soltakss

Mainly from reading about Glorantha for 30 years. RQ2 had a fair bit about Beast Valley and I am sure that the Wild Temple was written up in one of the fanzines ages ago. The stuff about the EWF and Crossline is well-documented, in fact there is a place called Stone Cross that is part of the old CrossLine. Ironhoof is a Gloranthan Hero and ruler of Beast Valley, he is mentioned a bit in King of Sartar. The rest is extrapolated from information that I know about the Beastmen, mixed in with the way that I like to play/run them. I like capitals. The Lost Hawk is a reference to the locating of the Eagle of the Ninth Legion in Roman Britain, based on the Eagle of the Ninth books by Rosemary Sutcliffe. It's just an idea that the Templars lost a standard and need to get it back, I used Hawk rather than Eagle as hawks are Yelmalian birds whereas eagles are Yelm's birds. OK, that makes sense. So, he goes off on the impossible task and returns 2 years later, having achieved the task. The Templars see w#him as being AWOL for 2 years, but because he has completed the hazing and brought back what they wanted, they say "Oh, right, thanks for that" and let him rejoin the Templars. Rather underwhelmed by their reaction, the PC would feel used, unappreciated, undervalued and would seek the first chance to escape the Templar life. After all, with 2 years experience under his belt, does he need to train/serve with the Templars?

You are probably from the Sartar Sun Dome Temple, in that case, as Beast valley is to the south of there. OK, some history first, then some culture. About 500 years ago, give or take, there was the Empire of the Wyrms Friends (EWF), a mighty empire that worshipped, emulated or became dragons. They went off to forgotten magical realms and brought back many new, or old, races, including ducks, centaurs, minotaurs and many more. These were used in gladiatorial games, as playthings for the elite and as lovers, slaves and warriors. However, the EWF came to a sticky end as their leaders betrayed them, their captains were killed and a mighty horde came from the West to sack the empire. Then came the Dragonkill. This was when dragons from all ages materialised and killed almost everyone who attacked the EWF, and a large number of EWF citizens in the process. This was the mother of all disasters, if not the grandmother or great-grandmother. The Dragonewts, or the Dragons, or somebody else, as nobody remembers, then built the Crossline, or Death Line, a row of Death Runes that formed a barrier to those who would come from the south and the north. To the north of the southern Crossline was a valley where many of the beasts that had been used as entertainment by the EWF came. One of their number was a mighty Centaur Hero named Ironhoof. He took Beast Valley as his own and made the beast people safe there. After a couple of centuries, people ventured northwards and resettled the land that is now called Sartar. However, they tended to leave Beast Valley alone, as it was full of monsters. A Hero called Sartar founded his kingdom and made friends with Ironhoof, granting the beasts sovereignty over the land. North of Beast Valley was a ruined temple mto a Sun God of the EWF, and light cultists gravitated there, setting up a new temple. When the sun cultists of Sartar split, many went southwards to the temple and formed a new colony of sun-worshipping Yelmalians in Sun County. So, that's the history. Now for the culture of Beast Valley. It is full of beasts, and beasts are the only ones officially allowed to live there. Ironhoof the Centaur Hero rules there and sires many children with his herd of mares. Although Ironhoof is a centaur, he does not grant centaurs privileges and they live as one of many races there. Beast Valley is a place of harmony, where everyone lives in an idyllic way, close to nature and friendly to everyone. Nymphs frolick in the hills and valleys, in the waters and caves, befriending the beasts. Minotaurs stride majestically through the woods, greeting the elves and dryads, carrying axes that pose no harm to the trees. Ducks live alongside the ponds and streams of Beast Valley, protected from outside harm. Fauns and Satyrs have their bucolic fun in the pastures and meadows, enticing maidens and nymphs into their special fun. Centaurs roam the pastures, meadows and plains, living in family herds. Fox women giggle from the bushes and wolfmen roam the woods, but both are harmless. Get the picture? Of course, nothing is what it seems. This is a Wild Place. There is a Temple called Wild Temple, where the Nymphs and Beasts gather for wild, orgiastic ceremonies to various gods and goddesses of nature and the wilds. They even have blood sacrifices there, on occasion. Humans, except for the occasional Grazelander, are definitely not welcome, as this is a place of Beasts. Centaurs are aloof, Minotaurs are bestial and savage berserkers, satyrs and fauns are seducers of women, fox-women are temptresses of the highest order, wolfmen are savages who eat babies, ducks are outlaws and cowards, but all are united in their distrust of humans and their desire to keep Beast valley ruled by beasts. Humans who settle there are often killed and eaten. Those who survive do so for several reasons. They are powerful heroes. They are skilled in combat. They have proven themselves to be descended from Beasts. They have proven themselves to be friends of the Beasts. They have been to the Wild Temple and have been accepted there. Now, if your PC was a victim of hazing and ran away, then he would be considered a coward. Stories about how he lived in Beast Valley would be treated as the tales of a coward, made up to hide the truth. If your PC was made to go into Beast Valley as part of the Hazing, then was lost, his return might cast the perpetrators in a very bad light indeed, nobles or not. Was he searching for something in Beast Valley? Maybe an artefact, maybe a lost Templar, maybe the Lost Hawk of a Yelmalian Standard. Has he returned with someone? An exotic wife, perhaps. A centaur or minotaur travelling companion? An enemy who dogs his tracks. An old girlfriend who won't give up on him, despite being unsuitable to the Templars?

Remind me not to ask for advice again - twice burned ...

It looks good, but is a little confusing. What would be really useful is a combination of the tables, showing the MW/CoC/BRP/RQ3/RQ2/Legend/RQ6 movements and how they relate to each other, a little like the Coc/BRP and RQ3/BRP tables. The distances aren't that important to me, except perhaps metres per round, but a comparison of all of them would be very useful.

Reported again

Reported.

By the way, this is definitely not an Anti-Magic World thread - I know that it is a well written, good supplement and that Ben has done an excellent job. Whilst I would love to support Chaosium by buying everything, I just cannot afford to, so I have to be choosier about what I can buy. After all, with Legend, RQ6, HeroQuest, BRP and Magic World to support, things get very expensikve very quickly. But, if the best chef in the world made the best coconut in liquorice sauce, there is nothing that would make me try it.

Nope, not an April Fool and no, I haven't bought MW. I love the Young Kingdoms and Tragic Millennium settings and have a couple of shelves of Michael Moorcock's works, so that wouldn't be a problem for me. But, being an RQ Fogey, as has been pointed out, and having used all the RQ-style optional rules for Merrie England, I do have a hankering for RQ3+. Things I never really liked about Elric/Stormbringer - Variable Armour (OK, I thought it was cool for about 10 minutes, then used it in play and changed my mind), Major Wounds/No Hit Locations (So, I have to know how much damage I have taken before I decide whether it is worth finding out where I have been hit - that never made sense to me), Initiative (I think, but it has been a while since I played), D8s for chaotic creature characteristics (I know why it was done, but didn't like it), the rules for extra parries, even ripostes didn't feel right to me. I liked RQ2, RQ3, Ringworld and Thieves World as systems. I also liked Stormbringer and Hawkmoon as settings, but found the rules themselves to be not really my cup of tea. So, all I was asking is, given my BRP/RQ preferences, would spending a fair amount on a Magic World PDF make me feel that I have wasted my money? From the answers, it would seem that it would, so that has possibly saved me from getting grumpy, or grumpier. And now that I know who Conrad really is, so much suddenly makes sense.

Both the "bad" Avalon Hill RQ supplements were OK, just nowhere near as good as the good Gloranthan ones. I think we were used to cream and got powdered milk in a glass.

I have got all the versions of RQ in either book form or as PDFs, Legend in both, OpenQuest as PDF and BRP in both formats, so I have a fair number of D100-style games. I don't really need any more, but that was the case before RQ6 and before Legend and before MRQ2, so that won't stop me. Given that I wasn't particularly impressed by Stormbringer and its extended family (I like Hit Locations, prefer RQ-Style combat/skills, am not keen on Stormbringer's Demon rules) and the fact that the Magic World PDF costs more than the paperback and PDF of Legend combined, if I bought the PDF of Magic World, would it really annoy me? I don't want to say anything bad against Magic World, in fact a reskinning of BRP without the options and in a coherent form is good, and by all accounts it is an excellent job. However, if I bought it and it just seemed like another version of Stormbringer, then I wouldn't be very pleased at all. So, should I buy it? By the way, saying yes just to annoy me would be a legitimate reply - please say what you are doing if that is the case.

When I wrote Age of Eleanor, I intended to write two or three supplements a year, detailing more of Medieval England and its surroundings. However, Mongoose pulled the RQ Licence and decided to go alone. So, we decided to go with BRP, as that was very similar to RQ. As part of this, I rewrote Age of Eleanor and also added in 3 of the supplements that I had planned to write for RQ Merrie England. Merrie England: Age of Chivalry is 3 times as big as Age of Eleanor and contains expanded religion rules, Heaven and Hell, Demons and Demonology including a writeup of many Medieval Demons and their powers and more. The full Table of Contents for Age of Chivalry can be found at http://www.soltakss.com/merrieengland/ME_TOC.txt and for Age of Eleanor at http://www.soltakss.com/merrieengland/ME_AOE_TOC.TXT - you should be able to see what has been added.

I would say soon, but it won't be. Things I have in the pipeline first (All for Legend): Non-Humans (Using non-humans as PCs, creating new non-humans, creating new backgrounds/professions, homebews) Land of Ice and Stone (Old Stone Age Europe roleplaying) The Dark Isles (Gaming in post-Roman Britain) Legend:SciFi (A port of the Legend rules to SciFi) After that, Merrie England:Age of Crusade or Merrie England:Age of Adventure, or a combination of the two. Probably sometime in 2014 or 2015, at this rate.

Ignore Hit Locations Does not compute ...

Thanks - always good to hear. Merrie England was originally designed for MRQ(1/2) and was converted to BRP. However, the conversion was done in such a way to retain a very high level of compatibility with MRQ, at least that was the intention. So, Legend might be a good option. I do not have Magic World, so I can't really comment on how compatible Merrie England is. If Magic World is a reskinning of BRP then it should be OK, if it's more like Stormbringer then less so. It is likely to me more compatible with Legend than with Stormbringer. BRP is a rules book, Magic World is a setting book, Merrie England is a setting boo and the two approaches (rules vs setting) are very different. You can probably use most of the BRP/Legend/RQ setting books with most of the BRP/Legend/RQ rules systems, with a bit of work. Definitely get MW rather than any version of Stormbringer, as it is based on BRP with some Stormbringer ideas pulled in. It's supposed to be a more generic version of Stormbringer, taken out of Michael Moorcock's settings. I'd go for Legend, personally.

Welcome aboard! This is definitely a friendly forum and people are glad to help with any queries, so feel free to post away. Hopefully, you'll have as much fun with BRP as we have.

The beauty of Legend is that it is all OGC under the OGL, which means that you can add things, remove things or change things however you like. It also means that we can write supplements without being constrained by whatever mistakes Legend has made.

And that is once more than worked for me.

Ans why would you want to go on a safe, fat little cargo ship when you could go on a dangerous, silky, slim dragonship?

Hmmm p- it must work OK then I thought I had a document there but cannot seem to find it. Sorry about that

I'm not the author, but the dreki should be fine for such journeys. Sure, a knorr is a more stable ocean-going vessel, but the dreki is used to raid all along the coastlines of Europe, even across the North Sea. When Vikings raided Ireland, they didn't hug the coasts for the whole of their voyage, instead they sailed across the North Sea, made port in the Orkneys, then probably skipped to the Hebrides and then along to Ireland. So, a hop from Iceland to the Hebrides or Iceland to Ireland should be fine. It might make a difficult or uncomfortable journey, and I would take horses, but that might mean some modifier to the Sailing skill.

Lots of quotes here and a long post, I'm afraid. Yes, I meant to highlight how HQ1 is ideally suited to using different ways to achieve a result. I just assumed that I didn't need to present the roleplaying part.

You can roleplay the event the same way in both systems. That wasn't the point. In HQ, when you attempt to resolve the situation then you can use abilities and skills in a very flexible way. In RQ, you are pretty much restricted to a skill roll with some modifiers that are very often a Gm saying "That's worth a +20% bonus". Another reason why I prefer HQ1. Sure, RQ6 has passions, and RQ has had something similar since RQ2, but they are far more limited than in HQ. They can be used to augment a roll, in the same way as HQ abilities are used. Exactly. As I said, HQ is not better than RQ and RQ is not better than HQ. They are different games which focus on different areas and get different responses. When I play RQ, the combat makes me feel as though I am there, dishing out blows and parries. HQ doesn't even come close to that level of visceral fun. When I play HQ, I can use abilities and skills creatively to achieve things that I just couldn't do in RQ.

It wasn't meant to. Nope. The example I gave showed how HQ can use different ways to resolve a conflict. If she had Unaided Walking 10M4 then she would be able to walk through earthquakes or through hurricanes or when paralytic. I gave an example of how HQ can be used. I neither defend nor encourage it. I happen to like both HQ and RQ, and Legend and BRP. If I had to make a choice between which system I would play forever and to never play the other systems ever again, I would choose Legend. My house campaign, however, uses RQ3+, RQ3 with a healthy dose of stuff adapted from HQ, Legend, BRP and house rules. HQ when working really well encourages a different mindset than standard RQ. I find that this mindset can be carried back to RQ and that this is a liberating experience. Other people's experiences may vary. Other people's opinions may vary.

Personally, I much prefer HQ1 to HQ2, but that's because I don't really understand HQ2, well I do but I don;t agree with it. Why is HQ better at emulating Glorantha than RQ? It isn't. Why is HQ better at emulating Glorantha HeroQuesting than RQ? It isn't. Why is RQ better at emulating Glorantha than HQ? It isn't. Having got that out of the way, we come down to the nitty gritty. What does HQ do differently to RQ? The resolution system is far more elegant in that it works at any level and is really scalable. The same conflict resolution is used for combat, for task resolution, for social conflicts and whatever else you want to do The opposed levels of success are excellent (Succeed a bit, fail a bit, succeed really well, fail really badly and so on - I can fail and end up with a succeeds really well, depending on my skill and the opponent's roll) You can use emotions, spells, relationships, skills, abilities and whatever you want to resolve conflicts in exactly the same way Results are narrated, so work well with a story-based game Abilities/Spells do not have a fixed effect but can vary according to their usage or what the story requires Abilities/Spells can have simple or overblown verbose names So, what does this mean? I have a PC who is a healer of Chalana Arroy. She has no combat skills at all. She is attacked by a bandit, but uses her Loved by Everybody, Unbelievably Cute and Cant Attack Me I'm a Healer abilities to ward off the attack. The bandit attacks with 10M, her adjusted ability is 10M2, the bandit rolls 8, she rolls 1, as she has a 1 mastery advantage, she bumps her opponent's roll from a success to a failure, so would get a Major Victory, but spends a Hero Point to bump his failure down to a fumble, scoring a Complete Victory over him. He offers to help her and stays with her as a bodyguard. Now, how would you do this in RQ? It is very difficult to achieve the same result. She would probably use Orate or Fast Talk to stop him attacking her, with the implied "I'm a Healer" to help. But there is no way of quantifying that, except perhaps as a +20% bonus or whatever. We have found that we use a lot of ideas from HQ in our RQ games. These are not mechanical ideas, but soft ideas of what results can mean, how to apply odd skills and how to be far more flexible than we ever would have before.

I've not read the Kult games, so can't help on that. However, introducing Gnostic elements to a medieval game is very fruitful. The Cathars are said to have a strong Gnostic core, as have many of the other heresies of the time. Kabbalist Judaism appears in the medieval period and that has Gnosticism in spades. Some say that the Templars were moved towards heresy through Gnostic beliefs, although I am not sure if that was the case. There are many Gnostic practices in the medieval period, especially among small sects in the middle east. Once the Crusaders meet with them and learn of their ways, they could easily bring back some of the beliefs. That is why the Middle Ages was such a melting pot of beliefs. On the one hand the Catholic Church became steadily more conservative and resistant to heresy, on the other hand beliefs were being brought back from Outremer and Moorish Spain, with Jews being expelled and moved between countries, ancient Christian sects being awoken or rediscovered and many marriages between people of different beliefs. As I see it, Gnosticism has several core beliefs: Belief by Inner Knowledge - the certainty of belief Teaching of secrets to certain ranks of believers, so outsiders learn some secrets but the inner circles learn higher secrets Absence of hierarchical structures - either everyone is a preacher or there is a preacher class, but no layers of priesthood Some differences in how the Godhead is seen and honoured - this isn't strictly a Gnostic belief but many Gnostic sects do not believe in the Catholic Trinity How should it work in play? Gnostic sects might get their Blessings through different means to other sects. This is only important if you use Merrie England's ideas on how sects get their Blessings. Members of the sect might get an awakening of knowledge or Gnosis, almost an illumination or revelation. This gives access to more secrets and maybe to extra Blessings. Members of the sect might be able to recognise other members by using secret phrases, handshakes or other signs.