soltakss

6 hours ago, EricW said:

What is the Trollkin curse, exactly?

Gbaji, or Nysalor, faced down the Great Eater and Kyger Litor, was eaten by Kyger Litor and ripped its way out of her belly, through her womb, with his Adamantine Claws, damaging Korasting in the process. Following that, many trolls were born stunted and deformed, Trollkin. Some HeroQuestors tried to fix the Curse and one caused multiple births of Trollkin instead, which became the best way to tell who is a Trollkin or not, although it made Twin Births count as Trollkin.

6 hours ago, EricW said:

Why is it so difficult to reverse?

Because Trolls are pig-headed, stubborn and immensely conservative.

There are two main ways to stop the Trollkin Curse, according to most Trolls:

• Stand between Gbaji and Korasting, fighting him and his Admantine Claws. That always ends badly for the Trolls, as the Adamantine Claws are pretty much fatal to Trolls.
• Heal Korasting's wounds and restore fertility to trolls. A lot of trolls have tried this and they often give their own fertility to Korasting, losing it in the process. Many gain HeroQuest curses that they can only give birth to Trollkin.

For me, the Swallowing of Gbaji and the Ripping of the Womb are so closely intertwined that they are effectively the same action. Trolls don;t understand this. They think that they MUST swallow Gbaji and MUST stop him from damaging Korasting. Even the idea of not Swallowing Gbaji would be against everything they believe in. So, they continue to HeroQuest against Gbaji, swallowing him each and every time, strengthening the Trollkin Curse each and every time and wondering why they can't stop the Curse of Kin.

6 hours ago, EricW said:

I've read some material, interested in other people's thoughts - what hero quests have been attempted, where they went wrong.

Cragspider famously came at it a different way. Instead of preventing the attack, she strengthened Troll Mothers by infusing them with Dehori Spirits, making their Darkness more powerful, in the hope of allowing them to resist the Curse of Kin. That partially worked, as it gave them Great trolls rather than Trollkin. It shows how a different approach could work.

1 minute ago, Shiningbrow said:

Where is this? (as a mechanic, not merely a mention)

Originally in Cults of Terror. Vivamort was not included in Lords of Terror, as there was a problem with RQ3 Divine/Sorcery Magic and Vivamort being a sorcerous cult. 

It will hopefully appear in Gods and Goddesses of Glorantha.

I haven't checked the Bestiary to see if it is mentioned in the Vampire writeup.

16 minutes ago, Kloster said:

As far as I have understand, wyters are not initiate (or better), so can't DI.

Wyters of Temples are initiates, as they are Temple Guardians. I always give the rune Lord DI.

Wyters of Clans, Herobands and Sacred Societies tend not to be Initiates, so probably cannot DI, but some could be, depending on the situation.

The wyter of a Troll Clan might be an aspect of the clan founder, for example, so the Saxdorf Clan was founded by Grandmother Sazdorf and their wyter could be an aspect of Grandmother Saxdorf, or perhaps a daughter of Grandmother Sazdorf, in which case it would have DI (unless you play that Ancestor Worshippers don't get DI).

2 hours ago, Aprewett said:

I hope there is some examples of Flaws. I dont think I am doing them right. I got the impression that they are the Resistance or Difficulty rating against witch the player is rolling a suitable ability.

Is that correct?

Or

They are an abiluty like any other and the gm still sets a difficulty level to roll against? 

There was a thread on RPG.NET where someone was trying to convert his PCs from another system to HeroQuest. After some toing and froing, he came up with a nice set of stats. One of the things he had was Flaws as Breakouts, with Flaw: in front of them. Nice and easy, no drama, recognised that it was a Flaw and could be used any way the GM or Player want.

I thought it was a nice way of doing it.

So, someone might have Detective 10M (Observant +1, Relentless +2, Flaw:Alcoholic +3). In this case the Flaw:Alcoholic would be a penalty to the Detective and would reduce the skill. It might even be applied to other areas, if it is important to the game. They could be a separate ability, in which case you might have Detective 10M (Observant +1, Relentless +2), Alcoholic 20 (Abusive +2, Reformed +1), with the amount in the Keyword determining how much of a Flaw it is and the Breakouts describing what the main effects are.

1 hour ago, Shiningbrow said:

This total and complete rejection of MRQ fails to do that. And, in all those  posts above about this (excepting a few), that's what the fans (here) want as well - to deliberately NOT have the best RQ and Glorantha possible. You seem to only want a RQ that's the best... minus any possible thing from the Mongoose edition. And, by definition, that means it can't be the best (if it's not known about/deliberately ignored).

Unfortunately, the dislike for Mongoose's line meant that RQG was originally referred to as RQ4, which causes whole storm that has only recently calmed down.

1 hour ago, Shiningbrow said:

To be blunt, I think this fanboi (and fangerl - if any posting here) butthurt "never say anything positive" attitude to MRQ's treatment of *your* Glorantha both immature and unprofessional. While the latter doesn't mean much to most, it is highly relevant to the designers and publishers.

There has been a trend of rejecting what was done before, either as non-canonical or inferior. I understand that from a business point of view, but dislike it from a personal, fanboy point of view.

1 hour ago, Shiningbrow said:

Rejecting everything out of hand is supposed to be a statement about the company and management. It shouldn't be about those contracted to write pieces for it. I don't know the current relationships between the various individuals involved here, but they appear to be amicable. 

As far as I know, they are amicable.

By the way, ranting is fine, as it gets it out of your system. You won't win this one, though, as opinions are very entrenched.

I just take the best bits of the systems and use them in my games, do it doesn't matter to me what the official line is.

2 hours ago, Joerg said:

If a warrior woman has a battle-born child, someone has to do the nursing, and that someone needs to have given birth recently. Not the most likely find while away on adventuring, so even a vingan gender mother might find herself in the situation to tag a nursing infant along.

Just had an image of a Vingan feeding her baby with bread soaked in blood instead of with milk. Probably not very nutritious, though.

Derak the Dark Troll, one of our RQ2 PCs, had The Hero Stone, which was a 4 point Crystal that gave access to any reusable runespells from any cult that was Enemy (0) to Chaos on the Cult Compatibility chart. So, in RQG terms, it would be a 4 point Rune Pool to all cults enemy to Chaos. It regenerated on a weekly basis. So, you could cast Shield 4, or Berserker, or Face Chaos or whatever. Once Derak went on a HeroQuest and, as a result, the Hero Stone was infected by Chaos, so instead of just Cults Enemy to Chaos, it also allowed cults Associated (4) with Primal Chaos. By that time, we had got  hold of Gods of Glorantha and Elder Secrets, so he cast Vomit Acid a few times.

1 hour ago, David Scott said:

To be fair Simon, it's just a rune spell version (with a bit more rules) of the Chaos feature Spit Acid , which is in RQ2 & RQG.

But much, much more fun!

53 minutes ago, Joerg said:

Any adventuring female with children would usually leave them with the other women of her (or rather her child's) household, even fertility priestesses. While nursing, she might carry them along on journeys that aren't clearly adventure expeditions, e.g. when visiting the off-household side of the family (could be her own childhood clan or the in-laws if the partner moved into her clan).

Wetnurses were very popular in the past. There's no reason for a Vingan to have to nurse her baby herself. Better to drop it off at an Ernalda temple and get a wetnurse to do that. Plenty of time for bonding when she gets back. 

Thanks David.

RQ3 Fiends are like RQ2 Cacodemon. I like the idea of summoning Cacodemon itself, our PC have fought Cacodemon several times in a couple of campaigns, it always goes well.

Shame about Vomit Acid, though.

It's in Elder Secrets, sorry, my mistake. Vomit Acid should be included in every version of RQ, in my opinion.

I used SuperWorld for my very short Thatcher's Britain campaign and found it didn't really suit what I was aiming for.

For me, having Characteristics completely ruins a Supers game. If someone has a high POW with mind-affecting powers, they just trash any PCs, unless the PCs have a high POW themselves. Same with STR, someone can be super-strong, which gives them a large Damage Bonus which means they can smash things, that's fine, but if you say "My PC can smash through a concrete wall" then the GM must work out what damage needs to be done, work out a reasonable Damage Bonus and then work out a reasonable STR, which is likely to be very high indeed.

I much prefer something like HeroQuest for Supers, as all those problems go away. You get new problems, but hey-ho!

24 minutes ago, PhilHibbs said:

Some have accused @Jeff of rejecting all of MRQ out of hand, I think that's a little unfair. When a publisher has a track record of poor products, is it really worth sifting through it all looking for diamonds in the rough? As he specifically said, his time was merely more well spent looking elsewhere, and that's fair enough to me. Also it can be hard to get that bad taste out of your mouth once your opinion of a publisher has been spoiled for legitimate reasons.

This isn't really the right thread for this discussion, but it hasn't been for a while.

MRQI was OGL, RQG isn't, so there is a problem with incorporating MRQI mechanics into RQG.

MRQII wasn't OGL, but Jeff doesn't think the way it is going suits Glorantha particularly well, so it's unlikely that its mechanics will appear.

That's fine by me, as I can use bits from here, there and everywhere to make a better RQ for my games.

Dorastor is a fun place. In our shared-GM RQ2 campaign, I often set scenarios there. In my RQ3 campaign, much of the campaign was set in Dorastor. My recent River Voices campaign had a few things in Dorastor.

What I normally do in Dorastor is not make it ultra-deadly. By which, I don't mean make it just another wilderness campaign or chaos nest campaign, but instead make some bits fairly straightforward.

So, the bits of Dorastor near Riskland are fairly safe. Sure, they have Broos, Scorpionmen and Ogres but that's normal for a Chaos Nest. Areas around Forts are patrolled and safe, or as safe as anywhere in Dorastor can be. Anyone holding a Ralzakark Token can be sure that if they present it to a group of Chaotics, they will be left alone, or maybe not.

So, lull them into a false sense of security as to how dangerous Dorastor is. Have a few scenarios where it is just like a wilderness or chaos nest. Clear a few chaos caves out, fight some Broo, find some human-looking Ogres, that sort of thing. Then hit them with a Monstrosity of some kind.

Monstrosities can be of varying kind:

• Chaos Monster - An random Chaos Monster that is utterly gross, imagine Cacodemon, The Crimson Bat, Cwim or something equally as dangerous. Have it come along and scare the bejaysus out of the Party and let them escape.
• Intelligent Chaos Foe - far more dangerous than the Chaos Monster, these are intelligent and well-organised Chaos Foes. Not the personalities, but perhaps a Rune Lord or Priest of a Chaos Cult and companions. These should be used to fighting and might be hostile to the party.
• Personality - Far more dangerous than an Intelligent Chaos foe, these are the named people of Dorastor, Ralzakark, the Giant King of Never Dead, Queen of the Tower of Lead, anyone out of the Dorastor or Lords of Terror supplements. These may be friendly, may be hostile but are always very dangerous.
• Terrain Feature - There are some bad places in Dorastor, Ghost dirt, Slime Pools, Ash Flats, Rolling Hills, Acid Lakes and so on. Be as mean and nasty as you want, after all it's Dorastor!
• Ragnaglar's Breath - One of my favourites. Ragnaglar's Breath rolls around Dorastor in various forms. Acid Rain, Fear Storm, Mist of Madness, Poison Cloud, List Wind, you name it you can have it. Basically, it is a wind or cloud or weather that is incredibly nasty.

Each area of Dorastor is dangerous in its own way. Poisonthorn is full of nasty, non-chaotic but evil human-hating elves. Hellwood is full of Chaos-embracing elves. Both Poisonthorn and Hellwood are full of nasty, warped, hungry plants. Slimestone has the Gorpgod, a gigantic gorp that just rolls over you and absorbs you. The Tower of Lead is full of vampires and other undead. Ash Flat is full of ghosts. Some places have broos, some ogres, some Telmori, some scorpionmen. make them all dangerous and difficult. Leaving the PCs stranded in an area is fun, watching them fight their way out is much more fun. 

The Cult Compendium has a writeup of Cacodemon and I think it is more recent as it contains Vomit Acid, which is one of my most favourite spells. If not, Lords of Terror has a writeup, I think, but is out of print.

11 hours ago, Joerg said:

Finding the rules for Heroquesting has eluded me so far (checked the MRQ1 rules, the Glorantha 2nd Age Book, skipped the Spell Book and had a look at the Companion). Details on Dragon Magic and specific God Learner stuff is hidden in later supplements, too.

Jrustela has God Learner 101, which is interesting. Glorantha the Second Age touches on HeroQuesting. Trolls A Guide to Uz also contains some information about HeroQuesting against the Trolls, according to my review.

7 hours ago, Shiningbrow said:

Diehard RQ fans probably hate MRQ (any version!).

I'm not sure about that.

I started playing RQ with RQ2 in 1982 and liked a lot of the MRQ material. Sure, the initial rulebook had a lot of issues, but had some good ideas and the supplements were certainly usable.

6 hours ago, Joerg said:

http://yetisports.org/ ?

 

Nearly 20 years after our campaign, but yes, same kind of idea.

52 minutes ago, Bill the barbarian said:

FOUR. thwack.... <QUACK!>

Exactly!

Our Duck PC just didn't like the game, for some reason.

05 HOME

10 SEE "Dragon"

15 RUN

9 hours ago, Tywyll said:

Um...it's a spoiler for a nearly 40 year old module. I think the statute of limitations has run out.

Not for people who have just bought it through the RQ Classic Kickstarter or subsequently, or who have not yet played the scenario.

What us oldies forget is that not everyone has been playing RuneQuest since the 80s, or even 70s.

11 hours ago, Bill the barbarian said:

  Hide contents

et voila

When we converted from RQ2 to RQ3, we said that any spell that wasn't in RQ2 had to be replaced by something in RQ3 and we used RQ3 rules instead of RQ2 rules.

That was a mistake.

What I do now is to look at what the PC could do in the old system and try to replicate that in the new system.

If a spell is no longer in the new system the PC keeps it as it is. If the spell changes then we look to see whether it was nerfed and decide which version to use. If a skill has been lost, we keep it and so on. If a rule has disappeared then we decide whether to keep the old rule or use the new way.

So, for the original example, I'd just keep the old RQ3 sorcery spells, if they are no longer in RQG, or would use the new RQG spells if they have been restated. If it means that a Sorcerer PC cannot do what they used to be able to do, then I'd look at what they used to be able to do and find a way to see if they can do it in a similar way.

3 hours ago, Bill the barbarian said:

Thank you I believe it is all coming back to me, Simon Phipp, did you not have a web page containing a theory tying Delecti Druluz & Vivamort together or was that another?

Indeed, but that came from my fevered imagination rather than an official source.

However, I don't have Delecti as a vampire, I do have him as a Hero of Vivamort, as he can create Vampires without being a Vampire. He creates Undead by animating the dead. The members of Gark the Calm generally don;t have an opinion of this, as they are zombies, but some high-ups, those who aren't zombies, might decry how Delecti makes Zombies the wrong way. Similarly, some Vampires might say that Delecti abuses the Vivamort cult, but the Vampires of the Upland Marsh are in a very strong position due to Delecti's influence.

In my Glorantha, I have the Vampire League, which is a very loose alliance of powerful Vampires who coordinate their activities. they have a big contingent from Delecti's Vampires, some from the Big Rubble, some from the Vampire Legion and some from isolated pockets of Vivamorti here and there.

Also, in my Glorantha, The Upland Marsh was created by Delecti to protect his people from the True Golden Horde. He gave protection to the Ducks in return for their services in the Upland Marsh. Many Ducks know this and some don;t care, some accept it and some hate it, those who hate it become Humakti Ducks and fight Delecti. One consequence of this is the Duck Mask, a minor magic item, which is carved to look like a duck, when you wear it you can travel unhindered through the Upland Marsh as most of Delecti's zombies and skeletons won't attack Ducks, although it doesn't protect against Chaos Denizens, Vampires, Mummies and Ghouls.

4 hours ago, Joerg said:

Could you point those out, please? They didn't scream out to me between the things that were, in your words, stuffed up badly.

Off the top of my head (Shiningbrow has other things in mind, I am sure):

• Hero Points
• Legendary Abilities
• Using Crafting to enhance weapons in a controlled and useful way
• Rules on turning animal pelts into leather armour
• Weapon enchantments