soltakss

Have you watched the Jamestown TV Series? It is pretty good and covers a lot of the politics of the time, both religious and secular.

That Scott! You're right, I didn't twig until you mentioned it.

Congratulations - May your GMing Journey be a long and enjoyable one.

There were, but I can't really remember them. There were also some guidelines about gaining special abilities (non-chaotic Chaotic Abilities) by being born in the Sacred Time, somewhere.

I'd have the Alechemost make up some stuff that cures a disease or treats a poison that the Doctor cannot cure. Then have the Alchemist show the Doctor how to make said cure, Then, perhaps, the Doctor can use his knowledge to help find some special ingredients for the Alchemist. Nothing stops someone reporting someone else to the Authorities better than being sucked into what they are doing. Soom, the Doctor will be as deep as he can go and be tied to the Alchemist forever.

Well, our current RuneQuest Gloranthan campaign has finally come to an end, after 13 glorious years. Previously on The River Voices, Legend of the Arganauts: The River Voices had bumped heads with the Lunar Empire on and off for years. They raised the Sky Ship, brought back Tada, Tarkalor, Sartar and Genert, drove the Lunars out of Prax, the Holy Country and Dragon Pass, raised a Dragon at the Dragonrise, purged the Crimson Bat of Chaos, dropped Harrek and a fleet of Wolf Pirates at the mouth of the Oslir and gated an iceberg to the Crater to block it. They had awakened their Inner Dragons, entered the Dragonewt Dream, visited the Dragonkill, rescued an Inhuman King and tied it to the Dragonship. They took a True Dragon to Dorastor, where they ambushed Ralzakark, awakened a Two-Headed Chaotic True Dragon by accident, and some transformed into True Dragons to fight it, purging it of Chaos and chopping one of its heads off, then they entered into the Dragon Dance, where they saw that the Draconic Powers of Peloria had been energised and were building in strength. They took Ralzakark’s Crown and Flargle incarnated Arkat by opening the pathways to Arkathome and breaking the God Learner Seals that held it. A Pentian Army ravaged the North of the Empire, Flarkat’s Army invaded from the South and Harrek’s Wolf Pirates attacked the centre. The Lunars had lost Prax, the Holy Country and Dragon Pass. The River Voices had converted Rist towards the White Moon and had founded a Yelmalian Temple there, directly opposing the Red Emperor. Something had to be done. The River Voices saw that the Draconic influences had been gaining power and energy and divined that it was reaching a peak in an old abandoned Second Age temple. They looked there using Shan Agar’s Magical Eye and saw a number of Priests dressed in Second Age robes, carrying Draconic regalia. A number of Dragonewts assisted in the ceremony. The Red Emperor appeared, dressed in Draconic Robes, dressed as the Dragon Emperor, and began a ceremony. Mello Yello could not let him do this, as he thought the Red Emperor was an impure Emperor, so the River Voices jumped in their Golden Barge to the Ceremony. There, the Red Emperor recounted all the problems the Lunar Empire had faced and all the sins it had done. In response, Mello Yello transformed into a Golden True Dragon and recounted all the good things the River Voices had done. The Red Emperor finished the Ceremony and the river Voices could see that he was about to commit Utuma, as the Golden Dragon Emperor, which would purge the Lunar Empire of the sins and allow the Red Emperor to be reborn anew. Horrified, the River Voices attempted a bold and dangerous move. Flargle transferred the Utuma Wound to Mell Yello, forcing the Utuma Ritual to affect Mello Yello instead. Well, that was the plan, but Flargle rolled 00, a Fumble, spent a Hero Point and rerolled to a 10, then spent another Hero Point to flip to an 01, a Special Critical. Mello Yello then used powers of Harmony to die without pain and to follow the Utuma without Disorder, this time a Critical. Mello Yello then used the power of Dragonewt Rebirth to be reborn, another Critical. Finally, Shan Agar used a combination of her Magic Eye, Dreaming Powers, Draconic Powers, Mother of Dragons Power and a load of other stuff, to move Mello Yello’s Rebirth to an egg inside her, as she had transformed into the Chromatic True Dragon, you guessed it, another Critical. So, the Red Emperor performed the Utuma Ritual and did not die, Mello Yello’s body spontaneously self-combusted, burning instantly without any ash, as the greatest Dara Happan Emperors had done, then was reborn from a golden egg that appeared in front of him. Mello had usurped all the Empire’s Draconic Powers and was reborn as Mello Yello, Dragon Emperor. He was now Mello Yello, Dragon Emperor of Dara Happa, Son of Yelm, King of Dragon Pass and Ambassador to Monkey Ruins. The Red Emperor, weakened by the Iceberg blocking the Crater and the subsequent removal of the Red Moon’s powers, had gambled everything on the Utuma Ritual and failed, so he died on the spot. Presumably, he would return later, as he always had, but for the moment he was gone. Now, at this point, we stopped for a breath, as the enormity of what had just happened slowly sank in. Then we started to discuss where to go from there, but the consensus of opinion was that the River Voices had achieved everything they had ever set out to do. Mello Yello was Emperor of Dara Happa, Son of Yelm, King of Dragon Pass and Ambassador to Monkey Ruins, he was also worshipped by those Beast Men who wanted to join the cult of Yelmalio. Shan Agar was Wife to Tada, had replaced the Pharaoh, united the Elements, proven that all the Waters of the World were one, had restored lost parts of the Agar Clan and become the Mother of Dragons. Flargle had destroyed several Chaos Nests, become Arkat, purged much of Dorastor of Chaos, led an Arkati army against the Lunar Empire and helped kill the Red Emperor. Karim Temris had found Yamsur’s Regalia and brought Yamsur back, ridden Yamsur’s chariot to the Dragonkill and back, restored Caarith and proved that she was a daughter of Genert, restored Genert, thus honouring the debt of the Desert Trackers, deposed the Count of Sun County and put his father in his place, founded a new Praxian Tribe, the Lopers, and set them up in God Remembered. So, what was there to do? Where to go to from there? Conquer the West? Embrace the Kralorelan Dragons? Hunt down the Red Emperor and the remaining Lunar Powers? None of them appealed to the players. Retire the River Voices and start again in the new world? Doing what? Playing Lunars opposed to the River Voices? Nobody wanted that. Playing starting characters in the middle of the Hero Wars? Nobody wanted that. Then someone suggested bringing the campaign to a close and everyone agreed. Sad times, in a way, but they went out on a high. I cannot say the words “Mello Yello, Dragon Emperor of Dara Happa, Son of Yelm, King of Dragon Pass and Ambassador to Monkey Ruins” often enough. All we need to do now is to decide what campaign to run. Nothing Gloranthan this time, as we have done Glorantha, although we might return once the new scenario packs start appearing. Suggestions were Dark Ages, Robin Hood or Sci Fi, but we need to talk about that a bit.

I knew someone who was paranoid about fair dice, so he'd buy D6s as follows: Go into a games shop and roll ALL the D6s, selecting only those that rolled a 6 Reroll this and remove any that did not roll 6 Continue until you are left with a small number of dice and then buy those His rationale was that they must be slightly flawed to prefer rolling 6s. Antoher friend says that he is just wasting the good rolls ...

Ah, I see, no we played these as separate spells, so you couldn't dispel the Protection effect of Shield, you had to dispel the Shield spell. Similarly, Shield 2 Protection 4 had to be dispelled as 2 separate 4 point spells. Again, in the Sheidl 4/Berserker combo, you get an effective Countermagic 10, which is nice, but had to dispel the Shield 4 with Dispel Magic 8 and Berserker with Dispel Magic 4. What generally happened was that a Priest used Multispell 3 with 4 Dispel Magic 8s to strip most spells away. The removal of stacking limits in RQG negates that tactic somewhat, but it would still be very useful.

I was going to say "Or a Mistress Race Troll", but their sorcerers are Illuminated, so yes. We used to play that No, Bound Spirits cannot control other spirits. We played that Bound Spirits could be used to fill up Magic Point Stores (MP Matrices or POW Crystals) as filling them is just using MPs. We played that bound Spirits could not be used to fill up expended MPs from Bound Spirits, though, it was strictly one way. Similarly, Bounds Spirit's MPs could not be used to top up the PC's/Allied Spirit's/Fetch's MPs. Perhaps, that would be useful. A Shaman controlling another Shaman+Fetch is also very useful, in this case we played that the controlling Shaman could command the controlled Shaman+Fetch to use his Controlled, rather than Bound, spirits. It was shame that RQ3 did away with Controlled Spirits for shamans, as they were very useful.

What, like throwing swords?

We did - "I run at the broos with my Fireblade", "One of them shoots you in the arm and does 6 point of damage, your armour stops 5 so you take 1 point of damage", "Damn, my Fireblade goes down".

The first question was answered within 2 hours, the second within 9 hours. Isn't that reasonable?

Agreed, I read that as a major benefit of being a Shaman.

All of my answers are given based on how we used to play it in RQ2. This may well not apply to RQG and some descriptions may well have changed, but I can't be bothered with checking all the descriptions to find out. We played that the stronger spell tool precedence, so Bladesharp 4 knocked down Bladesharp 2, for example. Same for Enhance INT. We played that MPs used to boost a spell had no effect on the spell's intensity when Dispel Magic was used. For Axe/Sword Trance, in particular, we played that the MPs were used "inside" the spell, not as part of the spell. We played that Dispel Magic attacked the Shield spell before the Countermagic took effect, so Dispel Magic 4 would knock down Shield 2. However, if you wanted to take down the Protection 4 them, yes, we played that you would need to boost to blast through Countermagic. We played Dispel Magic fast and loose, by saying a Multispelled Dispel Magic could be cast to take down Rune Magic, then powerful Battle/Spirit Magic, otherwise it is useless. That way, we'd use Multispell 3 Dispel Magic 8 to take down Shield, Truesword, Protection and so on, but would often leave Berserker running, just for a laugh. Not sure what you mean by this. Again, not sure what you mean. In RQ2, we played that if you had Shield and Protection cast, they added their effects but were two different spells. So, you could target the Shield or Protection spells independently. So, Dispal Magic 4 would hit the Shield and another Dispel Magic 4 could be used to take out the Protection. We didn't play that Dispel Magic 8 would take down both the Shield 2 and Protection 4 spell. If it had, then my Dispel Magic 9 /Power Enhancing Crystal 9 combo would have been devastating. This comes under the first point about stronger veersions of spells, almost. We played that Protection 1 would block Countermagic 1, but that Countermagic 4 is a stronger spell so would take precedence. The main reason we played that was that Spirits were so deadly in RQ2, as they could kill you very easily. If you had Protection 2 and were attached by Spirit Combat, then casting Spirit Screen 4 would have just bounced off the Protection, so we ruled that the stronger epsll took precedence. We played that Shield 1 and Countermagic 4 would be in effect, as the Countermagic 4 takes precedence over Protection 1, but the Shield still stacks with the Countermagic, giving a Countermagic 6 effect. In theory, yes, but we played that spells cast by yourself, or your Allied Spirit, operate "underneath" the Countermagic, so such Healing spells are not affected by the Countermagic. In any case, when the first one bounces, you just power through with a big heal, asuming you have enough MPs, which we tended to have. We played, in RQ3 as RQ2 didn't have Sorcery, that manipulation effects did not affect the Intensity of the spell, so that would need 3 points of intensity to dispel, so Dispel Magic 3 would do the trick. Although Sword Trance is new, Axe Trance was in RQ3. We played that Axe Trance puts you in a meditative trance-like state that allowed you to see the combat and react to it. Berserker makes you go all-out apeshit, so the effects could not be combined. Admittdedly, the other effects would be in place, but I would say that Berserker just stops Axe Trance from working. However, if the Berserker is dispelled, then the Ace Trance would still be in place and you would suddenly gain the benefits of the spell. We played that it did, as did the Counternagic from Shield, so a Berskerker with Shield 4 and Countermagic 8 would effectively have Countermagic 18, with 10 points staying up until the spell expires. We also played that Storm Bull Berserker gave Protection rather than Countermagic, as minotaur Battle Rage gives a Protection effect. Now, I need to look at the description of the spell, damn. Hmmm, that is an interesting one. I would be tempted to say that Berserker trumps Logical Clarity, as you cannot be both Logical and Berserking. "Enough Talk!" ... However, you could well play that Logical Clarity just snaps the Berserker out of the spell, instead of making an INT roll.

No need, as wearing false beards is fine. I am sure that LM Temples sell a range of of hand-woven beards, made from real human/Mostali hair, at a very reasonable price. Not care if they didn't have them?! But, ALL Sages have beards. You wouldn't be a Sage without a beard. How else are you to know when a Sage is thinking or meditating, without the Sage runing their hands through their beard? Rubbing your chin just doesn't cut it.

Does Touch mean that you have to maintain contact? I thought it meant that you had to be touching the target when casting the spell, not that contact had to be maintained. Fireblade was Active in RQ2 but not in RQ3, I prefer it being Passive, personally. Although it does a lot of damage, a good Bladesharp or Truesword is generally more useful. We found that Fireblade in RQ2 was a second-best spell, except when fighting Gorp, who could only be damaged by fire. We also found that we would cast Extension 1 on Fireblade, as that made it a passive spell. Not sure if that is still the case in RQG, though. Agreed, that is really stupid. It looks as though the Active description was put on for magic users who cast complex spells, without any thought for fighters who need to concentrate to use a combat spell. I'd get rid of the "No fighting" bit, but keep the reduced speed, as they need to concentrate on keeping the spell going.

Yes, I would expect spouses of LM Rune Levels to become general worshippers, not Apprentices. After all, they are not binding themselves to LM, but are joining to get a benefit.

Bullies - You either stand up to them and have a fist fight, run away from them or get beaten up by them. BRP-style combat doesn't really work for any of these. The reason I say this is that BRP Combat has Attack-Parry/Dodge, repeated until someone is killed or disabled.That just isn't the case with kids fighting. I'd just use the Resistance Table to see who comes out on top. Guard Dogs, Dinosaurs and Permian Insects - Kids run away, wait for an adult to help out or get eaten. I really wouldn't see a group of Stranger Things kids going toe to toe with even a guard dog. Fighting a dinosaur just doesn't fit in with the theme. Even if they could get, say, a gun, they would have virtually no skill in using one and it would be sheer luck that it worked.

Ooh, ooh, ohh, a Loophole - I love Loopholes. "who can join the cult" - It doesnt say ""who join the cult", just "can", so I am a LM sage and I marry a non-LM person who satisfies all the requirements and so could/can join the cult. I can marry them according to that. They don't actually have to join the cult, just be able to join the cult. If a player argued that, I'd let them roll the appropriate skill and see how good the roll was, then decide based on that. Actually, no, I wouldn't, I'd just sigh and say "I suppose you are right", while thinking "How quickly they grow up".

Always naughty, never nice, that is how I'd like to GM.

As other have said, do whatever seems right. The base Homeland passions are just suggestions, for players who aren't ready to use different passions. If your players want different ones, then that is great. I wouldn't "allow" them to take the passions, in fact I wouldn't even comment on their passions, whatever they want to have is fine by me.

We didn't have a Mistress Race Troll, so you win just for that. We did have a Minotaur, a Morokanth (Who had a Giant War Slug as a riding beast, it wasn't very fast but was great at climbing castle walls) , a Centaur with 5 legs (He got Jake's Amulet, which gave you an extra leg, like Jake the Peg, clearly not meant for a centaur but it didn't say so) and a Duck. Derak the Dark Troll also had a pair of Elite Trap-Finding Trollkin, who wore specially made embroidered uniforms that made them stand out. They were Special Trollkin and were always held to be more important than any other trollkin and it showed. Their job was to march in front of Derak while underground. If there were any traps, they would set them off, falling into pits, being impaled by crossbow bolts or being choked by poisonous gas. When they died, Derak would ritually strip them of their armour, put the armour in a special sack and then take them with him as snacks for later on. When he got back to Troll Lands, he would recruit two more Elite Trap-Finding Trollkin from the trollkin masses. His criteria was "Are you SIZ 8? Do you fit into this armour? Do you want to adventure with me as an equal? Yes? Congratulations, you are now an Elite Trap-Finding Trollkin!". To be honest, they probably saved the lives of party members more than anyone else in the party.

I really liked Excalibur and Arthur and the Britons way back when. I watched Merlin and spent almost all of the first episode saying "Well, that isn't right, that isn't dark ages, that looks odd" and then forgot about all of that for the rest of the run, as I thoroughly enjoyed it.

I would be surprised if they are described in detail. However, Hykim and Mikyh are thought to be dragons who mated with each other and a lot of deities to produce the beasts. Hykim is traditionally male and Mikyh is traditionally female, presumably except when they are not. Some people think they are one hermaphrodite dragon. It doesn't really matter either way. Most of their myths are origin stories of how such and such a beast came into being, normally through mating with one or the other. The Hsunchen are beastmen/werebeasts who worship the children of Hykim and Mikyh and they are probably the ones most likely to actually worship them. Sorcerers and shamans might try to access their powers in different ways, but their children are easier to access and grant more specific powers.

Ty Kora Tek is normally the province of post-menopausal women, so past child-bearing age, but not necessrily old. I suppose barren women would be OK as well. However, I am not sure if men can join the cult. What do they do? Bury people and make sure the funerary rituals are done properly. This has the benefits that the deceased person does not come back as undead, their ghost is not inclined to haunt the living and the Ty Kora Tek worshippers get a nice little income. I see them as being professional mourners at funerals, tearing their clothes, covering their head with ashes and wailing on cue. Ty Kora Tek worshippers are also effective against Vampires, as theie cult shovels damage them and cannot be regenerated, also they can bless a Vampire's coffin earth and render it ineffective. I can see younger cultists going along with Humakti on vampire-killing missions, armed with a copper shovel and holy earth. Just let barren women join the cult. They are associated with Dust (Dry Earth, or Earth without Fertility, which used to be one of the ty Kora Tek runes). Also, if a girl goes through the Adulthood Ceremonies and ends up worshipping Ty Kora Tek, there is nothing wrong with that. She would be unusual, but a lot of PCs are unusual. It's your game, it really is, so do what feels right. As soon as you start playing, you go against the accepted Glorantha anyway, so why not make minor exceptions to make the game flow smoother?