soltakss

Don't forget that Hostile isn't Enemy. Hostile Cults are rivals, they might dislike each other and might even fight each other, but two members of Hostile cults might band together to fight a member of a common Enemy cult. I see Hostile as Dislike and Enemy as Hate.

I don't think that Delecti is that powerful, to be honest. Was it? I thought it protected him from the True Golden Horde, at least that's how I always saw it. Delecti was a friend of the EWF and a supporter of the Dragons. That's why he was able to survive the Dragonkill. Well, technically the True Golden Horde killed him in their rampage, I think, but I could be wrong. Delecti's strengths are: He is surrounded by a chaos-infested swamp full of nasty creatures He commands an ever-replenishing army of zombies and skeletons He has a number of Vampires who are loyal to him Even if killed, he can just migrate to another nearby corpse, so is really difficult to pin down I am sure that his supporters would gladly sacrifice themselves so that Delecti could animate one of their corpses and escape.

It is certainly possible. The Upland Marsh is, after all, just a marsh and marshes have been drained many times. That is probably a textbook way of defeating a portion of the Upland Marsh. The trouble is, everyone thinks of that as a way to defeat the Upland Marsh. Delecti also knows it's a good way to defeat the Upland Marsh, so he is ready for it and send hordes of zombies to guard against that kind of thing. He even sends Vampires and Mummies if necessary. Using the PCs as cannon-fodder distractions is a good idea, as the plan can fail without them, leaving them to pick up the pieces. I think there is a constant to-ing and fro-ing over the Upland marsh, with the rods being removed and broken, freeing up a section of the Upland Marsh, then the Pale Sisters return and replace the rods, making the land marshy again. I also think that the rods create a Marsh Nymph who guards that portion of the Marsh, with dryad-like powers, certainly the ability to control any undead created in her section of the Upland Marsh. He would send zombies to stop anyone trying this, also sending Mummies and Vampires. Use the Dancers in the Dark if you want, nothing wrong with sexy female vampires in an Upland Marsh scenario. I don't think he'd come himself, as he doesn't really care that much about the outskirts of the Upland Marsh, unless you did a HeroQuest replicating the True Golden Horde who killed him in the first place. Delecti would definitely retaliate against the nearby communities, in a particularly nasty way. He'd probably turn one tenth of the people and get them to kill their own kin. Eventually, the Pale Ladies would return and turn the land back into Marsh again, unless someone really powerful could stop them.

You think that, I think that, almost everyone on this thread thinks that. The only person who doesn't think that is Martin Helsdon.

Definitely agree with that. They are as accurately Bronze Age as RuneQuest is and almost as much fun. I read the Iliad as a teenager and it was great, full of combat and stuff. When I started playing RQ, I thought that it was just like the Iliad. I've still got the Book Club version that I read as a kid. If you like RQ then I think you'd like the Iliad.

You'd get some really good Value Trollkin that way.

In RQ2 days, we always started off with a Zero to hero approach, as previous experience wasn't great. I haven't looked into the options for RQG, but presume the same can be done,l you just don't go through a lot of your previous experience. Yes and no. If you face similar-strength and similarly skilled opponents, it isn't that much of a problem. Sure, you could get a lucky critical or special, but at lower skill levels it doesn't happen that often. You get a lot of misses in combat, though, which might not be that satisfying, but we didn't mind. If you provide the party with healing potions and so on, then combat becomes less deadly. I remember playing a First Level Magic User in D&D back when it was AD&D, he had 2 Hit Points and if you sneezed on him he went down. RQG is nowhere near that bad.

Lining up the final details now. Later this month we hope. Wahay! Even more excellent news! Thanks!

soltakss plays differently than many of us, I bet he is the reason for the expression YGMV... Our RQ2 group had Orlanthi, Humakti, Yelmalians, a Yelornan, Storm Bulls, Zorak Zorani, an Aranea Troll and odds and sods. When we used Spell Trading, we would trade for spells, sometimes the Issaries cultists would trade traded spells, so it became almost impossible to work out which point of Shield came from which cult. The PCs sometimes used Mindlink to get access to each other's spells, so a Humakti could use his own Shield 2 and an Orlanthi's Shield 2 to make Shield 4. They decided very early on, before I joined the group, that, mostly, a spell was a spell was a spell, no matter the origin. The only differences that I can remember were Divine Intervention and Divination, as they had to be specific to the cult, so you couldn't use Divine Intervention 4 from Humakt with Divine Intervention 3 from Orlanth, or stack Divination from different cults. In RQ3 terms, Sanctify would be another case that makes an area sanctified to a particular cult. Don't forget that, in RQ2, Runemagic just went off, without a roll. It wasn't connected with a Rune or a Skill, so you didn't have questions about casting Humakti Runemagic with an Orlanth skill or Rune. Taking this approach also means that Thatanari and Vivamorti spell-stealing magic just works, without having to worry about where the spell comes from. It also means that Truestone works, otherwise you'd have to think "OK, this Truestone came from an Orlanthi, so only Orlanthi can use it" or "I need to go to an Orlanth temple to replenish the Shield 3 spell, but I am a Lunar". If you treat it as a spell is a spell is a spell, it doesn't matter where the spell originated. The same with Spell matrices, if a Chalana Arroy cultist makes a Heal Body Matrix, does that mean that only Chalana Arroy cultists can use it? I don;t think that is the case. Does it need to be replenished at a Chalara Arroy Temple/Shrine? Possible, but I'd say that any Lightbringer temple would have a Chalana Arroy shrine so would work. Could another cult replenish a Chalana Arroy matrix if they granted Heal Body? I'd probably say yes, as a spell is a spell is a spell.

Alkoth would probably have Rune Lords, being pretty martial.

Whereas Games Mistress sounds like a female PE (Physical Education) Teacher from the 60s and 70s.

Sounds like Vinga would have been a better choice, same avenging mission but can retire afterwards. There is nothing to stop her from still worshipping Humakt but retiring and putting up her sword. She can still go to worship ceremonies and so on.

We used to play that you could offer the other participant the cost of the traded spell if they cast your spell immediately, thus freeing up your spell and keeping the traded spell. We always played that a spell is a spell is a spell, regardless of the source. So, Orlanthi Extension worked on Humakti Truesword and Shield 1 from Orlanth and Shield 2 on Humakt stacked to Shield 3.

Excellent news! When is the Gloranthan equivalent coming out?

That's another border situation, especially with the Nomad Gods/Great Spirits situation in Prax. The Protectresses in Prax are responsible for the sum of all herds of one type (e.g. bison) rather than individual herds. Is there such an entity for the Uncoling reindeer or the Pralori deer? Orr herds of beasts without any (surviving) human relation? For me, the Protectresses are responsible for all the herds of a particular Nation. However, each individual herd would, I think, have a wyter, or Protectoress spirit. It might be small, for a couple of animals, or larger, for a herd with thousands of animals, but would essentially perform the same task. The POW and magical ability of the two would be vastly different, a wyter of a tiny herd might just be able to warn them of danger and that's about it, whereas a larger one might provide magic to the herdsmen.

One of the things about becoming a Hero or a Deity is that you basically lose your Free Will, as you become more and more tied into the Compromise. If we had a Free Will rune then Deities would lose it as they became more powerful, which is an odd idea.

What is Free Will? Umath would say that it is Rebellion and tied to the Storm Rune, for he used Free Will to break Yelm's chains. Mostal would say that it is Rebellion and would be tied to the Chaos rune, for Rebellion breaks the World Machine. Yelm would say that it is Illusion, for anyone using Free Will is fooling themselves. Mastakos would say that it is the ability to change things and is tied to the Movement Rune.

Storm Bull (Urox) is a god of death and is in the Lightbringer pantheon. I don't think the gods have been nerfed. Divination and geases have worked in essentially the same way for 30 years. I remember having conversations about "Well, how does Orlanth know that? It was a secret and I was the only person who knew and I didn't tell him." Not the future. Gloranthan deities explicitly don'y know the future and can't tell anyone what the future is going to be. Yes and no. If I played a Humakti with a geas "Never ride a horse" and I was knocked out, put on a horse and taken somewhere, then technically I have broken a geas. For the forseeable future, I will have lost the gift associated with the geas. However, I should be able to go to a Humakt Temple, perform a ceremony, make a sacrifice and everything should be OK again. If I woke up on the horse, grabbed the reins and rode off to escape, then I would have broken the geas properly and would lose the gift permanently, or might have to HeroQuest to get it back again. I think that you are confusing several things. Some cults have Cult Requirements. So, someone might have "Never use Silver" as a cult requirement, Thanatar might have this. If a cultists uses silver then they have broken a cult requirement or cult rule. This puts a mark against them that some people will be able to see. If they continue to break the rules, they might be spoken to by a Rune Level, have dreams of an angry deity or be visited by a cult spirit of retribution and possibly kicked out of the cult for repeated violations. Some cults have geases, which are sacred promises made by the PC to the deity ro behave in a certain way. If you break a geas you lose the Gift related to the geas. If you break lots of geases, you may well become apostate and end up with the cult spirit of retribution and may end up being thrown out of the cult. Really bad Humakti cannot use swords, for their swords shatter if they pick them up, for example. Some cults have the Oath spell, which is a magical contract between two people, which causes the death of one of the participants if they break the Oath. Breaking the oath triggers the spell, as the spell isn't part of the knowledge of the deity, it is a magical contract with terms and conditions. So, an oath to join a cult isn't the same as an oath to take a geas or an Oath Runespell. Partly as a game construct, I think. If I asked Orlanth where the Staff of Yamsur was, how would Orlanth know the answer? You might say "Because it's surrounded by air and Orlanth is the god of air", but what if it is hidden in a lead chest at the bottom of the sea? Orlanth wouldn't know the answer. I play that gods know what happens within their realm. So, orlanth would have an idea of what happens in the sir, perhaps not in any great detail, but he'd know enough.

The Yelmic Pantheon has several gods of truth/knowledge, for example. It's like saying that every pantheon only has one healing deity or only one war deity, clearly not the case.

A lot of us already do. Not all PCs are rolled up RQG ones, many are converted RQ2/3 PCs who are already Illuminated.

Styx is the Goddess of Oaths, the Garrote of the Gods. Compared to her, Humakt's Oaths are just hard promises.

Reminds me of the Candid-Camera-style TV Show, where a Traffic Warden flagged someone down in a Red Route and then gave him a ticket just because he stopped ...

Very nice indeed, no wonder he's smiling.

The thing about Wyters is that a Wyter is just a guardian spirit or being. In Orlanth society it guards the Clan, in Temples it guards the Temple, in Praxian Society it guards clans or sacred societies, in other society it could guard the family, household or league, Adventurers may find that it guards a Brotherhood, Sisterhood, Adventuring Group or Hero Band. Whatever the thing that it guards, a Wyter/Guardian is basically a Spirit/entity/being of some kind with some powers. Amongst Malkioni it might have sorcery powers, amongst Orlanthi it might have access to Rune magic, amongst Praxians it might get some Rune magic and some spirit magic, amongst ancestor worshippers it might get access to ancestors and so on. Even the pyramid schemes of the EWF could be described as creating and feeding a Wyter. Monster Man, as described in the Lodril writeup from White Wolf, is basically a created Wyter that is sacrificed to until it pops, causes a rebellion and then disappears.

This kind of thing used to worry me. Now, I just ask "What do you want to achieve?" If you want a certain level of realism where wearing armour is difficult and has side effects, then impose penalties. If you like the idea of knights sleeping in armour and jumping up when an enemy appears, then play it that way.