Runeblogger

Hi everyone, A friend of mine likes to run Gloranthan campaigns that go way out the beaten path. He has been running a campaign in the gloranthan hell for years, for example. Now he's thinking about running a merfolk campaign, where only mermen are allowed as PCs. However, he has come across the fact that almost all merfolk breathe air, not water. Only the gnydron seem to breathe water, and that makes a lot of sense because they inhabit the abyssal depths. All the other merfolk have to surface almost every hour to breathe air or they suffocate. I'm OK with ludoch and ouori having to surface to breathe, since they are mammals and more or less like half-dolphins and half-walruses. But does it sound OK to you that the more fish-like malasp, as well as zabdamar and yssabau need to go to the surface to breathe air? I think for this friend of mine, this is where his Glorantha is going to vary. He wants to have merfolk underwater cities, after all, and he's trying to come up with strange magical ways for merfolk to be able to build underwater cities while they need to go to the surface every hour to breathe (!). I've told him about Deep in Choralinthor Bay, but then, that's a magical city of its own, and the Bay is not that deep anyway, so it almost doesn't count as an example of a merfolk underwater city. I wonder if almost all Gloranthan merfolk were designed from the start as air-breathing creatures just so land-dwellers (the main characters in the usual stories) could come across them more often?

It's a good article, full of enthusiasm. I also wrote a small article on TDM's next releases here. (The Translation button is on the right margin)

Yes, I understand that characters in RuneQuest need healing magic. I had just understood it like that for example Humakti would ask an Ernaldan priestess for healing magic, or a Chalana Arroy. But then perhaps if they always needed to look for a priestess there would be no humakti left alive...?! xP

Oh, I liked better what you told us before about the opposite runes making it difficult for Death cultists to be strong in Fertility magic (like healing).

What you say makes perfect sense. However, the rules as written didn't allow the shaman character to advance in his shamanic skills, even if he used them all the time. As you say, he wanted to get good at what he liked to do: shamanic things. But the rules only allowed him one way: the POW check.

OK, you are right. But then, you could ask your god to infuse you with divine power so that you can kill your enemy. How much sudden divine power could your god give you in this case?

There's a difference between advancing in non-magical power and advancing in magical power: the amount of experience rolls you make. For magical power, it's all based on whether you roll under your POW gain check. Whereas in the case of non-magical power, you can fail one or two skill rolls, but then roll over two other checked skills and still advance a bit. There are more chances to advance in one skill or another. But with POW, you either make it or not. I don't like that luckier players get to advance their characters quicker. It just doesn't seem fair to me. For example, in my Pavis campaign with RQ3, one of the PCs was an agimori shaman. When experience rolls where rolled at the end of an adventure, he usually only had his POW gain check and a couple of skills. If he didn't even roll under his POW gain check (which was sadly crucial for a shaman), he had to wait until the rest of the players happily rolled all their checked skills. That's also why I prefer a system in which, at the end of the adventure, you can tell the players, OK, 5 experience rolls for everyone. That's the home rule I used in this campaign in fact, before RQ6. You could only roll to increase checked skills, but you could repeat every failed experience roll once by spending one of the awarded experience rolls. On top of that, you could exchange 5 experience rolls for 1 luck point (luck points allowed a reroll or cancelled a critical).

Very interesting. But what if the player asks his god to kill an enemy? Is there going to be a numerical value attached to the quality of a god's response in this case? (I hope there is. IMHO it should be somehow related to how strictly the initiate follows his god's doctrines. For example, never lying for humakti even if they don't have that geas).

In my experience in a long RQ3 campaign, the POW gain system obviously rewarded players who are lucky with their dice. So I had this humakti with POW 15 or 16 who would only sacrifice POW whenever he got an increase (by ilogically casting Disruption/Demoralise in combats until he got the check) and the last time we played he had between 15 and 20 "runic points" (because we used this mechanic, only we called them "faith points"), and he even wasn't a Sword of Humakt! He was just an initiate. So, even if lucky players are not the norm in your campaigns, why would you like to leave to chance how quickly do the PCs advance in magical power? I think that the system presented in RQ6, where you exchange experience rolls for new spells, avoids the situation in which an unlucky player always ends up being magically inferior to her luckier comrades.

Oh, and another thing: there should be a cap to the amount of POW that a PC of a certain level (lay/initiate/runeleve/priest) can sacrifice for RPs.

I like this because it's very similar to the homebrew system we adopted for RQ3. So an Issaries initiate can start the game with an affinity to the trade rune? Powerful spells like Sever Spirit could be only available to rune-level, or maybe to those whose rune affinity surpasses 90%?

We didn't cast this spell much, as it meant resacrificing valuable POW. However, I would add the MRs of the MP points spent in healing HP. We also played that Heal spells could go through Countermagic.

Hola Xalabin, yo estoy interesado.

Very nice! How will the next RQ Glorantha fit in the chart?

Yes, if the docs are a chronicle or something similar, I'd be delighted to read them. You can send them and the map to the email you can see on my profile. I would also like to watch the game, so keep me informed, please! :-)

What was that campaign like? On the other hand, I would like to see/read the new game on Roll20. Is that possible?

This is a nice idea both for HQ and the new RQ Glorantha.

Erp is really a Fargo character, as you say. . Is he in the campaign? (shudders...)

This looks good. I'd love to see an example of an aldryami character with some magic. I've been thinking of preparing a short campaign with only aldryami as PCs.

Brilliant! I'm looking forward to reading about their adventures!

So what's next now?

I created the character as a pregen for a game set in Casino Town, involving an impressive heist. It was really fun. I even have a portrait of Aransyr. You can see it here: http://elruneblog.blogspot.com.es/2015/11/personaje-de-runequest-6-aransyr-nariz.html Please keep us informed of your campaign! I've been running a campaign in the Zola Fel valley for some years now, so I'm always interested in seeing how other people run it. Have you decided what will be the first adventure like? Are you going to use published scenarios? Maybe that's for another thread...?

Ainda: I love these characters, their backgrounds are so uncommon they are refreshing. Are these PCs in your campaign? If so, I'm very interested in knowing what is your campaign like! I also like threads about characters. Here goes one of mine: Aransyr is a sorcerer born and raised in Raibanth, in the heart of Dara-Happa. His noble family is House Sarehnstub, well-known in the city but of low-rep. Whereas his elder brothers took the militar path as his father, Aransyr was constantly mocked due to his huge bulbous nose. This exclusion from the usual social circles turned him into a shy and introvert individual who would rather study in a library than play with other boys and girls.When he reached adulthood, Aransyr got admitted into the Lunar School of the Scarlet Orb, focused on studying the essence of magic and the Red Moon. There, his great intelligence and innate magic power paved the way for mastering the runes through studying arcane grimoires. Striving constantly to be better regarded than his brothers, he started to stand out among the other Lunar sorcerers despite his young age. His ambition grew accordingly until one day, the school master appointed him for a dangerous mission: contacting other schools beyond the Empire to trade magical knowledge with them.Thus Aransyr embarked on an expedition towards the faraway southern land of God Forgot, in the Holy Country. There he had to try and get some grimoires from the legendary brithini. The other less known motive was that the Emperor had decreed to start looking for allies among those atheists. The trade route of Getrenes, a trader well known in his family, eased most of the trip for him. However, in Heortland he and his retinue were ambushed by a band of savage heortling followers of the Rebel God who killed his escorts, guides and retainers. After many unfortunate incidents, he eventually managed to get to Casino Town, in God Forgot, but lacking all the funds he needed for his mission. He then tried to recover his gold by playing in the games of chance that are so popular in that city. He was lucky for some time, but then one ill-fated night he lost everything he had won and more. Now he is greatly indebted to a man called Rothean, who owns the casino The Dancing Carp. And that's when the adventure begins in «Rothean's 7».

Please tell us more! :-)

If they liked Borderlands, run them through the minicampaign: Troubled waters. You can find it in the book "River of Cradles", now sadly out of print. But this will introduce them to the major regions and players in the Zola Fel valley, namely: the island of Corflu and the Zola Fel cult, Sun County and the Yelmalio cult, the Big Rubble in Pavis and the forces of Chaos. Plus, it has broos! After that, they need to hate the Lunar army... And that's the beginning of another campaign.