soltakss

3 hours ago, David Scott said:

See the ancestor cult examples in Lightbringers, Daka Fal, page 84).

I am so excited that we are referencing pages from the Cults books now, that is so cool.

On 8/8/2023 at 8:03 AM, Squaredeal Sten said:

If a vampire turns into smoke, whether or not as a result of taking damage, what happens to its physical possessions such as jewelry, a sword, etc? 

In my Glorantha, the Grave Goods buried with a Vampire turn to smoke with the Vampire. It is possible to rebury new items with the Vampire and be reborn so they turn to smoke as well.

On 8/8/2023 at 8:03 AM, Squaredeal Sten said:

Are these left behind, or do they turn to smoke along with the vampire's body?  How about clothing - is it just part of the vampire's appearance, to reappear if it condenses from the smoke?  Or does it fall to the ground?

In my Glorantha, anything not deemed as Grave Goods will fall to be ground for thieving Adventurers to take. This is one of the perils of being a Vampire. Some Vampires won't care about the things they have lost, others will hunt down said thieving Adventurers and retrieve their items.

I have no idea what Jevdur is.

On 8/7/2023 at 12:51 PM, DrGoth said:

1) what do people see as the role of the shaman in the group/story?

Shamans are the masters of spirits and can be useful when Spirits attack. They can also search for rare and uncommon Spirit Magic to teach to people.

For me, Shamans are more useful when tied to Traditions, as they can get access to a fair amount of useful Runemagic by contacting Spirit Lords from their Tradition. They can also contact Spirit Lords individually and gain their Runemagic.

On 8/7/2023 at 12:51 PM, DrGoth said:

2) how effective are shaman in combat and how do they achieve that?

They can send spirits out, if they have bound them, to attack in Spirit Combat.

They can cast spells, which is handy if they have a lot of Bound Spirits whose Magic Points they can use, especially if they can cast more than one spell per round.

They can heal other Adventurers.

If they have access to powerful spirits, such as Wraiths, they can send them out to attack the enemies.

They can summon Healing Spirits to heal Adventurers.

On 8/7/2023 at 1:07 PM, David Scott said:

Shamans and assistant shamans that I have had i my games, generally stay out of combat, unless it's spirit combat where they excel. I very rarely have fights in my game.

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.

5 hours ago, Erol of Backford said:

I bought this group (below) reluctantly a few weeks back as I always want to hold the hard copy and read it like the old days when people actually read books and didn't just watch videos for their knowledge, not everyone is included but it seems that way...

I understood the product needs to be an electrum seller and then its at least another 2-3 months before it might be able to be POD.

Unfortunately, that's what the rules are, at the moment. How Humakt Learned to Grieve, for example, is about a hundred, or a bit less, from Electrum, so might be a few years to get there. Generally, if something reaches 200 Sales, I look to preparing it for POD, just so I can release it when the threshold is reached. It's a bit risky, though, as Chaosium might not authorise a supplement to be POD despite me spending money on the conversion, although that hasn't happened yet.

I have an online map of the Big Rubble with certain areas linked if you hover over them with a mouse. It has a lot of places marked from other publications, mainly from Ian Thomson's maps. It includes the Insula of the Waning Moon but not the Insula of the Rising Sun, I'll have to add it. I also need to look at Jonstown Compendium scenarios set in the Big Rubble to see if I can place the locations on the map.

16 hours ago, Erol of Backford said:

Curious why he was driven out, does anyone who rises the effigies for a summons of evil get driven out and if so why not pay someone from another clan to do it? What's the deal and why would they be called a scapegoat?

Being a scapegoat means that all the sins of the clan fall upon you. In this case, Ashborn might have taken the blame for the Clan's wrongdoings, expecting to be ritually cleansed in some way, but the Summons of Evil HeroQuest might have gone wrong in some way and the blame stuck, forcing him to be exiled.

I don't think that this happens to everyone, and erecting effigies is normally a good way of shifting blame to the effigies so that the Clan is safe. In Ashborn's case it went horribly wrong.

16 hours ago, Erol of Backford said:

Does scape "goat" have anything to do with being figuratively a broo by chance. (don't really think so but was a funny thought)

It was a tradition in the real world to place all the sins on a real goat and drive it out, thus removing sins from the village. It came to mean someone who took the blame for someone else's misdeeds, often unwillingly.

On 7/24/2023 at 1:52 PM, Chorpa said:

Running a non-glorantha fantasy game with BRP. Would this be a good buy to have an Equipment catalog if ignoring the Glorantha specific stuff for a generic BRP fantasy game? 🤔

Yes.

On 7/26/2023 at 5:37 PM, Karlak One-eye said:

I cannot work out how to post a hidden "spoiler beware" post so I simply attach a word doc.

Select text and click on the eye button in the toolbar.

I haven't watched the Barbie movie, yet, but someone posted some idea on Barbie that related to HeroQuesting. Basically, Barbie takes on many forms, she is a  fashion model, an astronaut, a nurse, a chemist and so on, but she is always recognisable as Barbie. So, Barbie the HeroQuestor takes on the many roles but is still Barbie. That is a good way of understanding what it means to emulate deities on HeroQuests, you are the deity but you are also still Barbie, or yourself.

On 7/31/2023 at 4:14 AM, Erol of Backford said:

TotRM 12 p.59 - Curious if you use Raven's Stepladder to get to the Gods World where do you end up if you walk any direction from the orchard. Where are you actually on the Gods Plane, I suppose you could be anywhere but might it place you in or on the edge of a Great-Tree Forest, say at the base of the Spike or would you be maybe is Genert's garden? GtG 02 p.681

If you know the Myth you can walk there, in my opinion. That means that people who know lots of myths are more powerful HeroQuestors.

So, you could put it in Prax and travel to Genert's Garden and the nearby places, or could put it in an Aldryami Forest and access the forest in the God Time.

On 7/31/2023 at 4:14 AM, Erol of Backford said:

Did Aldrya’s tree at the top of the spike die when the spike exploded? GtG 02 p.680

Yes, I think it did. Everything within and on the Spike died, except for a few lucky survivors.

On 8/1/2023 at 1:25 PM, ChrisWentWhere said:

Could a Daka Fal initiate use Command (Cult Spirit) in this situation or would that only work with a Cult Spirit of their own ancestor tradition?    

If the spirit is one of their own family then sure, that's what it is for.

However, if the spirit is from a different family it gets more complicated. In theory, an ancestor is an ancestor, whether it is your ancestor or not. An example of this is in RQ2 Cults of Prax where Bituran Varosh trades for Summon Ancestor with some Baboons, clearly they are not his relatives and their ancestors are not his ancestors, but he can use the spell to summon his ancestors. That implies that Command Cult Spirit works on other people's ancestors.

So, I would probably say that it works if the Player can justify it well enough.

RQ3 has bigger, more stackable spells, such as Slash, Crush, Bladesharp, Bludgeon, and so on, so is deadlier than RQ2.

RQ3 also has various enchantments that give better armour, general hit points and hit points per location, which makes Adventurers tougher and harder to kill, which makes RQ3 less deadly than RQ2.

RQ2 has stackable Divine Intervention that makes it easier for Priests to come back, but that is probably a minor consideration.

RQ2 had Shield as Common Magic, so everyone had access to Shield. This is not the case for RQ3 and RQG, so RQ3 and RQG are deadlier than RQ2.

RQG has the same spells as RQ3, by and large, and does not restrict them to 4 points like RQ2 did, so RQG is probably deadlier than RQ2, it also allows Adventurers to learn a single Runespell and cast it in larger doses, so is deadlier than RQ2 or RQ3. As there are more offensive spells than defensive ones, and not everyone has access to Shield, RQG is deadlier than RQ2 or RQ3.

For starting characters, RQ2 starts with much lower skills and magic than RQ3, but even RQ3 starts with much lower skills and magic than RQG, so RQG Adventurers are more powerful. However, RQG NPCS are also more powerful so that might cancel out.

On 8/4/2023 at 7:54 AM, hkokko said:

Now that my players have reached a large city which has a bigger Chalana Arroy temple I would like to engage the thinking power of the tribe:

What have you used as approaches for deciding how the character can gain access to the priestess who could regrow the limb. 

I would like it to not be automatic in the fashion of return to city, go to Chalana Arroy temple, give money, limb is back. 

My view is that GMs should only restrict this if they want to mess with their Players.

Regrow Limb is a spell that many Chalana Arroy cultists take, it doesn't have to be a Priestess. I imagine that many Chalana Arroy Initiates take Regrow Limb and use their Rune Points as specialised healers for that purpose. If you have a hundred Initiates in a Temple and three Priestesses, the Initiates could cast regrow Limb hundreds of times without even asking a priestess.

17 hours ago, Malin said:

What kind of unwritten rules/common courtesy is there about publishing things through the Johnstown compendium when it comes to things set in the same setting as other supplements?

Don't wholesale copy things from other supplements?

That's about all I can think of.

Nick recently clarified, and again in this thread, that people can use elements of any Chaosium RuneQuest publication in any Jonstown Compendium supplement, which includes any Jonstown Compendium supplement. So, someone could use a monster from Monster of the Month, for example, or could mention the Spiderlings from Spider Woods. It might be worth referencing them in the Credits section, perhaps, as a courtesy.

Personally, I would love other people to write about Dorastor, or HeroQuesting, as they are areas that need multiple authors.

As for Sun County, there is a lot of it and I can see benefits of a campaign pack set there, so it would be good to see your material published.

Quote

Can a Humakti and a Lanbril ever be mates?

Of course they can.

Religious differences can add spice to a friendship, but don't mean that Humakti and Lanbrili can never be friends.

Sure, the Humakti will probably chide the Lanbrili and tell them not to steal but may well just sigh when the Lanbrili does steal.

I don't like religious dogmatism. There are lots of examples in the real world where people of diametrically opposed religions were friends. They just agreed to disagree.

In my last Gloranthan Campaign as a GM, we had Sense Genert which was really Sense Earth Deity, as it was morphed to detect bits of Tada as well.

I have no problem with Sense (Whatever) being gained as a HeroQuest ability, so Sense Darkness for Yelmalians and so on.

2 hours ago, gevrin said:

If the combat skill button rolls a critical, the attackweapons button that rolls damage doesn't reflect this. There's no link between the two.

I haven't seen that before, normally a Critical gives a high damage roll.

6 minutes ago, Erol of Backford said:

Likely this question should be somewhere else but what happens to Ironbreaker after Oddi uses it the last time?

In theory, it would pass to Oddi's heir.

However, it might be lost, or picked up by somebody else.

On 6/23/2023 at 8:57 AM, StevenGEmsley said:

Any good rules kicking around in any BRP iteration anywhere? Looking for a similar vibe to the classic Exorcist movie (but in late-medieval Europe)

Merrie England: Robyn Hode had them. I treated them as being an opposed contest with the back and forth representing the exorcism from The Exorcist, and others. I am not sure if other people find them to be good, but they worked for me.

5 minutes ago, Erol of Backford said:

I am only a 1/3 of the way through Secrets of Heroquesting but its helping a whole bunch in my getting more comfortable with outlining Hero Quests.

That was why I wrote it in the first place, to get people more comfortable with HeroQuesting, so I am glad that it helped.

5 minutes ago, Erol of Backford said:

Thank you again Soltakss.

You're welcome.

On 6/24/2023 at 9:51 AM, David Scott said:

I'd be interested to hear of anyone else who has had a problem with this at their table.

No, we have never had any issues at the table, and our group had some maths-averse players.

On 6/28/2023 at 8:20 AM, Akhôrahil said:

On 6/28/2023 at 2:32 AM, jajagappa said:

Yes, he can pass the 10 tests to become Emperor.

Did he actually do it (or even try) though, in either of his runs? I don’t question that he could have (it’s such a coincidence that the guy with the biggest army always turns out to be the True Emperor, isn’t it?), but did he bother?

I don't think that he bothered, but his nephews did and were ambushed by the Red Emperor dressed in fish scales, as Basko, and he killed them, I think, unless I am mixing HeroQuests.

On 6/30/2023 at 11:14 PM, hipsterinspace said:

Per this post from David Scott:

“A spirit society is a collection of spirit cults that are culturally shared. Your rune points go into a shared pool, but you still have to ally each spirit individually.”

It seems straightforward enough to me.

Yes, that is exactly how I play it.

On 6/30/2023 at 12:49 AM, Godlearner said:

A shaman and his followers may be worshiping multiple spirits. If these spirits grant Rune magic how do the are these pools reagianed? Would they have to have individual Worship <spirit> skills? Seems excessive.  Can they also know their CHA worth of Rune magic from each spirit?

I play that Shamans can belong to a Spirit Tradition that allows them to pool their spirits together. So, a Shaman belonging to the Blue Pool Spirit Tradition could gain spells from Frog Woman, Bluegloom, or River Horse, as they are water spirits, but Blue Pool Rune Points can be used to cast any of the spells of the Spirit Lords in that tradition.