soltakss

My Pavic/Praxian Campaign draws heavily on Ian Thomson's stuff. Pavis tried to unite the elemental forces in a City of Harmony. In my campaign, he was already part human, part Aldryami, one of his daughters was part-Mostali, in my campaign another daughter was part-troll, but she was betrayed by the River Voices of that time and imprisoned in Hell. I have a daughter of Pavis trapped in the Puzzle Canal, part mermaid, but the PCs haven't found her yet. So, in my campaign, Pavis united Earth, Water and Darkness through mating. I doubt if he mated with a minotaur, he could have intended to mate with an Agimori, so he doesn't have Air/Storm or Fire descendents. Again in my campaign, he went to the Green Age to bring back more powers of Harmony, but was trapped there, again betrayed by one of the River Voices of the time. The people of Pavis used the Darkness link to call the Trolls to help them but were betrayed when the trolls took over. However, this is definitely a case where my Glorantha varies.

We had Yamsur's Crown as well. Our PCs found Yamsur's Chariot in the Old Sun Dome Temple and this allowed them to found a Charioteers Society which was a vehicle for bringing back Yamsur.

Presumably he grants a couple of spells Everyone Goes to Sleep and Everyone Wakes Up.

Orlanth is King of the Storm Tribe, King of the Gods and married to the Queen of the Earth Tribe. Genert is King of the Earth Tribe. There is a clash right there, in that Ernalda is Queen of the Earth Tribe and Genert was King of the Earth Tribe, someone is going to step on the other's toes at some point. Genert is Orlanth's Uncle and is probably one of the Bad Uncles who threw Orlanth, Storm Bull and Ragnaglar into pits. What effect that had on the relationship is not clear. It looks as though Orlanth left Genert's Garden alone, by and large. Presumably Genert was too big and powerful to mess with. One thing that orlanth was incapable of doing through the Lightbringer Quest was bringing Genert back. If a PC hero could do this then he would surpass Orlanth and, thereby, become a Hero. Orlanth probably wouldn't be too unhappy about this, as long as Genert leaves the Earth Tribe alone. The PCs brought back Sartar and Tarkalor, purged the Crimson Bat of Chaos and drove the Lunars out of Sartar and the Holy Country. Melo Yelo became King of Dragon Pass, yes really. He was also accepted as an honorary son of Yelm and became a way for beast folk to join cults of Light. One of the PCs emulated the Pharaoh and restored the Fish Roads in the Holy Country, he also united the people, who had been at war, then brought the Only Old One back. They HeroQuested to prove that all the World's Waters were connected and that they could act as Voices for all the Waters of the World, not just Zola Fel. They sent an aspect of Krarsht and the Gloomshark on the Cleansed One Quest and, in doing so, caused the ravaging of the upper half of the Zola Fel basin, before forcing them to eat each other. As for Genert, he has taken his place in Genert's Palace, where he is licking his wounds and regrouping. Whether he is an Aspect of Genert or the full deity remains to be seen. At the moment, he can act within Time, so is probably an Aspect. Many Earth people are sending emissaries to Genert and the PCs routinely go and drive out any Lunar emissaries. Tada rules Prax and treats Genert as a High King. The Elves have started the reforestation of Prax and are creating many groves. The PCs have forced them to allow for open areas for grazing and farming. The land is slowly becoming more fertile as Genert gains in strength. The PCs performed a version of the Ritual of the Net to bring all the people of Prax together in harmony, binding them together. They have now done something similar to bring together the people of Prax, Dragon Pass and the Holy Country together in harmony, as they have found that every time they go away for long periods of time, disharmony comes along and the various people fight and weaken themselves. They have put Tada, The Only Old One and the Feathered Horse Queen as regents, forming a High Council, while they are away. Fair enough. I had a saying "First the Slave, then the Master", which the players interpreted as First Tada, then Genert and brought them back in that order. Why isn't the player planning to bring back Tada? He is Vingkot's father in Law and has a connection to the Storm Tribe.

That is a big change. Don;t forget that Dorasor came and allied with Pavis, but as his follower, not his equal, so the clans of Pavis County follow Pavic Law rather than Sartarite Law, or rather they follow both but Pavic Law takes precedence. What does this mean? For problems in the clan, Sartarite and Tradition probably outweighs Pavic law, unless someone wants to appeal to the Pavic Courts. For problems between clans, Sartarite and Tradition apply in many cases, but Pavic Law probably applies more often. For problems between clans and other people, Pavic Law generally applies. There is a lot of roleplaying potential in having two legal systems that have different ideas on what is legal, what is a crime and what is the punishment. As the PC's clan is a new clan, Tradition only needs apply so much, as the PC can make Tradition up as he goes along. Yes the clans are autonomous. Some are linked to clans in Sartar, others are not. Don't forget that a lot of the clans were formed by exiles from Sartar and a lot of those were outlaws, so have severed ties with their original clans. See above, Orlanthi law applies in some cases, Pavic Law apples in others. The parts where they disagree result in appeals, legal hearings and so on. It is definitely possible to appeal to the Pavic Courts. However, Pavic Citizens can appeal to Pavic Courts in a different way, they can demand to be tried as Pavic Citizens under Pavic Law, no matter what the Orlanthi Law says. The Dorasing clans have an intricate structure. Some are linked to the old clans in Sartar, so are treated as faraway parts of those clans. Some are formed of outlawed exiles and are hostile to the original Sartarite clans that exiled them for political reasons. Some were founded by exiles and people from other Dorasing clans, so have mixed views regarding the Sartarite clans and other Dorasing clans. Where the clans are connected to the original Sartarite clans, they will have inherited those clan likes and dislikes. Two such clans might be hostile because the clans in Sartar are hostile. Clans founded by exiles might be hostile to both their original Sartatite clans and the clans founded by the enemies of their old Sartarte clans. This makes for a complex mix of inter-clan politics, feuds and rivalries. Add into this the "civilising" influence of Pavis and you get a mixture of clans with a weakened Orlanthi way. In Pavis itself, people identify themselves with pavis first and their clans second. In pavis county they might identify with Pavis first, or their own clans first. This makes things confusing, which is always good. I would say there are duels and feuds. If someone dies, then the clans could pay weregild and that's the end of it. Or, they could appeal to Pavis, especially if one of the parties is a Pavic Citizen. Cattle raiding is more problematic. On the one hand, there is an honourable tradition of cattle raiding stretching into the God Time, On the other hand, they are surrounded by tribes of hostile Praxians. So, most dorasing clans would raid each other for cattle, but only a few brave souls would raid Praxians for cattle, unless they found a weak praxian clan.

The PCs in our Praxian campaign have done exactly that. Obviously, not everything was done by the PCs themselves, as this has been a centuries-long project. I assumed the people of the Growing Grounds had been collecting hyena skins and other parts of Genert for a long time and had stitched them together into a form loosely resembling Genert's body. But they were stuck as to what else to do. The PCs in the campaign had been to a hidden shrine on the Wastes and had found a jackal-headed statue buried in the sand. The mouth was open and they could see something glinting in its throat, perhaps a gem or jewellry. When someone put their hand in to get the gem, the mouth closed, neatly severing the arm, but when they pulled the arm out, it was intact but made of copper. There followed a flurry of sticking arms and legs into the mouth to get some copper limbs, but the power only worked on each PC 1D4 times, do they had a variety of copper limbs. This marked them out as Earth People, which allowed them to contact the people of the Growing Grounds later on. The PCs were also River Voices and soon realised that "Wherever they were, so was Zola Fel", so their Zola Fel magic worked away from the river. They had found a Death Barge in Snakepipe Hollow, that was part of the River Voices' regalia and could use it to travel along rivers and which could travel through any underground river, no matter how small the passage. They used this to form water beneath the Barge and that allowed them to travel along dry land, as if on a river, for Wherever they were, so was Zola Fel. They traveled through the Wastes on their Barge, bringing Zola Fel to the Wastes. A little later, a PC performed the Yelm-Oslir HeroQuest several times, to become the husbands of Kinope/Zola Fel. Next year, they repeated the HeroQuest, in opposition to the Yelmalians, marrying Kinope instead of the Yelmalian candidate, and repeated the next year. The year after, the Count had prepared a more powerful candidate, but a Moon Boat appeared and a cadre of Sun Lords of Yelm disembarked and proceeded to lie down on the ground. Another Yelm Sun Lord came off and walked upon the bodies of the Sun Lords, who quickly got up and moved to the front, allowing him to walk without touching the ground. This was the Red Emperor himself, come to perform the Yelm-Oslir HeroQuest. The PCs nearly soiled the holy waters of Zola Fel when they realised who it was. They performed the HeroQuest and persuaded the Red Emperor to return in Seven Years time, at which point they would marry the Zola Fel to the Red Emperor, as long as they had not already found a suitable husband. The Red Emperor accepted this judgement and left. Now, who could be a suitable husband for Zola Fel? Genert! But, isn't he dead? No problem, said an initiate of Cartith the Desert Tracker, we can resurrect him! He then told the PCs the secrets of the hyena skin. When they went to the Growing Ground, they found that the people there recognised them as People of the Earth and gave them a lost of parts of Genert they had been searching for and could not find. The PCs went on a series of adventures where they found these bits of Genert. His Hair was the coat of the Great Angry Beast, a mammoth that appeared once a generation to trample over some sacred places, the PCs found that it had Tada's Spear stuck in its foot and that was what was making it Angry, His Eyes were crystals that they found in a couple of places. His Liver was in Grandfather Newt's tail, which made all newtling tails taste of liver, which they found by bringing back Grandfather Newt by reforming his statue and going to the rainbow Mounds to take part in his battle with the Rock Lizard Mother, eventually they realised he had Genert's Liver in his tail and retrieved it, thus making Newtling Tails no longer tasty. His penis was in a statue on the Holy Country, so a female PC HeroQuested to show that she was the hero whose statue was in the sanctuary, described as a Ugly Cock-Woman (A running joke as the PC was rolled up with 6 CHA), the people recognised her and she walked out with Genert's Penis as part of her, but 6 feet long. I think they found his testicles somewhere as well, but I cannot remember. His Breath was trapped in a demon and they HeroQuested to the Green Age to find his Soul. Finally, they managed to get all the missing pieces together. They then used a Green Desert ability that they had picked up, together with the fact that they had brought Zola Fel to the Wastes, to make parts of the Wastes bloom again, They spent over a year, game time, finding all the Hidden Greens of Prax and uniting them in one big patchwork of fertility. they also united the Oasis People by going to each Oasis and showing that they were part of a great whole and not isolated. they assembled the regalia of Tada and brought him back. Melo Yelo translated words on a great pyramid in God Time and became Prophet of Pavis, allowing them to bring back Pavis from the Green Age. Once they had done all of that, they realised that they could use bits of what they had done to help in the bringing back of Genert. They made a new aspect of Zola Fel, Queen Zola Fel, who was the goddess of water in the Wastes, They married Genert to Queen Zola Fel, even though he was dead. They used Queen Zola Fel as Genert's wife to reinvigorate the land, in conjunction with Green Desert. They brought all the Hyenas to the Growing Ground where they vomited up all the parts of Genert. They built a pit and put therein 1,000 people that they then sacrificed to Genert, without batting an eyebrow. They forged the New Copper Army, by shaping the Copper Sands into the dead copper folk. They went to the Green Age and brought back Genert's Life Force, pumped it through Queen Zola Fek in the Wastes, used that to make parts of the desert green, They put everything together and did a lot more stuff to ring back Genert and restored him to life. they then married King Genert and Queen Zola Fel again, to reinforce the bond. I know I have missed a lot out, but that is the gist of how they did it.

The Hand of the Devil is in the Devil's Marsh, according to an issue of Codex. There is a set of caves under the Devil's Marsh, in the shape of a hand, and a scenario to go with it. Theoretically, the Good Canal might have washed some parts of the Devil away, allowing some to have been washed into Sartar. I suppose some enterprising followers of Gbaji might have HeroQuested to find some of the Devil's Bits and taken them away, similarly some rogue Lunars might want to do the same.

Ah, but minotaurs are not just descended from Storm Bull, in fact they are descended from his son, Minotaurus (This was in a Wyrms Footnotes but I cannot remember which one). So, not all children of Storm Bull are Minotaurs. In fact, Minotaurus might have been the child of Storm Bull and Uralda, as he has a bull's head. His descendants are minotaurs. Minotaurs being the descendants of Minotaurus mean that they would not take the form of Praxian herd beasts. Storm Bull could well mate with Eiritha, or one of her daughters, to produce the equivalent of Minotaurus for a Praxian herd beast, but he probably hasn't done this. I don't think that would be the case anyway. The fact that Storm Bull can breed with cattle does not mean that other descendants of Storm Bull can. The Praxian herd beasts are descended from Eiritha, not from Storm Bull. True, the Founders of the tribes are descended from Storm Bull but not the beasts themselves. Similarly, Aurochs are descended from Uralda not from Storm Bull. So, you have herd beasts descended from Eiritha and cattle descended from Uralda, why would they be able to breed? Waha is definitely not a minotaur, as he is not descended from Minotaurus. He is a many-great uncle to minotaurs. He is usually portrayed as human, as he is the ancestor of the human Khans, no matter which herd beast they have, but he could be represented as a morokanth, as he is also the ancestor of morokanth khans. In my Glorantha, the White Bull was a spirit that appeared to all the tribes of Prax and also appeared to some tribes in Sartar and Pent. The PCs in our current Praxian campaign saw the White Bull on a HeroQuest and sacrificed to him, so their steeds turn white when they are together. As they are of different tribes, they realised that this could unite the tribes and found others who had this ability. They united the White Bull Societies of Prax, in the same way that Argrath did in canon. One of our PCs pointed out that his zebra looked pretty much the same as a horse when white, it just had white stripes on white stripes. They went to Pent to speak to the nomads about attacking the Lunar Empire, using the white zebra as a way in to prove they were related in some way, but one of the Pentian's horses turned white when they appeared, identifying him as a member of the White Stallion Sacred Society. This allowed the PCs to unite the White Bull and White Stallion Societies and prove some kinship between Prax and Pent. This also allowed some Grazelander/Pentian HeroQuestors to enter Prax as the reborn Pure Horse People, in fact they revealed themselves under a great web, spun by thousands of giant spiders. The PCs called on the White Bull and White Stallion to appear and the whole group sacrificed and proved that they had the same kinship. But our campaign has wandered quite far from canon Glorantha.

But Death is also an Axe, a Club, an Arrow, a Spear, a Garrotte, Hooves, Horns and so on. Any cult which has the Death rune probably has a myth about "How our Deity got hold of Death" and that myth normally doesn't involve swords.

Pretty much the above. If the NPC is being evasive, lying or hostile, then make a roll, otherwise just ask nicely. As a Keeper, if I see the players aimlessly wondering what to do, then I'll drop a clue, then a Clue, then a CLUE. Depending on how nice I am feeling, I might laugh at them for missing the obvious clues, thereby adding a fourth clue for them to spot. If they don't spot the fourth clue, basically me telling them that there is a clue, then it's their own fault. in that situation, they stumble into the thing that the clue would have warned them about, without any preparation, which is punishment enough in my opinion. CoC can come across as being incredibly frustrating, as the Investigators miss all the clues and the Keeper smugly waiting for them to do something. However, a kinder Keeper helps them out. After all, they won;t want to miss going insane and being eaten, would they?

They are not ready for general use, more as aids for me to generate NPCs quickly, but have a look at http://www.soltakss.com/spreadsheets/

Great Trolls routinely use swords, maybe because Cragspider lets them be set alight. Kyger Litor trolls could use axes, but tend to only use them when someone sings the Tree Chopper Song, as they can use Axes as if they were using Mauls/Maces. There is a delightful myth that explains why Zorak Zoran uses a maul and Babeester Gor uses an axe, that I have embraced. I am not sure if it is canon, though. The Sazdorf Humakti use swords, but they are just weird.

The first one suits Easy Rider Storm Bisons, with reins on the end of the horns.

That is the classical way that CoC is done, however it is not the only way. Pulp CoC works well, for example. Don't forget that CoC combat can be quite deadly, so I would restrict the amount of gunplay. Have fist-fights and similar, in fact chasing heavies or being threatened by thugs can be fine for some kinds of CoC games. I'd have unarmed combat as being non-deadly, except for trained people, so you can be duffed up as many times as it makes sense, but it isn't going to kill you. That makes combat less dangerous. I wouldn't show monsters until they are really necessary. CoC is not a "Oh look, there is a Deep One" kind of a game. Monsters are supposed to be scary and distort your view of reality. Instead, use cultists, helpers and hangers-on to build up the tension.

I've put together spreadsheets for generating stats for various d100 systems, mainly to help with generating NPCs, so an M-Space one should be fairly straightforward. The trickiest bit is how to allocate points when there is a choice, that makes the spreadsheet quite unwieldy. Everything else is a mixture of VLOOKUP and lots of tables and sheets.

This reminds me of the "Gloranthan metals are like terrestrial metals but different " statement that completely confused people. If they look like our bison, eat like our bison and behave like our bison then why make a distinction? What is different about them? Most differences can be dealt with by having slightly different stats (RuneQuest) or different skills (RQ/HQ) or different behaviours. I can easily imagine the bison in the Elder Wilds being a different type to Praxian Bison, as they are bigger and have a potentially different mythical basis (Not part of the Survival Covenant). Pelorian Bison are probably the same as praxian Bison, as they are descended from Praxian Bison. Having different sub-species of Bison is Ok, as long as they are there for a good reason.

For RQ2/RQ3. POW was an expendable commodity and POW gains were obtained by overcoming in a POW vs POW or MP vs MP contest, usually through casting a spell. I think that a successful resistance also worked, but we never used that, as we only gave experience ticks to the activa participant. In a quite time between adventures, POW was increased as part of overall experience, you simply had to roll (Species Maximum POW (21 for humans) - Current POW) x 5% and success gained you some POW, rolled on a table in RQ2 or 1D3 in RQ3. Other versions of RQ downplayed this, as POW was used for so much it became a POW-economy, where POW was all important.

What damage does a guitar do?

I would buy a book that allowed a Sharpe or Hornblower themed campaign.

I am looking at expanding my Big Rubble map and was sure that I had seen a fan-produced map of the Troll areas of the Big Rubble, once upon a time. It showed where the main troll clans were in the Big Rubble and had some of the ruins, like the Krang's table map but less detailed. Does anyone know where this map is? I am sure I haven't dreamed it. Also, are there any maps of the different areas of the Big Rubble in more detail? I have the Ian Thomson maps already, which are very detailed but non-canonical. Hopefully someone will know of a treasure trove of maps online.

Thanks - Just seen that there are two Manes of the Dead, one is closed with 1 backer and the other is open with 54 backers (55 now!).

Very irritating that Manes of the Dead, the only purely digital option, was limited and is no longer available. When will companies realise that there are people who do not want physical copies but only want PDFs?

It means that I don't list the abilities on the character sheet, but I have a list of abilities that the keywords can use. PCs can add breakouts for any of those abilities without having a story hook, for example, or can use those abilities without a penalty. So, all Hunters would be able to Track at their Hunter ability, but a Hunter worshipping an Eagle Hunter deity might have Excellent Vision but a Yinkini Hunter might have Track by Smell, both implied in their Hunter, but the Yinkini would not have Excellent Vision and the Eagle Hunter would not have Track by Smell. I tend to keep things very flexible and freeform, rather than PCs detailing exactly what abilities they can use.

I have no problem with Humakti using the Death Rune to power battle healing, but would apply penalties for them using Death to power curing disease or assisting pregnancy.

Of course they love hamsters, how else are they going to power their World Machine Wheels? I can imagine Grandfather Hamster running a great World Machine Wheel and powering a Mostali complex.