Joerg

One of the coolest bits in WF1 was the reaction letter by MAR Barker (creator of Tekumel), I guess. One of the still hardly implemented pieces of WBRM boardgame accessories were the Masters of Magic. I remember discussing them for the "current" rules of Dragon Pass years ago, but we didn't arrive at much of a prototype for the "stacks of cardboard counters" game then.

Taking my inspiration from "dramatic" weapon skills at unreasonable levels of skill. And I think you under-estimate the acrobatics required for a 300% weapons skill. Footwork, shift of center of gravity, economy of movement... In this case, using the force of the attacker for the evasive action. I have to admit that I don't grab the rules every time I make a decision at the gaming table. Area effect attacks are not something players usually enact, but they are a useful tool for the GM to cause the players some concern. As the GM, I would find excuses why a 300% weapon skill doesn't prevent one of Cwim's feet from stamping down on the character and his two neighbors. That large a weapon might be treated as multiple attacks all resolved with the same die roll, applying any useful number of -20 modifiers to the single die roll parry on the low range of that effect. In short - when a rule doesn't make much sense in a given situation, look out for a better way to simulate that interaction. The hobby is role-playing, not rule-playing. Rarity of spirits with that high knowledge of the spell. In RQ2, cults provided battle magic up to 4 points. RQ3 had spell spirits as cult spirits, with the Spellteaching magic of the priest summoning one such spirit and ordering it to initiate spirit combat with the recipient. On average, the spirit had 2 POW for each point of spell knowledge. And I treated spirit screen or spirit block as incompatible with the desire to learn the spell - basically ending the spirit's attack. And I'd probably inflict weapon damage if the magical damage from Bladesharp exceeds the hit points of the weapon, on each hit.

Two way to go about this. 1. You treat the oncoming truck as an attack. Your 300% skill allows you to parry in a way that lets you somersault above the truck, like a Minoan bull dancer using the incoming forward momentum for gaining height. 2. You treat the oncoming truck like a rock slide, graciously allowing a parry roll to the automatic hit. My scenario above applies There is no short cut to get a shield parry up to several hundred percentiles. If you have a hero with 300% in shield through skill checks, I wouldn't begrudge her the ability to turn the shield into an unmovable geographic feature. The incoming truck is an area effect attack, as are dinosaur tail swipes or giants with tree clubs. I would give hefty situational modifiers for normal sized opponents parrying such attacks. Probably using multipliers (1/4 or similar) rather than straight reductions. Otherwise, imagine a Gorakiki shaman controlling a swarm of wasps, rdering every individual to attempt to parry. Some of them are bound to roll a 01, critically succeeding.

I am pretty certain that the descendants of Kyger Litor never managed to rule Dara Happa. Who did were the Shadzorings of Dara Happa, hellspawn in the best tradition of Zorak Zoran, only affiliated with Shargash the Destroyer rather than with KL. Check the God Learner Map of the Greater Darkness, or just about any Greater Darkness map. They all have Alkoth emanating a reign of terror.

Well, I was gonna say "Uleria..." But then I realized that was wimping out. It's Hon-eel. Nah. The hottest moves - dance or otherwise - are with Oakfed or Lodril. Those moves make you melt.

Congratulations! Your parry succeeds, and the dagger absorbs 8 of the 115 points of incoming damage. You may check your dagger skill, and apply for resurrection.

I know that it is an uncharitable reading of your position, but it is where I am left as an anonymous writer tasked with serving material for a campaign like yours. When I start adding new scenarios building on expected outcomes of a previous one, or on expected external events not covered by scenarios (yet, or ever if they aren't really scenario-worthy), this is what is left of your work order. (Not that I am going to be that writer for Chaosium in any way - my old nemesis the deadline prevents me from creating material alongside my real life job.) It is possible to provide NPCs with a checklist of goals and how fulfilling these change the NPC, you could have a bit more of a "legacy game" where checking off scenarios and NPCs adapt to the activities of the PCs, but for a living setting, there need to be changes that happen if the PCs don't actively prevent them, and for a halfway realistic setting there need to be lots of such changes. Changes like in a pre-plotted timeline of a couple of major events that you seem to hate with a passion. And then what? If your campaign is only spanning a year or two, a package like Griffin Mountain will be fine. But it will be impossible to pick up Griffin Mountain for a future timeline. If you keep your adventuring on the move, changing the place may keep you afloat for a few more in-game years, but that's it then. You are dealing with prophecies in a fantasy setting, that means very strong ancient magic promoting certain events in a certain sequence. This is part of the genre. If you kill a character identified with a prophecied hero, all you do is shift that identification away from that character to his successor/replacement. Fated leaders are suffering from something very similar to possession. It might be possible to re-phrase the great Glorantha campaign in these terms, with these restrictions in mind. But unless you are using electronic documents with automatic replacement of names and dates, this cannot be published in print. It might be an interesting experiment to create such a campaign in a POD format with a server-generated update of the campaign, but that would mean to use a software which hasn't even been conceptualized yet. There is the legacy of the Glorantha campaign that Jeff is working on, and it is something that the fans of Glorantha have been waiting for for nearly four decades. (Go check Wyrm's Footnotes "next year" contents...) It is time for these to see publication. You are free to strip numbers or names from the material, but that's what has been coming up for a long time, and at the very least you ought to take a look at it before you bemoan any railroading and loss of agency. The campaign will be yours to pick apart, alter, or ignore. But it is what has defined Glorantha as it was published. An approach like this might work for the Five Arkats of the Ralios prophecies.

That's not what happened. People in the provinces didn't want to make personal progress, they were happier in their unenlightened, non-draconic state and didn't see any benefit in enabling the draconic weirdness of the EWF core lands. Dara Happa rebelled because it had had enough of the dragon sun emperor and a hero who was able to harm it.

That's not how the real draconic mysticism worked, but how the short cuts of Isgangdrang and his cronies on the Third Council worked out. Mystics like Obduran and Ingolf did not participate in the channeling of draconic reveration. Obduran is the one draconic mystic from the early period who also embraced the Cult of Orlanth. That dual dedication brought him onto the Ring of Orlanthland when that was mainly comprised of traditionalist, anti-draconic priests of Orlanth. I am fairly certain that other mystics of his school did not identify with the Cult of Orlanth and went about their ascension (or at least preparations for that) on their own, without the new-fangled "Great Living Hero" munchkinnery the traditionalist Ring of Orlanthland had bestowed on Hardrad Hardslaughter after his strike against the Shadowlords, rather than making him their king. History of the Heortling Peoples names two more Great Living Heroes, Renvald Meldekbane (a traditionalist from the Hendriki kingdom, outside of the EWF) and Varankol the Mangler, first of the Tusk Riders, from within the EWF but not a draconic mystic in any way), leaders in the Machine Wars. I have the impression that the magical boost Isgangdrang, Lorenkargartan and probably the Dragon Sun too used was this kind of Great Living Hero worship, turned towards their ambition to become Great Dragons. The Dragon Sun Emperor may have been a conventional, non-short-cut draconic mystic. Dragonewts do take exception to magicians tapping their road network for magical power. Ths usually leads to a bunch of warrior newts dropping out of that road and wreaking havoc Anyone lingering near one of their nest cities may become prey for their hunting - like trolls, it doesn't seem like dragonewts have any ethical problems with hunting and eating sapients for food.

I sincerely hope that we are going to get a "Cults of Dragon Pass and Saird", as we have suffered from the Praxian (lack of) perspective for too long. Don't get me wrong, Cults of Prax is brilliant - for the Zola Fel valley in Prax. But it is of limited use describing Sartar. The Cult of Ernalda in RQ3 DeLuxe box was an attempt to get beyond the Praxian ghetto, and describe the Orlanthi. Only it was possible to read the cult without realizing that half of the people in Dragon Pass are members of this cult, and probably 95% of the population worship her.

Do the Orlanthi in Heortland practice irrigation? The descriptions of the lack of rain bringing wind in "Ten Women Well Loved" and in the King of Sartar mention of the absence of Bingista the Good Wind during the Machine Wars suggest that they don't. Salt meadows on the other hand are a boon for herders. Herd beasts would drink from saline springs, too. Not to still their thirst, but to intake the minerals necessary for healthy hooves and horns. Do the Heortlanders use silty river water as source of their drinking water, or do they use clear springs or collected rain water? IMG the latter. Rain is anything but scarce in the region as long as Daga hasn't been released. I can accept "it is evil because it may alter its course without regards for a river bed, taking down steads or drowning herds." But that is basically what the Dragon Pass gazetteer had to say about the (essential) Chorms River south of Wilmskirk. Another entity presented as an evil alien which I felt was highly inappropriate for Orlanthi society and virtues. Orlanthi raiders and warriors respect crafty and powerful opponents, even if they will happily capture, kill or cripple them for fame or riches. Below Backford, the Syphon climbs a rather narrow valley up into the plateau. There are 10 miles between Backford and the Syphon estuary, and ten miles before it enters Stone Forest. That's a quite short, narrow band that "suffers" from saline water. Cities have been founded near a source of saline water, and have prospered from that resource. This might explain why Backford is fairly sizeable in 1621 (7k inhabitants - I would have given it less than 5k). It prospers thanks to the salty river, not in spite of it.

Speaking from a potential author's point of view, what can be fed to you would be scenarios that don't have recurring antagonists, and that in the end have no consequence to the world except to your players, and whatever narrative you as a GM have to make out of that. Do you like your sandboxes with a current political situation (and possibly a year number attached), or would you prefer a rather imprecise temporal context? Would it be fine with you to place a scenario into the past of your gazetteer information, or is that a straitjacket, too? Creating a sandbox of inconsequential encounters is rather easy. Inconsequential as in it doesn't matter how the outcome is, the next scenario won't change from that. (Though, where does such an approach enable player agency?) Making previously encountered antagonists or helpers memorable and recurring characters would be the job of the GM. How would one present an antagonist who develops to your kind of sandbox? Give the antagonist a number of goals, perhaps each with a number of means to achieve those goals and possible setback options that may involve the player characters?

Thunderous, Adventurous and Rex? Yes. Same god, very different cults, although rather easy to progress in between. Like the prevalence of horse archers among the Templars. None in Prax or Balazar, plenty elsewhere. I was surprised to see Elmal mentioned for the Far Place. Shouldn't have been there. I regard the article in WF15 as wrong in that aspect. IMO there were differences among the Yelmalians. Harvar harbored dissidents who had fled from Vanntar, and it is possible that others who would subscribe to Vanntar's ways may have been troublesome. Monrogh's schism was brewing since 1540 or so, and when Tarkalor helped establish Monrogh in Vanntar about 70 years ago (give or take a few years) Monrogh also had a temple hierarchy to back him up. I had the information that the Tarshite-speaking tribes in Sartar worship Yelmalio rather than Elmal in the mid-nineties when I wrote the cattle-raid/dragonewt encounter scenario for Free INT, directly from Greg. Citing the Guide would have given this a bit more canonicity (p.152) than the wikia. The runes assigned in RQG are selected from a more reduced subset of runes than those in the Guide or HQG. There are differences. One difference is that in RQG, Yelmalio gets the Fire Rune, too, as no character has any elemental sub-runes like Cold or Light.

Nothing, they are reprints of about 40 year old publications. Almost all information has been recycled into Glorantha products at some time. Mainly details, old concepts, or surprising ideas that weren't continued. The four earliest issues deal with the White Bear and Red Moon and Nomad Gods board games rather than roleplaying, and much of that went into the Corbett rules revision of the boardgames (with the Nomad God adaptation only published by Multisim as Les Dieux Nomades). The Sourcebook has inherited most of the setting info in the later issues. The notes from the Sartar Campaign have last been accumulated in Wyrm's Footprints. Most of the fiction snippets in the early issues already were reprinted in the RQ2 RuneQuest Companion.

Probably west of the Starfire ridges, through Volsaxi and Kitori lands. I expect the Runegate triaty to have been in place when Lismelder split the Malani tribe and entered the area west of the Starfire Ridges adjacent to the Upland Marsh (which may have been significantly smaller then). All evidence points against them having been Pure Horse People in the last two millennia (since the Silver Age), or against them leading a nomadic lifestyle at any point in that time. Nomadic horse herding may have been a viable alternative to sitting out the ravages of the Darkness in fortifications, but the Dawn Settlement list suggests that the two rider tribes of the Heortlings had sat the worst of the Darkness out in fortified villages like the rest of the Heortlings. I would give them a greater chance to be descendants of the Orgovaltes, who had Ulanin the Rider as their Hyaloring ancestor. Shorter migration distance southwards (possibly as horse archer mercenaries for Palangio's phalangites, moving into the possibly when the Orgovaltes tribe was discontinued shortly after the Gbaji Wars, possibly when the dragonfriends came to dominate the Council of Orlanthland, possibly as a reaction to the famine of 1042 and 1043, possibly fleeing from the Pelorians 1118 or so). If they are descended from the Orgovaltes, possibly as early as the second or third century of Time, as the Orgovaltes expanded and possibly replaced Garanvuli settlements. The Hendriki were formed from remnants of the Garanvuli, but at that time non-Garanvuli already had moved into the Marzeel valley and the Heortland plateau. There may well have been clans or minor tribes formerly of the Orgovaltes among the newly-founded Hendriki. Alternatively, they could have come in the wake of Palangio. Worshipping Elmal rather than Daysenerus, offering light horse auxilary to Palangio's hoplites. The Berennethtelli start with Elmal as one of their ancestral deities, and a similar assumption goes for the Orgovaltes. We don't know how exactly worship or dedication to a deity inside the pantheon worked in Vingkotling times. There would have been sacrifices of beasts and personal magic, but whether or how there was any cult structure is unknown. Ulanin ends up as a hero cult of Orlanth, much like Heort, but needn't have been anything like an initiate of Orlanth (like Heort wasn't either). The Orlanthi initiation pattern appears to start with the Heortlings, introduced by Hantrafal. Worship of divine ancestors (often just a few generations ago) and living heroes may have been the main religious activity of the Vingkotlings. The sacrifices may well have been received in person, much like a visiting king gets hosted in the manor/longhouse/whatever set aside for use of the tribe (or usually used as clan assembly). I don't expect much (if any) Yelmalio presence in Runegate, or the Colymar hinterland. Those who were inclined to follow Yelmalio would have left for Vanntar, to live the life of thanes rather than lowly carls or weaponthanes. Monrogh's offer of a basic income with tenants was a very strong honey trap, similar to the stipend that the early converts to Islam received under the first few Caliphs (all converts were expected to give military service while able-bodied, so this was more like a soldier's salary than a stipend, turning into a pension at old age).

Yes, that's the more poetic and less scientific name for this effect. Or draconic consciousness doesn't end at their skins or skulls, but extends outward, and may at any moment gather the material there up into its being. True dragons Dream Dragons and wyverns are a change to the material world, too. Activity by proxy, or by shedding - a dream dragon might be the spiritual equivalent to skin left behind by a snake or a lizard. That geographical dragon project may have contributed to this, but its effects would have been noticeable in barbarian Ralios, too.

A duck hero, the middle of three brothers? Fond of counting down from ten?

Calling a fighter who remains behind to stop a chaos foe while the rest rushes elsewhere evil has never been logical to me. The cult of Storm Bull at least should see it as a kindred spirit, taking care of the Chaos at its footprint despite the order to retreat sounds exactly like a Storm Bull would behave in such a situation. What difference does this make? IMO this is a blessing for the herders rather than a curse. The coastal flats with its salt meadows is prime estate to keep your beasts healthy, and the Syphon valley has the only salt meadows on the plateau. Heortling agriculture doesn't usually grow grain in annually flooded valley bottoms, but uses the lighter soil of gentle hill flanks. Esrolian or Dara Happan river bottom agriculture would suffer, but Heortling mixed farming and ranching only profits. "All rivers, come and rush towards Chaos!" "At it, sir!" Magasta is not a friend of the Orlanthi, so why should they care about disobedience to that distant and rapacious lord of their foes? So it is evil because it doesn't form the norm. In a culture that celebrates going against a norm It is evil because it is different. It is evil because it rebeled against an order. That's not congruent with Orlanthi values at all. If the Imarjans declared that behavior as evil, I wouldn't be upset, but this is the land of the spirit of freedom.

A brackish river, really. The Choralinthor Bay receives one of the strongest rivers in the world, fed by the Sky River, and numerous lesser ones, making its water rather brackish. The water in the estuary fjords is quite likely potable. More importantly IMG, the Syphon is an active water, bulging above its bed like a jellyfish tentacle - which is what makes the fordable stretch at Backford rather special. It also holds one entry to/exit from the Fish Roads at Backford. The Syphon is a lonesome fighter against Chaos, much like his sister Sounders on the far side of the Storm Mountains.

For dragon magic to work, you need to have a field of draconic energy to work with IMG. A sleeping dragon or a bunch of advanced dragonewts in deep meditation leak enough such energies to allow some fantastic draconic effects. The dragonewt road plinths may be such a source, though tapping into any of these may alert dragonewts or sleeping dragons. You can have such a magical field from sufficiently draconized theist worship. That's how the EWF core lands operated, combining local human worship, local draconic stray energy and also "magical tribute" in Peloria and Ralios to create a highly magical field in which life became more draconic, as described in Middle Sea Empire. There are ways to finance draconic magic with rune points or their equivalent (e.g. bachelor newtlings who survived their indenture with dragonewts who may receive dragonewt effects as their rewards). These rewards should be multiplied (or cost diminished) when applied in a strong draconic environment.

Dryads are nymphs, genii loci who require a certain amount of ambient life force to thrive. In case of a dryad, this means a grove, trees and lesser plants whose spirits support the dryad. You might use something like wyter-support to determine the environmental power of a dryad, with beast and plant worshipers counted in.

If Backford is the only crossing of the Syphon above the Mirrorsea Bay, then Heortland would effecively be split into two parts without any overland connection. Scorpionmen - even the barely sentient ones - are terrible opponents in terrain where they can use the vertical for their advantage. At least IMG the scorpionfolk can run up vertical walls, and fight hanging or falling down from ceilings. Does Gagix have Krarshti allies? In that case, expect there to be Krarshti tunnels connecting the conquered area with the Print.

in feathers, yes.

Then how do you like the companion volume The Eleven Lights which has some pre-determined timeline events, like the coming of the Crimson Bat or the Windstop? That makes it pretty impossible to provide you with a campaign other than a sandbox that only changes through player character intervention. How can you publish a scenario that is dependent on some bits in the previous scenario if those bits are likely not to occur in the open-ended resolution? After two or three previous scenarios, you might have to address opponents as "worst suriviving antagonist of the previous scenarios", risking that no antagonist survived the interaction with the player characters. And that's bad because... ? Easy peasy - take the Lunar Coders from Strangers in Prax and hand them to your players. Oh, you mean playing in the Lunar Empire? Or in a real Sartarite tribe, as opposed to the tribes that don't belong to any city confederation? Not even the Red Cow campaign touches anything that goes on in Jonstown. Sure, there are plenty of things to happen in that village. When I asked "why the Colymar again", I was told that playing with the Colymar reduces the amount of interaction to a level where an introductory campaign can provide the info that the GM is likely to need. I am (almost) holding my breath for how the Jonstown confederation is going to be presented in the starter set. The problem here is that that setting is complex, and requires a lot of preparation by the GM to be represented adequately. The Gloranthan community has struggled with the task of providing background material that can be picked up by a GM without a degree in Gloranthan exegesis from a bunch of official and fan publications and then be given to the players who have even less of an idea what goes on in the Lunar Empire. Yes, I think that playing a team of Dart Competitors in a struggle between Lunar houses would be fun, could have epic magical interactions and lots of heroquesting. The problem is that I don't have enough information to run something like that without doing a deep study of the info we have on the Lunars. You don't want the players to start as agents for the leading houses. Except maybe house Assiday, now that it has sunk a fortune into the New Lunar Temple that served as hors d'œuvre for the Brown Dragon. Playing an agent for the Eel-Ariash might be frustrating in light of having to compete with Jar-eel, or just running errands for her. Playing a White Moonie campaign might be interesting, but is effectively another underdog vs. overpowering opposition in a pre-determined outcome setting. You could grab the old RQ3 Monster Colliseum supplement, place it in a major Lunar city (Mirin's Cross has seen quite a bit of description), and start a Spartakus (TV series) pastiche there, with the slave rebellion only as an unlikely option and entering the local nobility as dart competitor the more likely sequel. You can leave your players (and indeed the GM) in the dark about the greater plans of the masters of the house and just generate one black ops after another, with some defense against hostile black ops interspersed. Voila, Shadowrun Glorantha with the Lunar Empire as a setting. The trolls are a kind of opposition, and they are on the horizon. Probably in a Sartarite context again, I guess, at least for the "humans in troll regions" book. Presenting this elder race is less work than presenting even a single Lunar city with all the factions taking an interest there. While my games didn't advance enough to have Lunar player characters in the Orlanthi parties, Lunar backstabbing went hand in hand with Orlanthi backstabbing in those games. If you have your idea of a Lunar setting, why don't you write up some of your experiences in a RQG or HQG context and prepare that for the Jonstown Compendium? You'll find people to aid you with some of the work.

It works all the way better when I do it. After all, Germans are known to lack a sense of humor.