soltakss

Not at all. Orlanth is a rapist. He, and his kin, have a history of abducting women from different tribes and fathering children on them. It is all glossed over, but it is there in black and white. A friend of mine, who played a Yelmalion Light Son, always wanted to list the Bad HeroQuests of Orlanth and his kin, to show them up as the murdering, lying, stealing rapists that they are. Not all myths are justifications, This might be the myth of how Ernalda calmed down the stupid bullying air god. It might be acted out and people laugh at how stupid Orlanth looked courting Ernalda and how much better he is when he has married her and has clamed down a bit. A very few Orlanthi might look at how Orlanth behaves and emulate that, but their wives would play the part of Ernalda and get their own way.

Sure, but when the new rules are unclear or contradictory, then we go back to the old rules, where they are clear and uncontradictory. Also, it allows us to grumble "That's not the way we have always played it ..."

In my opinion, and I am sure others will disagree, forget about using Extended Combats, For me, they add nothing to the game, bog you down for ages and are extremely unsatisfying. Each Archetype is a Keyword. They should have abilities under the Keyword, but inly listed if they are important enough to stand out. I have only played Shadowrun a few times, and many, many years ago, but you could have Netrunner as a keyword and have breakouts of whatever you want, say Dark Net and Break Ice, you would write it as Netrunner 18 (Dark Net, Break ICE). In a game, you could use the Netrunner keyword to do some hacking, but if you met some ICE then you could use Break ICE to break through it, or perhaps to stop Black ICE. I wouldn't bother replicating armour and weapons, as they don't mean much in HeroQuest. They might give you a bonus to your combat skills, but that's about it. If so, list them as Armour +3, Sword +3, or Black Sword of Elf Chopping +3. If you want them to be special, then make them a Keyword, so you might have Black Sword of Elf Chopping 18 (Black, Chop Elf, Hate Elf). In my opinion, HeroQuest should be quick, snappy and fun. Don't get bogged down in the rules, don't look for loads of sub-rules and just narrate your way past problems. If a PC wins a Contest, they can do so by just scraping past (Margical Victory), by a bit (Minor Victory), by a lot (Major Victory) and by a mile (Complete Victory). Narrate the results of that. So, if a PC tries to seduce a guard to let the rest of the party sneak by, then a Complete Victory might mean the Guard is entranced by the seduction and they get down to it there and then, or it might mean the party sneak past and the seducer leaves and blows the Guard a kiss, leaving him begging for a taste at a later point, or you could have a Marginal Victory meaning the Guard wants something for the seduction and the Complete Victory means the Guard gets a blown kiss and is happy at that, Basically, whatever seems right at the time. If you want something like a health system, then just have each Defeat that goes against a PC gives a Penalty to that PC, so if the PC cannot act then they are floored. Healing might reduce the Penalties. So, from Marginal to Complete, you might have a -2/-4/-6/-8 Penalty, so suffering 2 Complete Defeats means you are at -16 and pretty messed up. It's not ideal, but it is quick and dirty, and I really like quick and dirty.

Orlanth is the god of Men and Ernalda is the goddess of Women, but Vinga is the goddess of Women who worship Orlanth and nadan is the god of Men who worship Erlanda. Nothing hard about that! 😉 It shouldn't be contentious, as Orlanth Rex has been around for donkeys years and OrlanthDar has been around since Hero Wars. Not all Orlanthi Clans have an Orlanth Rex or Orlanthdar chieftain, it is possible to have a different worshipper as a chieftan or king. However, the best fit is Orlanthdar or Orlanth Rex. I can't remember if Orlanth Rex is the reformed version of Orlanthdar, or if they are separate subcults, or what their relationship is. Ernalda is the Earth Queen, so in areas where Earth is stronger than Storm, for example in Esrolia, the Queen will worship the subcult of Ernalda the Queen. In typical Orlanthi areas, it is possible for a woman to worship Ernalda the Queen and rule, or to worship Vinga with Orlanth Rex and rule, it is rare but possible.

Eurmal is Associated with Lightbringers, Friendly with Thief Cults, Illusion Cults and Trickster Cults, Neutral to most others and Enemy to Chaos, I would think.

Of course. Any conversions are interesting.

Not necessarily. The Sun Counties are a way for Yelmalians to be separate from other people, in a Sun-based theocratic state. Individual Yelmalian Temples are just temples, not temple/farming communites. A Yelmalian Temple might only have a hundred staff, ready to cater for visitors and so on.

In my Pavis, the Pavisites who remained after the trolls invaded hid underground. Some of them called on various powers to help them and one group, based on the island, called on Cacodemon. They turned into Ogres and have held Ogre Island since. The Trolls hate Chaos and hate Ogres, but Ogres are a bit harder to kill than normal humans. Also, they are on an island that is hard to get to and full of heavily guarded tunnels. So, they periodically raid Ogre Island and then leave it alone. The Ogres withdraw into their blockaded tunnels and sit out the raids. After the Lunars leave, the Ogres of Ogre island are probably in a similar situation to before. Argrath and the humans of Pavis want to get rid of them, but Argrath goes off to Sartar to attack the Lunar Empire and the Pavisites have other things to worry about. I would guess that the Ogres of Ogre Island remain in their stronghold, waiting to be attacked and to withdraw to their tunnels. In the meantime, those Lunar agents who remained are actively trying to ally with the Ogres and with the other Chaos of the Big Rubble.

It was made available for the Kickstarter backers a while ago. I downloaded it, but haven't yet looked at it in great detail. I will when I start a D100 Rome campaign, maybe some time next year.

It stands the test of time very well. You can use all of it with Mythras, with no need for adapting. Buy! Buy! Buy!

We asked that at a recent Convention and the answer was "Probably, eventually", but they were going to wait and see how the CoC one panned out.

My first thought was "Hah, rubbish, Lodril was the Sky Spear who plunged into the Earth to kill Krarsht", but thinking about it, this does make sense. It reflects Lodril's earhy, sexual nature, fits lava streams beneath the earth and lava eruptions. So, Lodril probably penetrated the Earth several times, once as the Fiery Semen and once as the Sky Spear. Anyone got any ideas about other times Lodril has prenetrated the earth? That makes sense, as Lodril is the Worker, his descendants are peasants, his sons are Builders and he is The Slave. Dayzatar is too busy being aloof and Yelm is too busy bathing in his reflected Glory.

Don't forget that Umath separated Sky and Earth to make a place for himself, as his first Deed. So, until then, Aether was touching Gata, so did not need to sink down. Later Solar cultures have thought of the remote Sky being far away and the Earth being close, so had the concepts of Lodril sinking down into the Earth and Dayzatar being high and aloof. It just wasn't the case until Umath broke the world.

The myth of how Aether's sons were given the world has Dayzatar in the Sky, Yelm below ground and Lodril on the surface, but Yelm didn't like his share, so Lodril took the underworld and Yelm the surface world. That has two clear ramifications, it gives Yelm a place in the Underworld, whoich he took when he went to Hell, and it gives Lodril a place on the Surface World, which he took when he burst from the ground as the First Volcano. Monster Man is also Lodril rebelling against the Bad Emperor, a Smouldering Rebellion of peasants uniting against unjust tryranny. Sky River Titan is the God Who Turned the Sky Blue, as the Sky river is what makes the sky blue. I can't see a link between Umath and Sky River Titan myself. I like the myth that Annilla was created when Yelm touched the Styx, with the Fire, Darkness and Water mixing to create Annilla's mists, with Sky River Titan being the result of Annilla embracing Yelm. I very much doubt if it is canonical, but it made sense to me. It makes Sky River Titan the son of Yelm and, therefore, had a right to a place in the Sky.

I've thought that CoC is Scooby Doo with Mythos and without kids, for a long time.

Although my original post was tongue in cheek, once the Paradox has been established, I can see Knowledge Priests HeroQuesting to try and solve/overcome it. Lhankor Mhy cultists would try and find a way of having two conflicting things true at the same time. Malkioni would try to make some kind of order and provie why Zistor got it wrong and what can they do differently to what Zistor did. Irrippi Ontor would look at it in a different way and work out how to make it not a paradox. Knowledge Cultists being what they are, they would not share that knowledge, if they solve the Paradox, but would keep it to themselves, in order to make them more powerful. each HeroQuestor trying to solve the Paradox would then have to solve it themselves, without any help from cult members.

HeroQuesting, my boy, HeroQuesting ...

Yes, pretty much exactly as I would imagine Mythic Greece. However, I am sure that numerous people can point out which of the costumes/temples/whatever are wrong and belong to Classical Greece rather than Mythic Greece.

The Deryni always seemed perfect for RQ-style games to me, almost Fantasy Earth with clerical RQ-style magic, but it has been a long, long time since I read them.

It is indeed.

In the first session of our new "The Dark Isles" campaign, we used a battle map, thus making a liar of me ...

The Zistor Paradox - It creates a Catalogue of all written works that refer to themselves, so the Zistor Catalogue contains "The Zistor Catalogue" as an entry, but what about its counterpart, all those written works that do not contain themselves? If this Catalogue refers to itself then it isn't in the Catalogue and so cannot refer to itself, but if it doesn't refer to itself it should be in the catalogue and then should not refer to itself. At that point, Zistor grinds to a halt, Lhankor Mhy passes out and Irrippi Ontor makes it an oral catalogue and shows why he is better than Lhankor Mhy.

People from Northamptonshire and Cambridgeshire know where the Fens are - between those counties and The Wash. The marshlands originally went from south of the Humber, past The Wash and into the Norfolk Broads, one whole wilderness of steamy marshland. Waterlands looks good, from a brief skip through. I really liked the format of the one page scenarios, they have a really good, clear format that is ripe for adapting. I am sure that my current Dark Ages campaign will use some things from the Waterlands at some point.

Pretty much, yes. The figures face a certain way and that's enough for me. If I have a figure in front then it is in front, if it is behind then it is behind. What I don't do is to track quarter turns, half turns and so on, as that kind of thing bores me to tears.

I forgot about the Beserkergang path, that should be very useful.