Joerg

This master of Illusion has exactly two of the Illusion spells, and only one Truth spell at double cost (and that not active). He would at least be able to add Sensation (requires Earth, at double cost) and Taste (possibly the least useful of the Illusions if you or your target are not immersed in water, requires Water, at double cost). All sorcerers like to have Fire, because Enhance INT allows them to expand their manipulation range. While Earth and Water infer Fire, they double the cost for this rune. As the unfortunate result, all sorcerers are armed with the power to burn things away. All sorcerers need Spirit if they don't have a spirit master of their own. No Spirit Rune, no protection from that pesky kind of magic. All sorcerers appear to need Magic. I am inclined to give it for free and not count it against the points above 11. Most research sorcerers probably go for Truth rather than Illusion, but one infers the other. Command is by far the most common technique, and acts as a stand-in for every other technique. I can see that a master of Illusion would like to have Combine. As the GM I would like to see how this NPC casts his spell without spending minutes leafing through the spell list for sorcery, and then discovering that this spell is listed elsewhere (like in TSR). Then the usualy approach of this spell caster should be documented, too. Same with Rune Lords preparing for battle - what's their usual sequence for powering up, what spells are provided by allied spirits or party members... I am no longer sure about this, otherwise the Arkati school (Black House of Arkat) makes their adepts start with a pointless rune. Urvantan and Zindaulo have it, Scholar Wyrm lacks it. I could do with less pronounced finger nails. While Urvantan refrains from lowly manual labor, he is a practitioner of alchemy and herbalism, and while I have fairly long fingernails on my right hand (especially when trying to keep my Play Guitar skill active), there is a limit to how long they can remain. The staff in the illustration appears to be a mere prop, as it is found leaning in the first level's cloak room. POW storage is RQ2 speak for a Magic Point Matrix in RQ3ese. The wishy-washy use of "POW vs POW" in RQ2 was clarified by naming "temporary POW" MP. The Magic Point Enchantment (as it is called in RQG) allows a magician (of any flavor) to create an item they can store magic points in, but unlike Dead Crystals no spirits. So yes, the use of the word "matrices" may be an erratum, as it is deprecated RQ3-speak. But answering your second question should address the first one. His 24-point necklace Sure you do. Each point of inscription saves you expending one MP on intensity, which saves you 2 SR for a spell of the same intensity, or allows you to add an extra point of intensity. Unfortunately we don't learn how inscribing a spell for extra POW works, as Urvantan has put the only such device into the Protective Circle, the last spell we would see in a combat situation. A wizard expecting to go to combat would have his Finger of Fire inscribed for a few POW, and cast it basically for free in no time at all. "I can do this all day!" Same thing with shamans or Rune Masters of considerable power. Ars Magica btw lives from the mix of sorcerers and practical people. Seeing a shaman fully statted out will be my next trip into the rules business. The ones I have seen so far appeared to be underwhelming compared to what I have seen in terms of shamanic abilities. But then, I can see PC shamans undergo stat training all the time to recover ability loss to new shamanic abilities, unless you go the munchkin way and allow "Restore Health" to recover such losses. Personally, I would argue with the munchkin that the ability losses of a shaman are in effect the experience of Death. Otherwise a shaman of Daka Fal would be able to buy lots of abilities for hardly any characteristic loss.

Not sure whether this is an error, but isn't it weird to introduce a new sorcery spell (See Rune Magic) as part of th scenario and then not to give it to any of the sorcerers in that scenario? Neither Urvantan (p.139 ) nor Zindaulo (p.143 ) have this spell listed.

A few last things I noticed reading through TSR: p.169 This is a Rune Lord of the Gorakiki-Beetle cult (called an Imago) and his war party. I don’t have seen GaGoG (or its preview) yet, but an Imago of Gorakiki used to be a shaman of the cult under RQ3 (Troll Gods Troll Cults Book p.32). RQ2 Troll Pak (Book of Uz p.19) has rune lords (“insect lords”) and rune priests (“insect (rune) priests”). “Attacks are at –35% due to the darkness due to this modifier, though the dark trolls have cast Darksee on themselves and are at no penalty.” What a waste of a rune point… Dark Trolls navigate well by Darksense, and require Darksee to see unhiindered in strong light. Darksee makes trollkin tolerate bright lite rather than being demoralized. p.170 Trollkin warrior leader’s tattoos as magic items: quite pointless info. His minions have e.g. Disruption spells, too, but no such magic item listings. p.187 Most importantly, there is now a new green elf forest with a radius of 16 kilometers (10 miles) from the grove. Several thousand green elves from other Gloranthan forests migrate to the new elf forest, changing the balance of power of the Elder Races in Dragon Pass. Using a very rough estimate on aldryami population density for Erontree, I come to 1000 elves per 125 hexes, which is optimistically seven times (pessimistically ten times) the area described for the new elf forest. This forest becomes effectively the garrison of a huge and unsustainable warband (only waiting for the New Seeds to be brought into the deforested lands). The Redwood forest in Dagori Inkarth has three times the diameter (i.e. 9 times the area). But then, that effect would be reached with several hundred elves already. A normal (peacetime) occupation density would be less than 200 elves.

That is the real ruling - one opponent will receive an almost impossible to parry attack, and the attacks of the first four people in melee with this character will likely have an effective 5% chance to land a hit. The solution how to deal with this (short of using Dispel Magic 2 to get rid of that 1 rune point Sword Trance) is to attack the Humakti with missiles - ideally missiles he may want to parry, reducing his parry when the melee attacks with full damage bonus come in to values below 100%. Casting a Slow on the Humakti or Glue on the soles of his shoes may slow him down enough that all combatants can leave melee range, and his trance can only be used for parrying missiles. Demoralize and/or Befuddle are great against such foes, and Lunar Madness or Mindblast is even better as neither can be dispelled. Generally I would allow the Humakti to wade through a sea of blood and chopped limbs once and maybe twice before the opponents get wise upon this tactic (let him gain reputation for the first times) and start to take him or at least his sword trance down with extreme prejudice, and from a distance. His fellow party members can of course buff him up magically, with Protection on top of Shield and perhaps some more stuff. Engaging him in spirit combat with a controlled spirit, sicking elementals on him, multispelled Disruption - all of these will make his life a lot more interesting. There will be fights that the Humakti can breeze through. But then, one day, he will face an opponent with similar weapon trance, and their skills above 100 will cancel each other out.

In the third scenario in TSR, one of the leaders of other mercenary parties is Vargast Vargastson the Varmandi, leader of a small group of clan militia (of this well-known war clan). Wait a moment, Vargast the Varmandi, wasn’t that the leader of the herdsmen in the Adventure Book? No, this Vargast the Varmandi is the son of Vargast, and about 2 points better in every stat than the leader of the herdsmen, and has a different portrait – less detail visible of the face. If you are going to play both the scenario books, and haven’t used the cattle raid in the Adventure Book yet, I would suggest you adjust the herdsman to get at least the SIZ and INT of the militia leader, and re-introduce the herdsman (and possibly one or two of his fellow herdsfolk) ready to follow the elf’s call for mercenaries and the leadership of the characters who already showed competence against the wild beasts and other dangers threatening the tribal herd. Having recurring familiar side characters doesn’t harm a campaign. It might be possible to play the first two scenarios in reverse order, even as sequel to the scenarios in the Adventure Book (and even if some of the characters took on new responsibilities for Apple Lane). Taking on similar responsibilities for the Long Home (possibly one or two of the other characters in the party) may place the players and a valuable resource well-positioned not just for the Smoking Ruins scenario and mopping up all the plot hooks in there (while still playing into the Colymar tribal politics), but will also position at least some of the player characters in an ideal position for Argrath's future ambitions to become King of Dragon Pass by marrying the (next) FHQ. Speaking of Feathered Horse Queens - according to the Sourcebook (p.18), the FHQ Vistera dies in 1625 (presumably as a guest of the Lunar Temple dedication rite). The FHQ list in King of Sartar (p.195 in the pdf) tells us Avenge the tribe on a vile foe... Was she involved in the attack on King Broyan? Even though Harrek stole the spotlight of the Battle of Pennel Ford, it was Broyan who master-minded that battle, and the shattering defeat suffered by the Grazer mercenaries (and the death of Vistera's sister Mirina akaFHQ #6 Single Matron Woman). She fought against her own sister - as the youngest (and last) surviving of the three daughters of FHQ #4 Sorana aka “Splendid Among the Proud.” (Either the list of the FHQs in KoS or the Sourcebook makes a gaffe here... if FHQ #6 was the middle Sister, and she never married, then how could she have married a king?)

It is starting to feel like the HQ1 concept for Eastern Gloranthan roleplaying that each player would create two characters - one meditating mystic doing little but refute temptations over the course of the campaign, and another character (e.g. a martial artist or other more mundane member of Eastern society) that would go on regular adventures. At some point the mystics would gain powers of refutation that would actually influence reality around them, at which point they would join the action and continue to draw (or risk) their growth from interaction with opposing mystics (of the Adpara or Antigod races or worshipers). A full sorcerer is starting to feel like a secondary character. Possibly just as in Ars Magica, only with the difference that the major roleplaying focus is on the non-sorcerer heroes, with the sorcerer coming in in a Merlin/Gandalf/Macros the Black/Zzabur function of arcane fire support and even more arcane quest-giving. Really much like Urvantan in the middle scenario Urvantan's Tower in TSR (p.150).

p.23, Windwhistler's "INT spirit" artifact worth 8 points of Free INT: While the spirit spells known by Windwhistler reduce his Free INT, they aren't tied to the artifact (or the stat, relying on CHA instead). If he loses that necklace, he would lose the ability to memorize 8 sorcery spells or have those 8 points less to manipulate them. (RQG rules p.390) His spirit spells take up 14 points of his INT of 22, leaving 8 points to be used for sorcery (spell memorization and manipulation). p.129 Comparing to the information on p.152, the skirmishers in the Company should have Speak Esrolian as their best language ability, rather than Tarshite. This needn’t be true for the skirmishers at this point, though, as I find it likely that the company picked up stragglers from the extermination of the Lunar forces in Sartar, and may have added a few people growing up among the camp followers (although their heavy infantry parents probably would preferably introduce them to their own unit as trainees). p.140 (stat block) Leather hooded hauberk (1 and 2 pts.), This isn't clear in the text. 1 point on the head and 2 points on chest and abdomen, if one looks at the hit location block. The one fit for all three Arkati doesn't have a ransom, but have Treasure instead. Is this intentional? p.142 This is a reference to the earlier statement But then, Air is a physical thing (as is Darkness, in Glorantha). It is even tangible to some extent, and has a haptic component where it moves. The description is similar to underwater views through currents with different density (due to temperature or salinity. But "as if it is a physical thing" is a weird phrasing. p.142 A noble-born son out of Helerdon, in Esrolia, That's the old name for New Crystal City, no longer in use in maps or indices. p.143 Please don't introduce permanent magical +3 swords outside of Kostern Island (the environment of the Clanking City in God Forgot)! If absolutely necessary, make it a spirit-occupied weapon with the bound spirit casting the spell when drawn from the sheath or otherwise on demand... In case of doubt, place the spirit in the sheath. p.144 Vroluxa is the only Arkati to have a Ransom value after the Treasure value. Is that intentional? p.154 This may just be me as a native speaker of German who likes the grammar to have the relative tenses clearly staggered, but to me this sentence works better with past perfect. (It might actually be inappropriate for English grammar, though.) There are only four manticores left in the Company. The others died in combat, abandoning having abandoned their comrades and getting gotten ambushed. These four have learned from that hard lesson. p.155-156 I am missing the stats for Senginnius’ fetch. p.163-164 Another case of mixing twp cults, although this time both already published (Babeester Gor and Maran Gor). I think that Maran Gor might make sense, although I wouldn’t have expected a Maran Gor priestess among House Hulta of Nochet. Mariya the Dancer Priestess of Maran Gor. … Rune Points: 5 (Maran Gor) … Passions: Devotion (Maran Gor) 80%, ...(p,164) Skills: … Cult Lore (Babeester Gor) 35%, … Worship (Babeester Gor) 40%. Languages: Speak Earthtongue 45%, Speak Heortling 75%, Speak Tradetalk 50%, Read/Write Heortling 40%, Read/Write Tradetalk 30%. I miss Speak Esrolian (listed as a separate language in the homeland section of RQG rules, e.g. p.60. Heortling and (Old) Tarshite could (and really should) be second languages. Same for her Babeester Axe Sister guardians. Sorry, but typical Babeester Gor initiates don't have Shake Earth (yet, no idea whether GaGoG will change that). Not even as associate spell from Maran, which is Blast Earth rather than Shake Earth. RQG rules, p.290

Thanks for pointing me that way. Let's take apart his sorcery, too. Knows Command and Summon techniques, and has mastered Earth, Truth, Spirit, and Man Runes. Infered runes are Darkness, Fire, Illusion. Spells include Geomancy (3 pts.) 41%, Truth Earth Summon Identify Otherworldly Entity (3 pts.) 43%, Truth Spirit Command Logician (2 pts.) 54%, Truth Summon Reveal Rune(2 pts.) 29%, Truth Command Speak to Mind (3 pts.) 42%, Truth Man Command If Windwhistler has these memorized, his personal Free INT is down to 22 - 14 (for the spirit spells) - 5 (for the sorcery spells) = 3 (+8 for his necklace). This shows that we need a slot for the Free INT of a sorcerer in the description template. The three runes may be unnecessary as long as every NPC avoids using inferred runes or techniques, but frankly speaking I find that approach in the examples extremely annoying as the reality of a player character sorcerer will be multiple doublings for certain spells that he may regard as must-haves. The sample characters should have the occasional spell with doubled or quadrupled cost, just to show this pitfall of learning sorcery. While I am at it, do these added MP cost from using inferred runes or techniques give a sorcery spell a greater penetration strength than its intensity? And how much does inscribing such spells using extra POW reduce the magic point cost for such spells? Or the casting time?

p.26 Leana the Elurae Elura While Elurae is a fantasy term, it has the look and feel of the latin female plural form, and the Latin female singular would be Elura rather than Elurae. Using Fox-Woman instead of Elura(e) (like in the Bestiary and the Guide) would eliminate that nit-picking, too. p.136 Missing pronoun added: If they are expecting trouble, the Arkati are fully ready for battle, spells cast and weapons at the ready. Alternatively, skip the "are" If are expecting trouble, the Arkati are fully ready for battle, spells cast and weapons at the ready. And to avoid the duplicate "ready", maybe the Arkati have prepared for battle, spells cast and weapons at the ready. p.137 Box: New Sorcery spell See Rune Magic Variable Self, Temporal, Stackable [Command + Magic Runes] This is using the spell description matrix for divine rune magic, not for sorcery. The sorcery version should be something like this: See Rune Magic 2 Points Self, Ranged, Temporal [Command + Magic Runes] Also this paragraph is missing the whereabouts of the third Arkati! Also, the word "adventurers" in the next paragraph has a strange broken underline in green, as if the pdf generation carried over an artefact of a comment or something like that. p.141 a woman in the robes of a Seven Mothers priestess accompanying the motely motley party.

The -orna in Yelorna might be understood as an contraction of "Ourania", the star mistress of heaven, thought-child of Dayzatar. The "El" miht be a contraction of "Ehil" (as in the Ralian sun god Ehilm). In this case, the non-contracted name could be Yu-Ehil-Ourania. And if we had a syllabic script for Dara Happan rather than an alphabetic one, the respective glyphs would be used.

The Smoking ruins map is the same style and degree of detail as the Clearwine map that is both in TSR and in the Gamemaster Screen Pack. Since the scenarios in TSR build upon the Adventure Book in the Screen Pack, I would advise you to start with that. There is enough duplication of information from the Adventure Book that you can play TSR without the Screen Pack, but having both will improve the Colymar experience (especially the first scenario) greatly. It is possible to anchor the TSR scenarios elsewhere (e.g. in Wintertop Fort) if you don't want to play in the Colymar tribe again and again. Other than the Colymar and the DInacoli tribes, little has been explored of Sartar in official publications, and not that much outside of those. Barbarian Adventures and subsequent scenarios in Sartar Rising didn't dictate your tribe, but delivered little local detail as a consequence. The sample scenarios in Hero Wars and HQ1 have hardly any localisation, either (which makes them useful for the GM, but not as a source of local detail). The renowned Lismelder campaign of the Tales crew played in another odd-ball tribe of Sartar. The Jonstown description in the upcoming Glorantha starter set will be the first official RuneQuest gaming material set in a typical part of Sartar, rather than a traditional or Wild West one. I have little hope that we will get house-to-house level descriptions of Jonstown as per Pavis (or the Midkemia-Press city modules including Thieves World) in the official releases. But maybe there is a way to provide such via the Jonstown Compendium.

Yes. While he was a hero of the Orlanth cult, he wasn't even an initiate - Heort was a shaman instead. Which probably made a lot of sense during the Greater Darkness when there was hardly any deity left to answer to worship with helpful magic or blessings. But then, I am anything but sure that the concept of "initiate" made any sense prior to the Silver Age/Gray Age when something like Time and a stirring of the divine powers that contributed to the Ritual of the Net was available. It is possible that the whole shebang with initiate status and rune magic available through sacrifice (the Hantrafal way) only completely fell together with the first Dawn. Not associated with the Lunar Way? The overseer of Mernita is alternatingly called Verithurus(/a/um) and Jernedeus. Verithure is Jernotie, as far as the Dara Happans (who can see Mt. Jernalf in the west) are concerned (and both are addressed as males in Dara Happan history, regardless of what gender they may have displayed). All of the pieces claimed to be precursor avatars of Sedenya have a non-Lunar part to their stories. The story about the ascension of Daxdarius to Mt. Jernotius has bits and pieces Sedenya present threefold - as Jernotius, Natha, and Entekos. Possibly also as Daxdarius.

The last page of the index is numbered 192, the pdf adds the front and back covers for 194 pages. With maps as double-page spreads inside, this really makes me hope for stitched binding of the book.

I am German. At times very much so, and one of our national traits is complaining - especially complaining at high standards. Ask the other members of the tribe who have experienced me, whether online or face-to-face. I came into roleplaying games with rules and dice about 10 years late, although I had been a narrator for roleplaying games using plush animals and my sister's favorite doll even earlier - she (my sister, not the doll) once commented that she preferred playing with me because there she and her doll would experience adventures whereas other kids she played with would play house. We would also use lego figures (like the ones starring in the lego movie) or smurf figures for this kind of miniature-driven narrative roleplaying, where touching the figure implied that you took narrative control. Each of these toys had the equivalent of pages of background information implied... Yes, there are gendered spirits. Former (and future) people and beasts will have experienced (or implied) gender. But then, people aren't always reborn with the same gender - e.g. Count Moralatap of the Anger in Carmania, or the Kitori founder whose name's spelling escapes me momentarily. Heort's father was actually antlered (Darndrev the Horned), the child of the (illicit, or at least resisted) union of his fawn grandfather Sorenthalosta, who took on human shape only occasionally, and the daughter of the king of the Infithtelli at Deksarshill. (Heortling Mythology p.120) Heort's great-grandfather Armandor was the lover of Arina, who turned her lovers into wilderness creatures, and who gave birth to a fawn child as a result. This makes Arina sound like an avatar of the Lady of the Wild, possibly a nymph. That list also provides the possible origin of Ivarne being frozen, King Hektastalos of Kordos (which was the Stravuli tribe's land in Vingkotling times), who became ice lord after Darntor, a descendant of Korol and ancestor of Heort, had died defending him as he valued his oaths to Orlanth higher than his personal ethos. This is the second book of the Stafford Library of unfinished works (third if you count King of Sartar, which is an actual finished book). It covers all the canonized emperors of Dara Happa and mentions a few which have been struck from that list, or never been acknowledged in Raibanth. This is the official timeline of the history and pre-history of Peloria as kept by the Dara Happans, and it includes a number of western Pelorian alternatives or additions to that list in the appendices, which then led to the third book in this series, the Entekosiad where these myths are explored as raw experience written down rather than as the dynastic roll of predecessors. Like all books in the Stafford Library, these are works in progress which have been refined over several re-releases, and then left in their pdf incarnation as "good enough, there are other things that need exploration" state. Much of this has found its way into the Guide, even more has been hidden in the mists of history and is at best hinted at in the Guide. The Stafford Library books are great deep research material for Glorantha, and occasionally have the best data that we have on a topic. But unless you really want to invest into deep research, keep yourself occupied with the more accessible stuff, and use us Lhankor Mhy and Buserian sages around here for the small fee of a few "thank you" likes to make that research for you.

Interesting idea about Magic being the "infer me" rune of all runes, but no idea whether that is the intent of the rules. I am still in a mix of error-checking and reading into the scenario, which means I have still about 70 pages to read of TSR, so I will reserve my comments on Urvantan in action for later. That's the crux of it, once again. Right now I am focussed on the faults of Zindaulo's write-up, as it appears that Urvantan has received quite the closer look. But still, for me I come away with a "demand" that sorcery spell listings should be followed by the points and then the runes and techniques used, and if inferred runes, to list these and their doubling. Pretty much like I did in my post above. Neither Urvantan's Teleportation matrix nor his 17 point storage crystal are available under RAW (rules as written). I could see how a sorcerous Summon (lesser incarnation of) Orlanth or Summon Mastakos could lead to a bargain that produces such an Teleportation item, and I would love to learn the price paid for that. And I would love to see such a ritual described, both in Gloranthan narration (the Xeotam Dialogues hint at this), and in the rules systems available for playing a Gloranthan sorcerer. But both these things are cheats that shouldn't be dangled before greedy rules-lawyery players who may read the scenarios once they have been played (or perhaps even before... bloody munchkins).

After stating the facts above, time for some grumbling. Neither of the two sorcerers is anywhere "realistic" if you want to develop them in the course of play. They have almost the species max for their INT and are yet only middling effective. It looks like the RQG sorcery system is breeding either one-trick ponies or cheaters. Zindaulo with his mix of spirit magic and sorcery has basically no sorcerous ability left, and he even knows a spell he lacks a rune for. (Which is easy to repair - he has enough storage space for 2 more runes or techniques). Zindaulo's skill ratings in his spells are somewhat within what you would expect for a player character sorcerer. Urvantan's skill ratings are the fruit of his 90 years of job experience. Urvantan has his caste taboos listed. Do not engage in physical combat; do not perform manual labor; do not negotiate or bargain with other castes or outsiders (he presents things as “take it or leave it” or as simple demands); be celibate; always appear as “Zzabur” (tall hat, long beard, heavy robes, etc.) The first three taboos are the specialities of the other three castes (horal, dronar, talar). Celibacy is a Rokari-specific taboo (Meriatan definitely was not celibate in the course of his career) The last is a Rokari demand that is shared by other orthodox Malkioni sorcerers, although more liberally by some (e.g. the God Forgot advisor to Belinter in Prince of Sartar or the Nochet sorcerer performing geomancy or something similar for Vasana on p.380 of the RQG rules.) We don't learn what advantages he draws from these restrictions, his Free INT isn't mentioned. Zindaulo (the Arkati) doesn't list any caste or similar restrictions, but he is the character violating the INT requirements. His Illumination allows him to ignore all cult restrictions - but does this affect the Free INT rules?

One (unexpected) feature of The Smoking Ruins is that we get our first glimpse at Sorcery in full action. We get a look at a Rokari sorcerer who knows five runes and four techniques (why so many? they all can be inferred from one or two), and we get a short introductory description of the House of Black Arkat. The description of the House of Black Arkat in The Smoking Ruins p.136 (sidebar) mentions that I seem to have been under the wrong assumption that the Magic Rune in sorcery spells was a place holder for other runes as it is in divine rune magic. This makes it just another bloody point of INT above 11 blocked, making even an accomplished sorcerer like the one presented quite limited in his abilities - effectively almost as much as a priest of an alemental deity, although under a different paradigm. I really need to produce a chart which allows to search for spells by runes and techniques (and applicable inferred runes or techniques replacing these). The RQG pdf unfortunately doesn't support a text search for the runes. No idea if this functionality could be knit into the pdf, e.g. as an invisible hidden text behind all the graphics. Spells using the Magic Rune include Attract Magic (Magic, Command) Castback (Magic, Stasis, Combine, Command) Drain Soul (Magic, Dispel) Identify Spell (Truth, Magic, Command) Magic Point Enchantment (Magic, Command) Neutralize Magic (Magic, Dispel) Pierce Veil (Magic, Truth, Combine) Protective Circle (Magic, Command) That's actually a fairly big and important selection of the spell, and requires just two condition runes to be able to learn all of these. Let's have a look at the sorcery rules portion in TSR. Spoilers Ahead! Runes and Techniques: Urgantan's mastered runes are Fire, Illusion, Magic, Movement, and Spirit, which gives him also the inferred runes of Earth, Water, Truth and Stasis at doubled MP cost. He has mastered (wastefully) four Techniques, Command (inferring each of the Techniques), Dispel and Summon (which only fail to infer Combine and Separate) Combine (which only fails to infer Dispel and Summon) While this wealth of techniques avoids a couple of MP cost doublings, I wouldn't let a sorcery-using character of mine be so spend-thrift with these rune/technique slots. Dropping either Summon or Dispel for the Air or Darkness rune would give access to all elements but moon. I would probably sacrifice another technique (any but Command) for Fertility or Death, and it would be nifty to have the Man rune, too. But then I am not entirely certain whether one can use a single mastered technique to infer a second technique in spells that require two techniques. Spells: Two of Urgantan's spells have been inscribed to his abode, Create Image 90% and Disappear 90%. In a bending of the rules, the guardian spirit of the entrance is able to re-activate the created image, possibly with the use of the key. RQ3 has a rule for enchantments that adds such conditions to trigger activation or deactivation, but I haven't seen this applied to a long-lasting sorcery spell. Strictly speaking, it should be possible to design a spell allowing such added conditions, but that spell would need to have its own casting skill and memorization slot (or inscription), and it would probably add another rune and a combine technique to the basic Create Image runes. Urgantan has memorized four spells Create Hallucination (50%), 2 points [Illusion, Combine - no MP cost doubling] Create Wall of Flames (50%), 2 points [Fire, Summon - no MP cost doubling] Dominate Discorporate Spirit (50%), 2 points [Spirit, Command - no MP cost doubling] - Shouldn't this be specified for a specific type of spirit? Dominate Fire Elemental (50%), 3 points [Spirit, Fire, Command - no MP cost doubling] He knows a couple more spells but needs to recall these through meditation before being able to cast them: Bind Elemental (25%), Ritual, 3 points POW [Spirit, Fire, Command - no MP cost doubling] (and possibly double cost for Earth and Water elementals, unless these have to be learned separately) Bind Spirit (35%), Ritual, 2 points POW [Spirit, Command - no MP cost doubling] Conflagration (25%), 2 points [Fire, Summon - no MP cost doubling] Enhance INT (25%), 2 points [Fire, Summon - no MP cost doubling] Logical Clarity (25%), 2 points [Illusion, Dispel - no MP cost doubling] Summon Fire Elemental (35%), 3 points [Fire, Command, Summon - no MP cost doubling] Summon Guardian Spirit (35%), 3 points [Spirit, Command, Summon - no MP cost doubling] Identify Otherworld Entity (25%), 3 points doubled [Truth (inferred from Illusion), Spirit, Command - single MP cost doubling] And he has a very own secret spell for which the runes aren't given (and frankly I wonder whether his assortment of runes should allow this spell) Brew Unaging Potion 25% Create Image (inscribed to the tower 90%) 3 points [Illusion, Fire, Combine - no MP cost doubling] Disappear (inscribed to the tower 90%), 4 points [Illusion, Fire, Combine, Command - no MP cost doubling] FInger of Fire (inscribed to a bracelet 70), 3 points [Fire, Movement, Combine - no MP cost doubling] Neutralize Spirit Magic (inscribed to ring 75%), 2 points [Spirit, Dispel - no MP cost doubling] Neutralize Magic (inscribed to ring 60%), 2 points [Magic, Dispel - no MP cost doubling] Spirit Warding (inscribed to diadem 65%), 2 points [Spirit, Dispel - no MP cost doubling] Protective Circle (inscribed to silvery ink pot 35% with 8 POW additional intensity), 2 points [Magic, Command - no MP cost doubling] Looking up the runes for these spells took me about half an hour (ok, writing down the comments included). But it was necessary to note down the basic magic points the spell would need. His magic items include a cheat item ("a special Teleportation spell matrix, allowing this spell to be cast for 6 magic points instead of 3 Rune points"), a POW storage crystal with capacity 17 (two above the 2D6+3 maximum of 15 that you can roll as per Adventure Book p.122), a sorcery spell-strengthening crystal (+3 to spell strength) a 24 MP magic point matrix I wonder: does a sorcery spell-strengthening crystal differ from any other spell-strengthening crystal? One of the Arkati is an excommunicated (or, with the current terminology, Banned) Lhankor Mhy philosopher with a bit of sorcery. Both sorcerers have the average INT (average for a somewhat playable sorcerer) of 20. Yes, this is irksome. These characters are just one point of INT away from species maximum. Both have been optimized so that their sorcery doesn't incur double magic point cost (they still can manage maybe two big spells a day at most with their entirety of available MP, except that the excommunication probably was over the Arkati's knowledge of Tap Body which allows other means of collecting MP). Zindaulo, the sorcerer among the Arkati, has Ward Against Weapons (Death, Dispel) but lacks the Death rune or the Fertility rune (to infer it at double MP cost). His runes are Magic, Man, Disorder and Truth, and he has a lavish three Techniques with Combine, Command, and Tap. Let's have a look at his sorcery spells: Bind Spirit (25%), Ritual, 2 points POW [Spirit, Command - no MP cost doubling] - wait, he doesn'T have the Spirit rune. Castback (40%), 4 points [Magic, Stasis (inferred from Disorder), Combine, Command - doubled magic point cost] Dominate Human (25%), 2 points [Man, Command] Identify Spell (35%), 3 points [Truth, Magic, Command] Magic Point Enchantment (50%), Ritual, 2 Points (plus variable amount of POW?) [Magic, Command] Pierce Veil (20%), 3 points [Magic, Truth, Combine] Tap Body (35%), 2 points [Man, Tap] Ward Against Weapons (30%), 2 points [Death (which he cannot infer), Dispel] This guy has 15 points of Spirit Magic (including an unnecessary duplicate of Magic Point Enchantment), which added to his sorcery spells puts him at -3 points of Free INT. I will assume that my grasp of the rules is flawed, so please correct me if I am wrong anywhere here.

Trying to make sense of the sorcery rules as applied in the scenario (look out for a separate, spoiler thread where I take a look at the application), I found p.143 Zindaulo, the sorcerer among the Arkati, has Ward Against Weapons (Death, Dispel) but lacks the Death rune or the Fertility rune (to infer it at double MP cost). His runes are Magic, Man, Disorder and Truth, and he has a lavish three Techniques with Combine, Command, and Tap. Neither should he have Bind Spirit, as he lacks the Spirit Rune. And if you substract his spirit magic total (15) from his INT, he has three more sorcery spells than he can keep memorized.

In that case, looking at Ian Thomson's archived webpage might be more helpful -- according to this archived page, the New Pavis LM temple received a closer look by Ian in volume three of his epic series of Pavis adventures.

On a different spin, I found a number of key NPCs which feel like they have untold stories that are worth exploring. One-eye and Makes Scratches of the Smoking Ruins scenario both sound like the author has background notes expanding their stories. (At least I would have plenty if I had written that scenario). But then, I am also tempted to re-write One-eye as a member of the Puppeteers who encountered her ancestor's spirit in the Smoking Ruins and returned without her troupe, which then resulted in her current dilemma. The Company of the Manticore arrives on the setting of the second adventure as survivors of the cleansing of Lunar troops and auxiliaries in post-Dragonrise Sartar (or Heortland), and I am somewhat tempted to tell their story of scrounging up stragglers and surviving in a very hostile environment to make their way all the way to the nearest Tarshite military (if not to Furthest), and then to the location of the generous grant they received from King Pharandros. Glen Cook's Black Company stories are full of such misadventures, and this one sounds like an un-told Gloranthan epic. For additional inspiration, try to find some reports from (or fiction set in) the 80 years wars in the Netherlands or the 30 years war in the Germanies for the effects of a mercenary group taking possession of a town and/or rural environment.

Can you help jog my memory where and when this was published? Anything to do with this digest post by Ian Thomson? This was a booklet produced as companion volume for the Freeform "The Life of Moonson", IIRC. The authors (Mike Hagen, and possibly folk from the Tales crew, according to this digest post by Nick Brooke) of this freeform might be able to help you out with those texts, or otherwise ebay or a friendly owner of that publication allowing you sneak peaks. No idea how to contact Mike Hagen, though. I was part of the fans who created the Whitewall group and the Whitewall Wiki back in those days, but I don't recall us using a text formally titled thus. We may have produced some material to that extent. There are descriptions of the Fall of Whitewall in Orlanth is Dead, of the Sartar Rising series, but I have no idea whether your reference is to any material in there. The temple description should be part of the City of Pavis city description, which would be part of the Pavis box, the Pavis & The Big Rubble Glorantha classic, RQ3 River of Cradles and HQ2's Pavis: Gateway to Adventure.

Little attachment to little attachments, yeah. While having a bunch of grognards as a significant part of your customer base means an almost guaranteed number of sales to this bunch, it also means that you have to tread carefully not to tread too heavily on their sensibilities. I might be biased as one of the most vociferous of those grognards, but I think we are a fairly friendly and helpful bunch of old nags as long as our bbeacklog of Glorantha material isn't harmed. The similarity is intentional. Yelorna is the star maiden, the main goddess of the unicorn riders of Prax. With Gloranthan unicorns being epitomes of chauvinistic arrogance, only (ritually) maiden women are accepted as riders by them, which makes Yelorna a war goddess for women with celestial connections. In a striking similarity to the Zebra riders, only a portion of the tribe rides the signature beasts of their tribe, as the (necessary) mothers and wives of the tribe must ride other steeds. Yelorna is detailed in the classic RQ2 scenario box The Big Rubble, a companion piece to The City of Pavis, with both of them available as an omnibus pdf Pavis and the Big Rubble - one of the excellent, timelessly good and at the time of their publication ground-breaking scenario books which contributed so much to the popularity of RuneQuest in those days. Get the pdf... Yes, we do have such people, and some of the myths have been adopted not just by the community, but even have wormed their way into canon. And yes, a GM or even a player party can tell a story and (in cooperation with the GM) make it a "real myth". Glorantha is a setting full of myths waiting to be discovered, told, and be acted upon. New myths should not discover a new Great Pantheon that rules over a significant part of the modern world - Glorantha is described in too much detail to allow this into a canonical version of the setting. (If you are fine with a not-so canonical setting with your own additions, there is nothing to stop you from adding such stuff, but altering the setting in such a major way makes it harder for people playing closer to canon to adopt it for their own games.) On the other hand, it is fairly normal to discover a past culture or pantheon that did rule over a significant part of the setting, only to be destroyed by one of the known major players (like Chaos, the Storm Tribe, drowned by the Seas, eaten by the trolls, used as raw material by the dwarves, overgrown by the Aldryami), or simply dying out by exhaustion of their assets (like e.g. the Gold Wheel Dancers). Doing things on a clan level has always a place in Glorantha. A "clan without men" is possibly better described as an all-female cult or temple. The Unicorn Tribe of Prax (the Yelorna worshipers) are a non-Orlanthi example of such a society, even though they have males riding alongside the mothers of their tribe. The Marazi amazons of Trowjang, an island beyond Teshnos, which is a fertile subtropical peninsula beyond Prax and Genert's wastes, have no men at all except for slaves and visitors voluntarily accepting slave status during their stay. The amazons are all the wives of their (planetary) deity Tolat, who visits them one night in the year and impregnates all of his wives who desire so (and who aren't cursed in a way that prevents impregnation, including the curse of old age). Among the Heortlings, such a clan would be unusual in modern times. But if this is for the clan's founding story in the Greater Darkness, such a clan is quite possible. Another opportunity to start such a clan would have been in the years following 1120 (the Dragonkill) north of Dragon Pass, when most of the adult male population had been killed by the dragons. A new clan founded from the widows and orphans left behind and without their normal providers could have been forced to make do without males for the first generation, at least. But then, there is a biological imperative to find a method to breed new clan people, and unless you want to grant your clanswomen parthenogenesis, they are bound to require at least some males for breeding. If your clan is supposed to be Orlanthi, these males would usually marry the women, at least for year marriages. For the clan to be stable, these marriages would have to be matrilocal. I don't suppose that you are envisioning a juvenile male harem fantasy (as found in dozens if not hundreds of shounen mangas) with that clan, but keep in mind that there may be an audience mistaking or mis-using it for such. You could of course play with that meme and invert it as a gruesome secret of the clan, but that is just sliding into the misogynistic Greek myths about powerful women abusing upstanding Greek heroes with their wiles. Again, I don't expect you to go into that direction, but it is another possible different interpretation of such a myth. I would be very interested in such a take avoiding those pitfalls in the previous paragraph. Reindeer are not usually living anywhere near Orlanthi, although the Ice Age before the Great Darkness brought them far enough south to interact with the Storm worshipers of southern Peloria. Having lived in northern Scandinavia for a while, I don't think that reindeer and productive agriculture of a neolithic to iron age level can mix, but hey, this is not the real world, and while in the real world deer better adapted to the absence of permafrost replaced the reindeer, why not go for a group of reindeer trapped on a diminishing island of permafrost and surviving through adaptation to warmer climate, possibly by allying to these women? We tend to think of mammoths as shaggy woolly beasts, but the Columbian Mammoth of what now is the USA and Mexico was in all likelihood a pachyderm with as sparse fur as modern elephants. A reindeer variant with a lot less adaptation to the cold but retaining their antlers for both sexes is not that big a jump - adoption by Eiritha (or an equivalent earth goddess) might have brought this gift of surviving in a climate only rarely accommodating their strengths may work. The variant species may be as threatened as the aurochs is in Dragon Pass. Or they may have been brought back by a previous hero. Bringing back an animal species is a common feat of notable heroes - Moirades brought back a songbird in his quest to woo the Feathered Horse Queen, Argrath is prophecied to bring back the aurochs (and The Coming Storm/Eleven Lights tell about a possible method), Enjeem the Leopard introduced (or re-introduced) her favourite large feline (also in the near future of the setting, despite my use of grammatical past). King Heort is associated with the White or Silver Deer, aka Heortling deer, a magical species that was important in the Great Darkness. With all these precedents, I see no trouble for bringing in the reindeer, with a little explanation/backstory.

p.110 "Similarly, when King Pharandos of Tarsh gifted Sir Ethilrist with Muse Roost and the surrounding territory, the valley’s inhabitants simply avoided the Black Horse Company tax collectors." This doesn't make sense and contradicts the timeline of Ethilrist's presence in Dragon Pass as described in the Guide or the Sourcebook. Pharandros became king in 1610, had as little authority to grant Muse Roost or any Grazer territory next to it to the Black Horse Troop as had the Red Emperor (who did sign the deed) during the reign of Phargentes (1545-1579 as Provincial Overseer, 1555-1579 as King of Tarsh). At the very least, amend Pharandros to Phargentes. P.111 The Sinkhole is an important feature for the valley to remain lost to the rest of the world. Yet the Map of the South Wilds shows a river emerging from the valley and joining the one coming from the Smoking Ruins down Hiia's Valley. p.115 "Chief Priestess of Ernalda. Female, age 70. Long Home resident. Jorendona has been the Ernalda Chief Priestess for the last 45 years. She is a small woman, wizened and white haired, her years as the voice of the Earth emblazoned in the wrinkles on her face—not to mention the tattoos on her body" A post-menopausal Ernalda Chief Priestess? The Esrolian queen Bruvala may be one of the oldest mortals to have given birth at age 70, but she had to retire to the Asrelia cult afterwards. P.121 "The residents of Long Home are mainly Tarshite in background, but the last 500 years have made them as different from Old Tarsh residents as Old Tarsh is from Lunar Tarsh." At most 295 years (compare p.9)...

The transcendent goddess with the webbed feet is Imarja. Arachne Solara with eight webbed duck feet is a somehow disturbing image.

I know that the women of Kethaela hide wealth underground. The Pelorians are the ones who display coins on clothes and armor, as per the art direction in the Guide for the Pelorian culture couple. But then, if Lunar chic is imitated, yes, Kethaelan women imitating the Dara Happans wear coins. I don't think that the central hole needs to be the end of this. If you want to have rulers' heads or mythic events on the coin, a central hole needs quite a lot of ingenuity not to hamper the depiction of a ruler in profile. There might be standardized "coin hangers" into which a coin could be inserted, affixed (by bending some thin metal) and then strung to a thread or bigger things to be able to hang them to your clothing or accessories.