soltakss

Accumulation of hits causes wounds to pass their thresholds and the associated effects.

What I got from the text was that Lunar Magicians and Monrogh lantern performed local HeroQuests to prove something to those people. So, the Lunars proved to Tribal priests that Elmal was the son of Yelm and Monrogh Lantern, High Priest of the cult in Sartar, proved that he worshipped Yelmalio. As local HeroQuests, they don't always have a global effect, but they could have. From my point of view, such local HeroQuests have the result of creating cult variants, so some Elmali in Dragon Pass know that Elmal is the son of Yelm and the Yelmalians in Dragon Pass know that they worship Yelmalio, who is the son of Yelm.

On a bit of a tangent, I found the Sorcery spells a bit generic at first, then I realised that the richness of Runemagic and Spirit Magic is because we have cults described. If we only had the common spells, then they would seem a bit generic. So, I am now waiting for Malkioni supplements, despite having little interest in Glorantha's West, just for the spells and an advanced treatment of Sorcery.

Derak the Dark Troll, one of our RQ2 PCs, was an Illuminated Dark Troll, best friends with Cragspider and a right pain in the backside. As he was a Death lord with some unusual friends, the Lord General of Death called him in for a meeting and produced a Matrix of Sense Chaos and and a Matrix of Sense law and said he was going to test Derak and kill him if things went badly. He rolled for Sense Chaos - 100 and a fizzle, then rolled for Sense Law - 100 and a fizzle, as both Matrices were proven to be faulty, he decided that Derak had passed the test and made him Lord Inquisitor of Death, heading up investigations into suspected illuminates in Zorak Zoran. Needless to say, all his enemies were found to be Illuminated and none of his friends. On a related point, one of the PCs always secretly wanted to be Illuminated, but could never make the roll, no matter what he did. After years and years of gaming, he succeeded and went to brag to the other PCs, only to find that every single one of them had been Illuminated for years.

One of the PCs in an old Balazar Campaign did exactly that. He proved that he was descended from Balazar, then proved that Balazar was a follower of Yelm, thus proving that he could join the cult of Yelm, allowing him to become High King of Balazar, and Master of the Red Emperor's Stool, which is another story entirely.

Orlanth could have been a Dragonslayer at one time and a Dragonfriend at another. Orlanth is not opposed to Dragons, or an enemy of Dragons, he simply killed a few of them, for various reasons. When he repented during the Greater Darkness, he may well have tried to befriend Dragons, in the same way that he embarked on the LBQ to mend the world. Cults represent events frozen in time and only focus on certain Aspects or Powers, they rarely reflect the whole Deity. The Mythos of Orlanth Dragonfriend does not include the slaying of dragons, in the same way tat the Mythos of Orlanth Dragonslayer does not say that Orlanth was friendly to dragons, but the Mythos of Orlanth Adventurous may well include Myths of Dragonslaying and Dragonfriending.

As someone who has played in Glorantha since 1982, I am as baffled as you are.

Ok, gotcha. I suppose I am softish. I think of deities as manifestations, not of an object or ideal, but of aspects of an object or ideal. So, rather than having the Sun God, there is the Sun Disk, Sun's Heat, Sun Emperor, Winter Sun, Mountain Sun, Forest Sun, Sun Horse, Sun's Healing Rays and so on. In that case, Elmal would be the Winter Sun, Yelmalio would be the Mountain Sun and Elvish Yelmalio is the Forest Sun, all have powers of Light Without Heat and all can be identified to a certain extent. Similarly, Yelm is the Sun Disk, Sun as Emperor and controls the Sun's Healing Rays.

Thanks - I'd never heard of it.

By soft polytheism, I assume you mean that we look at the combination of runes rather than the deities involved? So, a Storm God is a Storm God is a Storm God, essentially, with little real distinction between them. In the same, way, the Praxian Tribal Founders are essentially the same, sons of Storm Bull who founded a tribe, the Crop Goddesses are essentially the same, descendants of the earth who are mothers of one or more crops, and so on? I am not entirely sure what you mean.

Personally, I treat runes as a resource, like everything else. They can be used to augment skills, just as anything else can be used to augment skills. They can be used as the main skill, for other skills to augment, depending on the circumstance. They can even be used to augment some Personality stuff, if the situation fits. But, I do not have Runes affecting personality, in the same way I don't have a cult affecting someone's personality. So, a PC could belong to Storm Bull and have the Air/Storm, Beast and Death runes. That means he can call on those runes, but those runes don;t change his personality. He is probably a kill-crazy nut-job, otherwise he'd have picked a saner cult, but being in Storm Bull doesn't make him worse, in the same way that the Air/Storm rune doesn't make him more violent. This might not be the way the rules are going at the moment, but is the way I have played RQ for a long time.

Sounds like a Magic Item rather than a power of Chalana Arroy. I can see HeroQuestors questing for the power of Chalana Arroy's Mirror and gaining Runespells or Spirit Magic on the back of it. It might even be a Magic Item Subcult of Chalana Arroy in some places.

Ho, ho ho, are we playing that game? Do we ignore everything that has come before and only rely on RQG material now? Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear ...

Any chance of telling us what Twitch TV is and how we use it, for us oldies?

Sheng Seleris is described as Son of the Morning, which, to me, means he is the son of a Sun God, either Theyala or one of her daughters. In his story, no mention is made of Androgeus, which would be odd as Androgeus is one of the most important SuperHeroes since Time began. Androgeus is also connected with Chaos in ways that Sheng Seleris isn't.

Personally, the idea of a Failed Mystic doesn't mean much to me. Mysticism is a path or journey, not a destination. Most Mystics do not reach the stage of Enlightenment and that is fine. They strive for it and that is what is important. Some Mystics fall off the path and no longer strive for Enlightenment, which is what happened to Sheng Seleris I think. So, he is not so much a Failed Mystic as one who no longer searches for Enlightenment.

My take on Yelm is that Yelm definitely existed in the God Time, so was the Second Emperor, after Aether Primolt, his father. He was killed by Orlanth and was sent to Hell, but when he was killed, he split into several pieces, including Vrimak, who flew away. As Yelm the Sun, he burned the Uz and forced them out of Wonderhome. As Yelm Maggotliege, he ruled over the Dead in Hell. While in Hell, Yelm called out for Justice and brought his killer, Orlanth, to him to beg for forgiveness. When that happened, Yelm was freed and went to the surface. However, Yelm was incomplete, as the various parts that made him and were broken apart, when he was killed, were not restored, so he was a shadow of his former self. When Nysalor was born, he somehow pulled together the parts of Yelm that had been lost and a reformed Yelm appeared after the Sun Stop.

But Yelm is associated with Rashoran, as he was one of the deities who Rashoran taught not to fear. The connection with Chaos is unclear at best. Rashoran and Nysalor are not associated with Chaos, Gbaji and the Red Goddess are. In my opinion, Nysalor is a secret part of Yelm.

Magic World is primarily based on the Elric/Stormbringer/Hawkmoon games. The most recent BRP (BGB) is based on Call of Cthulhu, Elric/Stormbringer/Hawkmoon and RQ3. Whereas BRP is more of a toolkit,. allowing you to mix and match various rules, including some found in Magic World, Magic World itself is more of a single rules set, not a toolkit.

You've got two ...

I'm having trouble placing this in the Troll Break, as I can't place which roads are which. Your other maps have a big star where the location is, could you do the same for this, to stop me seeming as stupid as I am?

Thanks.

Elric is high on flavour and the Young Kingdoms. The rules for Elric and Magic World are quite similar, but I am not an expert on either. It is worth buying all the old Chaousium games/supplements, in my opinion.

Many thanks for this. It probably won't help, in my opinion. The uproar about Elmal and Yelmalio being seen as the same deity is only matched by the uproar that happened when we found out that they were the same deity, twenty years ago. Most people don't care, some people vocally care a lot.

They can't. If you play Nomad Gods, an outright fight between the Bison nation and Ostrich Roiders is so one-sided it's not worth doing. Individual skirmishes might be different, 20 Ostrich Riders should be able to defeat a few Bison Riders, by peppering them with arrows.