Runeblogger

- Does Humakt forbid or frown upon his followers participating in ambushes? - Would you be interested in looking hard into my scenario in search for typos before publication?

This is awesome.

Was Greg Stafford the author of The Money Tree scenario?

Thanks, Bill! I don't plan to run the same scenario though. I'm revising a scenario written by some friends that is set there 9 years after the original one... with duck bandits as the PCs! And, of course, led by a certain veteran duck bandit... It will be a one-shot. With Maximum Game Fun in mind.

Thanks for this! I looked hard for the place where this is said in the original scenario. The introduction to Greenbrass states that it lies between "a civilized region and barbarian lands", and 18 km east of the village of Munn. But then, in the map, there's a road going south where you can read "to Apple Lane 32 km". But I still think it is not the best location, since that region lacks a mountain that can act as the Thin Peak. Anyway, these details are not to be taken too seriously, since Glorantha has changed a lot since then. For example, in the same scenario you have Esrola as the Corn Mother, and most of the male NPCs are Esrola initiates. Greenbrass could be almost anywhere. I still like it close to the westernmost Indigo Mountain peaks... :-P

Hi, Andrew Logan Montgomery recently published this in his blog, which I find can be very useful for HeroQuest Glorantha: http://andrewloganmontgomery.blogspot.com/2019/09/the-player-written-heroquest-set-of.html In the last edition of THE KRAKEN (2018), I heard it say that Jeff Richard was writing something similar to this concept for The GM Sourcebook for RQG. Read more here. I think this is a great idea. It only requires your players to be a bit creative. But if you only have one player with enough initiative to go and write her own heroquests, I guess the other players will soon follow her lead when they see what they can accomplish by setting their creative minds to work. It's not that difficult, is it?

Hi, I'm readying a scenario set around the village of Greenbrass from "The Money Tree" scenario. ;-) So I'm updating some of the NPCs of Greenbrass to the RQG rules and to the current Glorantha and I have some questions: 1. Where would you place the village of Greenbrass? I think it is somewhere in Sartar, probably close to the fringes, like south of Alone, close to the Indigo Mountains. According to "The Money Tree", Greenbrass is close to another village called Munn, but I haven't found anything about that village either. 2. Is Henere Hannibal the Orlanthi chieftain of Greenbrass? If yes, does he need to be a priest? Does these stats sound right for him? Henere Hannibal: Human Male, 54 years old. Chieftain of Greenbrass. Initiate of Orlanth. Armor / hit locations: Head 6/6, R.Arm 6/5, L.Arm 6/5, Chest 6/7, Abdomen 6/6, R.Leg 7/6, L.Leg 7/6 Runes: Air 70%, Fire 50%, Water 20%, Fertility 60%, Harmony 70%, Truth 60%, Movement 50%, Man 60%. STR: 12 CON: 15 SIZ: 14 DEX: 16 INT: 16 POW: 17 CHA: 16 Damage bonus: +1D4, SIZ SR: 2, DEX SR: 1, Healing rate: 3/week Passions: Love (Greenbrass) 80%, Loyalty (People of Greenbrass) 80%, Honor 70%. Weapons: Shortsword 80% DMG 1D6+1+1D4 ENC 1 HP 12 SR 3 Small Shield 94% DMG 1D3+1D4 ENC 1 HP 8 SR 3 Composite Bow 63% DMG 1D8+1 ENC 2 HP 6 Range 100 Rate S/MR Hit points: 17 Magic points: 17 Cult: Orlanth. Rank: Initiate. Rune Points: 7. Spirit Magic: Binding-2, Bladesharp-1, Countermagic-3, Demoralize (2), Detect Life (1), Farsee (1), Heal-2, Protection-5, Speedart (1). Rune Magic: Cloud Call, Dismiss Air Elemental (any size), Increase/Decrease Wind, Shield, Summon Air Elemental (any size), Summons of Evil, Wind Warp. Skills: Fast Talk 102%, Orate 65%, Listen 66%, Scan 81%, Search 42%. Notes: Henere is a charismatic village chief of Greenbrass. Everybody loves him. He only dons his armor when he is certain he is going to need it. Gear: Shortsword, small shield, composite bow, 15 arrows. Quilted ring mail coif. Quilted ring mail hauberk and vambraces. Quilted bronze greaves. Ransom: 2000 L.

I would erase Defense and Xenohealing, since they are no longer used in RQG.

Yes, below you can read the list of upcoming publications, as revealed by Lynne Hardy: https://elruneblog.blogspot.com/2019/01/the-kraken-2018-con-with-chaosium-part-2.html

What % of Harmast's novel was finished?

There should be one! :-) So if no one knows any, we could make one up. For instance, Seseine could be one of Uleria's daughters who didn't want to learn her mother's lessons. She focused on getting more power through lust and followed the Unholy Trio or was perhaps corrupted by them, or specifically by Ragnaglar. A myth could explain for example how Uleria tries to teach her the value of love, but her daughter fails to learn anything after each and every lesson, and the goes on to become more and more powerful through the use of carnal desire until she decides to abandon and betray her mother.

I don't know, but maybe the Malani had so many bad kings before that, that they now prefer humakti on their throne. However, it must be still hard to have a king or queen who places Truth way before kin and community.

The spirit stays around its body for around 7 days, and then starts off to the Path of the Dead, if I recall correctly. The free RuneQuest Quickstart includes a box about these details. The shaman in the party could talk to it just by using Spirit Speech. He does not need to discorporate, since the spirit is still very close to the Mundane World. The shaman could also cast Visibility on it, so everyone else can also see it for a time. The shaman could have him talking to him in order to delay his leaving on his journey to the Halls of the Dead where Daka Fal is waiting to judge his soul. Or, if the deceased finally starts his journey, the shaman could then discorporate, find him, and try to drag him back to his body. 😮 Imagine the dead PC saying: "I hear the call now, I must depart to the Hall of the Dead..." and the shaman PC hurriedly tells him: "No, no, no, please listen to me, think of all the people here who love you, please stay here jut a bit longer, we are almost at the temple!". Maybe the shaman would need to persuade the spirit by having him recall important deeds the still need finishing. That could be quite tense and dramatic. If the spirit finally starts off his journey to the Underworld, you could run a heroquest guided by the Chalana Arroy priestess, in which the rest of the party go down to the Underworld to find him and bring him back before he enters the Hall of the Dead. That could be very cool. 😎 The book Sartar: Kingdom of Heroes would help you in this regard, as one of the scenarios in the campaign is similar to this. if you are worried the dead PC's player is going to get bored, give him an NPC to play in the meantime. However, if he is finally resurrected but has spent a lot of time in the Underworld before being rescued, he might experience a kind of psychological sickness. Death sickness I think it is called. The character could be gloomy for the rest of his life, or obsessed with Death, or might even join the cult of Humakt! 😈

A friend of mine ran a RQ3 campaign set in hell for years. I didn't play in it, but all the PCs were different Chaos races that had never seen the surface, each with its particular hellish culture. He told me his players had a great time playing that. While Yelm crossed the underworld sky, everyone hid, so it was their own particular kind of night down there. They had all kinds of psychedelic adventures, it seems. I'll try to have him comment more on it here, if you are interested.

I still imagine western peasants knowing some sorcery to make their daily work easier. Because knowing spirit magic would be worse, right?

Going a bit back to the OP, where can one read this myth?

Ok, but how would you translate that into game terms? For example, let's say my character, an Orlanthi mercenary hired by Duke Raus in the Zola Fel valley, is made prisoner by the Praxians just a week before Sacred Time. Then after Sacred Time, the Praxians return and ransom her to Duke Raus. Does that mean her community (Duke Raus' settlers and mercenaries) is not going to support her for the whole coming year? Her missing the Sacred Time ceremonies will perhaps mean that Chaos will attack Duke Raus' lands a 1% more this year?

What happens if, for some reason, you cannot attend the Sacred Time ceremonies?

Well, I have run a 4,5-year-long samurai campaign with these rules, so I warmed to it already some time ago.

A pixie! Wow, that is uncommon. Please tell us what ideas they've got and how everything goes. :-)

I don't have any idea what sort of scenario you are creating, but this thing looks difficult to roleplay right on the spot. I mean, the players will need to think about a moral weakness first, right then when their characters suffer the attack. And that might interrupt the flow of play. So before even the start of the scenario, I would ask the players to note down on their character sheets this moral weakness their characters don't even know about. Or you could write it down in their sheets yourself if you are creating pregenerated characters for the scenario. Additionally, I would also tell every player to note down how their characters would react if that moral weakness were to be exposed. Give them 5-10 minutes to think about it and write it down, without showing it to the other players. (This would work best if they manage to do it per email or Whattsapp). Then, you start running the scenario. Hopefully the players forget about that weird thing you made them do. And when later on the bad guy attacks, the players can at least react quickly and according to character.

Garzeen's Earring of Understanding Description An earring made of gold or silver, usually decorated with Harmony and Movement runes. Cult Associated: Issaries - Friendly: Lhankhor Mhy Knowledge Few, cult secret. History Garzeen was the son of Issaries who created Tradetalk. His invention helped everyone in Glorantha to communicate and trade with people from other cultures. But before Garzeen created Tradetalk, he travelled extensively, learning all the languages in the world. His innate powers of understanding others helped him a lot in this regard. Some followers of Issaries know the secret to bring back Garzeen's earring from the God plane and many heroes of Issaries have used this holy item to travel to faraway lands where no one speaks Tradetalk. Procedure An initiate of Issaries must follow the path of Garzeen in the Godplane in order to bring back his magic earring. In each station of this heroquest (usually 5), the quester must successfully understand what an unknown foreigner is trying to communicate to him. The secret to be learned is deep empathy and the desire to immerse yourself in the foreigner's culture leaving behind all biases and prejudiced opinions. Power Garzeen's Earring of Understanding will whisper to its wearer the translated words of anyone who may be speaking at listening distance. The most powerful of these earrings can even translate the language of spirits and the sounds animals make. Garzeen's Earring of Understanding does not improve the wearer's chances at speaking a foreign language. It merely allows the wearer to perfectly understand anyone speaking a foreign language as if they were using the wearer's mother tongue. Value 5000 L.

Polaris' Jewel A fist-sized white jewel that looks like a polished diamond shaped like an eight-pointed star if you look at it from above, or like a lotus if you look at it from the side. Some of the oldest jewels have some of their points missing. All these jewels twinkle with inner light nonetheless. It weighs 4 ENC. Cults: Associated: Polaris, Yelorna, Pole Star. Friendly: Yelmalio, Yelm. Enemy: Xentha, Argan Argar, Kyger Litor, Zorak Zoran. All Chaos cults. Knowledge: Cult secret (Few). History: Some of these jewels are centuries old and are usually passed from one Star Lady to her successor. They represent the alliance bewteen Yelorna and the Star Captains, mainly Polaris/Pole Star. Some of them were gifted to friendly cults such as Yelmalio. And some of them ended in the treasure vaults of Yelorna's enemies, mainly trolls. Procedure: This jewel can only be obtained through a Yelornan heroquest. The initiate follows the mythic path of Yelorna as she fought the children of Xentha, Argan Argar, Zorak Zoran and Kyger Litor, and then travelled to the upper sky to fetch the help of the Star Captains and bring them to the surface to aid in the fight, although she had to receive Dayzatar's blessing first. Alternatively, a shaman following the path of Pole Star could also bring one of these back from the spiritual plane. Powers: The Jewel provides 6 points of Polaris rune magic to any initiate of Yelorna or Polaris. A Praxian shaman can contact Pole Star through the Jewel. The jewel sheds a permanent dim light that lights its surroundings like a torch, although its light can be seen from a 1000 km radius and it is specially visible at night. Shades will avoid getting less than 10 m close to the jewel, and trollkins are demoralized if they get closer to it than that. Some Yelmalian and Yelornan cultists have been known to use these jewels to signal messages, to aid friends to find their way or to lure runelords from Darkness-related cults into an ambush. Value: 10,000 silver coins, although it is invaluable to any Polaris or Yelorna cultists.

I know, but I don't like it because in my mind, the guy with 345% should have at least a chance. if you used the HeroQuest system, both would roll as if they had 45%, but the one with 445% would turn his results to one better grade of success. A failure into a succes, a success into a special, a special into a critical. It would still be exciting.

I think it's a good idea. In my mind, someone with 345% in his combat skill ought to handle better an opponent with 445%.