soltakss

On 5/13/2018 at 11:29 AM, Jakob said:

No EDO - creatures and non-humans are supposed to be original and often bizarre.

Which is funny, as the Melnibonéans are basicaly another form of elf.

On 5/21/2018 at 5:04 PM, styopa said:

You're right.  I guess I ruled a forgettably long time ago that was OP, handing characters what typically amounts to AN ENTIRE ADDITIONAL CHARACTER'S MP to fuel their spells.  Or with experienced adventurers that could easily be a handful of such crystals.

For a long while, Soltak Stormspear took POW Crystals as his pick of magical loot. At one stage, he had over 500 points stored away and emptied familiars to fill them. Another PC, Derak the Darktroll, had a leather jacket with Derak picked out in POW Crystals.

Although David has already answered, I'll chip in with "If you can narrate it then you can use it". If it makes sense in your game then just do it.

On 5/20/2018 at 11:07 PM, Garwalf said:

Personally, I have no interest in a Big Book of Myths or a Big Book of Heroquests. I much prefer the approach to heroquesting in 13G: They're just one more kind of adventure. It leaves it open for GM's to create heroquests that fit the stories that their group wants to tell in an adventure, rather than coming up with a list of myths and figuring out how to create an adventure that goes with it.

Oh, I would love one, but I am definitely in a minority.

On 5/16/2018 at 4:03 PM, Mikus said:

 

 

  On 7/18/2016 at 10:29 AM, Jeff said:

 

 

 

Sorry, but I cannot believe, for one moment, that Jeff actually said nothing.

I saw some of the artwork at Eternalcon and met with one of the artists. It was refreshing how completely enthusiastic he was about the project and the whole RuneQuest/Gloranthan theme. Looks like he has a lot of good ideas for the future.

On 5/22/2018 at 8:15 PM, NurgleHH said:

In the moment I feel very bored about the politics of Chaosium. Old men try to be interesting. Not giving arelease date and try to make it mystic is not verygood for Runequest. The teaser game is uncomplete and not really usable. Why this?

I've been bored with the politics at Chaosium for over 30 years.

Also, I think that Jeff and Rick are younger than me, so I'm now an old man! 😟

1 hour ago, HorusArisen said:

That’s nuts

Aftermath! had a hit location specifically for nuts - Most male players bought special armour for that particular hit location.

47 minutes ago, Scout said:

The problem I have (other than why you have to declare a prize/goal - and I'm pretty much ok with that part now), is that using this way of doing things, you can go around one-shotting opponents, and major villains at that. 

GM: "You are facing the dragon..."

Player: "I aim my bow and arrow right under its maw in an attempt to rip its throat out and drop it stone dead..."

Let's say you succeed, is that dragon dead?

If you get the best success possible, then yes.

However, if you get a Marginal or Minor success then, No, but you might have another effect, for example:

• Complete Success - You kill the Dragon
• Major Success - You pin the Dragon's Jaws together, so it cannot breathe or bite
• Minor Success - You pin the Dragon's Jaws together, stopping one of Breathe or Bite
• Marginal Success - You pin the Dragon's tongue, stopping it talking
• Tie - You shoot the arrow in its mouth and it has no other effect
• Marginal Defeat - You shoot the arrow and it hits the mouth but bounces off and the Dragon knows something has hit it
• Minor Defeat - You shoot the arrow and the Dragon knows where you are
• Major Defeat - You shoot and the dragon knows where you are and is annoyed that you have tried to kill it
• Complete Defeat - You shoot the arrow and the Dragon swallows you

It might seem exceessive, but the extremes are difficult to get. In HQ1, a Dragon might have a lot of Masteries and so can bump itself up and you down to the extremes. In HQ2, it is more narrative, with fewer Masteries, so the extremes are harder to get.

As an aside, do you have to announce how you are going about achieving a prize and what the prize you are after is - for all contests in HeroQuest? If yes, that's great, that's a positive, because it's a universal ruling and everyone has to do it all the time. For reasons I can't quite explain, this makes sense to me. If it was yes for some contests and no for others, that might complicate matters. 

In HeroQuest, you don't "have to" do anything. It all depends on your play style and how your group plays HeroQuest.

If declaring the intentions of contests works for you, then do it. If it doesn't, then don't.

I am very comfortable with this kind of approach, as I have played a lot of RuneQuest and a fair amount of HeroQuest (We did the LightBringers Quest in HeroQuest from start to finish). However, I am very aware that people new to the game might think they have to play it in a certain way to get the maximum enjoyment.

Play it however suits you.

1 hour ago, Joerg said:

The Yelmalians of Zola Fel valley had a good reason to fear dragons - they got consumed by dragonfire rather than by the True Golden Horde. The Heortlings from the south went there for a lost hope rearguard to buy their non-combatants time, not really expecting to return.

They may well have been part of the True Golden Horde.

As to Fear Dragons, I always thought this was overrated and probably wouldn't have had it in my Glorantha.

It was an awfully long time ago, people came back through the Cross Lines and survived. People saw dragons coming back and survived. They even saw a dragon fight the Crimson Bat and survived.

Some Dragons are creepy, dangeorus things tyat killed us a long time ago. Some people might have gained Fear Dragons through recent encounters with dragons, or their Fear Dragons was reawakened. 

By no means canonical, I incorporated the Griselda stories in a Timeline of Pavis, there are two Timelines, one with the actual Griselda dates and another with the Griselda stories massaged to fit in better.

I am not aware of the Griselda stories from Kraken chapbooks. I'll have to look into that and amend the Timelines accordingly.

When I have time, I'll pit together a package for Land of Ice and Stone, for Old Stone Age roleplaying. Currently it's for Legend, but should be very easy to adapt to Revolution.

3 hours ago, The God Learner said:

When acting as opponents, successful Lesser chaos heroquests prove that the meaning of the heroquest was not what the hero intended. Greater chaos heroquests instead prove that it was all meaningless.

True, if you subscribe to the "All Chaos wants is the destruction of the world". I am not entirely convinced that is the case, however.

Many Chaos Cults specifically don't want the world to end, but want to rule the world. Certainly many chaotic cultists want this.

Though I'm also informed true chaos purists sneer at working inside the system, like going on lame heroquests like a good boy.

Chaos HeroQuests can be done to improve personal power or abilities, or even to oppose an enemy, defeat an enemy or cause an effect. Emulating Tien killing Genert is a good way for a Chaos HeroQuestor to kill an Earth King, or just any old Earth Priestess. There are enough victories of Chaos over everyone else to be able to pick and choose your HeroQuest.

Demigods are normally born from a god and a mortal, or are minor gods.

Pavis was a demigod, as he was a Hero who became a god.

In my Glorantha, demigods and gods/goddesses are such because they are worshipped. You might get a very minor Hero who goes on a HeroQuest and comes back with a new skill or spell that is then taught to others, that makes the Hero a demigod. The Hero probably gets worshipped as a subcult in a main cult, perhaps even at a single shrine.

A demigod, rather than a Hero, may get worshipped at several locations, so Pavis is worshipped in and around the city of Pavis, but has several temples.shrines.

In terms of the Compromise, I think that Demigods are bound by the Compromise, but Heroes and SuperHeroes are not. So, a Hero who binds himself/herself to the Compromise by weaving a place and accepting the place of others becomes a Demigod. Normally, such a Demogod cannot act in the world, or actions are severly limited, so Cragspider is a Demigoddess and her actions are now limited, so she is not the HeroQuester that she was. However, in the Hero Wars, the Compromise has been broken and Demigods, Demigoddess, Gods and Goddesses are free to act again.

That sounds really good. Love the idea of the split personality that the player didn't know about.

As for the why of HeroQuests - Because they are there! 

Madness is a good start, as you can always suggest a HeroQuest course to achieve some end, starting on a minor.mild HeroQuest, then suck them in deeper and deeper. They could gain opponents on a HeroQuest and then find themselves drawn in as their opponents' opponents. So, if they did a Thed HeroQuest, perhaps Thed Demands Justice, then an NPC Orlanthi could become their Orlanth on HeroQuests, if that NPC did an Orlanthi HeroQuest where Orlanth met Thed, then they might be sucked into his HeroQuest and forced to do another Thed HeroQuest. If the PCs get sucked in as various different roles, they could be forced to do more and more Chaotic HeroQuests until they decide to do them themselves, from choice, rather than be sucked into them. 

1 hour ago, Martin said:

Does any one have any mechanics they use to distinguish Superheores from Heroes in Glotantha?

Is it a matter of having a certain number of Feats as a certain level ? or banking heropoints to purchase Superhero abilities for huge amounts?

In our current game, the PCs gain abilities through experience and it doesn't really matter what skill increases they get. Each ability costs around 10 Hero Points (We use Hero Points as Experience Points, the same as in HeroQuest) and they often get a free ability as a reward for a successful HeroQuest. Abilities are what gives them power, as they can combine the abilities in a freeform way.

Our PCs would definitely count as Heroes and are on their way to becoming SuperHeroes at the moment.

It is, however, used in the Dragon Pass game and Arcane Lore.

Looking at Third Age SuperHeroes, we have Harrek, Jar-Eel and Androgeus. Earlier, Yanafal Tarnils was described as a SuperHero. In the First Age, Arkat was a SuperHero.

In Dragon Pass, I think it says that a SuperHero has mastered the Infinity Rune, so can warp magic and force around, granting some invulnerability to magic/damage. It may be broader than that, so a SuperHero may well have gained more than one Rune, in the same way that a Deity is associated with Runes. So, a Hero may well master one Rune, but a SuperHero has mastered multiple Runes.

The Issaries cult uses mules in Prax, as they are not horses. I didn't see that donkeys were a beast of Prax, but that makes mules make more sense.

There are some Tusk Riders in Prax, not as permanent inhabitants but as long-term visitors. Their Tuskers could well have escaped and bred with local pigs.

When Sheng Seleris tried to make his sons Emperors of Darra Happa, the Red Emperor dressed in fish scales and entered the Ritual, clearly as Basko the Dark Sun, allowing him to kill the sons of Sheng Seleris. So, the Lunars knew of Basko and were able to use him in HeroQuests. If they knew of the Black Sun, they may well have k nown of the Blood Sun, unless they only knew of the "Basko soiling himself in front of Yelm" myth.

Looks as though this has succeeded - Congratulations. 

On 5/10/2018 at 8:36 PM, Pentallion said:

I'm getting way, way ahead of my group here, but probably late next year we should go back to our Lunar campaign and the crazy, dysfunctional party I detailed in "Lunar Diaries".  I intend to send them on some horrifying chaos heroquests.  They are going to bring the white moon by destroying the world and while some of them are guaranteed to get carried away, others will be there working for Arachne Solara to ensure there's something left when it's all over.  One must destroy to create.  Or, as a better analogy, there needs to be a "controlled burn" and that requires someone to be the fire.

Sounds like an interesting campaign. I might use some of the ideas as fuel for my current campaign.

But where to find epic chaos heroquests?  Which gods don't necessarily matter.  They'll be "arkating" their way through the chaos gods.

Chaos HeroQuests tend not to be written up, as mostly PCs are the enemies of Chaos and so you just see the bits where Chaos meets and is defeated by the PCs.

Generally, what I do when writing a HeroQuest is to start from the Myth, what is the intended result of the HeroQuest and  what the participants want to get from the HeroQuest.

For Myths, have a look at Cults of Prax and Cults of Terror, or the Cult Compendium as that combines both. Gods of Glorantha should have long-form cults but does not include Chaos Cults, so you'd have to wait for the companion supplement. Even non-Chaotic cults have some Myths that describe what happened when their deities met/fought/interacted with Chaos and some HeroQuests can be eked out. King of Sartar has a lot of myths including Chaos. 

So, looking at Cults of Compendium, we have:

Primal Chaos - No Myths, so probably just the entering of Chaos into the world and the corruption of the world, not very useful

Mallia - Gaining of Death (Feeding on the blood of the fallen, gaining Death, Lightning Plagues, Festering Disease), Mistress of Ragnaglar (Why, how, partnership with Broos), Propitiation (People worship Mallia to stop her afflicting them with disease, creeping Chaos, corruption of the innocent), Spreading Disease (Mallians can infect wells etc with disease, why not have this as a HeroQuest), Unholy Trinity (Killing Rashoran, Birth of Devil)

Bagog - Gaining of Chaos (Escaping Darkness, Joining the Devil), Mother of Many (Eating victims, laying eggs, birthing new versions)

Thed - Mother of Broos (Wife of Ragnaglar, mother of broos). Unholy Trinity (Killing Rashoran, Embodying Chaos, Mother of the Devil, Distorted in childbirth), Kyger Litor (Killed, skilled and became discorporate), Chaos Void (Thed grants the Chaos Spawn spell that summons a wailing chaos void, where did she get this), Rebirth (Thed has the Ritual of Rebirth spell, was she ritually reborn of Chaos, this becomes a HeroQuest in itself) also from elsewhere Rape (Raped by Ragnaglar, Orlanth's Justice, Goddess of Rape, Wife of Ragnaglar)

Vivamort - Story of Death (Guardian of Secrets, Eurmal's Trick, Theft of Death, Grandfather Mortal, Burnign Sun), Surface World (Flee from Yelm, Yelm's Curse, Mallia, Secrets of Death), The Devil (Wounded by the Devil, Terrible Wound, Pact with Chaos, First Vampire), Rampage (Attacking gods, Could not kill Arroin, Curse of the Sun, Curse of the Earth, Curse of the Waters, Create Basilisk/Zombie/Ghoul), from Plunder, Mazoo's Challenge (Second Vampire, Challenge, Destroyed)

Thanatar - General (Servant of the Devil, Victorious, Killed Genert, Outwitted by Lhankor Mhy), Lhankor Mhy (Outwitted and defeated, Search for Revenge, Dreadful Trap, Knowledge Drain, Outwitted Again), Victory (Stalked the Greater Darkness, Followed the Devil, Beheaded the Mistress of Light and Knowledge), Descent to Hell (Pursued by Hrothmir, Fleeing into Hell, Dazzled by the Sun, Beheaded, Mistress of Light and Knowledge Freed, Beheading of Hrothmir, Final Victory), Divided (Headhunter, Living Skull, Cast into the Ocean, Reunion), Doom Seeker (Initiation HeroQuest, Beheading of an Enemy, Setting fire to a building, Throwing the head into the fire)

Crimson Bat - Mutation (Mutated by Chaos, Immense Appetite), First Age (Banished by Arkat), Moon (Befriended by Red Goddess, Steed of the Red Goddess)

Krarsht - Lesser Darkness (Entered the World, Feeding on many, Battle with Larnste), Storm Bull (Many Battles and Defeats, Stole Storm Bull's Powers, Banished from the surface world)

Nysalor/Gbaji - Rashoran (Secret Knowledge, Stregthened Gods and Goddesses, Taught and Slain by Unholy Trinity), Nysalor (Rebirth, Bright Empire), Gbaji (Curse of Kin, Enslavement of Dragonewts, Battles with Arkat, Destruction), Red Goddess (Reawakened, Allowed her to seek deeper and retuirn with Crimson Bat)

Cacodemon - Son of the Devil (Born from Corpse, Master of the Ogres, Ruler of Great Lands, Driven Out by Trolls)

1 minute ago, AndrewRead said:

So there were plenty of civs around before year 0. Hence plenty of ancient ruins.

Oh, yes. If there's one thing that Glorantha is not short of, it's ancient ruins.

49 minutes ago, David Scott said:

Don’t forget the Guide covers much of this in the trade route section starting on page 468. It lists imports and exports by region.

Why do you think that the shipbuilding industry is rapidly expanding and in what time period?

The Wolf pirates sink the Holy country fleet, so I would suggest a decline in shipping due to the increased Hero Wars activities.

After the Opening, shipbuilding increased. Presumably that is still the case.

Surely, the Holy Country would be rebuilding its fleet?

Glorantha has, broadly, two sets of time, Time and GodTime.

God Time was the Time Before, Mythic Time, the Time of the Gods. This ended when the world was destroyed and remade, with the Great Compromise. The result of the Great Compromise was that the Gods and Goddesses agreed to retire to their own realms and let the other Gods and Goddesses exist, from that agreement, a new child was born, the God/Goddess of Time.

Time is what has happened after that point. After The Dawning, when the Sun rose again, Time could be measured properly, Night follows Day, follows Night. That was just over 1600 years ago.

Although History stretches past the beginning of Time, it is normally the History of the Gods. Most people are descended from tribes who were around after Time started. Very few can claim descent from those living before Time. Dara Happa is a bit different, as it has histories that stretch back to before Time began and has recorded those events. 

1 hour ago, Joerg said:

Talking about cotton and linen, I notice that we haven't discussed textile fibres and the technologies involved in this thread, yet.

The materials from terrestrial woven textiles are present in Glorantha - wool (not just sheep), silk (various insects and spiders), cotton, and linen. Hemp for canvas is likely, too.

In addition, soft basket weaves are used as textiles, too, and there are feather cloaks which may be within the fringe definition of textiles.

 

So, let's speculate, and get creative.

Praxian and Pentian nomads would probably use felt, made from the pressed hair of their riding beasts. They would also have something like Cashmere, from the soft underbellies, Impalas might be good for that. Rhino Riders and Morocanth are at a disadvantage as their herd beasts don't have a lot of hair/fur. I think that Praxians and Pentians also weave long grasses into clothing, especially in Fore Season when the grasses are driest.

Kralori use silk, probably gained from insects.

Uleria's Web existed before Arachne Solara's, but I doubt if Uleria cultists weave, although Seamstress was a euphemism for working girls, so it could apply. 

I agree that Ernalda would have taught weaving and sewing to her followers. Knitting can be found wherever there is wool, so it makes sense that Orlanthi have this, knitting is easier to do than weaving as it doesn't need as much equipment.

Aldryami would use a lot of plant material and would make clothing from that, although their agriculture is different from everyone else's. I think of Aldryami as being Gatherers rather than Planters, utilising the rich resources of their forests.