soltakss

23 hours ago, g33k said:

PC's who end up fighting the actual monsters tend to want weapons like flamethrowers and dynamite, stuff that is outside the normal civilian-scale weaponry.  Often they want more of it than they can get.

Players in my old RQ group had a Call of Cthulhu campaign where they treated it more as a Pulp campaign. Some of them were veterans of the Great War and knew where to get hold of ex-army ordinance. They used flamethrowers, grenades, tommy guns and depth-charged the Deep Ones.

There is no right or wrong way to play Call of Cthulhu.

On 3/16/2018 at 10:19 PM, Joerg said:

Unlike the Godtime, historical events usually cannot be visited in heroquests

Except where they can.

Trolls visit the Cursing of Kyger Litor on a regular basis. The Nights of Horror happened within Time and had HeroQuestors from other periods interacting with the event.

although timeless events when gods walk the earth might be an exception. 

I think that when an event is powerful enough to make a mark on God Time, it can be visited on a HeroQuest, as it is now part of God Time.

Even a minor Hero can make a slight mark and his/her followers can HeroQuest to that point, as can enemies.

On 3/16/2018 at 11:05 PM, Gene M. said:

I have looked at your site before but not that page. Comparing with ebay, not sure I can swing more than one addition to my Prax collection.  What RQ3 book gets your top recommendation? For Prax I have Cults, Pavis & Big Rubble, and Borderlands.

Probably Shadows on the Borderlands, as it links into several other supplements and has the excellent Dyksund cave-crawl.

Strangers in Prax is good because it has different people and links with Pavis. Big Rubble and the Coders. Sun County is good because it details the area very well. But Shadows on the Borderlands has better scenarios.

The RQ3 Praxian supplements are excellent and can be used with Borderlands and Pavis & Big Rubble very easily.

For a massive Praxian campaign, have a look at http://www.soltakss.com/pavis01.html as a guide to what Praxian scenarios are out there.

1 hour ago, M Helsdon said:

Indeed. I have been wondering for some time just what Joerg is arguing about.

I often wonder that, myself. 

20 hours ago, David Scott said:

Given that Yelmalio in the Wastes was effectively formed from a splinter of the sky gazer spirit society who knew him as Sun Daughter.

Sun Daughter? Is that why Light Sons are forbidden to disguise themselves as women?

On 2/26/2018 at 12:37 PM, Akhôrahil said:

If we assume that they're regular troll children, eleven is a remarkable number for any Uz mother.

But for trollkin, it is quite normal.

On 2/26/2018 at 5:46 AM, davecake said:

They don’t get to see them on Ancestor day as part of Clan rites, but if they became true Ancestor worshippers (which would be unusual because Ancestor worship is still a shamanic tradition and so rare among the Heortlings), they would be able to contact them just fine. The problem isn’t clan membership, it’s about having a shaman who is in your bloodline to lead the rites. 

I don't necessarily agree that Ancestor Worship is always shamanic in nature.

In Prax and among Trolls, it is, perhaps also amongst Pentians.

Dara Happan Yelmites who trace their ancestors back to Yelm or other Solar Deities don't worship in shamanic terms, I would see them as having an established Family Tree that they give worship to, or they worship individual ancestors or heroes. The Clan would provide the structure of the cult and together the Ancestral clan would provide magic.

Orlanthi have a very strong Clan background and identify with their Clan. It is not too great a stretch to have Orlanthi worshipping the Clan Ancestors as a whole, or as a collective, in a theistic way rather than shamanically.

Mallia as a Darkness Spirit doesn't mean that she came to the surface after Yelm's Death. Sure, a lot of Darkness Spirits came to the surface with the trolls after yelm invaded Wonderhome, but Mallia could well have come to the surface before that.

I have just re-read the Daka Fal entry that refers to Seshneg and it is interesting.

We know that the early Seshnegi definitely worshipped their ancestors. The Serpent Kings, with the snake legs, had an ancestor cult due to their descent from Seshnela, as far as I am ware, but cannot remember the references.

In fact, I see ancestor worship as taking many different forms:

• The honouring of heroes as Ancestors
• Individual Ancestors as Household Gods, important to the clan but not to anyone else
• Worship of the Clan as a whole and of individual ancestors

Fitting cults/worship/whatever to whatever rules system is in use at the moment is a backwards way of doing things, in my opinion. The rules should cope with various forms of worship.

So, having Man or Spirit as the core of Ancestor Worship is fine, but what effects this has should depend on how the cults work.

I have seen enough martial arts films to know that a long spear can be deadly in the right hands.

They are even useful for poking in tunnels, but not great for squeezing round very tight bends.

15 hours ago, JanPospisil said:

You can also see that Orlanth here has a beard. If you look at recent depictions (in the sourcebook and 13th Age Glorantha), you can see he's got a moustache. 

We are in serious danger of getting silly here.

I have had a beard, moustache and been clean shaven at various points of my life, all such representations of me are correct and different.

There was a spoof Glorantha Digest discussion about "What colour are Uleria's Panties?" and "What colour are Zoran Zoran's eyes?" back in the day, showing that Glorantha fans will argue passionately about anything, even inconsequential things. Nice to see that things haven't changed at all.

11 hours ago, Roko Joko said:

One way to reconcile different in-world art styles is to say they're from different eras.  For example it's easy to imagine that the Icelandic aprons in King of Dragon Pass were worn at the time, but have gone out of fashion 400 years later.

Or are by different artists, or depict different aspects of a deity, or are from different cultures, or are from different clans.

I don't like the idea that all depictions of Orlanth should be the same, otherwise why have different depictions?

Orlanthi depict Orlanth as the Ultimate Chief, or Ultimate Warrior. Yelmites depict Orlanth as a barbarian upstart. Trolls depict Orlanth as a Thief. Westerners depict Orlanth as a Traveller. Which is right? Orlanth wearing Woad will be different to Orlanth the King. Orlanth the Husband of Ernalda will be different to Orlanth the abductor of Nymphs. 

This is where it is fun to make up your own Spirit Societies.

I normally play that Thieves often have their own Spirit Societies, with each Thief Clan having access to one or more Societies, some common to several local clans but some being unique. This gives each clan an edge in certain situations. You can make up these Spirit Societies, giving minor magic, without impacting on Glorantha as a whole.

With two evenly matched, discplined and equipped armies, the artrival of a True Dragon, True Giant or Chaos Demon such as the Crimson Bat will throw all the wargaming out of the window.

Mundane Gloranthan combat is about armies, true Gloranthan combat is about Heroes and Mega-Creatures.

There is a passage in King of Sartar that describes how someone brought an army and, more importantly, a Hero. Too right, armies are a dime a dozen, Heroes are worth their weight in gold.

15 hours ago, Questbird said:

Julian May's Intervention is the bridging novel between the Many Colored Land series (mentioned by soltakss above) and her Galactic Milieu trilogy. 'Intervention' is set on Earth where psychics are starting to appear, and using their powers for good or bad.

And they are all really good, thoroughly enjoyable with some surprises. Best read in order, though, otherwise some of the surprises won't be ...

Bear in mind, this is for a horror game set in the 1920s.

People looked a lot older back then, by and large. My grandparents looked a lot older than my parents do at the same age, the further back you go, the older people looked when they got older.

While the Grey Fox is not recent, Old Crones wrre far more common, I think.

But, that is one of the rules that I would either enforce, ignore or house rule, depending on how I felt on the day.

In any case, how manty CoC PCs/Investigators reach a grand old age?

15 hours ago, David Scott said:

Through rose-tinted glasses:-)

Of course ...

Kickstarter backers could download the 13th Age Rules. I have done and they look interetsing.

B

7 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

They could probably pull the trigger. It might not be pointed at anyone, but...

50/50 chance of hitting the opponent, or yourself, I like those odds ...

In RuneQuest, you can replenish Magic points by putting your hands on a dragonewt plinth, but dragonewts aren't very keen in the idea.

1 hour ago, Jon Hunter said:

Ok i.m sure this has been done to death before, but juts coming up to speed with discussions.

Runequest has always had bronze chainmail in its armor lists etc, RW bronze was never made into chainmail and doesn't have the properties for it how is this reconciled?

• Giving Gloranthan bronze different properties than RW bronze?
• Writing chainmail out of your Glorantha?
• A bit of both?
• Making chain-mail an iron only armor type?
• Any of suggestions /accommodations?

It's Glorantha.

I haven't seen any RW chainmail made of Lead or Gold or Aluminium either, but they are definitely in Glorantha.

I read about the Miskatonic repository in the Ab Chaos newsletter. This provides a way of publishing Call of Cthulhu scenarios etc through Drive Thru RPG.

Are there any plans to do something similar for Glorantha?

On 2/10/2018 at 3:11 PM, simonh said:

The other thing to bear in mind is that Call of Cthulhu is the big earner. It's effectively what pays for all of the other stuff Chaosium produces, so quite understandably has to come first.

Unfortunately for us Gloranthaphiles, that's always going to be the case.