soltakss

On 6/30/2016 at 4:49 PM, TRose said:

 I been toying around of running a Science Fiction game with slower then light space travel where it takes years to travel between planets.

 The players are colonist on a planet and  are going to be pretty much restricted to what the colony can manufacture as what High tech items that where brought from Earth are carefully hoarded and used only when really, really needed. Im thinking with a population of around 10,000 they could achieve  around 1800 technology but would not have the population to devote to specialist to ,say build a stream ship.

 

I would have them build a blast furnace, power station and so on. This allows them to make various kinds of steel, assuming the raw materials are present. Concrete and cement can be made, assuming similar geology to Earth, which means that buildings can be fairly advanced.

I think that raw materials are key.

You cannot make things out of wood if there are no trees, so tree planting would be vital as a long-term resource. 

Geologists and miners would be surveying for minerals. Need copper wire? Find copper deposits and mine them. Need steel? Find iron deposits and mine them.

The first wave of colonists would be true pioneers, searching for these resources, planting trees, making primitive buildings and laying the foundations for later colonists.

Also, don't forget that not every ship going to the colony needs to contain colonists. A number of automated drone ships containing raw materials and supplies would be useful, they don't need life support, can be fully automated and can be recycled when they land, providing valuable raw materials in the form of metals, plastics and so on.

16 hours ago, Corvantir said:

The year of the Borderlands and Beyond adventures is the main reason why I am interested in this campaign. I think it would be easier to introduce my players to Glorantha with the Colymar campaign, because it is designed for that. But starting earlier would be a good way to introduce the setting without spoiling too many things. If I run Borderlands and Beyond after the Colymar campaign, the players will know a lot of things that have not yet happen. It would not be dramatic neither, but I think they and I will appreciate the surprises...  

Have a look at Prax-Pavis Timeline and Amended Pavis-Prax Timeline on my website for some idea on how the various published scenarios link together, with actual dates, if provided. It gives a framework to a Pavis/Praxian campaign.

Regarding seamounts, the whole of the sea south of Genertela consists of sunken lands. They would have had hills and mountains that would be the equivalent of seamounts.

I am not sure if they are official, but I play Curse Spirits as spirits that covertly possess a character. When covertly possessing, they bestow their curse on the victim. The nature of the curse can be whatever you want. Curse Spirits can be sent by a Shaman, can manifest if the character does something really bad, in the same way as spirits of retribution, can be obtained through stealing of items or simply as the result of a curse from a witch or similar person.

In our current campaign, I was planning on using Borderlands then using Troubled Waters to link with the River Voices. What we actually did was some of the Borderlands scenarios as part of a Sun County theme, then Troubled Waters, then Five Eyes Caverns to link with the River Voices.

They work well together, I think.

10 hours ago, Corvantir said:

But though I must admit I have a soft spot for the River of Cradles area, I also have a problem with the Borderlands and Beyond campaign. There are a lot of chances that most of the characters will worship deities or be from cultural backgrounds that consider the Lunars as being evil because they consort with Chaos or have invaded their homeland, if not both. Though he has been disgraced and though he does not worship the Seven Mothers, Duke Raus of Rone remains a Lunar trying to take a foothold in the Lunar Grantlands. If I were playing a Sartarite exile or a Praxian, I would refuse to work for a Lunar and help building a Lunar settlement. Why would my character work for a Lunar?

Are some of you also considering this as a problem? Or on the contrary do you consider this isn't a problem at all? Did you need to convince some of your players that it was acceptable to work for a Lunar? I am interested in your opinions and experiences.  

That is the whole point of the original Borderlands Campaign - Working for someone you don't like.

Admittedly, Duke Raus is a pretty odd Lunar, he worships his ancestors and doesn't really have any strong Lunar opinions. His head of guards is a Humakti not a Yanafali and the Seven Mothers don't really play an important part.

Some of the conflict inherent in the campaign is working for Lunars, other conflict includes deciding which side to back in the diplomatic scenarios.

There are half-trols, human/troll hybrids, so why not half-elves?

Pavis was created as part of a magical ritual, so it isn't just a case of getting jiggy. I would think that the magical ritual was something to do with the EWF, so the knowledge might be lost. However, Pavis had a number of Daughters, so he might have used the ritual himself, which means the ritual might be known to the Pavis cult.

As to Chromosomes, you can not use real-world biology to describe Gloranthan races. Aldryami and Humans can breed because both have the Man Rune. The Flintnail dwarves seem to also have the Man rune, as Pavis fathered a daughter on one of them. Trolls and humans can breed because they share a Man Rune. Nothing about chromosomes there.

11 minutes ago, Iskallor said:

Where is the Serpent Ground? I ran this heroquest at the Bison Khan and Rainman grasslands..

The Argan Argar Atlas has it on Map 31, Dead Bottom, between the Cactus Desert and Sandstorm Hills.

There is a map of the Wastes on the web that has this as "Place where serpents fight and love", between the Firedust and Storbiorn Mountains, but the text isn't very clear.

We call it Soggy Bottom, as the rivers drain here.

The Urban Dictionary says it means tough, but I reckon it also implies being a good fighter/brawler as well. The other meaning probably relates more to Genert ...

For most situations, having a Size Class works well enough. Does it really matter than some people are a bit bigger/smaller than others? For people such as Little John, I simply give them one Size Class higher.

Personally, I prefer having the SIZ characteristic, but that also causes problem when dealing with height and mass, which is why I use LEN and MAS in my RQScifi rules. But Size Class works well enough as an abstract concept.

On 6/22/2016 at 11:58 PM, Patrick said:

I love such Gloranthan discussions!

Let me start with horses (puts Meldek high hat on).
"So, what is a horse?"

A horse is a creature of Fire, that was ripped of its wings, and turned into a four-legged animal rambling the surface of the Earth.
It was then tamed, or domesticated, and so that riders would be able to move faster and further.

"That is the myth - the childish stories these heathens tell at night in their pitiful huts.
But you know more now, my young apprentice.
Let me repeat my question: what is a horse?"

Allright, so Gloranthan horses are somehow related to various Runes.
And, unsurprisingly, the Deities that are linked to horses are also somewhat tied to these Runes.
Who did we mention? Let me think...

 

Don't forget that not all horses descend from Hippoi. 

The Galanini were horse hsunchen who trace their ancestry to Galanin, Father of Horses. Hippoi might have been involved as his wife, but I have not seen that anywhere. I seem to recall that very few of them are hsunchen, having taken on so many outside traditions that they have lost their hsunchen abilities.

Some Grazers say they are descended from the splitting of the Pain Centaurs into man and horse, so at least some of their horses derive from magically-split centaurs.

And Joerg has already mentioned these - Serves me right for going on holiday.

On 6/19/2016 at 11:03 PM, M Helsdon said:

Yelm the Rider riders ride flying creatures, specifically griffins? Not horses.

Well, according to Wyrms Footprints, "Yelm the Rider is another famous aspect of the Sun God. The original steed of Yelm was King Griffin, ancestor of the great race of sun-loving creatures. Ever since that time the cult has taught the skill of riding flying beasts (specially griffins). However, when Yelm was slain King Griffin quarrelled with the other light gods and his children withdrew themselves from being slaves to people who rode them. Thus it is that so few people ride on these wondrous animals, even where the sun is worshipped".

From this, I assume that some cultists of Yelm the Rider ride flying beasts, but most probably ride horses. Very few ride griffins. I suppose hippogriffs are possible, but they are very rare. I cannot see Yelm cultists ridging draconic creatures or Sky Bulls, Pegasi are not common in Glorantha, so what other beasts can they ride?

2 hours ago, David Scott said:

The angle I'm taking in the Prax book is that the anti-horse attitude depends on who you are. Historically we know that horse riders have caused problems for the Praxians, even Joraz accepted that, hence the zebra experiment. That was an opportunity for him to consolidate power by making a new tribe out of old parts. Derik effectively did the same. Even though horses aren't Eiritha's beasts, they are accepted at the Paps. If a storm bull pol-Joni Storm bull turns up with other beast riders, they aren't going to be picked on, Storm Bull is Eiritha's husband. The horse hatred is just another way of picking on those you want to attack, but the pol-Joni have survived and integrated themselves into the tribes. As one of the 12 independents, the pol-Joni are small, compared to the combined masses of the great tribes. Had they not integrated, they would of been smashed by now.

Certainly the Pol Joni, Zebra Riders and Unicorn Riders don't mind horses. 

However, I would not want to be riding a horse through Prax or the Wastes unless I was well-hard.

On 6/7/2016 at 6:28 PM, davecake said:

Personally, I think that wizards staffs are a much more common thing, and are more commonly used by some orthodox Malkioni

But do they have a knob on the end?

On 6/8/2016 at 4:53 AM, Joerg said:

From the account in King of Sartar, it appears possible to perform just part of a heroquest for its reward, and be done with it, as Sartar did when he performed the Westfaring portion of the Lightbringers' Quest in order to provide a wyter for his kingdom - basically doing the quest for Ginna Jar.

It is also a good way of building up to a quest. Perform some of the Stations as individual HeroQuests then perform the whole Quest. That's basically what Harmast did when he did the Lighbringer Quest.

Applying this to the Aroka quest, there could be a way to just gather the seven winds and seduce the Dark Woman without facing the Blue Dragon at the end of the journey.

I think a big HeroQuest might have several HeroQuest Challenges, allowing the HeroQuestor to defeat several foes.

On 6/12/2016 at 4:38 AM, Rick Meints said:

While we have the chance to do at least 2 or 3 more "unpublished" scenarios like the Sea Cave, it seems like there isn't much interest in doing them in this OSR format. Is that how those that have seen the Sea Cave feel?

As for which ones are in the hopper, we have the Howling Tower, Miskander's Tower, and an Aldryami one.

I'd definitely like to see the Howling Tower. I would probably prefer them collected into one supplement though.

On 6/3/2016 at 11:31 AM, David Scott said:

@soltakss Given your RPG/Rune list, you don't seem satisfied with what's out there. So what do you suggest?

I've got a homebrew system that is based on what Steve Perrin did for MRQ1 but highly adapted. It is full of holes and only works if you don;t look at it to closely. Wpuld it be suitable for anyone outside our gaming group? No.

I am not against the idea of using Runes in Glorantha, in fact I am all for it.

What I am against is redefining elements of established Glorantha so they seem to fit a particular set of rules. RQ3 did it to a certain extent. With the introduction of HeroQuest. 7th Age and RuneQuest to Glorantha, there are competing sets of rules that describe Glorantha. I would hate to see aspects of Glorantha changed just so they agree with the individual rulesets.

But, give me a flexible working set of rules for runes and I'll use them in my campaign.

For me, tying RQ entirely to Glorantha is probably a mistake.

However, do I care? Not really.

We have Mythras, Revolution, Legend, OpenQuest and Renaissance that will provide supplements outside Glorantha that I can use and adapt. Even Chaosium has BRP that will do similar things. 

Will it dilute the RuneQuest brand? Of course. Do I care? Of course not. I don't own the RuneQuest brand.

Moon Design and Chaosium will have the sales figures when the new RuneQuest comes out. They are the ones who will know if it has been successful.

I've never really bothered with runes until recently.

RQ2 had Priests gaining the Magic Rune, Lords gaining the Mastery Rune, Heroes gaining the Infinity Rune and that was about it.

RQ2/3 gave cults a Runic Association that was useful in working out what runes a PC should have, but it went no further.

Hero Wars had Runic Affinities which were OK but tied themselves in knots.

HeroQuest Glorantha had a very strict way that runes worked, far too strict for my tastes.

Personally, I like having runes available that affect the PC and can be used by the PC but that don't overwhelm the PC. 

What I hate is when the game world changes because the rules have changed. The game world should be what it is and the rules should reflect or mimic certain aspects of the game world.

Personally, I don't really care what is in which edition of RQ/D100-style rules.

I take what I like and ignore what I don't, so I'll take the good bits from RQ, Mythras, Legend, BRP, Renaissance, Revolution and so on.

Thanatar is a Truth Rune cult and has Geases.

Yelorna also has geases and is not a Truth Rune cult, but is closely associated with Yelmalio.

I prefer to use Common Magic rather than Spirit/Battle Magic. 

Spirit Magic always seemed to imply using spirits, which the magic clearly didn't do, except for using Spell Spirits to store spells and to learn spells from.

Many spells are not battle-oriented and were not in RQ2, so we thought that Battle Magic was badly named way back then.

13 hours ago, jajagappa said:

I suspect the Gargoyles will object, probably to the detriment of the carver. :-)

There was an article on vivisculpture in Tales of the Reaching Moon that explicitly covered the carving of gargoyles as a work of art.

It's a confusing mix of different things.

Some events are in sequence, so you can follow the Story of Death, Orlanth and Ernalda, the Lightbringer Quest and many other stories as essentially linear events that have sections that follow on from others. However, you might also find a child of Orlanth and Ernalda taking part in an event that happened before the Wooing of Ernalda.

So, just assume that events in the God Time happened. The sequence of when they happened is of far less importance than the fact that they happened.

In my second RQ group there was a deadly serious Duck Humakti, called Pektok. He was little but very strong and very healthy and wielded a mean Greatsword. Once his player and another player joined a different RQ group for an all day session and they brought their PCs, Pektok and Derak the Dark Troll, but each played the other's PC, then halfway through the game they switched PCs and played their own PCs, but the other players couldn't tell which PC belonged to which player. In that session, a centaur PC laughed at the "lidde-widdle duck" until the liddle-widdle duck calmly walked between his legs and proceeded to gut him from front to back.