Runeblogger

I'm eagerly expecting this since Lynne Hardy from Chaosium commented on it during THE KRAKEN 2018. Time-travelling villains, anyone?

I was going to say exactly this. Your character may have been a farmer, but right now she's an adventurer. Clearly. If 4 out of your 5 players create fighter types, they are teling you, the GM, they are expecting to have fun by fighting a lot in the adventures to come (or perhaps they expect a higher survival chance because they have been led to believe there will be a lot of combat). In this case, you will have to prepare scenes where the herder gets to outshine the fighters with his abilities in order to balance the "hero time" of each character. On the contrary, if you encourage players to create characters who are fishers, herders, farmers, healers, scribes... They'll be more on the same boat and the adventures they face will be less combat-oriented. As an aside, here's a picture of the videogame King of Dragon Pass: 90% of all these people are Orlanthi farmers fighting boredom!

Yes, and it is also a way to introduce great changes to how your clan works (forming a tribe, for example) and to solve great disasters (drought and famine, for example). Playing the videogame King of Dragon Pass is great to start grasping the concept of HeroQuests.

You can find the updated stats for the Crimson Bat in the new RuneQuest Glorantha Bestiary. ↩️ Its stats have changed a bit since they were first published in Elder Secrets of Glorantha.

Well done! Your diction and pronunciation is very good, BTW. Very easy to understand for non-native speakers.

Yes, that makes a lot of sense. 👍 Funny how Dehore ended up being the name for a darkness god.

I have also enjoyed this read, and I am looking forward to reading more! But I have some questions now. The first is: Is this the end of Glorantha or the end of the Great Darkness? I guess it's the former, because towards the end it says "when the dim sun rose". But didn't all the gods end like it is explained in King of Sartar? Or is this perhaps the corruption of Dorastor at the end of the First Age? More: - What kind of Dehore super runelord had fire-related ancestors? It looks very strange that the warrior deploys fire powers while following the god of shades. It's intriguingly paradoxical. - What kind of character is the prayerman? Is he some sort of Malkioni?

I'm looking forward to the next installment, when Nyalda and even Ernalda die. Ok... I know, I know, they go to sleep.

I also think that every RQG supplement and scenario should be followed by a PDF indicating how to use it with HQG.

I understand that it is far better to have a bestiary now, than a really exhaustive bestiary in 2 years. Will the rest of the creatures be included in a "Bestiary 2" or in their respective regional supplements? For example, woolly rhinos in a future Fronela book?

Eventually yes: https://blog.sixages.com/index.php/2019/04/11/port-progress-april/

I would like to add a review of the Glorantha Bestiary, done from the POV of a veteran RQ3 player (me): https://elruneblog.blogspot.com/2019/02/review-of-runequest-glorantha-bestiary.html

OK, but MGF trumps this. I thoroughly agree with Soltakks in that Rabble in RQG are just low-morale thugs. This allows your characters to face bigger odds if they are brave enough. I would say only heroes or NPC with very good reasons to keep fighting after being injured will fight to the bitter end. Even if they end up surrendering. Most beings just flee when the odds are against them, including nomad warriors, broo, and city soldiers, if they see they can come back at you in the future. Even a very competent city soldier (90% skill) will flee after suffering a minor wound if he's the only defender of a gate, he's outnumbered and/or he's not being paid enough. There are multiple factors and all largely depend on the GM decision.

But that's not the case, you only gain a POW roll if you successfully defend from a magical attack. I like this rule. Otherwise many munchkins would learn offensive spells just because that's the way to get POW-gain rolls, which makes no sense at all.

In case you need even more information :-) https://elruneblog.blogspot.com/2019/04/review-of-mythras-roleplaying-game.html Just my opinion!

My review of the Sourcebook: https://elruneblog.blogspot.com/2018/09/review-of-glorantha-sourcebook.html?m=1

As loathsome as slavery is, you might be surprised to know that unfortunately there are currently more slaves than in any past period of history, at least according the the NGO A21. I hope it's not too OOT to direct your attention to their website, in case you want to contribute to the disappearance of slavery: https://www.a21.org/index.php?site=true

Another question, since I have only played RQ3: - Why do you win 3 POW when you beat a disease spirit, but not when you beat a ghost or any kind of spirit?

Well, I feel bad now. The whole session didn't go at all as I had thought it would. This is what happened: First, when the teenage liege lord asked the PCs for permission to go with them, they accepted! They guessed since the boy is going to be the ruler in two years, they better get on well with him... So they proceeded to convince his uncle, and up they went, with the boy disguised as a young samurai and closely watched by two of the PCs. When they reached the castle of their ally in the north, he asked them to reinforce the garrison of the first fortress the enemy was going to attack (the northernmost one: iida). But since they were carrying their liege lord in disguise, 3 of the PCs stayed behind with him in the big castle (Ogaki), while the PC who knows about strategy and leading troops went further north with their 500 troops to the first of the 5 exposed shielding fortresses (iida). He failed a Perception roll and failed to investigate further some rumours he had heard during dinner with their host (the turncoat). So, later on, he woke up to the sound of two armed samurai with armor on ready to butcher him. A couple criticals on my part, after, he's bleeding on the floor. He died. At the same time, the 500 troops were being butchered by their host's own samurai troops, and only 100 of them managed to escape the trap, and fled to the next fortress further south. (see attached map) After this, the other 4 shielding fortresses' morale dropped. They decided to bring the garrisons of two of them (Matsuo and Suzuoka) to the bigger castle in the south (Ogaki) to better resist the incoming enemy army. The other 2 remaining fortresses (Chiku and Kannomine) were besieged with superior numbers and after some days, the resisting samurais surrendered or died. Takeda did not go further south to the big castle, as in the top north of Shinano, Uesugi Kenshin began attacking two fortresses, as they had arranged this with him. He left the fortresses well garrisoned and went north again to face Uesugi. Before that, however, he sent the dead PC's head to the other PCs with a note from Takeda Shingen: "This is what you get when you decide to fight the Takeda". The PCs in the big castle down south then decided to use their troops to do some guerrilla warfare against the Takeda army in the lost territory. But later winter came and they retreated to their own land. The uncle of the young liege lord suggested proposing Takeda a non-agression pact. After much discussing this, the party best negotiator (94% in the Influence skill) managed to negotiate that. In exchange, they surrender the rest of the lands around their ally's last castle, after having convinced him his samurais could move to their own lands and swear loyalty to the uncle, since the south of Shinano is deemed lost anyway. Thanks to his incredible negotiating skills (and a critical roll) he has also managed to convince Takeda to give them the head of the turncoat (!), and so they avenged their fallen comrade. Still, of course, I've made a big mistake: not giving the now dead PC some other hint about the betrayal that what was going to take place in the fortress.

He's not the lord yet. He's not even an "adult", since he hasn't done the gempuku cermony yet. But I like your idea very much! 😹

Haha, you're lucky to have a wife who likes shonen manga and Japanese history. It's about time you run a ninja campaign for her? Well, I have come up with another complication for tomorrow's session: their teenage liege lord is 17 now, but his uncle doesn't allow him to celebrate hi gempuku (coming of age ceremony), until he's 20 to better protect him. However, the boy is eager to test his mettle in combat and he's rather headstrong. So... he'll ask our heroes to take him to the the north with them in secret. When they refuse, he will do that anyway, disguised as a common ashigaru (last session I already commented how he has been seen around with some rowdy ashigaru boys he's made friends with). Then, in the middle of the night, when they start hearing the roar of their troops camped outside and being killed as in a slaughterhouse, a bloodied ashigaru will come to them and tell them about how their liege lord is in the middle of the fray! OMG, I wonder how they will get out of this one!

Oh, I like your ideas very much Mr. Svensson...! Thanks a lot!!! I like the 1st one best (escape from the castle with their troops). However, I need to think of ways to make it interesting. I've got to be careful, if I make it too difficult, it could easily end in a TPK. If I make it too easy, it's boring. The 2nd one is kind of fairer for the players, as they can do more to reverse the situation. However, one of the players has been investing A LOT in social skills, and his character is an ace at negotiation and influencing people. So if he were allowed to speak with the would-be turncoat, he would surely end up convincing him to remain loyal and fight the Takeda. For example, in last session, he managed to convince the Takeda emissary that it was in their best interest to return a fort to them the Takeda had previously taken. Furthermore, precisely for this reason he had the spotlight last session, so giving him the chance to negotiate again would put the spotlight on him again. He's really good at talking and fighting with weapons. His only weakness is running and jumping. OH, and by the way, the shinto priest PC has made a deal with the kami of an expert tactician, so he can help them in the upcoming battles...

Thanks Cornelius! These are good suggestions but we plan to maybe play through the GPC some day, run by one of the players, so I can't really use that. But the idea of the uncle getting a son is brilliant. His wife is old now, but some years ago he got himself a young concubine... And if he gets a son just before his nephew becomes the new daimyo, he may have second thoughts... At the very least, said nephew will become paranoid at the idea of his uncle wanting to poison him so his son can eventually rule... Will the players accept their young liege lord's crazy idea of confronting the uncle with half the province's troops? That will happen after the sieges in Shinano, though. 👍

Thanks for your ideas! 👍 I would like Takeda to dig up dirt on Our Heroes, but I don't know what dirt his agents could dig up. How would you run that? I've mined all those books you mention for scenarios. Although in the case of L5R I havent't dug very deep. I have read the current edition downloadable con scenario though. Last session I had read The Ambassador's Tales 7dot suggested and I was going to run that, but then the players decided to first deal with Takeda's ongoing campaign against Shinano, so next session will deal about that. They reckon they need to help their ally so Takeda does not go after them afterwards, even though I have been sending them the message that their ally in Shinano is weak and mostly doomed. Takeda has already conquered the central part of Shinano and most of the north, so he's going to focus on the south now, and that's the part my players want to help defend. Since they knew there is a powerful daimyo in Echigo (the province north of Shinano ruled by Uesugi Kenshin) who has been helping the samurai lords on the border against Takeda, they arranged a meeting with him and suggested that he attacks the north of Shinano at the same time their ally in the south of Shinano is going to be attacked by Takeda's forces. In the south of Shinano there are only 5 fortresses shielding the main castle against the takeda army. The players have struck a non-aggresion deal with Takeda, so they can't attack him, only help their ally defend from his attacks. Next session they are going to one of these fortresses. What wil happen there? I've read a bit about Takeda's campaigns in Shinano. He was successful and conquered the whole province. He managed to do that mainly because of his lightning attacks, because many lords chnaged sides to him and because these Shinano lords were not unified. So I would like this to be very difficult for my players to go well. But how can I do that and still have a satisfying session? 😕

Thank you! I've been looking forward to running or playing the included short campaign since I got the book.