Joerg

That was a fearsome cat, or why is this wolf so frightened ior submissive that it has its tail between its legs? If I visit a farm and a dog (other than a border collie) takes a posture like this, I don't leave the car, because I had bad experiences with frightened dogs of that size.

I suggest you take a look at e.g. p.309, the list of Yelmalios geases, and see "Celibacy on firedays/in Fire Season" etc. which clearly indicates that "celibacy" has nothing to do with the Catholic Church requirement for priests, but means "abstinence from sexual intercourse". There is nothing about pleasures or trauma of sexual intercourse, it is about the practice of sexual activities of any kind. Presumably including masturbation. Humakt has no celibacy, instead he has "cannot love" which deprives the character of any "love" passion (and makes him or her uneligible for Ernalda's "Bless Champion" magic). Unlike the Yelmalian celibacy requirements, this geas apparently cannot be broken. What gives you the idea that the "Celibacy" geas or the virginity requirement that unicorns have for their riders has anything at all to do with pleasure, trauma or love?

Guilty. I added that cross reference after having written a lot (and two involuntary computer new starts), so I lost a bit. Replies in the other thread, then. Cutting that out, moving it.

Sure. But he has plenty experience with keeping undead active in a damp and flooded environment, and his servants are as immune to asphyxiation as himself. Sea creatures die and leave corpses, too. Is there a rule that Delecti's corpse has to be human? While the flooding lasts, he might switch to a series of Triolini corpses. Or durulz. I mentioned in an earlier post that a hero of Delecti's stature probably has several manifestations. In accordance with Stewart's (aka @Quackatoa) idea that the durulz may have a special relationship with Delecti, it is possible that the "protector of the durulz" one is somewhat different from the master of the Dancers in Darkness. A "unicorn (or in ths case, undead durulz?) emperor" to the "scorpion-armed broo" Vivamort/Nontraya hero Delecti we all know and fear (using the forms of Ralzakark to make a distinction between the appearance and character of the bad entities). Stewart, how does the form of Delecti that the durulz appease look like?

FIrst of all, I have taken the subject of celibacy and the role of the church into a new thread away from the RuneQuest forum, and I ask anyone meaning to debate issues like rape victims etc. there: No, I don't see this as my prime directive. But it is only fair to challenge these powerful and POW-less magical abilities by attacking the corresponding geases. It offers "money for nothing", as you yourself noted when you demanded a POW sacrifice for each gift. (Which is both too expensive and too cheap, IMO.) No. Taking a geas means that you are taking a gamble with fate, and you trust that fate won't call your bluff soon. Humakti are insanely strong killing machines, and only the fact that the temples rely on society to feed them and to sell them weaponry keeps them moderately accountable for the killings they inflict on the population. To join Humakt is to play a doomed character. Yes, you can delay your final death by DIs if you make it to Rune Lord, but most of the rank and file will die and join their deity long before there is a post as Rune Lord available, and before they qualify. Yes, there are a few rather old Humakti. Londra and Naimless are positively ancient as Humakti go. Many a Humakti will die before he or she breaks one of the geases (and most Humakti will have only one, and a rather meaningless gift.) They are overpowered killing machines because of their range of magic, and their cult skills generally have check boxes, which makes approaching rune level easy. Creating an opening for a new Sword isn't that hard, either. Yelmalians may accept healing and even resurrection. Elmali apparently don't have geases, or gifts - we'll have to wait and see what RQ GaGoG will bring. Yes. If you play in a system that gives you points for introducing an enemy, the GM never using that enemy is favoritism. Invoking such a boon means that you will have to face at least serious struggle to live with the consequences. At some point, there will be attacks on the geases, yes. There will be a chance to oppose the attacks - if say the roll on the Truth Rune versus the magically augmented Seduction fails, the character may still ask for a DI to avoid breaking the geas, or commit honorable suicide, or whatever. Or the character may accept the doom, the consequences, and seek a way to go down in a blaze of glory, Samson-style. In fact, Samson is the archetypical Bronze Age bearer of a geas. Do I mean to destroy that character out of a whim? Not at all. But if you decide to play a doomed death warrior, you'd better accept that role and its consequences. If you play a Yelmalian templar, you are about as restricted in what you can do, too. My games usually have the characters tied into the background, at least the starting characters usually have a common background (although "veterans of the battle at Pennel Ford" works for me, they don't have to be all born Ernaldori clansfolk). Yes - when I describe Humakt and the consequences of joining the cult, most of my players who like to get attached to a character prefer to play a member of some other cult. I don't usually play military games. Humakti make great sidekicks and bodyguards, but they tend to be redshirts. My personal favorite fighter cult is the Lhankor Mhy subcult of the Sword Sages, Hevduran. I do respect Humakti for the choice they made, but I expect them to die for it, too. Both Orlanth Adventurous and Orlanth Thunderous offer good capacity for fighters, and to some extent Heler does, too. I hate playing one-trick ponies. My players who know my style of scenarios rarely go for one-trick ponies, either, as I offer quite a lot of general challenges, usually after preparing the players for that kind of challenge and allowing them some way to prepare for that kind of challenge. I do go with player-initiated side-tracks, and those may include challenges which the characters aren't prepared for. I wouldn't demand "Herd" skill checks from a party that doesn't have that skill in my scenarios. But then, the way I had my players create experience was a little different from how the RQ3 previous experience system was supposed to be used - I had them take a number of years in certain backgrounds as a default. How I will deal with the more railroaded previous experience remains to be seen. I usually play on conventions, providing pre-made characters with abilities at least partially relevant to the tasks at hand. Getting players together who are willing to face my barrage of deep Glorantha is a bit harder than recruiting players for a setting of my own making (those were usually well received by my crowd). But yes, the question remains when it is opportune for the GM to fire Chekhov's Gun and attack a geas. In all fairness, the character should have had the chance to benefit from the gift for a bit. In equal fairness, refusing the "Call to Adventure" is ok once or twice, but ultimately the character is likely to get a choice of two evils, one is risking to break the geas, lose cult benefits, and get buggered if persisting to bluff through, the other is to walk the path of the hero into a different kind of evil and hell. Escaping into the myths is always an option, and if the player is willing to go all out Humakt (or Yelmalio) and do the really bad stuff, kudos, and let's have fun with that. Yanafal offered his all - the total of his existence in history - to absolve Teelo Estara in the confrontation with the Devil/absolute Chaos. I will tell the player that myth, or a similar one, and possibly some other part of the Sword Story to choose from. Sooner or later I will tell a Humakti about Arkat, too. There is always a deeper hole to be dug. "Apotheosis" as a guardian of the orthodoxy of a heroquest path may be a worthy retirement, and a chance to start something new.

Bees and ants use "drone" for the males. There are other known Hell Beasts - Ethilrist has two types, the Hound, and the Diokos nightmares. According to a statement from Greg, Kitori breed true with uz females - the offspring will be Kitori, never trollkin. This might even work with Enlo. However, while Kitori may take on the shape of uz, they aren't of the magical lineage of Kyger Litor, and much less subservient to the Hellmother than regular uz offspring (including Enlo).

is about 30,000 feet. Genertela Box clearly stated 30 km, which is 30,000 meters, but then metric and imperial measures have been confused now and then. Measuring the height of Kero Fin is an exercise in futility - its peak reaches into the Middle Air, where vertical distances become subjective anyway. The peak should be higher than the Toling clouds for Yinkin to have been available to sire those.

Ho hum. Presbyters were common in the early centuries, but were at best layman congregational leaders. Only episcopoi (bishops) could perform the sacraments. The delegation of sacerdotal duties to presbyters may have started when Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire. Yes, episcopoi were expected to live in celibacy. So were the hermit monks and nuns that sprang into existence before the presbyters had any sacerdotal function or authority. Married bishops were common on the fringes of the Roman church well into the second millennium. Basic ordination did not prohibit you from marriage, otherwise Alfred of Wessex would have had a problem, and so would Sverre of Norway. Yes, there had been fourth century synods that proclaimed that marriage (i.e. entering a marriage) is prohibited for bishops, priests and deacons, and clerics in the ministry, and that they maintain perfect abstinence serving the altar. However, already the Jewish precursor religion required officiating sacerdotal people to perform purification rites in preparation for their service, and to maintain abstinence as part of that preparation. Methinks that this practice continued quite a while, as accordance with those synods. Actually, the trial in the Gospel of John is found invalid because the male partner was not accused, too, and the judges were guilty of this. Rape is a bad topic, agreed, and putting it into your gaming should only come after you cleared all trigger tests. I usually avoid it. I haven't made any use of Yelornan unicorn riders, yet. The celibacy geas really is about falling prey to seduction. Now, your average player character won't fall to seduction even if he has 95% in Fertility and a low percentage in Truth if the player fears or knows that the consequences will be bad for the character. That same player will have little problem with receiving a special or critical hit as the consequence of being caught in an ambush. Now this weird "I'll play my character against her culture and archetype" is bad roleplaying. The Truth Rune cults that have geases may have an argument for their character to resist seduction, but a highly powered seduction will only be resisted by their Truth Rune (and possibly Man Rune), not completely prevented, and even a geased character will fall prey to seduction, or perhaps perform desperate self-mutilation while resistance still is possible. I would allow the Old Testament definition of adultery to apply for the maintenance of celibacy. I wouldn't allow a unicorn to overlook a defloration through intercourse, whether voluntary or not - but with the cult of Yelorna ostensibly possessing rites to reset virginity, total avoidance of that unicorn until the rites were successful might save the connection. The unicorn may be suspicious - those horned and horny bigoted donkeys are intelligent, after all. So, for me as GM, the problem would be to make the character a rape victim. A failed resistance to a magically enforced seduction is within fair play. Glorantha has such magic - Eurmal for instance, but also Yinkin, Orlanth, Ernalda, and Uleria. And that seduction may be same sex seduction, too - while going against one's professed gender would augment the character's resistance to such seduction, it wouldn't prevent it, either. Heroforming a deity may separate the geased character from the person performing intercourse. IMO in the rules context, "celibacy" translates as "sexual abstinence", including abstinence from e.g. male warrior bonding or taking on a "disciple" or padawan with the typical "benefits". (Which is perfectly good for cultists without that geas when the disciple has been initiated to adulthood (even when still in puberty.) (Looking at the description of Sir Meriatan, such relationships are entirely normal and regarded as healthy in Loskalm.) Not really - the magical purpose of abstinence is ritual purity when performing the sacraments. You have to interpret this as a magical practice, and indeed religion - even Christian rites - is a form of magical interaction as defined by RuneQuest. While Christian doctrine ("shalt not suffer a black magician to live" - the term "witch" in the King James translation is one of many abysmally bad translations) condemns magical practices that are harmful to other people, rites like the blessings are pure and simple forms of magic, as are friendly greetings or well-wishing. This kind of white magic behavior is actually encouraged. On the contrary, christian priestly ordination is no excuse for a divorce by orthodox doctrine. A person joining a monastery does not annihilate any previous marriage. I strongly disagree. Unlike the "Married with children" title song, in the Bronze Age society you can have Love without Marriage, and vice versa. The geas of celibacy really means sexual abstinence, regardless of the nature of your sexual partner or even going solo. "Feel no Love" is a curse put onto Gunda. Apparently it also ruined her sexual life for good. She does feel some form of camaraderie, but no affection. The Celibacy geas doesn't prevent you from marrying. It only prevents you from consuming the marriage in any way (which may make completing the rite difficult, unless you are allowed to nominate a champion - not unheard of, really, look e.g. at the fathers of Arjuna and his brothers in the Mahabarata. Not quite true. First off, in order to have Rune Lord DI (which is just possible for a well-constructed character after character creation) means that the character is saddled with two gifts for which he has taken geases - in case of Yelmalio, randomly rolled ones, which leaves a 1 in 10,000 chance or less that the character was favored by Humakt/Yelmalio and avoided any geas. (BTW, the return to randomly rolled geases rather than the gift commensurate geases that Humakt had in RQ3 is a bad design decision IMO, and too many entries of those lists are plain stupid and not based on the deity's known myths. Which goes for a number of gifts, too.) Playing a character with PTSD as his main cultic characteristic makes Storm Bull another type of murder hobo. Unlike the Orlanthi initiation which takes some reinforcement from the initiatory exposure to Chaos, the Storm Bull initiation is a traumatizing exposure to Chaos that starts the "Sense Chaos" ability. The cultic obligation to go berserk or at least stand steadfast in the face of Chaos is another form of geas. A quite lethal one, too. Yes. Taking on high and mighty gifts and never suffering any consequences from the geases is another such juvenile wet dream, IMO.

A strong gift without the nasty consequences is nothing than a free ride. The celibacy geas and various others aren't about conscious decisions, they are setting up the character to fail in circumstances beyond their control for the temporary enjoyment of a gift. Defloration (that's what the bigoted unicorn is obsessed about) - whether conscious or unconscious - is the deal breaker. The cult is more forgiving than the steed. A Yelmalian fallen prey to broo will have their celibacy geas broken, too. The character accepting a geas is set up to fail. As long as the character avoids failing, he or se receives a super power. That's the deal, and if you don't like it, don't go joining Humakt, Yelmalio, or Yelorna. The player is daring the GM. If the GM doesn't cash in that dare at some point, he is just playing favorites. Players and GM should create a social contract - possibly print it out and sign it - about using such restricttions in the game. Players who cannot stomach such demon ex machina events should avoid playing such OP gifted cults.

This is getting vastly off-topic in the RuneQuest thread, so I moved it here. Yes - clearly a continuation of Jewish practices, and not one challenged in the gospels. "He who is without sin may throw the first stone" doesn't attack the practice, only the practitioners. The church did have a point, though, after the pornocracy of the papacy in the 10th century (and something similar again in the Borghia papacy). The assumption of the victim role for the priest hasn't changed much in the church, only the target of the desires... There are aspects of Glorantha that aren't politically correct or fun, like e.g. the dreadful practices of broo propagation, and the hardly less politically correct facts of unicorn or satyr propagation, or the origin of the Triolini races. "Feel no love" is a gross mis-interpretation of how marriage works in a Bronze Age society. It appears as the curse of Gunda the Guilty for breaking the enslavement of the Queen of the Kiss. "Don't have children" doesn't quite fit it, either. As I wrote in the geas thread, a geas is a plot device meant to be tested to or even beyond its breaking point. It is meant to cause discomfort - if you take that deep discomfort away, you are making the geas meaningless, leaving only an overpowered gift. (And yes, riding a magical unicorn is way overpowered.) "Don't accept magical healing" - imagine a barrage of foes offering 1 point Heal spells, or replacing that character's wine bottle with a healing potion. "Never trust X" is another weird geas. "Never accept hospitality, drink, food, or kindness from X" might be how to play this out, but basically it makes your character a bigot asshole. "I want to have fun playing this killer cult" is a statement which may tell an uncomfortable truth about the player's motivations. Coupled with "I don't want my character to suffer from the downsides of that cult" makes it "I want to play a murder hobo, only one loved by his culture." Yeah. Why not play in Gor, then?

Basically, the explanation appears to be that all rivers are the offspring of the Styx, which is absolutely lethal (or post-lethal) for Vivamort and his offspring. Whether or how much Nontraya would be bothered is a different question. As to stakes - it could be the material rather than the preparation. Wood is a grown material, that used to live. You might argue that both Stone and Metal (as per gods bones) were grown rather than shaped, too, and I suppose that grown pieces of either will do. An intact godsbone sawed off at an angle should work just as well. And while I doubt it exists in Glorantha outside of Mostali places, plywood (even used as stake for years) wouldn't kill a vampire.

Not this one. It is just slowly rising water, pretty much like the marsh. In-rushing water isn't associated with flood in Glorantha. The tidal cycle of Glorantha resembles a sawtooth curve rather than a sine wave, as the water slowly follows Annilla's rise in the sky and then rushes out behind the Blue Streak as it plunges into Magasta's Pool. Thus, the incoming flood is more of a swamping than a flow of water. Not even narrows like Troll Strait will experience much of a current. The flood of 1652 (or so) is similar, it is a slow rise of water level, unstoppable, but not a rush.

After the God Learners made use of the knowledge collected by the Lhankor Mhy libraries, I don't think that the magics are that incompatible, and they may never have been - both Issaries and Lhankor Mhy were "collected" on the Westfaring. Issaries is tied to the Kachasti/Kachisti Speaking Tour, and Lhankor Mhy is connected to the Tadeniti inventors of writing on skin and other materials. Vithelan sorcery ultimately comes from the West, too. Runes are universal in Glorantha, and so should be the understanding of those runes. The manipulation techniques might be altered by other approaches. Mostali sorcery may have compatibility issues with western sorcery, but that may be part of the technique aspect. The Mostali approach to Tap appears to be bi-directional or anti-parallel to the Brithini and Vadeli version of Tap.

His Blackthorn trees may have a problem, but Delecti himself may be fine with some lead boots. Breathing isn't part of his job description, and the flood won't be running water.

Originally, celibacy was meant to make sure that there would be no inheritable bishoprics, an instrument to keep investiture as a power of the head of the church. The patriarchic elements probably were inherent in both the Jewish and the Roman roots of the church, despite the fairly hippy elements in the original community. Church took control over reproduction only fairly lately, according to Diarmaid MacCullogh's BBC documentary "Sex and the Church". The early church expanded into higher society mainly through female converts.

Yes, against larger opponents (let's say house cat vs. German shepherd) the cat uses dodge and lightning strikes, but it doesn't strike at the jaw, but the top of the nose. That's what makes me think that it will recognize the business end of the attacker and avoid it. One former cat of ours came to us rather young, and accepted a plush hand puppet of a badger as mock-sibling, reducing the danger of drawing blood significantly (but also my reach). Against a smaller opponent, the instinct to dodge is lesser, and if you scale up to sakkar size, humans qualify as smaller prey.

Most weapons (with the exception of swords) have quite a lot of non-business parts that can be "attacked" in order to deflect a bow. Spear and axe shafts, or the arm of a knife fighter are within reach of the parrying party. Cats of all sizes and bears will use their paws to strike attacking limbs, and may well be able to go for the flat of a blade, too. Only dogs are predominantly head attackers, and even they will use their forepaws to hold down thrashing prey (parrying hoofed kicks).

You can be from one of those cities and still be a tribal citizen, with ties to a rural clan and some shared experience with the farmers there, or you can be a guild member, in which case I would replace the farming-related skills with crafts. Military careers would draw on such civilian experience, too. Thieves or criminals as a background have it harder. While there certainly are non-citizen residents organized in parasitical gangs, most cities of Sartar are too small to have much of an underworld activitiy. The criminal activities of Alone probably are in the hands of Griselda's family and maybe one rival family, and some of that "crime" may be semi-legitimate tarriff-avoidance against privileges imposed by the (now former) occupators, like the Hazia trade. Burglary or muggings are rarely targeting locals, or formal guests of locals. When they do, the locals mobilize their own ruffians to deal with such intruders. This leaves either visiting criminals to make heists against locals, or local scum predating on unprotected visitors of the city. Including rural yokels, even though they usually belong to constituent tribes. Regular visitors of these cities will have resident kin with ties to local ruffians, and targeting them may lead to the perpretators being forced to leave the city. Local ruffians may target sufficiently weak-looking new arrivals to get their measure. Use the "Welcome to the city" guidelines in the Pavis box (or RQ Classic) for such interaction, and possibly make any criminal characters with urban background former members of such a gang. Lanbril will be rare as a criminal cult. Argan Argar has all the magics for a smuggler organisation, with a respectable front and a shady side. Black Fang and Krarsht may have an operative or two in the city to provide the executive cult members with intelligence, but if they have a local chapter, that would probably avoid too much activity around their hiding place.

Did you use Rome itself, or did you use e.g. the formerly Etruscan or Latian cities under Rome's dominion for that model? The Sartarite cities are all fairly recent, about six generations ago, or less. They are somewhat different from Greek or Phoenician/Carthaginian colonies in the lack of strong bonds to founding cities in a distant motherland. The Etruscan settlement and the formation of their cities might be a better parallel, the establishment of the La Tene oppida, or (slightly outside of the Ancient parallel) the Hanseatic cities along the Baltic coast. All of these happened within a generation or two, in many cases as planned cities. The Tarshite cities (including Alda-Chur) are older than this, as are the tribal towns of Runegate and Clearwine. In contrast, the last founding citizens of New Pavis are just dying out, and quite a few of the founders of Alone are still alive.

One Adventure per season doesn't mean one session per season, IMO. If you look at Sartar Kingdom of Heroes, the Ernalsulva chapters covered one season each, with some spacing between the adventures there, too. The adventures would be quite a few sessions using RQG, I'd expect. If you have dealt with the Tusk Riders, the exploratory visit to Pig Hollow may be part of that adventure, although the resolution with the prominent denizen of Pig Hollow will likely be postponed to a later season. Your players will probably be eager to renew used rune points before facing off a major opponent like that. If the party has a temple they can use freely (like the one in Apple Lane), they can have additional worship services/sacrifices to re-fuel. Natural healing will require some out-time between encounters, too. Over-ticking can be nasty for players. No matter how often you used your sword, it only gets one experience check, and to work that off requires some down-time, too. If you keep rushing them on and on, they will end up with all their skills ticked but none raised.

Your version isn't that far from the model the tribal confederation cities of Sartar work. Urban clans are called Guilds, and they usually don't have direct affiliations to a single of the constituent tribes. Guild members make up probably half of the citizenry of the cities (not counting the non-citizen paupers accumulating in the cities that may have no votes in the mayoral elections). Exclusion from the city rings is unlikely, IMO, but the city rings will be geared towards a majority of the constituent tribal leaders if they agree on a point of policy. If the city ring has seven members, and each tribe has one guaranteed seat, then the urban population has at best two or three seats. If you look at the mayor of Wilmskirk in Sartar High Council (a freeform published in Wyrms Footnotes and reprinted in Wyrm's Footprints), you have proof of guild involvement in the city ring. Each tribe supports something like an urban clan of tribesfolk resident in the city. While they may not be kin in the sense of rural clans, they are represented by the tribal king or his deputy on the ring, and that person will have the say in the allocation of tribal land and buildings inside the city, and represent them in legal disputes inside the city. Some guilds or temples will be land-owners in the city, too, while others are mostly tenants of the tribes. Non-citizens can be resident tenants, too. Tribal members are citizens, but what happens if your clan dissolved due to war, famine or other catastrophes? Can the survivors that fled into the city still claim tribal membership even though the clan that was a member isn't any more? Tribal residents are part of the city militia, and are expected to participate in urban upkeep, too, even if their residence is only temporary (say for a few years before returning to their clans). There are other temporary residents in the cities, e.g. mercenary companies headquartered here. It isn't quite clear whether such groups are here as sworn guests or companions of some urban faction, as sworn guests or companions of the city ring, or by some other formal agreement. I also expect there to be some royal land inside each of the cities, with e.g. the Cult of Geo as tenants.

The problem with using Delecti's True Name is that Delecti is a composite entity of the migrating soul/spirit/essence of the Necromancer and the rotting body of whoever left their corpse behind to house the Necromancer for a while, both contributing to the name. In other words, your information is likely to be obsolete fairly soon. Looking at Arcane Lore, there may be more than a single expression of the entity of Delecti at any time, too. Compare Ralzakark.

I think even as a non-Glorantha player RQG is worth the admissiion - at least in pdf format - for a couple of reasons. While you may not be interested in Glorantha as a setting, RQG is a case study to integrate the setting and background into skills and character creation. The gods and their cults are presented in a very short format, without the myths attached that give the magic context, but they are a menu to pick and choose for any pantheon you may have designed yourself or adapted from another setting. The rules for shamanism are fairly extensive, and written by (or at least under the supervision of) practitioners in touch with indigenous practitioners.I haven't played the new Spirit Combat rules yet, but they are less dull than the RQ3 rules that allowed no skill at all, and very little magic. Sorcery is a new approach, and while the huge investment of magic points is a scare which makes it hard in Glorantha, you could make that a lot more feasible with introduction of veins of magical energy the sorcerers can Tap into in a sustainable, less destructive way than Tapping is described in the rules, if you want a world where sorcery is a lot more available than the section of Glorantha discussed in the rules. (I am fairly certain that we are bound to see similar rules for special places in Glorantha, too.) I have used the Gloranthan runes or at least variations thereof building a setting of my own, and they make a good short-hand for a whole bunch of magical affinities. RQ2 already uses them in its (rules book approach) Runepower meta-rule spells which then got spelled out supplements like Cults of Prax/Terror (or combined with other cults in the Cults Compendium) which makes a spell supplement for theist magic you can use as a menu if you don't want to design your own spells. The Augments from runes and passions are rather new to BRP, but they aren't much different from certain enhancing Battle Magic spells (just without MP expenditure). The skills are possibly the most conservative approach, leaving a barely manageable number of these which lead to lots of things your characters have extremely low or no chance at all to perform (basically rolling augment plus category modifier plus bas chance - in order of magnitude - to get their target number). Combat is pretty close to previous Chaosium-produced versions of RQ. The rather basic economy management seems to be similar to Pendragon.

Yes, exactly. That's what the Arrowmound Lawstaff Quest is all about.

Yeah. "The SR that the victim is touched" is the problem. Basically, that's what our on the job decision in that situation did rule, too. And we didn't properly demand the command spells, either. Then there is a problem with the use of a (small) Earth Elemental to intercept a charging foe.