soltakss

On 3/27/2019 at 4:30 AM, Steve3742 said:

Does anybody know what the deal is with lycanthropy in RQ? In RQ II, we had four different types of lycanthrope (Bearwalkers, Tiger Sons, Tusk Brothers and Wolfrunners) and a cult was even written up for one of them (Sons of the Tiger in some issue of Different Worlds). They seemed to be a separate class, tainted (slightly) by chaos, invulnerable to normal weapons and forced to change into beast shape one night a week. 

I just assume that all Hsunchen folk have a very few sacred people who can transform without magic, who are effectively RQ2-style lycanthropes. The Gateway Bestiary also had Shark Men and, although Gateway, have been used in many Gloranthan campaigns.

Only Telmori are forced to change once a week, due to being cursed by the Red Moon. Otyher lycanthripes are not touched by Chaos, for example there were some Tiger Sons who worshipped Zorak Zoran, a cult not noted for its tolerance of Chaos. Shark Men are noted as being Chaotic, though, so it depends on the type.

On 3/26/2019 at 10:41 AM, StevenGEmsley said:

So my project is to compile a single document, organised so all the relevant information is in the right chapters, all cross-referenced and properly indexed, all looking nice and pretty, with all the options in there (a chapter on the Mythos, a chapter on Clockwork, a chapter on folklore, a chapter on witches and so on).  And then get a copy printed up into a single, probably stupidly expensive, hardcover for personal use.

I've done that for PraxPack and PavisPack in Glorantha, collated all the articles on Pavis and Prax into two massive PDFs, probably over 1000 pages each. I haven't printed them out, though. However, as most pages are images, it isn't searchable, which is a right royal pain.

On 3/28/2019 at 5:07 AM, EricW said:

Why does Ginna Jar have to be a person? Maybe we're overthinking it, perhaps Ginna Jar IS the clan wyter. A symbolic something associated with the Wyter placed on a seat. An invitation for the Wyter to make its presence known via mystical signs or whatever if it has anything to contribute to the meeting.

I'd have said the Wyter, or an empty place, similar to the Siege Perilous on the Round Table.

On 3/28/2019 at 10:02 AM, Leingod said:

Because it's been repeatedly stated that a Lightbringer clan ring has seven people sitting on it, and that odd number is important for the sake of tie-breaking.

Orlanthi Clans are conservative in nature, despite claiming the Movement Rune, so the Seventh Seat being the Wyter makes sense, as it can always err to what has always happened, the voice of the ancestors or clan traditions. So, anyone trying to change tradition or how we have always done things needs to get 4 out of 6, as Ginna Jar always votes for the status quo.

On 3/29/2019 at 5:36 AM, Crel said:

I've found comparing cults to classes useful. It's super inexact and inaccurate, but describing Uroxi as "really angry Paladins" gets the job done for some players. Humakt is easy-access as "Undead bad, m'kay?" Sorcerers are your wizards (and while it's not trope-comparison, for me the best way to express that distinction is emphasizing that RuneQuest sorcery lets you cast spells lasting years). Chalana Arroy is healbot with extra restrictions. Orlanth is tricky to compare, but saying "basically cleric of Thor/Zeus" is good enough to get the general idea.

13th Age Glorantha is very useful in this respect, as you can easily show various Cults as variations on Classes. Just extract the information and use in RQ.

Maybe Triff can set up a 13th Age Glorantha Forum here.

On 3/28/2019 at 10:43 PM, RHW said:

I'm almost certain there were once RQ stats for this aardvark in particular:

 

He looks mean, but aardvark never killed anyone.

13 hours ago, Pentallion said:

Get rid of the princess needs a big strong man to save her entirely.

Earth Goddesses have Husband-Protectors for that reason. It frees them up to do more interesting stuff.

Esrola had Argan Argar and Lodril, one above the ground and one below the ground. She may have had a lot more as well, I can't remember.

There is an example somewhere, buried in one of the old supplements, where a Truestone had some Spirit Magic. However, I think that might be a case of someone not being familiar with the powers of Truestone.

It makes sense for Rune Pools and Divine Magic to be transferred to a blank Truestone.

Filled Truestone just allows you to use the magic.

As for other kinds of magic, we had a discussion about Draconic Magic a while ago and it was inconclusive. 

Maybe the GM Book will contain a fuller description of Truestone, with explanations of how other magic is stored/not stored.

That all sounds pretty fine to me. What do Cult Spirits do but to serve the Cult?

Summoning a Cult Spirit and making it teach you a spell is a perfectly valid thing to do.

6 minutes ago, PhilHibbs said:

Still, it doesn't really make sense for Orlanth Rune spells to use the Mastery Rune, unless they are advanced spells only available to high level Rune Masters.

True, but I am not a fan of the idea that all Runespells are tied to a Rune. I much prefer the RQ3 term "Divine Magic" to the RQ2/RGQ term "Rune Magic".

For me, a Deity has several constituent parts:

• Runic Makeup - What the deity's runes are
• Ancestry - Who are the Deity's parents/grandparents, if applicable
• Background - Where did the deity come from
• Actions - What did the deity do in God Time, or Time

Divine Magic Spells (Or Runespells) have their origins in one or more of those. Spells such as Wind Words clearly relate to either Air/Storm or Movement, so come from Runic Makeup. However, spells such as Dark Walk for Orlanth come from the deity's Actions, although you could link it to Movement at a pinch. Berserker for Storm Bull or Urain are possible due to their Air/Storm nature, but I think it is part of their background or just part of them. It is possible to justify many spells in terms of Runes, but some definitely come from a deity's actions. Orlanth owns the Earth Shield and gets Great Parry, but that does not reflect his Runic Makeup, but comes from his Actions or Background.

11 hours ago, PhilHibbs said:

So what other runes would you add, and how would you deal with the ratings? If adventurers then have more runes to spread their points among, would you give them more points in character creation, and how would they acquire the extra runes if they join another cult?

I have a very free and easy relationship with ratings etc.

What I would do is allow members of a cult to gain the runes for their cult. In Character Generation, they just gain the rune, in game play they might have to take part in an initiation ritual or learn the skill. Don't forget that Associate Membership of a cult is not as powerful as membership of your main cult, so ties to the cult might be weaker.

In the Adventure Chapter, it says "Starting human adventurers do not begin with any affinity in these Form or Condition Runes, but they can be learned later. Upcoming RuneQuest sourcebooks will explore even more Runes. Non-human adventurers may begin with these runes, and are described in the Glorantha Bestiary.". So, Adventurers can gain the Mastery Rune in game play, However, I'd say that an Adventurer could have it as part of character generation by replacing a Form Rune with a Condition Rune. 

11 hours ago, Bill the barbarian said:

Hey, you guys aren't talking about the Sartar: Kingdom of Heroes and Sartar Companion books are you?

Yes, those are the ones. Really easy to use for RQ.

11 hours ago, Bill the barbarian said:

The leaving the world Hero Quests though, I don't think can be translated. Maybe when the Game Master's book becomes available with it's HQ rules... The PDFs are doing me quite well at the moment which is good as it seems that SilverSeraph is correct. Chaosium doesn't seem to advertising the books—that I can see, anyway. 

I have run very many HeroQuests over the years, using RQ. They translate just as easily to RQ as to HQ. In fact, one of my bugbears about HeroQuest is that it didn't really have much in the way of HeroQuesting, RuneQuest had more for most of the time.

You can run a HeroQuest as a normal scenario, with a layer on top. Hand-wave magic stuff, hand-wave rewards and introduce something unusual in the HeroQuest. 

In fact, I think I ran some of the HeroQuests in my last RQ campaign, not exactly as written, of course, as I adapted them to how I ruin HeroQuests and to suit our campaign.

To add to everyone's comments:

• Gloranthan Classics Cults Compendium includes a lot of cults from different sources, including some RQ3 cults, that are not in the Classics supplements
• Gloranthan Classics Griffin Mountain includes stuff from Griffin Island that make for a richer campaign
• Gloranthan Classics Borderlands includes things from other areas, but they are present in other RQ Classic supplements
• Gloranthan Classics Pavis & Big Rubble puts everything into one place, I can't remember if it adds anything from outside Pavis or Big Rubble, but having everything in one supplement makes it better, for me

So, if you have loads of money then buy them all; if you are on a limited budget then I'd buy Cults Compendium and Griffin Mountain over the equivalent RQ Classics version; if you had to make choices of either RQ Classic or Gloranthan Classics then I'd say buy RQ Classics as there are supplements that have not made it into Gloranthan Classics, but be aware that you will be missing out on many good things in Gloranthan Classics.

1 hour ago, Bill the barbarian said:

My thinking is that you took a wrong turn at Albuquerque and ended up here but not knowing what book u are talking abut I am not sure where to send you.

The Sartar Books are wonderful HeroQuest books for Sartar, full of good ideas, excellent scenarios and history of Sartar. Very useful for a RQ campaign set in Sartar.

While, in theory,l I would like to see Actual Play Videos, to see how other people play RQ, in practice I don't get the chance to watch them. The sound on my laptop is dead, despite me reinstalling drivers etc, so I don't watch You Tube videos on the screen. I suppose I could watch them on my phone, or Star them to watch on my Now TV box.

In my opinion, carry on doing them, as they will be useful for some people.

My advantage is that I have been playing/GMing RQ for a very long time, so I know how the game plays out. Other people who are new to RQ might want to watch other people playing to get a feel for the game.

On 3/19/2019 at 5:58 AM, svensson said:

It comes in pints?

I had a Giant Broo, Son of Thed and the Devil, who had an Ability of "Comes in gallons", but maybe not in the same way!

On 3/19/2019 at 5:14 AM, Joerg said:

more than once managed to parley a rune spell into expiration... the two minute limit will mean that spirit magic runs out in mid-combat if players put on a layer of spells all by themselves starting the round mechanism ticking before actual combat breaks out, as they were wont to do in RQ3 which had a lot less spirit allies or non-combatant supporters (at least in my experience).

We used to try and delay combat if we had seen that the opponents had already cast their Battle Magic, in RQ2. As battle Magic lasted 10 rounds, even delaying combat by 4 or 5 rounds meant that our spells lasted longer than theirs, if we delayed casting ours.

Blood shed by Deities generally falls as POW Crystals, Powered Crystals or rare magic items.

Some crystals have special properties, but I can't remember them offhand. Chaos Crystals might link to their deity's powers, for example.

It might be worth giving crystals from a deity some of the runes associated with the deity, so crystals from Storm Bull might give a bonus to Air/Storm and Beast.

15 minutes ago, Corvantir said:

I think Soltakss is speaking about HQ1. He has already been spotted for that elsewhere in the forum. He thinks HQ1 game system when he reads HQ whereas many of us think HQ2 and HQG game systems. 

No, I meant HQ stats for scenarios, however it has been a long time since I looked at Pavis:GTA and it doesn't have any stats for NPCs at all, so rather than converting them you have to make them up. There are magic items that have HQ stats, though, so you would have to convert them.

Great stuff.

To save some time, have you seen my conversion of Hero Wars Cults, which also includes most of the HeroQuest cults? It doesn't include mythology or cult structure, but does include converted spells and skills.

On 3/18/2019 at 10:28 AM, PhilHibbs said:

Mastery isn't a rune that people can have in RQG.

With the main deity, Orlanth, having Mastery, Storm and Movement, this is a rule that I would immediately houserule away.

On 3/20/2019 at 11:19 PM, Bohemond said:

To me, these myths feel a little bit too 'fairy tale' and not quite Gloranthan enough. Any thoughts about how to address that? 

Fairy Tale is great for myths. They don't have to make sense and can follow an internal logic if they want to. I think the myths are fine.

On 3/20/2019 at 11:57 PM, HreshtIronBorne said:

The Enchantment the Humakti is using is just linked Matrices for Strength + Coordination + Mobility. The Agimori is using a "Power Enhancing" Crystal POW 4, one of the strongest ones we have seen in classic adventures.

Hah! Soltak Stormspear had a 9 Point Power Enhancer, rolled up as a 6 pointer and then got an extra +1d4 on a HeroQuest. I could blast off Dispel Magic 18, Detection Blank 18 and Countermagic 18. Pity we played RQ2 not RQ3, otherwise I'd have had Bladesharp 18 and Parry 18. 

On 3/18/2019 at 2:08 PM, Julian Lord said:

Technically, these are usually Liqueurs. The distinction on whether something is a "beer" or a "wine" or a "liqueur" or a "spirit" depends mostly on technique.

Beers are brewed (which is why Japanese Saké is technically a "beer", as it's "brewed") ; wines are macerated and fermented naturally (Which is why there's Rice Wine) ; spirits are distilled ; and Liqueurs are generally speaking just plain weird.

My brother makes berry wines at home, naturally fermented just like a grape wine, in fact he uses a normal winemaking kit and uses various berries. I can't vouch for their quality, as I don't really drink and don't drink wines, but they used to be quite potent.

Caldara & Aurelion used to get the Diamondedge spell, sort of a super-Bladesharp, so they might be able to make diamond-edged blades and cast the Diamondedge spell on them to cut diamonds. I vaguely remember something about Caladra & Aurelion getting Diamonds from Mostal, but that is just a vague memory.