. Lastly, t hat income could become plunder if the PKs can raid the noble's holdings. I don't think it is actually required, but it certainly helps in figuring out how many knights and other men a noble could afford, ond also how rich a noble must be to support X number of knights. Basically the 10 for 1 rule means that each manor supports one knight, provides £10 in income, and £1 in discretionary funds. Thus a estate holder with 10 manors, has a army of about ten knights and 20 footmen, and has an income of around £100 with about £10 in discretionary funds. Perhaps another £2 per manor in funds since there wouldn't be wives and children to maintain. But the estate holder would probably have a couple of vassal knights, and so lose some discretionary funds to those knights, and maintain himself at a higher standard of living. So I don't think the info in necessary, per say, but kinda helpful in figuring out just what sort of army the noble has, how wealthy he is, ransoms, plunder and that sort of stuff. Note that some of the more esoteric stuff is only useful in an academic sort of way. It's kinda useful to have an idea of the size of the servant staff, how many carts a manor could have around, and that most manors can afford a chaplain, who can act as a scribe for the manor.

I'll add 8B. Namely that if someone it might still be a good idea to start a couple of years before any big event year, such as 510 so that the players can get a session or two under their belts and become familiar with the setting and mechanics before getting dropped into any major events. So a GM might want to run something like the default adventure in 508 or 509 and see how well the players pick up on the game system and playing knights before running the Sword in the Stone.

That could be a nice ending.

I think so too, mostly becuase the terrain matches up better. You could just mirror where the cultures a re with the coastline being equvilant to the West, with the inland mountainous regions (Monggloian , Tibet) being like Mordor. In fact, I'd probably have the Great Wall be built to keep out Saurons men. Well, here's one way to do it: The Uruk -hai (the hobgolins or the advanced orcs), I beleive share the name with what the Mongols used to call thsmelves. So you could either make the ORc s Mongols, or if you wanted them as men, come up with something similar. There are no d oubt some s ort of Chinese or Mongolian goblin to use. Maybe Trolls could be Yeti?You could use the Lin Kueie, a sort of Chinese proto-ninja who were masters of throwing weapons as elves. Maybe some sort of craftsmen could be the dwarves? I believe there used to be some sort of Chinese version of the Knight errant that might work better for Aragon. THere are some sort of hobbit in Japeansese Lore so part of Japan could be the Shire. I don't think I've give them all of Japan. Well even mountain is a potential volcano, so you got plenty of options there. Everest is a good choice. It's not really that hard to do, especially if they disguise things enough so that the players can identfity what is going on right away. For instance, for the LOTR idea I'd suggest changing the One Ring to a Katana or some such. It fits the setting better. It's really up to the Gm. I'd suggest seeing what you need to change to con vert the s etting, and then go with anything interesting that comes with the new setting. For instance, a lot of Asian monsters an d creatures t hat could be fitting into he story. Replace Dwarves, Elves and Hobbits with Hengeyokai (Japanese shapeshifters) or some such. Then see what ideas that gives you, Typically, after a little time working on it it becomes something that isn't all that recognizable, at least until the players go over the key story points, and notice a pattern.